Architecture. 261 



ably the term was made use of to bring the pointed style into disre- 

 pute, at the time when it was intended to destroy simultaneously the 

 popish religion, and its beautiful architecture, and to introduce Gre- 

 cian buildings. I do not know whether the above opinions are ex- 

 pressed exactly in the words of the writer, but they exhibit substantial- 

 ly his meaning. That which is commonly called Gothic Architecture, 

 is characterized by pointed arches, slender pillars, often like clustered 

 shafts of pikes, or bundles of reeds, and almost every part, both flat 

 and projecting, is enriched to the highest degree, with the most deli- 

 cate tracery of flowers, and tendrils, and with an endless variety of 

 other minute ornaments, almost always beautiful, although, sometimes 

 intermixed with others extremely grotesque, and absurd. 



There is nothing in the mere forms, or embelhshments of the 

 pointed style of architecture, in the least adapted to convey to the 

 mind the impression of" Gothic Gloom." The proportions and deco- 

 rations are light, graceful, and elegant, and 1 have thought even when 

 very young, and in Henry the 7th's Chapel which is one hundred feet 

 in length, although awed by its gloom, that but for the rich twilight 

 of its painted windows, and the dark color of its materials, rendered 

 still more dark by time, all its forms, and all its proportions, were 

 entirely appropriate to a splendid banqueting room, and it then 

 appeared to me that the different impressions, even in Westminster 

 Abbey, into which this chapel opens, were caused wholly by the ar- 

 tificial darkness, occasioned by shrouded windows, the gloomy color 

 of the stone and deeper colored oak, its venerable age, the vast ex- 

 tent of the buildings, and the countless monuments which seem to 

 crowd around you, as if the magnificent pile were raised only to shel- 

 ter this great congregation of the dead, and as if the echo of each 

 footstep were a voice of reproof, to the living intruder. There are 

 several Gothic churches now in this country, two handsome ones in 

 New Haven, and one built still later in Hartford, which I think a 

 finer specimen of the pointed style, than either, and indeed I believe 

 it is the handsomest, and most complete example of elegant Gothic, 

 both in proportion, and decoration, as far as that style is attempted, 

 which is to be found in the United States. 



The interior of the first Gothic church built in New Haven, was 

 at the time it was finished, a good illustration of what I would wish 

 to express, as all those who saw it then, will I am sure, allow. Al- 

 though grave, and dark, without^ — within, it was as white as snow, 

 and light as day, the workmanship being all delicate, and slender, of 



VoL= XXIV.»-No. 2. 34 



