54 PAPERS, ETC. 



each 3tory, occupying as it often does a smaller area than 

 the one below, is in fact an independent building, which 

 might be removed without much alteration of the tower, 

 beyond diminishing its height. In this, as well as in the 

 Norman style, which I hold to be perectly distinct from it, 

 there are no real spires. That at Sompting, as well as 

 many to be met with on the Continent, being in fact 

 roofs, ia the construction of which there is no attempt at 

 spire growth whatever, though the height of some of them 

 may almost give them a title to the former appellation. 



In many Norman towers, the principle of frame work 

 seems to be more completely develöped, the broad flat 

 buttress at the angle of the tower being frequently carried 

 up to the cornice-moulding, though in some cases it ceases 

 below the belfry story, which in that case becomes an ex- 

 crescence — a fault very characteristic of the latest, and, in 

 general, most admlred, type of our Perpendicular towers. 

 The small size of the windows, the arcades running roimd 

 all four sides of a story, the piain square, or semi-hexa- 

 gonal string-courses, and the cornice, which has often the 

 same projection as the buttresses, all conduce to the effect 

 of lateral continuity and general unity of design. 



As we approach the close of the twelfth centiu-y, the 

 Gothicizing dement of the Norman Romanesque becomes 

 more and more develöped. In the place of waUs of enor- 

 mous thickness, and broad flat buttresses, the System of 

 vaiüting now introduced brought in, ahnost as a necessary 

 consequence, thinner waUs, and deep buttresses, whUe the 

 vertical Unes, gradually gaining the mastery over the hori- 

 zontal, Step by Step converted the Romanesque into 

 Gothic, until, in the thirteenth Century, we have the well- 

 developed Early EngUsh, with its deep buttresses, slender 

 Windows, and lofty spires. 



