IV. About 1250, soon after Westminster choir, the nave was commenced. Its remarkable clerestory windows—spherical triangles enclosing cusped circles—occur in the Westminster triforium, and, rather later, in the clerestory of Hereford north transept. The spherical triangles fit perfectly into the wall-arches of the vaulting, and, as Mr. Fergusson says, “give a stability and propriety to the whole arrangement which has never been surpassed.” The result, however, is to diminish the height of the clerestory, with the inevitable result that the aspiringness that one expects in an Early Gothic elevation is lost; the nave, instead of looking taller, looks lower than it really is. As at Westminster and Beverley, the ground-story occupies one-half of the total height; but in these the triforium occupies about one-sixth only, the clerestory one-third. At Lichfield the triforium and clerestory occupy each one-fourth. Mr. Fergusson makes the striking suggestion that the defect might have been remedied to some extent by glazing the triforium, as in Amiens choir, thus practically bringing the clerestory down to the pier-arches. The vault, too, is most satisfactory—not simple to bareness, like that of Amiens and so many French cathedrals, nor over-elaborated, like those of Winchester and Norwich. The whole design, indeed, of the nave is one of the loveliest in Christendom. It derives great impressiveness, too, from the fact that the vault ranges the whole length of the cathedral in almost undiminished height; and from the fact that the church is not cut up, as at Canterbury, into two distinct buildings. Indeed, small as the cathedral is, the vista from west to east is one of the longest of all the English cathedrals. And its termination in the beautiful polygon of the Lady chapel, so unusual to English eyes, and so beautiful, glimmering in the distance “like some great casket of jewels at the end of the long dusk perspective,” makes an impression never forgotten. By this one remembers the interior of Lichfield, as its exterior by that glorious triple coronal of spires. Nave, transept, and choir are all of the same length. The same scheme of proportions was adopted a little later at York. The axis of the choir is not in a line with that of the nave, but swings to the north five feet. V. Next the west front was built, _c._ 1275, except the central gable and the spires. It is a sort of open-air reredos; but marks a great improvement in design on those of Lincoln, Wells, and Salisbury. [Illustration: LADY CHAPEL.]