and rank. This is one of the very oldest of the baronial monuments, and yet, though the figures are done in plaster, they have all the enamel-looking surface and lustre of marble. The earl died at Calais in 1370, and if he really did erect this choir in his day, or provide the money and genius for its erection, he richly deserved the monument that perpetuates his name.
The Beauchamp Chapel is, however, the distinguishing feature of the church. It is a kind of Henry VII Chapel, in which the Warwick earls have costly monuments wrought to most ornate elaboration. It is a little church of itself, more capacious than several built for small villages in remote districts. It is fifty-eight feet long, twenty-five wide, and thirty-two high, and would seat a strong force of monks and other ecclesiastics assembled to pray for the peace of the dead. It may give some idea of the labour bestowed upon this mausoleum chapel to state, that it occupied twenty-one years in building, and cost about £2,500, when wheat was fivepence a bushel. The centre and subordinating monument is the one consecrated to the founder of the chapel. Richard Beauchamp, who died in Rouen in 1434. It is a remarkable work, and would at the present day be considered a rich specimen of workmanship. It is an altar-tomb of Purbeck marble, on which, as a bed, lies the full length form of the
