Malcolm, James Peller: First Impressions Or Sketches from Art and Nature, Animate and Inanimate (London, 1807)

GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL^ st
that I have seldom observed vvorse masonry in the
same material.
" It receives lis,ht from three little windows
(each abosst fourteen inches squase) in the roof;
and from a door and thirteen windows which,
open into the chapel, formerly glazed whilst the
church was in good repair, but now standing open
without any other furniture than the iron bars*
Besides these apertures, there is a little door into
a pair of slairs which carry you to the top of the
Virgin Mary's chapel; but, became it is con*
stantly kept shut, I mall mention it no farthers
but refer you to the consideration of the figures.
" That which is so much admired in this place
is the conveyance of the voice, every soft and
gentle whisper being as distindtiy heard the whole
length os the pasTage (which is near 20 yards) as
if you had applied your ear close to the mouth of
the speaker. It is usual with such as keep the
Cathedral, when they bring strangers thither, to
place two persons, one at each end, bidding
them to apply their mouths and ears alternately
close to the inner wall, and so discourse together.
And in this manner the voice seems to me to be
belt conveyed ; but, upon the exa6lest trials I
could make, I found that whether you laid your
mouth to the inner or outer wall, or whether you
spoke in the middle of the pasTage, there was so
r 2 little