€n GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. 23 



Whoever pays any attention to Gothic architeaure, muft 

 obferve, in the upper part of moft windows, an ornament pro- 

 jecting from the bars, formed by two curved hues meeting 

 in a point. It would be difficult to defcribe this form in words, 

 but it may be underftood eafily by figures 27, & 28. of Plate IV. 

 •which reprefent two contiguous windows of St Mary's, Bever- 

 ley ; in one of which the bars have been executed plain, and in, 

 the other they have been ornamented in this manner. Figure 30. 

 is the window that lately flood in the chapel of Holyroodhoufe 

 at Edinburgh, and figure 29. the fame general form executed 

 quite plain, as it fometimes occurs. As this ornament has not, 

 that I know of, been charaderifed by any peculiar name, I fliall 

 apply to it that of cu//>, by which mathematicians denote a fi- 

 gure of the fame kind *. 



It was long before any fatisfadory explanation of this form 

 occurred, though the frequency of its appearance, and the uni- 

 form manner in which it is introduced in all Gothic works, 

 Jeft little room to doubt that it had an origin, in common with 

 the more fubftantial forms of the ftyle. At laft a friend fug- 

 gefted to me, that it may have been borrowed from the appear- 

 ance affumed by the bark of the rods, when about to fall off, 

 in confequence of decay. With this view, having attended 

 particularly to branches in a fimilar fituation, I have met with 

 feveral fads, which tend to confirm this conjedure. The 

 dead branches of every kind of tree, after being expofed to 

 the weather during three or four years, throw ofl^ their bark, 

 which, immediately before it drops, curls into various fhapes] 



owing 

 • Assemblages of thefe cufps are fpoken of in the defcrlptions of Gothic works, 

 by the natpes of trefoil, quadrefoil, femi-trefoil, &c. but no proper word has been 

 ufed to defcribe the form, wherever it occurs, or however combined. This, I truft 

 will fufficiently apologife for the liberty I have taken, of introducing a new term' 

 into architefture. 



An application of the word cufp, as ufed by mathematicians, may be f«n in Dr 

 Smith's Optics, Vol. I. p. ,72. where he ufes it in defcribing the cauiiics formed 

 by reflettion. 



