CH. I THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE 49

is tenfold grander and better than if the entire façade had been covered with bad work, and may serve for an example of the way to place little where we cannot afford much. So again, the transept gates of Rouen* are covered with delicate bas-reliefs (of which I shall speak at greater length presently) up to about once and a half a man’s height; and above that come the usual and more visible statues and niches. So in the campanile at Florence, the circuit of bas-reliefs is on its lowest storey; above that come its statues; and above them all is pattern mosaic, and twisted columns,¹ exquisitely finished, like all Italian work of the time, but still, in the eye of the Florentine, rough and commonplace by comparison with the bas-reliefs. So generally the most delicate niche work and best mouldings of the French Gothic are in gates and low windows well within sight; although, it being the very spirit of that style to trust to its exuberance for effect, there is occasionally a burst upwards and blossoming unrestrainably to the sky, as in the pediment of the west front of Rouen, and in the recess of the rose window behind it, where there are some most elaborate flower-mouldings, all but invisible from below, and only adding a general enrichment to the deep shadows that relieve the shafts of the advanced pediment. It is observable, however, that this very work is bad flamboyant, and has corrupt renaissance characters in its detail as well as use; while in the earlier and grander north and south gates, there is a very noble proportioning of the work to the distance, the niches and statues which crown the northern one, at a height of about one hundred feet from the ground, being alike colossal and simple; visibly so from below, so as to induce no deception, and yet honestly and well finished above, and all that they are expected to be; the

* Henceforward, for the sake of convenience, when I name any cathedral town in this manner, let me be understood to speak of its cathedral church.

most intelligent young man, who takes the most genuine interest in his church, remembers Ruskin well, and seems to have been imbued with some of his love for the old, hatred of restorations, etc.” “The same custode,” adds Mr. Rossetti, “was still there when I last visited Verona” (Rossetti Papers, 1903, p. 58).]

¹ [See Plate ix. (frontispiece, and p. 138).]

VIII. D

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