We have there the foremost work of its period in this country--a work distinctly intended to surpass all others, and in which the most advanced developments of its period were introduced. True, the exterior has been pared down and renewed in the last century till little is left but its mass and proportions which invites your study; but what an interior! I know of none more beautiful. Its uniformity may at first sight make it seem unprolific in variety of detail; but I would only say, _try it_, by commencing a systematic series of sketches, carefully measuring every part, making accurate sections of the mouldings and studied drawings from the foliage and the remains of the figure sculpture; and you will soon find that it is a _mine_ of the most valuable examples of every kind of detail. Its workmanship, too, is of a very superior kind, and suggests lessons to those who carefully examine into it of the utmost importance. The chapter-house is as valuable an example as the church and its vestibule, and the early portions of the cloisters offer studies of the utmost value always open to the student. The comparison between the works of Henry III. and of Edward I. form an interesting study, as showing the one step onward in the second stage of the work. Of the age of this second work, you have several gorgeous specimens in the monuments of Queen Eleanor, of Crouchback, and of his Countess Aveline. The two latter are invaluable studies of coloured decoration in its most sumptuous form, and I specially commend them to your attention. [Illustration: Fig. 176.--Westminster Abbey.] [Illustration: Fig. 177.--Westminster Abbey.] Of foliated carving you have admirable specimens, both of the most refined form of the conventional kind, and of the earliest form in which natural foliage was made use of (Figs. 176, 177). You have, in the tombs of Eleanor, Crouchback, and Aveline, and in the bosses of Edward I.’s work, the same carried on into a more systematic form; and I may here mention that generally the bosses in the vaulting are worthy of most careful study. Then, again, you have noble examples of figure sculpture in the earlier monuments, especially those of Henry III., Queen Eleanor, Crouchback, Aveline, and Aymer de Valence. Also some admirable relics of it in connection with the architecture; as, for example, in the angles of the triforium of the transepts (Figs. 178, 179), in the bosses of the western aisle of the north transept, and over the doorway of the chapter-house. Of later figure-sculpture there is an endless catalogue, winding up nobly with Torrigiano’s works in Henry VII.’s Chapel. [Illustration: Fig. 178.--Angel Triforium of the South Transept, Westminster Abbey.] [Illustration: Fig. 179.--Angel Triforium of the South Transept, Westminster Abbey.]