Under the stone bench towards the east end lie the effigies of three of the abbots—Vitalis, appointed by the interest of William the Conqueror, an excellent ecclesiastic, who died in 1085; Laurence, the first mitred abbot, who procured the canonisation of Edward the Confessor, and died in 1176; and Gervaise, the natural son of King Stephen of Blois, a bad abbot, who was reproved by Pope Innocent II., and died in 1160, having been deposed from his office.

The passage at the end of this cloister, leading to the right, is called "The Dark Cloister." Over it may be seen the square oaken frame of a window now filled up. It was, perhaps, the window of a sub-prior's dormitory, and by it is a bracket, evidently intended for a lamp. This dark cloister is interesting as a relic of the oldest part of the Abbey buildings. It is Early Norman work, of the days of the Confessor. It led to the Infirmary, with its chapel and garden, where

the sick monks had to be removed when

cause.

they had suffered from bleeding or any other Here they had rest and peace, and more indulgences than in the bleak cloister where their daily lives were passed.

The West Walk-now so familiar to the scholars of Westminster School, who stand along it on Sundays, in their white surplices, to await and salute the Canon and Master as they enter the Abbey-was also built by Abbot Littlington, and was in old days the novices' school. For many a long year has it resounded with the murmurs of the boys as they sat conning their lessons, and sometimes, perhaps, with their cries, as they received the rough corporal punishment of past times. Their books were kept in two aumbreys, now obliterated by a square, hideous, pretentious tomb, erected to I know not whom. The holes which may still be seen here and there in the stone bench, sometimes arranged in nines, are a relic of the games at "knockings in and out,"

played by those boys of so many centuries ago. The building over the cloister is part of the modern Deanery, which was the palace of the former abbots. The green garth was pleasant to the eyes of the monks. It used, no doubt, to be bright with flowers, and sometimes a tame stork, or other domestic pet of the monastery, might have been seen wandering there. But, also, an open grave was always visible in the green space, and in that open grave each monk knew that his body would be placed if he happened to be the first to die. It was a perpetual memento mori to wean their thoughts from the worldliness which could penetrate too fatally even into the cloister precincts.

Let us next turn into the east cloister. To the right of it are crypts and treasuries, and monastic buildings, including the Chapel of the Pyx, as old as the days of the Confessor. The principal doors are those of the Chapter House vestibule already described,