There can be no doubt that, whichever class of window we prefer, this invention was of immense practical utility. It rendered possible what was never attained before--the formation of windows of _any_ width which might be wanted, without injury to the beauty of the building. This is, in fact, the great use of the mullion, to enable you to use wider windows than you could use without it--indeed, to render their width unlimited; and the consequence of the invention was the introduction of windows in some cases not less than 30 feet or more in width, and 60 or 70 in height, and that without appearing to make any unseemly gap in the walling, which would otherwise have been the case with a window of one-sixth of the size. After the system was once introduced, it seems to me to have been often more beautifully carried out in England than in France; indeed, I hardly know in France windows of equal beauty with those at Lincoln, Tintern, or St. Mary’s Abbey at York. At a later period excess of tracery became the great vice of the style, but while kept within bounds, it unquestionably was a great element to its perfection; and though it must always be remembered that a building of any amount of beauty and dignity can be designed without it, it would be placing upon ourselves a very foolish restriction if, merely from an individual preference for the earlier and sterner style, we were to debar ourselves from the use of so convenient and reasonable an element. [Illustration: Figs. 103, 104, 105, 106, 107.--Base moulds of Buildings.] One feature in which the English works of this period appear to me to be peculiarly excellent is the base moulds; I do not mean of columns, but of the building itself. I have never seen any in France to equal many of our own in the quality of appearing eminently fitted to support the whole structure, or in the artistic arrangement of their parts. Against this we may balance on the other side the French cornices and foliated bands, which are one of their most beautiful characteristics. They usually consist of two courses--a hollow projecting moulding containing the foliage, capped by a weather moulding--the equivalent respectively of the bell and abacus of the capital; indeed, in many cases forming the continuation of the capitals of window jambs across the intervening piers. We have in many cases cornices equivalent to these--as at York, Howden, and the nave of Lichfield; but they are, on the whole, a much less English than French feature. The foliage they contain is usually of great beauty, and eminently suited to its position.