A Handbook to St Mary Redcliffe Church, J. Chilcott 1848

sr. MARY REDCLIFFE CHURCH. 23
The adjoining altar-tomb, on which lies the effigy of a man
in priest’s robes, is commonly ascribed to William Canynges, as
Dean of Westbury. The head is shaven, and the countenance
is extraordinary for its expression, as of one who “did rigid vigils
keep," with strict penance and mortification; the nose is long
and aquiline, the cheek bones high, with very thin cheeks, and
the chin narrow and projecting. The hands are raised in the
act of devotion, telling to generation after generation, who come
and gaze, retire and pass away, of the Christian's faith and hope,
of that heaven to which while he prayed, he died.
There is, how
ever, no resemblance between this head and that on the other tomb,
while the extraordinary character of the countenance unques
tionably indicates it to have been a portrait. At the feet of this
effigy is the small, but remarkable, figure of an old man, appa
rently in great bodily agony, embodying a metaphysical idea of
putting 08' the old man, from his having abandoned his lay
character. This monument Canynges is said to have procured,
according to a practice then not unusual, to be placed in the
chapel of the College at Westbury, as a daily incitement to his
piety. An inscription in Latin, on a loose board, is sometimes
attached to this tomb. This inscription assigns the tomb to
Canynges, but as it is sometimes attached to the monument last
described, as well as to this, it cannot be considered of any
authority.
Dallaway says, that when the College at Westbury was
burned down by Prince Rupert, in
1643, this monument was
saved, and removed here. But this is incorrect; that it was
here previously to 1610 is evident from Holland’s Translation
of Camden's Britannia, printed in that year; which states that
in Redclifl'e Church Canynges had “ two faire monuments, upon
the one lieth his image portraied in an Alderman's robe; upon
the other his image likewise, in sacerdotal habit, for that in his
old age he took the orders of priesthood."