28 PAPERS, ETC. 



produce a stately or elegant efFect ; but the interior seldom 

 exhibits any really great architectural coup (Tceil. That 

 picturesque efFect, which is a fair extemal Substitute for real 

 artistic design, can hardly extend to the interior; so that in 

 many cases it is simply common-place and uninteresting ; 

 in others it is a valuable repertory of architectural or 

 ecclesiological curiosities, of individual portions, it may be, 

 of extreme beauty, but the whole does not constltute one 

 great work of art. The grand churches of Northampton- 

 shire, even such buildings as Higham and Rushden and 

 Oundle and Irthlingborough, cau hardly claim a higher 

 place ; such interiors as Islip and Fotheringhay exhibit the 

 Perpendicular style, and some slight approach to its Somer- 

 setshire perfection. But with those whom I now address 

 the case is widely different ; in your most typical parish 

 churches, no less than in the grandest minsters, the exterior 

 is but the husk and shell of the higher beauty which ia in 

 Store within. And this, because both of them are works of 

 art in the highest sense ; it is no mere picturesque outline, 

 no mere collection of interesting details, which gives their 

 charm to the magnificent naves of Taunton and Bruton 

 and Martock and Wrington, and perhaps still more 

 perfect in its own kind, though of a decidedly inferior 

 kind, the lofty, and spacious, and thoroughly harmonioua 

 church of Yeovil. Here we do not immediately note down 

 some individual capital or window which attracts our 

 attention ; the eye is not drawn away to contemplate a fönt 

 of singular design or sedilia of imusual arrangement ; the 

 most gorgeous display of monumental splendour is postponed 

 for subsequent and secondary consideration ; it is the real 

 triumph of the noblest of arts which rivets the attention ; it 

 is the one grand and harmonious whole Avhich hfts the mind 

 in admiration of an efFect as perfect in it? own way, as 



