the sake of the engraved view. The light, which is finely modified by the means usually adopted, falls from the centre of the tower upon the various objects in the choir, with a subdued religious effect which greatly adds to the general impression. In this position, surrounded by the varied labours of many centuries, we can fancy in part the scenes and events which have transpired within these arches, before that altar, at which so many kings and peers have bent the suppliant knee in penitence and confession. In those early times it was a blessing, that when outrage, violence, and injustice were irrepressible by any other means, the strong arm of the church was sufficient to restrain--and when it could not effectually restrain, to punish with its stigma--the licentious baron, the crowned despot, and make the culprits quail at the very head of their armies and retainers. Where the law was weak, religion was strong, and, like the voice of God, heard upon earth, encouraged the prostrate, and brought the rebellious under subjection. Without its power and influence--its holy exercises and humanizing studies--without the spiritual arm to check aggression, to redress grievances, the baser passions must have revelled without control, and life have become a scene of continued warfare. These considerations are nowhere felt with more obvious truth than on the spot where we now stand, where so many deadly feuds have given way to religious exhortation; where they who had met as foes quitted the altar as friends--friends at least in act, if not in heart--and returned the guilty sword to its scabbard. But we need not detain our readers with what is manifest to every reflecting mind--that if justice and redress were anywhere to be found in those times, it was rather in the abbeys, than either in the Star Chamber or Westminster Hall. <g>The Screen</g> of the great altar, or “Wallingford’s screen,” was begun and finished in the reign of Edward the Fourth, and is one of the best--if not the very best--specimens of the style and architecture of that epoch. It was the munificent taste of Abbot Wallingford, and his liberal encouragement of the arts, which have bequeathed this precious morceau to the admiration of posterity. It has suffered little from the lapse of time and the momentous changes which have passed over the abbey; and for beauty of design and elegance of workmanship is worth a pilgrimage. Its front consists of three divisions--a centre and two wings, the latter being perfectly symmetrical; the lower part of the centre displays a double series of small niches with rich canopies. On great festivals of the Church this splendid tabernacle was covered with cloth of gold or crimson, and, drooping from its lofty pinnacles in ample folds, must have produced an effect worthy of the gorgeous taste of Wolsey himself, who carried the “state ecclesiastical” to a higher pitch than any of his predecessors.