H ouse and Garden 
that the secret of it has been lost. Even before Mr. 
Goodyear enlightened his American friends we Eu¬ 
ropean architects had been making good use of such 
devices. 
He will think this all a captious, carping way of 
presenting his discovery to the reader. I admit that 
the above very general observations are not conclu¬ 
sive as to any particular church in which of his own 
knowledge Mr. Goodyear may assert irregularities 
to exist such as cannot be retained in any of the 
above six classes. Though he throw a dozen to 
the wolves, he may still escape with an example 
which is of such undoubted designed irregularity 
that it may be rightly called a refinement. This 
position must be left unassailed. Being unable to 
go myself and see St. Mark’s, Pisa and Fiesole, I 
bow to the authority of those who have seen. 
It has occurred to me, however, that I have nearer 
at hand an irregularity which, if not recorded as yet 
by Mr. Goodyear, surely deserves his accurate inves¬ 
tigation with level, tape and plumb-bob. In the 
cathedral of Chichester the lines of beauty so ap¬ 
preciated by him at Eiesole are clearly marked. To 
the observer standing at the west end the Purbeck 
strings that mark the storeys can be seen running 
continuously to the east, broken only at the crossing. 
T hey exhibit great sweeping curves which with ten¬ 
der subtility incline inwards to the lantern arches 
as if they were planned to look like cupids’ bows. 
I he axial alignment is so varied that the square 
line at the crossing would cut the east wall some feet 
to the north of its middle point, and the west wall 
some feet to the south. And immediately that the 
eye is attuned to these curvatures it looks around 
and sees them everywhere. In all the vertical and 
horizontal lines of the old architecture appear delicate 
sinuosities. Nothing seems exactly rectangular, no¬ 
thing quite plumb upright. The vaulting piers 
show for their height fully as much entasis as those 
of St. Quentin or Notre-Dame in Mr. Goodyear’s 
photographs. Every refinement noted by him seems 
to have occupied the attention of the builders. The 
main arches of the nave have that perspective low¬ 
ering towards the east which is so significant at 
Florence and Fiesole. There is that backward set¬ 
ting of piers in the upper storeys which is found on 
the facade of St. Mark’s; the transept galleries lean 
away from the crossing as at Notre-Dame; the fa¬ 
cade leans outward as at Pisa; and, rarest refine¬ 
ment of all, there is a bend in the plan of the west 
front. 
Must, then, Chichester cathedral take its place 
with Pisa cathedral, with St. Mark’s, Venice, and 
with Notre-Dame of Paris, as being exceptionally 
refined ? Should it, as Mr. Goodyear says of the 
last, “by the multitude and complexity of its phe¬ 
nomena stand quite apart from other Northern ca¬ 
thedrals”? Before accepting the honor for Chi¬ 
chester of being a special sampler of all the secrets 
of architectural refinement, I feel I ought to be as 
sure of its history as Mr. Goodyear is of that of Pisa 
and Notre-Dame. I have, therefore made a chart 
to indicate the positions on the ground plan of some 
fourteen distinct varieties of masoncraft that are to 
be found in its walls—the distinctions being such 
that they, in my opinion, represent the several works 
of fourteen separate generations of masons. Now 
what I notice is this: That the leans and the curva¬ 
tures which he calls refinements seem always to re¬ 
quire at least two of these generations of masons to 
perfect them. This seems the case alike with the 
vertical and the horizontal bends, and with the per¬ 
spective illusion of the nave, the last being indicated 
as the achievement of two setters-out and of some one 
who compromised between. And as to the magnifi¬ 
cent line of beauty shown in the horizontal curves 
of the strings it would seem that three generations 
of builders laid the groundwork of it, while to our 
own late days was it left and to Sir Gilbert Scott to 
put the finishing touches. In fact, the discovery I 
made is that all these refinements are not so much 
architectural as genealogical, for their schemes of 
beauty continued through many generations. Thus 
in 1091 Bishop Ralph laid the first arc of one great 
horizontal line of curvature; after some twenty years 
and a fire a second arc was achieved. Another 
eighty years elapsed, and after another fire see how 
Bishop Seffrid has ordered a third arc to he laid out; 
and then in the fulness of time has come the modern 
architect to complete its delicate perfection. What 
consummate patience and forethought! the looking 
forward to fires and settlements, and all the acci¬ 
dents of time, even to the final removal of the Arun¬ 
del screen, so that the spire might fall and the lan¬ 
tern be rebuilt with that exact vertical elevation of 
piers which the tee-square designing gives! For it 
lias been from all these happenings that there has 
issued the magical sweetness of the Chichester re¬ 
finement. 
Can one venture, then, on a theory of genealogi¬ 
cal designing of mediaeval cathedrals ? T urning to 
Mr. Goodyear’s pages, I feel that he must commit 
11s to a distinct faith in transmigration, if not of souls, 
at least of a designing intelligence, elaborating beauty 
in cycles of building. In some hundreds of years, 
through all and by means of all the vicissitudes of 
settlement, re-designing, and casing with marble and 
mosaic, have been conceived and perfected the leans 
and curves of the consummate irregularity of St. 
Mark’s. And almost equal thereto has been the 
hereditary refinement of the Notre-Dame facade. 
In 1208 the first masons laid out and set up its first 
delicate leans of eleven inches in the height of fifty 
feet; their successors of the next generation slowly 
curved the front back; and, finally, their grandchil¬ 
dren piously completed the ancestral design with 
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