The Gothic architecture of parts of the Abbey is, I believe, quite unequalled; but the effect of the whole is impaired by Protestant spoliations and alterations. Henry the Seventh's chapel, with its carved stone-ceiling, is a proverb and miracle of beauty.
I was grievously disappointed in St. Paul's. I early got, from some scboolbook, I believe, an impression that it was a model of architecture, that Sir Christopher Wren was a Divine light among artists, and sundry other false notions It stands in the heart of the city of London, and is so defaced, and absolutely blackened by its coal-smoke, that yon would scarcely suspect it to be of that beautiful material white marble. A more heavy, inexpressive mass can hardly be found cumbering the ground. It takes time and infinite pains, depend on't, to educate the Saxon race out of their natural inaptitude in matters of taste. As you stand within and under the dome, the effect is very grand and beautiful. The statues here and at Westminster struck me as monstrous, and even curious, productions For an age when Grecian art was extant, or, indeed, for any age; for there is always the original model, the human form. The artists have not taken man for their model, but the English man, of whom grace can scarcely be predicated, and the Englishman, too, in his national, and sometimes in his hideous military costume.
One of the sights that much pleased me was the Inns of Court. The entrance to it is from one of
