We have followed out our arched construction, and the process by which it was rendered at once susceptible and productive of artistic beauty, till we might fancy it to need nothing but the gradual additions of refined art to render it a perfect style; and it would be both an interesting and a profitable field of speculation to take up the style at such a point, and to study how best to clothe it with the charms of the highest art, irrespective of our knowledge of its historical destiny; how, in fact, to perfect our round-arched style to the highest and most refined artistic status; and I feel that any one who could fulfil such a task would be a benefactor to our art. The semicircle is unquestionably the typical form for an arch, and one well suited to the majority of purposes and positions. I therefore wish well to him who will push a style which claims it as its leading element to its highest possible pitch of perfection. I should rejoice to see a round-arched style rendered as perfect, and its accompanying art as noble, as the Greeks did their trabeated architecture and its ever-glorious sister arts; nor do I see why such an end should not be attained, and God speed the man who worthily attempts it! This task was, in fact, nobly though unconsciously approached by the artists of the twelfth century; nor can any one examine their works, particularly from the close of the first quarter of that century, without being filled with the warmest admiration at their determined strivings after refinement; their earnest aim to perfect every form, and to eliminate every footstep of barbaric element; to rid their work of all rudeness of execution; and in every way within their reach to raise the architecture they were developing into a really high art. These earnest and restless strivings, however, had the effect of rendering apparent to them a defect, both structural and artistic, in the conditions prescribed by a round-arched style. They had freed themselves from the trammels of the arbitrary rules of proportion, and might render their structures lofty or the reverse at pleasure: their columns might be as short and sturdy as the most archaic Doric, or might outdo the most elegant Corinthian in the lightness of their proportions; yet the arch they were condemned to carry was limited in height to one-half of its own diameter; or, if allowed to exceed this, by means of stilting, this was evidently but a clumsy expedient, and only suited to particular positions.