forming the figure of the fleur-de-lis, always a mark, when in tracery bars, of the most debased flamboyant. It occurs in the central tower of Bayeux, very richly in the buttresses of St Gervais at Falalse, and in the small niches of some of the domestic buildings at Rouen. Nor is it only the tower of St Ouen which is overrated. Its nave is a base imitation, in the flamboyant period, of an early Gothic arrangement; the niches on its piers are barbarisms; there is a huge square shaft run through the ceiling of the aisles to support the nave piers, the ugliest excrescence I ever saw on a Gothic building; the traceries of the nave are the most insipid and faded flamboyant; those of the transept clerestory present a singularly distorted condition of perpendicular; even the elaborate door of the south transept is, for its fine period, extravagant and almost grotesque in its foliation and pendants. There is nothing truly fine in the church but the choir, the light triforium, and tall clerestory, the circle of Eastern chapels, the details of sculpture, and the general lightness of proportion, these merits being seen to the utmost advantage by the freedom of the body of the church from all incumbrance.
6. p. 41. Compare Iliad Σ, 1. 219, with Odyssey Ω 11, 5-10.
7. p. 42. 'Does not admit iron as a constructive material': Except in Chaucer's noble temple of Mars.
And dounward from an hill under a bent,
Ther stood the temple of Mars, armipotent.
Wrought all of burned stele, of which th' entree
Was longe and streite, and gastly for to see.
And thereout came a rage and swiche a vise.
That it made all the gates for to rise.
The northern light in at the dore shone.
For window on the wall ne was ther none,
Thurgh which men mighten any light discerne.
The dore was all of athamant eterne,
Yclenched overthwart and endelong
With yren tough, and for to make it strong,
Every piler the temple to sustene
Was tonne-gret, of yren bright and shene.
There is, by the bye, an exquisite piece of architectural colour just before:
And northward, in a turret on the wall
Of alabaster white, and red corall,
An oratorie riche for to see,
In worship of Diane of Chastitee.
