[111]Let me especially call attention to the exquisite carving of some thorns and convolvuluses in the chancel. It is a sad pity that this part of the church should be disfigured by glaring theatrical candlesticks and coarse gaudy Birmingham candelabra. [112]I have only seen but the slightest portion of this fresco, so that it is impossible to properly judge of even the merits of this part. No criticism is true which does not consider a work of Art as a whole. At present, the angel with outstretched hands, full of nervous power and feeling, seems to me very admirable, though the position and meaning of the cloaked and clinging figure below is, at the first glance, difficult to make out; but this will doubtless, as the picture proceeds, become clear. The richness, however, of the colouring can even now be seen under the enormous disadvantage of being placed beneath the strong white glare of light which pours in from the east window. Further, Mr. Leighton must be praised for his boldness in breaking through the old conventionalities of Art, and giving us here the owl as a symbol of sloth, and the wretchedness it produces. [113]_Herbert’s Memoirs of Charles I._, p. 95. [114]William of Malmesbury: _Gesta Regum Anglorum_. Ed. Hardy, tom. ii., lib. iv., sect. 333, p. 508. [115]Vitalis: _Historia Eccl._, pars. iii., lib. x., cap. xii., in Migne: _Patrologiæ Cursus_, tom. clxxxviii. pp. 751, 752; where occurs (pp. 750, 751) a most remarkable sermon, on the wrongs and woes of England, preached at St. Peter’s Abbey, Shrewsbury, on St. Peter’s Day, by Fulchered, first abbot of Shrewsbury, a man evidently of high purpose, ending with these ominous words:—“The bow of God’s vengeance is bent against the wicked. The arrow, swift to wound, is already drawn out of the quiver. Soon will the blow be struck; but the man who is wise to amend will avoid it.” Surely this is more than a general denunciation. On the very next day William the Red falls. [116]Malmesbury, as before quoted, p. 509. Vitalis, however, in Migne, as before, p. 751, says there were some others. [117]William of Malmesbury says nothing about the tree, from which nearly all modern historians represent the arrow as glancing. Vitalis, as before, p. 751, expressly states that it rebounded from the back of a beast of chase (_fera_), apparently, by the mention of bristles (_setæ_), a wild-boar. Matthew Paris (Ed. Wats., tom. i. p. 54) first mentions the tree, but his narrative is doubtful. [118]Malmesbury, as before, p. 509. The additions that it was a charcoal-cart, as also the owner’s name, are merely traditional. [119]The _Chronicle_. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 364.