This style of vaulting is entirely peculiar to England; and Professor Willis has suggested that the school of masons who were employed in this cathedral may have originated it. The wall sides of the cloisters are panelled; and the windows, divided by a transom, have rich Perpendicular tracery. The lights above the transom were glazed. "The construction of the outer walls is peculiar as to the arrangement of the buttresses, and the projecting shelf of stone connected with the transoms of the windows, which was evidently meant as a protection from the weather for the lower half of the windows, which was not glazed"." Each walk is divided into ten compartments. In the south walk are the 'Carols-places for writing or study, twenty in number, formed by a series of arches, running below the main windows. In each 'carol' is a small and graceful window, of two lights. (Similar stalls or 'carols' existed at Durham.) The very fine view at the angle of the south and west walks should especially be noticed. In the north walk are the lavatories, [Plate IX.,] projecting into the cloister garth: these are very perfect. Under the windows is a long trough or basin into which the water flowed. The roof is groined. Opposite, in the wall of the cloister, is the recess for towels, or manutergia.

The windows of the east walk are filled with memorial glass by HARDMAN, (the eighth is by BALLANTYNE, as is one window in the west walk). It is proposed to fill the whole of the cloisters with glass, forming, when completed, a History of our Lord.

Gent. Mag., Sept. 1860.

F. S. Waller.

XIX. The chapter-house opens from the east walk through a Norman arch enriched with zigzag ornament. The chapter-house itself (72 ft. by 34) is a long parallelogram of four bays, three of which are Norman, and the most easterly a Perpendicular addition. This part is finely groined, and has a large Perpendicular window. Round the Norman portion [Plate X.] is an arcade of four arches in each bay. The manner in which the shafts carrying the vaulting-ribs are sct back in the wall, between the shafts of the arcade, should be noticed. The plain vault has large ribs, 15 ft. apart. Rude inscriptions and shields are traceable on the wall-arcade. The floor has been covered with encaustic tiles, copied accurately from the old work.

Between the chapter-house and the north transept is the short passage called the "Abbot's Cloister;" Norman in its western portion, Perpendicular beyond. An original entrance from the crypt has (1873) been opened. Above it is the Chapter Library,-probably the original library of the monastery. This is a long room, of Perpendicular character, with a roof of dark oak, a row of small windows on the north side, and a large Perpendicular window east. The room has been well and thoroughly restored, and the books properly arranged. The most important manuscripts are—a transcript of Abbot Froucester's Lives of the Abbots of Gloucester, from the foundation of the monastery to 1381; (the original MS. of this work-unless it be that recently found under the Rolls Chapel-is no longer known to exist. It is said to have disappeared