Of the earlier French lanterns, this at Coutances is perhaps the best specimen to be found: of the latter class there is none finer than that of St. Ouen (Woodcut No. 666); and had the western towers been completed in the same character, in accordance with the original design, the towers of this church would probably be unrivalled. Even alone the lantern is a very noble architectural feature, and appropriate to its position, though some of the details mark the lateness of the age in which it was erected. [Illustration: 666. Lantern, St. Ouen, Rouen. (From a print by Chapuy.)] Notwithstanding the beauty of these examples, it must be confessed that the French architects were not so happy in their designs of spires and lanterns as they were in many other features. [Illustration: 667. Corbel. (From Didron, ‘Annales Archéologiques.’)] [Illustration: 668. Capitals from Rheims.] It would be in vain to attempt to enumerate all the smaller decorative features that crowd every part of the Gothic churches of France, many of which indeed belong more to the department of the sculptor than to that of the architect, though the two are so intimately interwoven that it is impossible to draw the line between them. It is, however, to the extreme care bestowed on these details and their extraordinary elaboration that the Gothic churches of the best age owe at least half their effect. There are many churches in Italy of the Gothic and Renaissance ages, larger and grander in their proportions than some of the best French examples, but they fail to produce a similar effect because these details are all—if the expression may be used—machine-made. The same forms and ornaments are repeated throughout, and too frequently borrowed from some other place without any evidence of thought or fitness in their application, and consequently call up no responsive feeling in the mind of the spectator. On this side of the Alps, in the best age, every moulding, every detail, exhibits an amount of thought combined with novelty, and is always so appropriate to the place or use to which it is applied, that it never fails to produce the most pleasing effect, and to heighten to a great extent the beauty of the building in which it is found. The corbel for instance represented in Woodcut No. 667 is as much a niche for the statue as a bracket to support the ends of the ribs of the vaults, and is one of the thousand instances which are met with everywhere in Gothic art of that happy mixture of the arts of the mason, the carver, and the sculptor, which, when successfully combined, produce a true artistic effect. These combinations are so numerous and so varied that it would be hopeless to attempt to classify them, or even to attempt to illustrate the varieties found in any single cathedral.[48]