I know few, if any, churches which possess the same internal beauty as Westminster Abbey. More modern art has done its worst to ruin it, but its intrinsic loveliness overrides every such attempt, and reigns triumphant over every disfigurement. One characteristic it possesses almost alone--I mean the virgin privilege of perpetual exemption from the brush of the whitewasher. It probably owes this unique happiness to its having been built on the principles of constructive polychromy. It has materials of at least four varieties of colour, and these, in some degree, systematically and artistically used; and this fact has been sufficient to keep the whitewasher at bay. We are told that it is un-English and fantastic to care anything about the colours of our materials; but let it never be forgotten that the churches which could boast of the chaste dignity of their unvaried stone colour, have been, both at home and abroad, made over periodically to the tender mercies of the monochromist, while this, at least has been spared,--and that on account of the “un-English” phantasy of using more than one natural colour in its construction. These colours are now nearly concealed by smoke, but they still show modestly through, and still aid in rendering the tone more solemn and striking than that of any church I have seen, excepting that very different one--St. Mark’s at Venice. Among the monuments in the Abbey belonging to this century I will mention--in addition to the Italian works already alluded to--the effigy of William de Valence, an oak figure plated with enamelled copper, the enamels on which are of magnificent workmanship; the beautiful bronze effigies of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor, with the marble altar-tomb of the latter, and its beautiful iron grille (Fig. 114); the pretty little altar-tomb of some of the royal children, and the gorgeous monuments to Edmund Earl of Lancaster, and Aveline, his countess: the latter have been among the most splendidly decorated works of their day, and are worthy of the very closest study, both by the architect and the architectural painter. [Illustration: _Centre compartment._ Fig. 113.--Retabulum, or moveable Reredos, formerly belonging to the High Altar, Westminster Abbey. _The paintings, except the merest fragments, have gone from the panels to the right of the centre compartment._] [Illustration: Fig. 114.--Part of wrought-iron grille, Queen Eleanor’s Tomb, Westminster Abbey.]