PERPENDICULAR OF SOMERSET AND EAST-ANGLIA. 3 
might have revealed a more extensive list of diversities ; 
possibly, on the other hand, it might have shown me that 
some of those which I have remarked are less universal 
than I have imagined. 
I shall of course, in comparing the architecture of the 
two distriets, confine myself chiefly to the really great 
architectural works of both, those in which the peculiar 
characteristics of each display themselves on the grandest 
scale and to the greatest advantage. And I am bound to 
state that a first-rate East-Anglian church, though I think 
decidedly inferior in point of detail to a first-rate Somer- 
setshire one, is fully equal to it in general grandeur, and 
very frequently surpasses it in size. And I must add too 
that I have found an East-Saxon church, very near the 
East-Anglian border, to which, for splendour of internal 
effect and for beauty of detail, I must give precedence 
over every Somersetshire building I know, except, of 
course, the unapproachable glory of St. Mary Redcliffe. 
I have diligently compared the internal elevations of 
Martock and of Saffron Walden, and I am constrained to 
yield the palm to the latter. If it be any comfort to a 
Somersetshire audience, I can add that, in external outline 
and in the forms of the windows, the Somersetshire ex- 
ample has a no less decided advantage. 
I ought however to mention that the distriet of 
Marshland, that in which the churches are most remark- 
able for size and splendour, belongs both physically and 
architeeturally to Lincolnshire rather than to Norfolk, and is 
not especially rich in examples of the local Perpendicular. 
The island of East-Anglia, for such it originally was to all 
practical purposes, can certainly boast of no Cotswolds or 
Mendips, yet it is far from being a dead flat. Marshland, 
on the other hand, the distriet west of the Ouse, reminded 
