Early English Fonts, the trefoil sunken arch, the crisp foliage, the detached shafts," with characteristic bases and capitals, the deep hollow mouldings, the splays and chamfers, are all very familiar to the observer of the style. In Decorated Fonts we first find the richly crockcted canopy, the panelled flowing tracery," the ball-flower, the diapered ground,' the exuberance of niche and sculptured foliage, and the octagonal stem with slender engaged shafts," which now serve only to ornament, and not to support. In Perpendicular Fonts we become conscious of sameness and repetition of device. The earlier the Font, the freer the fancy and the more indulgent the genius of the artist. To the Norman, scarcely any object of ordinary observation and contemplation came amiss; men, animals, fishes, birds, plants, agricultural operations," hunting," hawking; the saint, the bishop, the priest, the warrior, the heraldic and conventional forms of creatures living and dead, were worked up with surprising ingenuity and ever varying forms of delineation. Unquestionably the desiguers of Norman Fouts loved to expatiate in the religious mysticism of the age; they loved, too, to embody in speaking stone the favourite legends of local saints, and probably also historical incidences. While we see here the Serpent overcome, or the Salamander, the Baptism of the Saviour, and descent 1 Ashborne. Hedon, Wortham.
- Ewerby.
m All Saints, Leicester. ♪ Strubby. ⚫ Patrington. 1 Lantegios. 4 Brailes. St. Gregory, Norwich. Burnham Deepdale, Norfolk, engraved in the Archæologia, and Cot- man's Antiquities of Norfolk. 포 Alphington. 13
