I think that our experience of the last few years has suggested to us: first, the expediency of returning in some modified degree to the rule from which we had departed, of adopting as our normal type the architecture of _one_ period, and that not the very earliest though still an _early_ period; but, secondly, the desirableness of not making our self-imposed rule too strait; of, thirdly, making our revival distinctly _English_; though, fourthly, not refusing to enrich and amplify our English revival with the spoils of our foreign study. I would, then, suggest that, while your basis should be the earliest form of what has been called “_complete_ Gothic” (such, for example, as that of Westminster Abbey, the eastern part of Lincoln, Newstead Abbey, and the nave of Lichfield), this should be taken rather in a _representative_ than in a _literal_ sense; that your revived style and its developments should, in short, be based on the earlier and more vigorous half of Mediæval architecture, which earlier half should be _represented_ by its central point, _as a nucleus_ round which it rallies, and into which the beauties of the _whole_ may be collected; that the point chosen should be _inclusive_ of much which preceded and followed it, and _exclusive_ of nothing with which it will consistently amalgamate. Nor would I condemn as latitudinarian an occasional departure, either forward or backward, from this _point de départ_; only asking that the early styles may be, in a certain degree, viewed as _one_ in our revival, rather then split up into _many_, and their details, with proper judgment and self-restraint, be considered capable of being united, when occasion seems really and distinctly to call for it, in one work, or the earlier and less early forms be used, as may be preferred, for buildings intended to express more of vigour or of delicacy. I would not, however, advocate too free a use of this liberty, and would therefore propose that the early “completed” style, of which Westminster Abbey is our great type, should be always viewed as our _central and normal type and rallying-point_.[89]