self-reliant and adequate to the task. It is no light burden that those giant pillars are bearing, nor do they support it joyously or even with ease: each one is rather an Atlas, bearing his load strongly and uncomplainingly, but needing to put forth all his powers in the effort. Godfrey de Lucy, Bishop in Richard I.’s time, extended the church eastwards by adding the retro-choir with its beautiful Early English arcading, graceful columns, and lancet windows,--an extension which, owing to the insufficient foundation on which he built, is in large measure responsible for the insecure condition of the fabric to-day. This we will revert to later on in the chapter. Godfrey de Lucy’s object was to afford space for the ever-increasing numbers of pilgrims who crowded to Winchester to see the shrine of St. Swithun, but who in other respects were unwelcome guests. His extension eastward afforded every facility to admit the pilgrims in to view the shrine, without giving them access to the choir, nave, or domestic parts of the Priory. In Edward III.’s reign came the transformation of the nave and aisles--a daring work commenced by Bishop Edyngton, and completed by William of Wykeham, almost equal in magnitude to the reconstruction of the fabric itself. Edyngton’s work may be seen in the aisle windows at the extreme west of the building; Wykeham’s, which is lighter and more graceful, fills the rest of the nave. The general result has been to impart to the interior gracefulness and lightness. The columns on either side of the choir steps, which were left partly unaltered, show us in some measure how the change was effected, partly by pulling down and rebuilding, partly by cutting away from the face of the columns. The triforium was removed bodily, and the triple row of Norman arches thrown together into a single range of light, lofty, and graceful Perpendicular-Gothic arches, surmounted by smaller Perpendicular windows serving as clerestory. Triforium proper no longer exists, but its place is taken by a continuous narrow balcony running along both sides of the nave. The impressiveness and beauty of the effect thus produced it is impossible to describe. As you enter at the west end the majesty of the whole at once silences and uplifts you--a forest almost of lofty shafts and pillars rising unbroken and towering overhead, where they branch out and interlace in the beautiful intricacy of the fan-tracery of the roof. It is not without appropriateness that Wykeham and Edyngton both lie buried here in the beautiful chantry chapels which they respectively erected between the pillars on the south side of the nave.