74 ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING

poorer than our ancestors, that we cannot now, in all the power of Britain, afford to do what was done by every small republic, by every independent city, in the Middle Ages, throughout France, Italy, and Germany?¹ I am not aware of a vestige of domestic architecture, belonging to the great mediæval periods, which, according to its material and character, is not richly decorated. But look here (fig. 19, Plate X.), look to what an extent decoration has been carried in the domestic edifices of a city, I suppose not much superior in importance, commercially speaking, to Manchester, Liverpool, or Birmingham-namely, Rouen, in Normandy. This is a garret window, still existing there,-

sash-framework you please, the decoration being completely external to it, in the shafts, and the bearing arches which sustain the weight of wall.

“Now I am quite sure that at whatever distance you are sitting, you feel the decoration of this window to be picturesque and effective. It is produced by a moulding which is just as universal a characteristic of the early Gothic style in England, as the so-called egg and arrow moulding is of the Greek style. You know the egg and arrow-here is an example of it, for the accuracy of which I can answer, as it is drawn from one of the purest Greek cornices in the British Museum. Now this moulding does indeed possess, if it be carefully examined, elements of beauty which are altogether wanting in the Gothic one; but at the distance at which you are sitting, or examined, even when near, with a careless eye, it is not half so effective; besides this, the beauty it possesses is of a peculiarly subtle and abstract kind, while the beauty of the Gothic moulding is perfectly simple. You see it represents a succession of groups of four pointed leaves. You must be well aware that all your modern buildings, whenever decorated at all, are covered with this egg and arrow pattern (executed, indeed, for the most part in stucco, for it is one of the basenesses of the modern Greek style that it lends itself easily to every kind of imposture-you can execute as many Greek mouldings in plaster as you choose-but not Gothic traceries): but I will not compare the two styles on these terms. I will suppose, and in Edinburgh, where your architecture is singularly honest, it is by far the most probable supposition, that both the buildings to be compared are in stone. Well, then, this egg and arrow moulding, for which you are continually paying, and which you never enjoy-I suppose miles of it are at this moment being cut at your expense-costs on the average ten shillings a foot; and this Gothic one, which I know you do enjoy, costs three. The framework of the window being precisely the same in both cases, it will cost to decorate it, in a Gothic and rational way, just one third of what it would in a Greek and irrational way.

”The entire decoration of such a window as this would therefore cost about seven or eight pounds; but it is not necessary to go so far, or nearly so far, as this example, which is a remarkably rich one. The one thing generally desirable is to substitute the pointed arch, simply and boldly cut, for the present square-headed window, and then, according to your means and inclination, to decorate farther.”

For a description of the egg and dart moulding, see Seven Lamps, Vol. VIII. p. 144.]

¹ [See above, Preface, p. 8.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]