Before its west front I stand lost in admiration. The whole edifice is built of a marble-like limestone, which time has turned to a beautiful soft yellowish cream colour, similar to that of an old Japanese ivory carving. Like most Portuguese cathedrals the body of the church is somewhat narrow; but in this case a large chapel on the north side extends the apparent width of the exterior west front. How can one hope to convey in written words an adequate impression of this exquisite façade? To the severe perpendicular parallel lines over the door and window, reminiscent of the west front of Lincoln, is added a lace-like elaboration of parapets, pinnacles, and glorious flying buttresses, which almost bewilders by its aerial gaiety and transparent richness. A beautiful Gothic breastrail stands before a double flight of steps leading down to the west door, for the abbey is lower even than the road before it; “the portal,” wrote William Beckford, a hundred and twenty years ago, “full fifty feet in height, surmounted by a window of perforated marble of nearly the same lofty dimensions, deep as a cavern, and enriched with canopies and imagery in a style that would have done honour to William of Wykeham, some of whose disciples or co-disciples in the train of the founder’s consort, Philippa of Lancaster, had probably designed it.” To me this door presented itself rather more in detail. I saw a portal the whole width of the nave-space, the deep, bevilled sides being occupied by the Twelve Apostles standing under rich Gothic canopies, and from the capitals above them a slightly pointed arch sprang ending in a floreated cross finial, the arch itself being composed of six orders, each occupied by a row of Kings of the House of David under exquisite Gothic canopies. The great window above is full of tracery so intricate and plastic in appearance as almost to banish the impression of a work in stone. The octagonal lantern of the side chapel is supported by flying buttresses of indescribable grace and lightness, and is fronted by a screen pierced with three Gothic windows almost level with the main west front; and upon every point of the building and along each side of the roof of the nave crocketed pinnacles rise, supported by fairy flying buttresses—the effect of the whole exterior from the west front being an exquisite blending of seriousness and exuberant rejoicing.