V.--<g>Doorway leading into the Cloisters.</g>--This beautiful specimen of art is one of the very finest in the abbey. The elegance of the design is only surpassed by the elaborate taste and skill displayed in its execution. The clustered mouldings of the doorway; the wavy multifoil outline of the inner arch; the beautifully carved ornament that surrounds the whole like a riband of delicate lacework; the whole crowned with the symbolic trefoil resting on the apex of the arch, present a combination of features--all harmonizing, and all elaborately adjusted to one another--rarely to be met with even among the masterpieces of Decorated Gothic.[185] Looking through this doorway, the window in the distance is that of the southern aisle, through which are seen the woods on the opposite hill; and inside the walls the ivy is seen climbing in verdant masses along the arches and pillars of the nave. Under the broken steps, where the group of figures is represented, are the remains of sepulchral stone-slabs, covering the resting-place of the old abbots, and formerly inlaid with the symbols of their holy office, as [Illustration: _The Door from Cloister into Sacristy._ Tintern Abbey.] represented in the engraving. But the _brasses_ have long since disappeared, and left only the empty grooves to which they had been so elaborately adjusted by the skilful artists of that day. Brasses, or <g>Latten</g>, are considered to be good illustrations of the architecture of their period, owing to the designs of canopies, crosiers, &c. delineated upon them. They are seldom to be met with in any reign prior to that of Edward the Second; nor did they become general till towards the close of the fourteenth century, when the effigies are commonly surmounted by arched canopies, ogee-shaped and crocketed, of the same kind of inlaid work elaborately engraven. These subsequently vary, according to the style of the age, and in general rather preceding than following it. Of the brasses, which--owing to the rank and character of its founder and benefactors, as well as its abbots and others--must have formed no inconsiderable feature in the decorations of Tinterne Abbey, not a fragment remains. Where <g>Latten</g> marked the abbots’ grave, And sculpture spread her trophies round it; Rank weeds in wild luxuriance wave, And mock the gaudy shrine that crowned it. Here, they who for the <g>Cross</g> had died, And they who led the way to glory-- Here mitred pomp, and martial pride, Have not a stone to tell their story.