ON THE RESULTS OP THE ARCH. 335 



might be needed for the support of the stone ceiling. Beyond 

 these limits, where the internal columns became too numerous, 

 and where an unobstructed cell was requisite, there remained no 

 alternative but that of dispensing with a covering altogether, 

 making the temple thus " hy[)aethral." It is obvious, therefore, 

 from the inadequacy of such a style to the purposes of general and 

 extensive application, that modern Grecian church architects are 

 placed in an awkward dilemma, when, after having achieved the 

 copy of some Athenian portico, and cella, to their heart's content, 

 they find themselves compelled, by considerations of convenience 

 or economy, to leave the interior undivided by columns, while 

 in the design and colouring of their ceilings, which mingle and 

 correspond with those of the walls, they would fain affect to 

 command the use of stone beams (pardon the un-Saxon phrase) of 

 sixty or a hundred feet in length. This matter, in truth, involves 

 a greater difficulty than we are in the habit of supposing j and it is 

 very questionable whether, in regular architecture, all our horizon- 

 tal ceilings should not be designed and coloured as if they were 

 constructed in wood : the strictness of this limitation, however, 

 will be of course proportioned to the architectural pretensions of 

 any given structure. In the Roman and Italian modes this 

 difficulty is certainly in great part removed, as the command of the 

 arch and of vaulting renders it practicable to form a covering 

 to almost any extent, and thus to complete an interior without any 

 violation of unity. But here, inasmuch as the office of the arch is, 

 for the most part, to form a substitute for the support afforded by 

 the columns and entablature, it will be found in too many instances 

 that the use of arches and vaults in connection with columns 

 produces redundancy, the latter losing their significancy when 

 they are applied rather to decorate than to sustain. In Pointed 

 architecture, however, all these difficulties are reconciled, and 

 the relative importance of the arch and of the column accurately 

 adjusted. Here the arch never ceases to be the member of support 

 to horizontal weights, and the column (whether the detached 

 cluster or the single attached shaft) is never used but as a support 

 to the arch. It is needless to expatiate on the endless variety 

 of form and combination in which the groined vaultings, the flying 

 arches and buttresses, and the ramified open-work of this magical 

 style develope the principles of arcuation. All this is so manifest 

 and indisputable that an able writer and architect has well ob- 

 served " there is more constructive skill shewn in Salisbury and 

 others of our cathedrals, than in all the classical remains of 

 antiquity taken together." The same author, however, displays an 

 excess of tenderness for established prejudices when he proceeds 

 elsewhere to remark (somewhat cautiously, it is true) that 

 " perhaps, for harmony, the Gothic style, in those of its buildings 

 which are entirely of one period, yields only to the Grecian." 

 Yet if there be any truth in the theory of the beauty of curved lines 

 (for the verification of which, indeed, we need not bestow much 

 study upon Hogarth's analysis) — if the figure of the pointed arch 



NO. V. 2 Y 



