NOTICE OF A DECORATIVE PAVEMENT, OF THE TillllTEENTH

CENTURY, IN THE CHURCH OF ST. REMI, AT RHEIMS. As no part of ancient Ecclesiastical edifices has of late years been left unstudied, and no class of their details, however minute, has remained witliout attracting the careful attention of a particular band of especial admirers, the subject of Tiles amongst others has been found a very interesting study to many. I trust, therefore, that a short notice of some French paving slabs, of a character totally unknown in England, may possibly meet with the approbation of readers of the Journal. The pavement I am about to describe originally adorned the ancient church of St. Nicaise, in the city of Rheims, but has lately, after various transportations, been placed in 8t. llemi, another church in the same city, second only in interest to the cathedral itself. The quarries of which it is composed are of a hard quality of stone resem- bling that of Yorksliii'c. They are all of one uniform size, viz., twenty feet S(]uare, and were always intended to be laid down diagonally as they are at present, the disposition of the subjects on their surfaces plainly denoting this arrangement. A narrow border surrounds each, enclosing a curvilinear compartment, which together form a sort of frame to the subject engraved in the centre. These borders and compartments are not all of a similar ]>attern, four varieties being oliservable in the former, and three in the latter. Within llnin is a series of designs, once probably forming a comi)lulc illuslratcd history of the Old Testajncnt, but now exhibiting the sad losses they have sustained in the long breaks observable in the series. The whole design on each quarry, after having first been carefully incised, has then been filled in with melted lead, even with the surface of the stone, a process which while it enhanced the appear- ance of the su])jects I'cpi'cscnled, seems to have added to the duiahility of the workmanship, these slabs still remaining in a most perfect state notwithstanding all th(? vicissitudes they have encf)unton'(l, to which I will nunc particularly allude prescuitly. Their jirt'SCMit ninnhcr aiiKMuits to forty-eight,