Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/28

4  the Styles of Architecture in England. This book did much to clear up the confusion that had prevailed, by pointing out that the differences of style which appeared in the English monuments might be broadly divided into three groups belonging, respectively, to three successive periods of construction. And, although Rickman's work was naturally imperfect and inadequate, its classifications were mainly correct, and it has served as a substantial basis for all subsequent study of the pointed architecture of England. So good was it, however, that the many other treatises which soon after appeared did little more than extend the field by bringing a larger number of buildings into notice. Professors Whewell and Willis, however, deserve to be mentioned as learned and able investigators who must always command the respect of students of architecture. Whewell, in his Notes on German Churches, did much to systematise methods of observation, and Willis, in his Architecture of the Middle Ages, and in his Essay on Vaulting, has given us a more thorough analysis of constructive systems than any other English writer, and has also rendered acknowledged service to the most able writers of the Continent. But neither of these authors succeeded in bringing out with clearness the essential principles of Gothic.

In the year 1851 was published Sharpe's Seven Periods of Church Architecture, which showed that Rickman's division of styles might be subdivided. But beyond this Sharpe did nothing to invalidate the correctness, in broad outline, of Rickman's work. As regards the true nature of Gothic, Sharpe himself, though a writer of much merit, did not possess a true conception. For he says, referring to the commonly received distinction between Romanesque and Gothic, which is merely that one employs round, and the other pointed arches, that he has "little hesitation in adopting this primary division as the groundwork" of his system. And in his various other works, excellent as they are in many ways, he everywhere treats the subject of Gothic design as consisting merely in this and other peculiarities of detail. Of the considerable number of more recent English writers on Gothic art few, if any, have contributed towards a more just