ÖO TAPERS, ETC. 



not one of those enthusiasts who think that the time may 

 corae when the best decorated buildings will be thought 

 only good specimens of transition work, or, on the other 

 handj that the architects of the fourteenth Century had 

 attained to absolute perfection, — still, if by crlticising the 

 construction of these beautiful towers, I may, in a very 

 humble degree, help to induce architects to take for their 

 modeis the edifices of a time when the principles of Gothic 

 architecture were more fuUy and correctly developed than 

 they have ever been before or srace ; and by shewing 

 that they are beautiful, not on account of, but in spite of, 

 the principles on which they are bullt, help in some 

 measure to check the taste for Perpendicular architecture, 

 I may, perhaps, hope to prevent the perpetration of some 

 outrages on good taste ; for to educe what is beautiful from 

 faulty principles, requires an amount of talent which, 

 though these men certainly possessed it, falls to the lot of 

 very few ; and though a close Imitation of a beautiful work 

 will probably itself be beautiful, stiU the attempt to buUd 

 an original Perpendicvüar tower, too often, as far as I can 

 judge, ends in producing an unsightly, though, it may be, 

 elaborate, and expensive faUure. 



Now I am not a professional architect, and cannot but 

 feel that I am presumptuously intruding on the province of 

 other persons in venturlng to read this paper ; but trusting 

 to their kindness to excuse my want of technical knowledge, 

 and to that of the audience at large, for my deficiencies of 

 taste and judgment, I wiU proceed with my subject. 



That excellent architectural antiquary and very leamed 

 mathematiclan, the Master of Trinity CoUege, Cambridge, 

 lays down the following principles as essential to complete 

 Gothic architecture, — frame-work, lateral continuity, or wall 

 work, spire-growth, and tracery, — of which the three first 



