I suppose the characteristics of this later work must be known to most of you. Cologne cathedral is in fact so completely an embodiment of nearly all the essential features of the style, and is so well known to most people that I suspect less description is required of it than of any other foreign style. It has been often said--and that by no mean authorities--that the German middle-pointed was identical with our own, and indeed that this one style prevailed for a time all over Europe. The theory would be pretty if it were true: the gradual working up to the same point in various ways, and the gradual divergence of art again in different directions, would certainly be a strong ground for giving in our adhesion to this one perfect and universal style. But I confess that though there is something of a _similarity_, I have not been able to trace anything like an identity between German and French and English work at any time. I am thankful for this because, with all its beauty, the best German middle-pointed style is not a great style, and has many and obvious defects. From the very first is conspicuous that _love of lines_ which is so marked and so unpleasant a peculiarity in German art, and that desire to play with geometrical figures--I know not how else to express what I mean--which in time degenerated into work as pitiful and contemptible as any of which mediaeval architects were ever guilty. I have here a large collection (which should have been larger had I had time to select all the examples which I have scattered through my sketch-books) of German window traceries, which will enable you to judge whether I am too severe in my opinion of their demerits. And you may observe, by the way, that whilst in the earlier styles we have very many points for consideration in studying the characteristics of the style, in this work there is a sacrifice of almost everything else to the desire to introduce in every direction specimens of new and ingenious combinations of tracery. The windows at Paderborn are some of the finest and purest examples of early tracery. They are genuine and noble examples, and quite free from any tinge of the faults of later examples, and worthy of comparison with the best of our own early traceries. The mouldings of these windows are simple, but composed mainly of a succession of bold rolls, and so entirely free from any _lininess_. In the cupola of S. Gereon at Cologne, and a little later in its sacristy are also some good early traceries, whilst most of the windows at Marburg are also examples of the same character. So too are the traceries in one of the Brunswick west fronts, and in the apse of the church of S. Giles in the same city. From these look to the windows of S. Mary, Lemgo, and you have the commencement of the new style, though these are fine windows, boldly and simply conceived and carried out. Next to these come the marvellous series of traceries in