St. George's Chapel, Windsor. If we suppose a line on the plan to pass through the centre of the buttresses and piers, and one severy of the nave to be defined, we shall have a width of 12 feet, and a length of 84 feet, the area of which is 1008 feet: after this we shall find the area of the walls and piers comprised within this severy to be 168 feet, or one-sixth of the whole; such are the proportions of mass and void found in this chapel. The clear width of the side aisles between the columns is 11 feet 9 inches; that of the nave 34 feet 10 inches, and between the outer walls 69 feet 2 inches: the height of the top of the vaulting of the nave is 54 feet 2 inches. The height up to the springing line of the great vault over the nave being equal to half the entire width, it is evident that two squares must comprise within them the entire building beneath this line; upon setting them out we find the nave and its pillars occupy one, whilst the other is given to the side aisles, external walls, and buttresses. The Rev. John Milner, in his admirable treatise on the Ecclesiastical Architecture of England, which has been the text-book for all modern writers, states that "its rise, progress, and decline, occupy little more than four centuries in the chronology of the world as its characteristic perfection consisted in the due elevation of the arch, so its decline commenced by an undue depression of it. This took place in the latter part of the 15th century, and is to be seen, amongst other instances, in parts of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, commenced by Edward IV. in 1482; in King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and in the Chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster. It is undoubtedly true that the architects of these splendid and justly admired erections, Bishop Cloose, Sir Reginald de Bray, &c. displayed more art and more professional science than their predecessors had done; but they did this at the expense of the characteristic excellence of the style itself which they built in." "In St. George's Chapel we have the work covered with tracery and carvings of the most exquisite design and execution, but which fatigue the eye, and cloy the mind by their redundancy:" but we have also a building constructed with one-half the materials that would have been employed had the style practised in the chapter-house of Wells been adopted. The admirers of the Pointed style have not sought for the true principles which mark its several changes; they have not examined into its constructive arrangements; had they done so, they would have perceived that, as the skill of the freemasons advanced, and their workmanship improved, they economised material, constructed more solidly, and produced a richer and more harmonious effect, without sacrificing any of the principles which governed their practice; the improvements they made were as great as those noticed when the Doric proportions were changed to the Ionic. In the Doric we had two-thirds mass, onethird void; in the Ionic half mass, half void; at Wells Chapter-house one-third mass, two-thirds void; in St. George's Chapel, one-sixth mass and five-sixths void. The plan of the pillars is that of a double square, or parallelogram, the diagonals of which latter figure become the sides of equilateral triangles that serve for the setting out the splays, upon which the several mouldings are cut: from east to west these piers are $ feet 1 inch, from north to south 3 feet 6 inches, not comprising in this last dimension the three Caudebec Sacristy, near Rouen, in Normandy, exhibits the manner of suspending a keystone by locking it between the voussoirs of a strong semicircular arch. The length of this pendent stone is 17 feet 6 inches, and its thickness at the top, where locked, is 30 inches: the voussoirs are 3 feet in depth; the small pointed arches or ribs that form the groining of the hexagonal vault spring from the side walls and the ornamental knob of the pendentive, and are perfectly independent. The abutments of the semicircular arch, which has a radius of 12 feet, are formed by solid walls continued for some length in the direction of its diameter. This sacristy is hexagonal; each side internally measures 12 feet, and the height from the pavement to the springing of the ribs is 18 feet. Henry the Seventh's Chapel, Westminster. — The first appearance of the pointed arch was probably a little before the termination of the twelfth century; the pil lars and mouldings which then accompanied it were of Saxon origin: to its acute form was FIER OF HENRY VII.'S CHAPEL. Fig. 1324. afterwards added the slender Purbeck columns and simple groining, producing that unadorned majesty which reigns throughout the cathedral of Salisbury. This style underwent several changes, and was succeeded at the latter end of the thirteenth century by another, in |