50 PAPERS, ETC. 
should be plain and massive ; the necessity of a large 
western window and doorway renders this character only 
the more necessary on the north and south sides. The 
stage or stages between the west window and the belfry- 
stage should hardly have more than single windows; in 
the belfry they are larger, and double or treble, and the 
open parapet and pinnacles crown all. The Taunton 
tower, on the other hand, has double windows, nearly as 
large as those in the belfry-stage, in the two stories beneath, 
so that this progressive diminution of massiveness is quite 
lost. At Bishop’s Lydiard, on the other hand, it is beauti- 
fully preserved ; we have first a stage with a single window, 
then one with a single window flanked by a niche on each 
side, finally, the belfry-stage with double windows. This is 
observed in one face only of St. James’s tower at Taunton, 
a steeple exceedingly like Bishop’s Lydiard, and which 
struck me as surpassing it in dignity, while Lydiard has a 
sort of grace peculiar to itself. Chewton Mendip I have 
only seen from the top of a coach, but I should: imagine 
itto be an example of the same class, of greater mag- 
nificence than either. 
The fault of these towers I conceive to be, that having 
a distinct staircase-turret carried up the whole height, they 
do not give it any prominence, but allow it to conceal 
itself among the buttresses and pinnacles at the corner, 
and instead of its natural finish of one large pinnacle, assign 
it only a small battlement, perhaps fringed with diminu- 
tive pinnacles of its own. The uniformity of the structure 
is destroyed, without any proportionate gain in pieturesque 
effect. I therefore venture to assign to this first class the 
lowest place in the scale. 
Second Class, Bristol. The second class is distinguished 
from the first, by the manner in which it avoids this last 
