52 THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE

and histories in it; and would be the better of being seen through a Stanhope lens.¹ Hence the greatness of the northern Gothic as contrasted with the latest Italian. It reaches nearly the same extreme of detail; but it never loses sight of its architectural purpose, never fails in its decorative power; not a leaflet in it but speaks, and speaks far off too; and so long as this be the case, there is no limit to the luxuriance in which such work may legitimately and nobly be bestowed.

§ 15. No limit; it is one of the affections of architects to speak of overcharged ornament. Ornament cannot be overcharged if it be good, and is always overcharged when it is bad. I have given, on the opposite page (Fig. 1), one of the smallest niches of the central gate of Rouen. That gate I suppose to be the most exquisite piece of pure flamboyant work existing; for though I have spoken of the upper portions, especially the receding window, as degenerate,² the gate itself is of a purer period, and has hardly any renaissance taint. There are four strings of these niches (each with two figures beneath it) round the porch, from the ground to the top of the arch, with three intermediate rows of larger niches, far more elaborate; besides the six principal canopies of each outer pier. The total number of the subordinate niches alone, each worked like that in the plate, and each with a different pattern of traceries in each compartment, is one hundred and seventy-six.* Yet in all this ornament there is not one cusp, one finial, that is useless-not a stroke of the chisel is in vain; the grace and luxuriance of it all are visible-sensible rather-even to the

* I have certainly not examined the seven hundred and four traceries (four to each niche) so as to be sure that none are alike; but they have the aspect of continual variation, and even the roses of the pendants of the small groined niche roofs are all of different patterns. (I now italicise this last sentence,-for it is the best illustration in the whole book, of the loving and religious labour on which it so frequently insists.)3

¹ [A lens of small diameter with two convex faces of different radii enclosed in a metallic tube, invented by the third Earl Stanhope (1753-1816).]

² [See above, § 12, p. 49.]

³ [This was Note 4, at the end of the book, in the 1st and 2nd eds. The sentence in brackets at the end was added in the 1880 edition, in which the whole note appeared in Appendix ii., the following words introducing it and another note: “The following two notes-fourth and fifth in the old edition-are worth preserving.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]