Lastly, and as we began, so should we end, with Rahere, who is the presiding spirit of the place, we find the monument of the founder in the north-eastern corner, almost immediately opposite the beautiful oriel window which Prior Bolton there erected, in order, perhaps that when he sat in it the home of the ashes of his illustrious predecessor might be forever before him. This is a work in every way worthy of the man whom it enshrines. It is one of the most elegant specimens of the pointed style of architecture, consisting mainly of a very highly wrought stonework screen, enclosing a tomb on which Rahere’s effigy extends at full length. The roof of the little chamber, as we may call it, is most exquisitely groined. At what period the monument was erected is uncertain; but the style marks it as of a later date than that of the founder’s decease. But it was most carefully restored by Bolton; and the fact is significant of its antiquity. As the latter found, no doubt, a labour of love in making these reparations, so Time itself seems to have seconded his efforts, and to have shared in the hopes of its builders that a long period of prosperity should be granted to it, by touching it very gently. Here and there the pinnacles have been somewhat diminished of their fair proportions, and that is pretty well the entire extent of the injury the work has experienced. The monument, it must be added, is richly painted as well as sculptured, and shows us the black robes of Rahere and of the monks who are kneeling at his side--the ruddy features of the former, and the splendid coats-of-arms on the front of the tomb below. Each of the monks has a Bible before him, open at the fifty-first chapter of Isaiah. And often and often, no doubt, has Rahere, as he read such verses as that (the third) we are about to transcribe, received fresh accession of strength to complete his arduous task, until what he had first looked upon as holy words of encouragement only became to his rapt fancy a prophecy which he was chosen to fulfil. When others spoke of the all but impossible task (for such it was generally esteemed) he had undertaken, of cleaning and building upon the extensive marsh allotted, he smiled in his heart to think what One had said greater than they:--“The Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.” KUTB MINAR G. W. STEEVENS