Somewhat cold, somewhat unearthly almost, is the impression made by the forest of pillars rising through the clerestory to the vaulted roof; stretching away to the central tower--Bell Harry--where light shines down into the gloom. A beautiful place wherein to rest and dream dreams of the past. All now is grey, but in bygone ages the great church blazed with colours; paintings and rich hangings adorned the walls; there were numberless altars with their tiny points of light, and all was enriched and at the same time mellowed by the splendour shed upon pavement and pillar from the “storied windows richly dight.” Who shall say whether the change from pomp to simplicity be for better or for worse? As with so many other matters in this opinionative world, it all depends upon the point of view; doubtless to the stern ascetic the rule that now obtains is for the best; upon the superstitious pilgrim of old the glories of the past assuredly had their influence. Yet, why think of what has gone, when that which remains is so worthy? The nave dates from about 1378 to 1411, in which last year the builder of it, the aforementioned Prior Chillenden, died, “who after nobly ruling as Prior of this church for twenty years twenty-five weeks and five days,” says his epitaph, as given by Willis, “at length on the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary closed his last day.” As it was written of Christopher Wren, so here it might be of Chillenden--“If monument be asked for, look around.” The architecture here is Perpendicular, contrasting exquisitely with the early work of the choir; it is no new simile--but there is no call to provide a new when the old is so good--to say that these splendid pillars, rising from their firm, fixed roots in the stony floor and springing up into the grey heights far above, strike deep upon the imagination as being akin to the glorious pillars of a stately forest. A curious and oft-repeated error is to say that Canterbury is unique among churches, in that from the nave we look _up_ to the choir, the latter being raised on the crypt. A precisely similar cause and effect are to be found, for example, at Worcester. The stained glass which once adorned the nave, is gone, smashed by zealous Puritans, and all of olden colour that we now see is in the great west window, compiled of fragments from those that have departed. Of the tombs and monuments in the nave the most noteworthy are in the north aisle--those of Charles the First’s famous organist, Orlando Gibbons; of Sir John Boys, founder of the hospital for the poor near the North Gate of the city; and the altar tomb of Archbishop Sumner. Also to be noted, a window to the memory of Dean Stanley, sometime canon of the Cathedral and writer of that famous work, _Historical Memorials of Canterbury_.