Engraved by Greig for the braiquarian &Topographical Cabinet from a Drawing by Lin Gr. Tower. Episcopal Palace. Lincoln. Published for the Proprietors by WClarks Carpenter OldBond Mayta EPISCOPAL PALACE, LINCOLN. the ostentatious luxury of ecclesiastic greatness, has now its mouldering walls covered with fruit-trees, and the centre appropriated to the purpose of a flower-garden. Bishop Hugh likewise built the famous kitchen in which were seven chimnies, the relics of gluttony, and once preludes to voracious gormandizing. Bishop Le Bek contributed something towards improving this Palace, but no memorials exist to point out what these improvements were. William Alnwick, bishop of Norwich, was translated to the see of Lincoln in September 1436, and was a considerable benefactor to both cathedrals; to his munificence and taste the Palace was indebted for the great entrance, tower, and curious chapel. The tower, which is yet tolerably entire, is a specimen of excellent stone-work; it is a square building, with a large turret, at the north-west corner, in which is the remnant of a very fine, winding, stone staircase, leading to the rooms above: at some previous period, these were elegant apartments, but the ceilings have long since gone to decay, and the lower chamber is now filled with fragments of fallen battlements, intermixed with wild vegetation. The bottom part of this tower has answered the purpose of a porch, or vestibule, and formed a communication with several apartments: the principal entrance is in the middle of the north side; on the south, and near EPISCOPAL PALACE, LINCOLN. open court, but probably at some period to different parts of the building; that on the west led to the grand hall, and another, on the east side, into a most elegant vaulted passage, which appears to have opened into the chapel. This porch has plain walls, but the roof is finely groined; the ribs spring from the middle of each side, and from a small clustered pillar, in each corner. The arms of bishop Alnwick, a cross moline, are on the spandrils of the entrance arch, and also, upon the ancient wooden door; they likewise serve to ornament the bow window, which has been a piece of exquisite workmanship. The curious chapel, built by the same munificent prelate, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, had, in one of the windows, lines commemorating the saint and the founder. The walls and roof were almost entire in 1727, but since that period it has been destroyed, and all the materials removed; sufficient, however, has escaped the ruthless mallet, to shew that it once exhibited a beautiful specimen of pointed architecture. Those parts of the ruins next the city show three ponderous buttresses, supposed to have been built by bishop Williams, dean of Westminster, and keeper of the great seal, who was consecrated bishop of Lincoln November 17, 1621. Few years, however, elapsed before the sanguinary civil war carried terror and desolation wherever it directed its course, and smote down, with fanatic frenzy, many works of labour and of art. During |