Esthetic Evolution. 245 



to Romanesque architecture ; while the peculiar semi- 

 circular windows of St. Cunibert's, as also of the nave 

 of the minster at Bonn, suggest the employment of 

 windows at once ornamental and light-giving, yet not 

 absorbing too much space. 



The cathedral of Durham and the city of Shrews- 

 bury show us how light and beautiful a development 

 the round arch sometimes attained even in England ; 

 but it is in Germany that by far the richest collection 

 will be found of round-arched buildings calculated to 

 suggest treatment and features suitable for modern 

 round-arched buildings constructed on the principles, 

 though not in the configuration, of mediaeval, pointed 

 architecture.* 



It is much to be regretted that so many of our 

 architects have been so tied down and cramped by the 

 narrow taste of their public for " middle-pointed " archi- 

 tecture with abundant floral ornamentation. We know 

 more than one who groans over the apparent impossi- 

 bility of introducing a taste for grand and solid buildings 

 of real majesty, instead of the " pretty " and petty beau- 

 ties so generally in vogue. Those readers interested in 



* Many of these German churches have an apse at each end. It 

 appears to me that this feature might be very usefully adopted with 

 a slight modification, the western apse serving as a baptistery. As 

 we are " buried with Christ in baptism," a representation of the en- 

 tombment might be appropriately placed in a small crypt beneath 

 the font in such western baptismal apse. 



