184							173
                                                                      
                                                                      	         No 186.  LYONS  CATHEDRAL.
                                                                      
                                                                      	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 scukpture, nbe[o]neath 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
                                                                      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 is like an
                                                                      English bank of dogroses and virgins bower in Spring;
                                                                      It is to be noted that almost all the figures have the
                                                                      archaic and fixed smile of the Phyaleian pediment, united
                                                                      with mediaeval grace of gesture;  One square is composed
                                                                      of an ancient and most purely conceived beared head (x)
                                                                      cut as deeply as delicately - like one of Leonardo’s draw-
                                                                      ings 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]