the commencement of the traceries of his windows on one line. And his work is a most remarkable standing proof of the failure of such an attempt; for, despite all these precautions, and I incline to believe in consequence of them, the general effect is, after all, entirely horizontal. Extremes meet, and so the attempt to avoid absolute horizontal lines has completely failed, because in their place we have a succession of vertical members placed side by side in such endless numbers that we really think more of the horizontal arrangement of these members, slight though they are, than we should of the simplest defined horizontal line. And the same consequence followed the same kind of work in England. I know no building in which the horizontal line is more painfully predominant than in Henry the Seventh’s Chapel at Westminster, where, nevertheless, it is broken endlessly by vertical lines of pinnacles, and where the walls are covered in all parts with perpendicular lines of panelling. Indeed, I should have but little respect for such a building as this exterior of Milan were it not for its rare material (used though it is in a prodigal manner, and without particular reference to its nature) and its immense size--though this is far less in appearance than in reality. But my detraction and harsh criticisms must end here; for if, having first made the circuit of the entire church, the flight of steps which leads up to the west door is last of all mounted, the first feeling must be one of perfect amazement and delight--amazement that the same mind which conceived the exterior should have been able also to achieve anything so diverse from it as is the interior, and delight that anything so magnificent and so perfect should ever have been reared on the southern slope of the Alps, to exhibit, to the eyes as it were of enemies, the full majesty and power of the pointed architecture of the North. And mark, upon consideration, how very natural this was. Its architect had been tied down in his exterior by the wants, or supposed wants, of a climate unlike his own, and a material to which he was unused; his genius had thus been fettered and kept under; but here all shackles were undone, and he was free to carry out to its very greatest perfection what he had learnt or dreamt of in his Northern home. And what a result has he not achieved!--absolutely and without doubt one of the grandest interiors in the world is, I do believe, this noble work of his; its grandeur amazes one at first, and delights all the more afterwards as one becomes on more intimate terms with it, and can look at it with less emotion than at first. And how shall I describe it?--for to say that it has so many bays in length or in width is not sufficient; all this, and even the detail of its design, were familiar enough to me before I saw it, but still the reality was so very far beyond any description, that I felt, and feel still, averse from attempting it.