Commencing, then, with its abstract beauty, I will not treat this as a comparative, but as a positive, quality. Differences of taste and education lead us to form varied estimates of the relative merits of the several styles of art, but the most devoted follower of classic antiquity could scarcely question the absolute and intrinsic beauty of a Gothic cathedral. Every style of architecture has had its own glories. The mighty Hall at Karnac; the Hall of Xerxes at Persepolis; that model of symmetry, the Parthenon; the Coliseum at Rome; and that gorgeous congeries of domes which canopied the shrine of Holy Wisdom at Constantinople, all rank among the most noble of the works of man; but who is there so prejudiced as to deny the worthiness of those glorious temples which preside in august serenity over the cities of Northern Europe to an equal place in our admiration? Surely, if abstract beauty and intrinsic grandeur alone are considered, the cathedrals of Amiens, of Rheims, of Chartres, of Bourges, of Strasburg, of Cologne, of Lincoln, Salisbury, or York, with a hundred others, will not suffer by comparison with the works of any previous age? Nay, I am convinced that an unprejudiced umpire would go much further, and pronounce them in most respects far superior to the works of earlier ages; but my argument only requires that they should be admitted as their equals. The next claim I will state is this--that as trabeated architecture was brought to its highest perfection by the Greeks, so the other great type of construction, arcuated architecture, was perfected by the Mediæval builders; the round-arch variety in the twelfth, and the pointed-arch in the two succeeding centuries. No one who gives the subject a moment’s consideration will doubt the enormous advantages of the arcuated over the trabeated system: indeed, with the materials we have at command in this country, the former style in its purity is in most cases impracticable, as is shown by half our modern attempts at it being in reality arcuation plastered over to look like trabeation. The peculiar advantages of the pointed arch (though I do not urge them to the exclusion of other forms) are its greater power of carrying weight; its lessened thrust; the facility with which it proportions its height to that of its supporting jambs, and the general feeling of the building in which it is used, whether more or less vertical in its tendency; and its great advantages in groined vaulting.