66 Mr. George Coffey on 



Sir Otto Jaffe moved a vote of thanks to the lecturer, and 

 believed if they should have the good fortune to visit any of 

 the places touched upon they would be able to recall the 

 instruction they had received that night with particular 

 pleasure. 



Mr. Gray said that variety was an element of beauty in 

 architecture, as it was in nature. In his opinion the departures 

 from perpendicular, horizontal, and straight lines detected in 

 the ruins of ancient Grecian and other buildings, were the 

 result of pressure, heat, and natural decay, and not to the 

 intentional design of the architect. Symmetry and not 

 assymmetry seem to have been the rule with the Greeks. 



Mr. W. J. Fennell offered his tribute of thanks to the 

 lecturer for his valuable paper. He took exception to the 

 praise bestowed on the irregular designs of Pisa, and considered 

 the attempt of its builders to enhance the perspective defeated 

 its object, and compared its "crossing" and heavy looking 

 dome to that of Ely, considered that the latter was immeasur- 

 ably superior, and without laboured attempts at perspective. 

 He also considered that the irregular arcading of Pisa had not 

 the same good effect as the more regular design of Gloucester. 

 That the art was not altogether " lost " he instanced that the 

 modern classic columns always bore evidence of the "swelling" 

 required for the perfect harmony that the eye demanded. 



Mr. R. May said that it was a well known rule and principle 

 in all good carving shops in the executing of freize ornament 

 or good panels, where it was desired that the ground should 

 appear flat, a fulness of over a sixteenth of an inch to the foot 

 was left in the centre, where, had the ground been finished 

 quite flat, a weak or hollow appearance is the result. This 

 principle must have been handed down from very early times. 



Mr. R. A. Dawson desired to add a word of thanks to the 

 lecturer for coming amongst them, and pointing out the various 

 refinements in architecture which were so easily neglected. 

 With the lecturer he believed in the unity of the arts, and that 

 all the arts clustered round architecture. He was glad that this 



