i6 On GO'THIC ARCHlTECrURE. 



ploy; which is done as follows: A pair of thefe unoccupied rods 

 being brought from any two pofts which (land diagonally to 

 each other, (A and F, fig. 6.), and made to meet in the middle, 

 not as in the firft cafe, croffmg in an angle, but fide by fide, 

 forming a femicircle, and joined together after the manner of a 

 hoop, (fig. 4.) ; and the fame being done with every pair of dia- 

 gonal pofts, (fig. 9. & 13.), the whole rods will have been employ- 

 ed. 



Each of the three fets of arches having thus been feparately 

 defcribed, (fig. 7, 8, & 9,), the complete ftrudure, in which 

 they are all combined, may eafily be underftood, (PI. I. fig. 10. 

 and 14., and PI. II. fig. 15, & 16.). 



In this manner a frame would be conftruded, fit to fuppprt 

 thatch or other covering, and fuch a one has probably been 

 often ufed. It would feem, however, that, for the fake of ftrength, 

 the number of rods- has been increafed in each clufter, by the 

 introdudiion, between every two of them, of an additional rod, 

 which, rifmg with them to the roof, ftill continues its middle pofi- 

 tion, as they fpread afunder, and meets the horizontal pole at 

 an interm.ediate point. This is fhown in Plate III. figure 19, 

 which is drawn with its covering of thatch j and the fame is ex- 

 prefled in the correfponding ground-plan, figure 20. 



From the imitation of a dwelling, fo conftrucfted, we may 

 now trace the three leading characfteriftics of Gothic Architec- 

 ture, the pointed arch, the cluftered column, and the branching 

 roof, (PI. II. fig. 17, & 18., and PI. HI. fig. 21, & 22.)*. 



The 



* In buildings of ftone, the arch or groin, which joins the diagonal piers, is very 

 generally a real femicircle. Tike that in the willow ftruiaure juft defcribed ; as I 

 have found to be accurately the cafe at Beverley and Melrofe. This rule of execu- 

 tion, with the deviations from it, which we meet with occafionally, will be fully 

 confidertd in a fubfequent part of the Effay ; in which it will be ihown, that in 

 the ufual roof, where the diagonal groin is a femicircle, it becomes the regulator ot 

 all the reft, determining their height and form in every refpeft. 



