From the preceding details, it will easily be imagined, that the church upon St. Michael's Mount can scarcely fail to present a medley of different kinds of architecture. Two, however, predominate: in the choir, which was finished at the beginning of the sixteenth century, all is pointed and lofty: the naves and transepts are Norman. Beneath are crypts, which extend under every part of the church, supported upon short columns with capitals of foliage, &c. the arches mostly ribbed, and circular.
The shortening of the nave has destroyed the western front. The cloister, according to the observations of a friend of the author, is strangely moresque in its appearance. The position of the pillars in it he regards as quite unique.
The Knights' Hall, (see plate [ninety-six],) is an arched chamber, ninety-eight feet in length, by sixty-eight in width, noble and church-like in its aspect. Its groined stone roof rests upon eighteen cylindrical columns, with bases and capitals; the latter, in very high relief, of beautiful design and delicate execution.
FOOTNOTES:
[213] It may be allowed, that this idea receives a certain degree of confirmation from the present name of the neighboring rock, Tombeleine, the natural derivation of which appears to be Tumba Beleni.
[214] The tradition of the mount speaks of the monster that haunted the drowned forest; and when the author's friend, Mr. Cohen, visited St. Michael's Mount in 1819, his guide, Jacques Du Pont, referred to the subject, and called the beast “a monster of a Turk that ate the Christians.” The [figure] represented on the wrapper of this work, was pointed out as a figure of the identical monster. It was formerly on the outside of the wall in a niche; it is now just within the gate. “There,” said Jacques, “look at his teeth and his claws; how savage he is.”—The tradition is certain; but the image is nothing more than a griffin grasping a shield charged with an armorial bearing; its date 15..
[215] a.d. 1759.
[216] Of old, says Brito, the place
...... “satis angelicis gaudebat tutus haberi
Præsidiis, nullo dispendia tempore passus;
At simul ædificans muros ibi cura Johannis
Prætulit humanas vires cœlestibus armis,
Quemque tuebatur cœlesti milite Christus,
Munivit sacrum humano munimine montem,
Ex tunc causa loco pereundi inventa sacrato.”
The author goes on to add, that the king