Thy yeres were fewe thy glasse beinge runn
Where death did ende thy lyfe begunn.”
AN EXMINSTER MONUMENT.
But the most interesting feature of Exminster church is the series of saints on the ceiling at the east end of the south aisle. The aisle has the “wagon” roof, so frequently met with in Devon, and it is divided into square panels by old carved woodwork. The panels are filled with plaster, on which are executed a series of saints and prophets, in low relief, conceived and wrought in the most grotesque vein. The ceiling, woodwork, and all, has been treated to a liberal coat of whitewash.
This figure, representing St. James the Less, takes the palm for eccentricity of appearance, though the others are not far short of his somewhat ungainly prominence. He is apparently in a great hurry, intent on some hot-gospelling expedition, but he has a wicked eye that ill beseems his errand, and a cudgel that seems out of keeping with the book.
EXMINSTER SAINT.
XXXII.
I think him a very charming saint indeed, with a happy lack of anything like a priggish austerity: one might be happy in the society of such a saint as this—if only he wore boots. Pity is that the average run of saints one hears or reads of are very gorgons for grimness: they look not upon the wine when it is red (nor white, either, for that matter). They are not like this old fellow, who is my beau idéal of the jovial anchorite. The first editor of my acquaintance (he was the editor of a pseudo-religious magazine—it is solemn food for reflection that nearly all young fellows of literary-artistical tastes start with magazines of this stamp), my first editor, I was saying, would not, some years syne, print this, my pet saint, “for,” said he, “he is irreverent, and”—with a fine disregard of grammar—“the proprietors would not like it.”