“En l’an mil quatre cens et douze
    Tiers jour d’Avril que pluye arrouse
    Les biens de la terre, la journee
    Que la Pasques fut celebree
    Noble homme et reverend pere
    Jehan de Boissy, de la mere
    Eglise de Bayeux Pasteur
    Rendi l’ame a Son Createur
    Et lors en foillant la place
    Devant le grant autel de grace
    Trova l’on la basse chapelle
    Dont il n’avoit este nouvelle
    Ou il est mis en sepulture
    Dieu veuille avoir son ame en cure,—­Amen.”

This inscription is engraved as prose:  verse is very frequently written in this manner in ancient manuscripts, which custom, as Joseph Ritson conjectured, arose “from a desire of promoting the salvation of parchment.”  I must also add, that the initial letters are colored red and blue, so that the whole bears a near resemblance to a manuscript page.

There is another epitaph, engraved in large letters, upon the exterior of the southern tower, which is an odd specimen of the spirit of the middle ages.  It is supposed to have been placed there in the twelfth century.

   “Quarta dies Pasche fuerat cum Clerus ad hujus
      Que jacet hic vetule venimus exequias: 
    Letitieque diem magis amisisse dolemus
      Quam centum tales si caderent vetule.”

Some authors contend, that the old lady alluded to was the mistress of one of the Dukes of Normandy:  others believe her to have been the chere amie of Robert, Earl of Gloucester, illegitimate son to Henry Ist.

Till lately, there was an epitaph within the church, which, without containing in itself any thing remarkable, strange, or mysterious, had a legend connected:  with it, that supplied the verger with an inexhaustible fund of entertainment for the curious and the credulous.  The epitaph simply commemorated John Patye, canon of the prebend of Cambremer, who died in 1540; but upon the same plate of copper with the inscription, was also engraved the Virgin, with John Patye at her feet, kneeling, and apparently in the act of reading from a book placed on a fald-stool.  Behind the priest stood St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of the prebend, having one hand upon his votary’s neck, while with the other he pointed to a lamb.—­In all this, there was still nothing remarkable:  unfortunately, however, the artist, wishing perhaps to add importance to the saint, had represented him of gigantic stature; and hence originated the story, which continues to the present day, to frighten the old women, and to amuse the children of Bayeux.—­

Once upon a time, the wicked canons of the cathedral murdered their bishop; in consequence of which foul deed, they and their successors for ever, were enjoined, by way of penance, annually to send one of their number to Rome, there to chaunt the epistle at the midnight mass.  In the course of revolving centuries, this vexatious duty fell to the turn of the canon of Cambremer, who, to the surprise