Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/134

94. NOTICES OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS. glorious windows of Selby, Heckingtou. and Carlisle. We are spared iu a review of Mr. Sbarpe's work, the last, the inevitable resemblance between the loveliest of sublunary forms and man's most successful efforts, which, however, we must point out in the stiffened graceless pai'aUelograms of the perpendicular. No wonder that the mere beauty and variety of the forms which he studies are among the sources of pleasure to the architectural student ; but there are also other and yet higher sources. One of these, and the only one we shall here touch upon, is the interest with which he erects again, in his imagination, the memorials of the taste and skill of other days out of the fragments which time and the violence of later generations have bequeathed to us. He is a comparative anatomist, constructing giant skeletons, according to unerring rules, from the fragment of a tooth or of a thigli bone ; and in proportion as his constructive talent is warmed with a spark of fancy and of enthusiasm, clothing his solid framework of hard unyielding forms with warm flesh and muscles ; — with the very nerves of expression, with the play of feature, and the indications of character. Mr. Sharpe's " Parallels" a work of which we long to see the explanatoiy letter-press, is a series of illustrations of our meaning. We will extract a passage from the present volume, before we ask the reader to turn to the restored elevations of Tintern, and to compare them with the views which I'epresent its present state. Alluding to the great east window of this noble abbey, Mr. Shai'pe describes its peculiarities and its beauties, and adds in a note, which makes one long to have been a partaker in his task, " The problem of determining the actual design of this noble window from the small remains on the ground, and the fragments to be found still in the frame of the window ai'ch, which was a work of no small labour and search, was successfully accomplished by the editor, assisted by Mr. T. Austin and Mr. Payne, the wardens of the abbey grounds, in the summer of 1846." Let us tmi for a moment to certain more severe speculations, which are suggested by this volume. Without assuming the right to decide between contending parties, we would make a few remarks upon Architectural tcrminoloijy ; a subject which has given rise to much controversy. It is, we presume, evident to most, that the contest is about words and words only : the arrangement of Rick- man being followed in the main by those who reject his terminology. Our own usage has been to adhere to Hickman's nomenclature; not, certainly, as the best that can be conceived, but as the best yet employed, and as having a prescriptive right to be used as long as his system is retained. But the question has, we will venture to say, suggested itself to many minds, whether we may not have some better arrangement than Rickman's ; and if we have this, another and a better terminology will follow naturally and of right. How far others may agree with us we know not, but we feel veiy forcibly the need of a more perfect demarcation of three several styles than the words early and late adjected to the names of any style yet recognised can afford. We greatly desire to see the Semi-Norman more fully distinguished from the Norman and the Early English on either hand ; the Geometrical from the Early English and the Decorated ; and