species of work. It is a gem well set. It is entirely of metal, but is so perfectly constructed and placed that you notice no sharp contrast between it and the carver's work in stone and wood around and above. It looks like a great blossom of all the shining metals, lifting up its self-wreathed cup on four twisted stems of polished brass. "This goblet wrought with curious art" from base to brim, is as richly embossed and ornamented as any drinking cup in the old King of Hanover's collection. Interspersed with rosettes of brilliant metal are set large coloured stones and enamels. And the whole of this artistic structure presents a softened aspect, so that, at a little distance, no sense of iron, or hard incongruity of substance, affects your impression in taking the great whole of nave, transept, choir, column, and carved work into one view.
But the master-piece of all these modern embellishments is the reredos, or altar-back. I am inclined to think this is Gilbert Scott's chef d'œuvre, which he will never surpass, even with this work as a base of suggestion. In the first place, the body of the reredos is of the purest alabaster, taken from the Tutbury quarry in the same county. Into this delicate ground are wrought all kinds of precious stones, such as the lapis lazuli, cornelian, and malachite. The whole surface is most elaborately inlaid with
