58 PAPERS, ETC. 
about the height of the church, much as at Dundry—a tower 
with which Portishead has a good deal of affinity, except 
in the parapet. It strikes me that, when such a turret is 
introduced, its predominance over the other pinnacles 
should be greater than it is in this case. But my own 
view, in direct opposition to Mr. Ruskin’s, is very decidedly 
that this form is only adapted to an inferior class of towers, 
those of the merely pieturesqgue kind ; and that in struc- 
tures of the real architectural magnificence of Wrington 
and Glastonbury, their designers judged right in making 
all their pinnacles on a level. I have no recondite argu- 
ment about the legs, horns, or tail of any creature where- 
with to support this view ; I can only put it forth as my 
own view, for which I claim no greater respect, even from 
those least acquainted with the subject, than the sort of 
confidence which I am myself always disposed to give to 
the tact and experience of those who have given attention 
to any subject of which I am myself ignorant. The tower 
of Backwell church, which I know only as forming the 
frontispiece to Barr’s Anglican Church Architecture, * may 
also perhaps be considered as presenting a feeble approxi- 
mation to the third class, inasmuch as the pinnacles are 
connected with the buttresses in something like the way 
described. But the strange and awkward shape of the 
belfry windows, a broad ogee arch, with its apex piereing 
through the parapet, deprive it of all real resemblance to 
Wrington and St. Cuthbert’s. 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TOWERS. 
Though we have thus found considerable diversities 
among the Somersetshire towers, yet no observer can 
* I have since passed by it, but without having been near enough for 
any examination. 
