King selects the <g>Western Portico</g> of Tewkesbury as the grandest in England in point of extent and effect. The western front, or façade, has always occupied a prominent part in every large church. “It exhibits in various instances a gradual alteration of style, from the early Norman to that at the close of the fifteenth century. In the principal feature, the entrance doorway, there is a remarkable difference between those in England and upon the Continent. The German and French _portail_ forms nearly one half of the total space, and is surmounted by a circular or rose window of vast diameter;” while in the instance before us, as also at St. Albans, the doorway bears no relative proportion to the magnificent window which rises above it. [Illustration] <g>Font.</g>--In the south transept is a beautiful baptismal Font, with a cover, richly carved, and finished with a cross. “The variety exhibited in the design of these is infinite, and upon no subject connected with ecclesiastical rites did sculptors exert more fancy and taste than in the design and workmanship bestowed on the font.” No genuine Saxon work is so frequent as this; fonts have often survived the church in which they originally stood, and been preserved as venerable relics of primitive Christianity. In the present specimen, however, elegance, design, and execution, not antiquity, are what chiefly claim attention, and which never fail to receive it from all who are curious in subjects of this kind. Towards the close of the fourteenth century, a very ornamental appendage to fonts was introduced, and chiefly in the eastern counties. These consisted of carved oaken covers, exquisitely wrought and embellished, which were suspended from the ceiling, moveable at pleasure, and not unfrequently consisting of a pinnacle or frame several feet high. They have been classed by Mr. F. Simpson, in his Series of Baptismal Fonts, into Saxon, early English, and decorated English of the lower era.--See Dallaway, Bapt. Fonts, p. 205. <g>The Roof</g> of this church has a great advantage over that of St. Albans, being of stone, and forming a magnificent groined vault, the ribs of which are richly carved at their points of intersection with curious devices, and ornamented with much beautiful tracery, which at that height has a particularly delicate appearance. The carvings, where the ribs cross each other or meet in clusters, are all emblematical of some passage in Scripture history, commemorative of events in that of the order of Benedictines, or obscurely referring to others against which the sculptor’s ingenuity indulged in a satirical humour. But here the latter is by no means so conspicuous as in others; for in those early times the ornaments of the churches were made the frequent vehicles of bitter satire against some rival brotherhood, whose vices, true or imputed, were hieroglyphically represented in the capitals, corbel heads, and archways of their respective buildings.