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vast and attend to the minute." In the decorations we find 
luxuriance without affected display, and delicacy and repose 
far removed from repulsive simplicity. 
By those who would ascribe the substitution of pointed 
" arches and enormous buttresses to ignorance of mathematical 
" science," we may expect to find the appropriate ornaments of 
the pointed style designated as consisting of " fantastical 
" capitals and whimsically-shaped windows, the mere offspring 
" of innovation." Sir James Hall has laboured hard to prove 
that the decorated tracery of the fourteenth century was the 
result of observation upon the platting of wickerwork, but we 
can obtain as gently-flowing lines by the aid of geometry, (by 
the interception of portions of these lines,) as by the compul- 
sory bending of the willow. 
I have dwelt at some length upon the subject of windows, 
as they betoken, in a peculiar manner, the various phases of 
the pointed style. The following may be received as a 
popular description of the variations made. It has been my 
endeavour to show the probability of the multiple Lancet 
window arising from the intersection of the semicircular 
Norman arcades. The Early English window may be said to 
include the Lancet, although the reverse is not the case ; just 
as the fifth problem of Euclid includes the first problem, 
although the first does not include the fifth. 
The two-light window appears to me to have arisen in the 
following manner. Two lancet windows being placed in 
juxta-position, and a circle introduced immediately over the 
jamb, (merely for the purpose of relief,) the simple inclusion 
of these three distinct features under one label moulding, 
formed the whole into a composition, and the lights being 
pierced, a ncio form of window was produced. This is, I 
think, evident on the west front of Salisbury Cathedral, (and 
also the Painted Chamber, Westminster,) where we find in the 
gable the lights and quatrefoils all pierced, but distinct from 
N 2 
