SUGAR'S CHANTRY.--In the ninth bay of the nave, on the south side, is the chantry of Treasurer Hugh Sugar. Before its erection, the altar of St. Edmund of Canterbury, who was canonised in 1246, stood here; and perhaps, when it comes to be used again, it will be maintained in honour of that most attractive scholar saint. Speaking of these chantries, which were endowed in such profusion in the later Middle Ages, Canon Church (_Somerset Proceedings_, 1888, ii. 103) says: "The belief in the communion of saints, living and dead, and the desire for continued remembrance after death, and for the intercessions of the living, led practically to the endowment of chantries and obits, whereby not only was the church enriched, and the services of many priests provided for, but also attachment to the church of their fathers was greatly strengthened, as being the common home of the dead and the living." That attachment, one would think, is hardly likely to be revived by this beautiful chapel and its fellow being put to base uses. At present it serves as a kind of booking-office, where visitors deposit their sixpences and sign their names, while the other is stored with hassocks, and becomes the resting-place of any brooms, pails, and dustpans that are in use. St. Edmund's (or Sugar's) chapel is hexagonal, like that of Bishop Bubwith, but its tracery, frieze, and reredos are more elaborate. The canopy over the altar is vaulted with lace-like fan-tracery. Five niches, now empty of their figures, form the reredos; their sumptuous pedestals and canopies are in excellent condition. Attached to the frieze without, on either side, are six demi-angels, with delicate wings and extremely curly hair, bearing shields, with representations of the Five Wounds, the Lily of the Annunciation, between angels' wings; the arms of the see (a plain saltire surmounting a pastoral staff in pale between two keys addorsed, the bows interlaced on the dexter, and a sword erect on the sinister); the arms of Glastonbury Abbey (a cross flory, in dexter chief a demi-virgin with child proper), the arms of the vicars (a saltire), the initials H.S., and Sugar's arms, originally a "canting coat," three sugar-loaves, and in chief a doctor's cap. Sugar's initials and arms also occur under the canopy. It is the fashion to consider this chapel inferior to its fellow, merely because it is later in date, but a little impartial study will show that it is much the better of the two. The tracery, though less uncommon, is more graceful, that over the doorway especially being far better contrived; the cornice is better proportioned, and is not spoilt by the untidy trail of foliage which runs round that of Bubwith's chapel; the canopy, too, fits in with the curve of the tracery, while that of the others projects clumsily across it.