1 LETTER XVI. Perfection of the Ecclesiastical Architecture of the SALISBURY cathedral, as a specimen of a new. style of architecture, would deserve admiration as a phenomenon of art in any age, but is more extraordinary as a production of the rude time. which gave it birth; and yet a phenomenon. perhaps greater, or of a more uncommon kind, followed. Without any perfection or any considerable advancement in other arts, the art of design in architecture did not stop at the high point to which the builder of Salisbury cathedral carried it. The defects and extravagances of that altogether admirable edifice, not likely to be corrected and chastened by the general taste of the age, were however corrected and chastened by succeeding architects. The designer of Salisbury was as the Aschylus, the designer of York, and Lincoln, and some other cathedrals, as the Sophocles and Euripides of ecclesiastical building. And it appears a singular phenomenon, that a good taste in architecture prevailed for centuries, while, in every other line, with little exception but for the unfollowed lustre of Chaucer's poetry, all was barbarous and truly Gothic. This excellence of architecture began and ended nearly with the reigns of the Plantagenet family; a long period, during great part of which there was in England, through the wealth and circumstances of the church, extraordinary encouragement for the cultivation of the art. Accordingly the improvements upon the example, so advantageously given in Salisbury cathedral, were rapid. The clustered pillars there, elegant in their form and contrivance, are less satisfactory in their proportions: they hardly afford that evidence, which the eye of taste requires, to their sufficiency for their office of supporting the superstructure. The cornice of the lower story injures the effect of height, by a midway interruption. The mezzonine, by the form of its openings, and their darkness, greatly increases the interruption. Following architects therefore gave greater solidity to their pillars; preserving lightness by varieties of swelling and channelling, through which an approach toward the effect of the Grecian fluting was obtained. The projection of the cornice of the lower story was so reduced that it hardly remained a cornice: but, while thus the interruption for the measure of height was lessened, a line still was left, advantageous for leading the eye to the length. The Arabian mezzonine, with its dark recesses, was not wholly rejected, but it was reduced to better harmony with the general effect. Of these early improvements Westminster abbey stands a magnificent example. The nave of the Plantagenet cathedral, in its final perfection, more varied and decorated in its parts than in the first essay at Salisbury, but simpler in general design, differed little from the Egyptian hall of Vitruvius but in the order of the architecture; the Corinthian column, with its intablature, being superseded by the clustered pillar, with its appropriate superstructure. The clustered pillar unites, in a great degree, the lightness of a column with the supporting power of a pier. In the character of a pier, it refuses the graceful diminution of the Grecian shaft in rising; and it requires the capital small and simple for it is not intended that the eye should rest there, where nothing meets it, as in the Grecian orders, to conduct the length of the building, but, on the contrary it is invited, by the slender pilaster, rising immediately from the capital of the pillar, to continue its flight to the ceiling. There, still 'without interruption, it finds even invitation to direct its range variously, to return by its steps, to drop on the side opposite to that on which it rose, or to pursue the course of the vaulted cieling itself among its amusing fretwork. In lowering the view, then, the varied perspective of the length of the building occurs; the ranges of lofty pillars, with light and shade diversified by their clustered shape, and by the alternacy of piers and windows; variety in the parts, everywhere combined with simplicity of general design. Altogether, where extensive shelter is wanted and sublime effect desired, this combination of variety with simplicity, of intricacy with intelligibility, of strength with lightness, of great loftiness with just proportions, produces an excellence hardly equalled in any other style of interior architecture. LETTER XVII. Defects of the Plantagenet Architecture.-The Plantagenet Style in Small Buildings. THE attention of the able designers who carried interior architecture, in vast edifices, to such perfection in the Plantagenet reigns, has evidently been far less required to exterior effect. The outside however of the building, whose inside we so admire, will demand some consideration. 2 The plan of the Plantagenet cathedral, a cross, has circumstances of advantage for the interior, which for the exterior operate in a contrary direction. The projections of the transept, cutting the magnificent length of the building in two, injure the lateral effect. The addition, in width is far from compensating the failure of uninterrupted course for the eye, in measuring the length. The ailes, also, advantageous within, are highly disadvantageous, and in an analogous manner, without: they divide the magnificent loftiness of the building; the effect of the towering midway height, within most advantageously displayed, without is lost. In a lateral view, if near, the height of the ailes is the height of the edifice; for the nave is hidden by their projection. Buttresses then are added. These have as little dignity as |