Page:Ruskin - The Seven Lamps of Architecture.djvu/176

132 much the largest; next to it the outer roll; then, by an exquisite alternation, the innermost roll (e), in order that it may not be lost in the recess, and the intermediate (d), the smallest. Each roll has its own shaft and capital; and the two smaller, which in effect upon the eye, owing to the retirement of the innermost, are nearly equal, have smaller capitals than the two larger, lifted a little to bring them to the same level. The wall in the trefoiled lights is curved, as from e to f in the section; but in the quatrefoil it is fiat, only thrown back to the full depth of the recess below as to so get a sharp shadow instead of a soft one, the mouldings falling back to it in nearly a vertical curve behind the roll e. This could not, however, be managed with the simpler mouldings of the smaller quatrefoil above, whose half section is given from g to g₂; but the architect was evidently fretted by the heavy look of its circular foils as opposed to the light spring of the arches below: so he threw its cusps obliquely clear from the wall, as seen in fig. 2, attached to it where they meet the circle, but with their finials pushed out from their natural level (h, in the section) to that of the first order (g₂). and supported by stone props behind, as seen in the profile, fig. 2, which I got from the correspondent panel on the buttress face (fig. 1. being on its side), and of which the lower cusps, being broken away, show the remnant of one of their props projecting from the wall. The oblique curve thus obtained in the profile is of singular grace. Take it all in all, I have never met with a more exquisite piece of varied, yet severe, proportion and general arrangement (though all the windows of the period are fine, and especially delightful in the subordinate proportioning of the smaller capitals to the smaller shafts). The only fault it has is the inevitable misarrangement of the central shafts; for the enlargement of the inner roll, though beautiful in the group of four divisions at the side, causes, in the triple central shaft, the very