[M2.173L]                                                             [M2.173]								173
                                                                      No 186.		Lyons Cathedral.
[drawing]                                                             
                                                                      		is nearly a cube or rhomboid  a little broader than deep:
                                                                      		one of the broad sides attached to the wall, the other
                                                                      		three ribs each with a pure trefoiled arch:  filled up
                                                                      		with sculpture, beneath exquisitely arranged, so that
                                                                      		the whole pedestal is a solid block, whose face angles,
                                                                      		crowned as usual at the time by small battlemented
                                                                      		turrets (a great fault) rest on four flat circular finials
                                                                      		which with the under surface of the block, are covered
                                                                      		with sculpture by far the most marvellous I have ever seen
+ cut deeply as delicately                                            		in Northern Gothic;  Each of the finials has usually a
                                                                      		couple of small figures;  and the centre a couple of large
                                                                      		worked with a grace and sentiment almost Pisan: and
                                                                      		buried in leafage whose flow and intricacy are {is} like an
                                                                      		English bank of dogroses and virgin’s bower in Spring;
                                                                      		It is to be noted that almost all the figures have the
                                                                      		archaic and fixed smile of the Phigaleian pediment, united
                                                                      		with mediaeval grace of gesture;  One square is composed
                                                                      		of an ancient and most purely conceived bearded head + -
                                                                      		like one of Leonardo’s drawings for delicacy and fancy - sunk in the centre of broad
                                                                      		leaves, which flow to the edge of the pedestal and lap
                                                                      		over it as {the} waves {of a} disturbed fountain lap over its margin.
                                                                      		No 186 is the outer angle of one of these pedestals;  it
                                                                      		had two large figures, one crowning the other (their
                                                                      		feet of course to the wall

[Version 0.05: May 2008]