Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/611

 NOTICES OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS. 420 with other details belonging to the latter part of the thirteenth century, or beginning of the fourteenth ; and the tinted landscape backgrounds of the medallions, are a modern invention. The next plate, " Designed for the lower portion of the Eastern window of Ely Cathedral,' is in its several parts more consistent in point of date than the last ; but the borders of the lights are too minute, to say nothing of their details, to harmonise with tire rest of the design. We are not informed whence jIr. Warrington derived his authority, in painted glass, for the miti-e surmounting the arms of the See, at the bottom of the central light of this window, or for the mitres in the next plate, which represents the design for the upper portion of the same window. The next plate to the last, " the altar window. Trinity Chvn'ch, Brompton," seems to be an original idea of Mr. Warring- ton's, and, like the former designs, cannot be said to be " composed on the most rigid principles of ancient ai't." The faults of "the monumental window, south of the chancel, Stower Provest Church, Dorsetslme,"' are as much those of composition, as of nonconformity with style. The first plate of the series, illustrating the glass of the fourteenth century, "the east window of St. Thomas Church, Winchester," seems out of place, as most of the foliaged ornaments throughout the design, and the canopy work in the lower lights (which last seems to have been copied rather from seals than from glass,) belong to the Early English period. The other plates of this series are, however, on the whole, less open to criticism than those of the last, at least on the score of mere nonconformity with style ; owing, no doubt, to the existence of a greater quantity of original glass of the fourteenth than of the thirteenth centurj-, and consequently of a greater mass of materials to copy from. The same remark equally applies to most of the illustrations of the painted glass of the hfteenth century ; and of " Palatial, Manorial, and Domestic " windows. i''ew of these designs are as faulty in point of style as those foiming the earliest series : fewer still are satisfactory as compositions ; we may men- tion in particular " the altar window of Beeford Church, Yorkshire," and the " East window of the south aisle of St. Mary's, Truro." The " Design for a window of the House of Lords," wholly wants the delicacy of treat- ment sho^vTi in ancient heraldic compositions in glass. We therefore cannot but regard these " Illustrations " as failures. They are iwt rigid examples of the styles of ancient stained glass, nor do they convey any adequate notion of the composition, taste, or delicacy of the ancient glass painters. They all exhibit, in a greater or lesser degi-ee, the usual defects of mere imitative work, and betray the inferiority of designs founded on the principle of compilation, to designs of a more original character. . We may also add that most of the designs in illustration of the glazing of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries are singularly ill calculated to produce a good effect when executed in modern glass. Mr. Warrington is perfectly aware of the fact that the rude manufacture of the early glass " contributed to produce a glittering and gem-like effect, of which the later and more evenly manufactured glass is incapable," (p. 12); and yet he seems, like his contemporaries in the craft, to delude himself into the belief, that, in order to reproduce the effect of the earlier windows,