This architecture, though a lineal descendant of those of the old world, was, when in the fulness of its development, so absolutely diverse from them that they can in no way be compared by likeness, but only by contrariety. It was an absolutely new phase of art, bearing no kind of resemblance to its early progenitors. Where their characteristics were horizontality of line, directly downward pressure, a clinging closely to mother-earth, and an imperturbable repose,--we may almost say an eternal sleep,--those of this new creation were an upward soaring, an apparent inversion of gravitation into a striving towards heaven, and a vivacious wakefulness in every feature. Constructively, instead of the mere support of dead weight, its principle is the systematic balancing of an infinity of diagonal pressures; yet this, though a constructive fact, is not an artistic characteristic, for in its more spiritual effects, weight and thrust seem to be annihilated, and converted into upward striving, so that the archivolt, the flying buttress, and the ribs of the vaulted roofs, seem rather the medium of upward than of downward pressure. In elegance and expressiveness of detail, no previous style had surpassed it; in endless variety of imagination or in spirituality of sentiment, none had ever approached it. It was the greatest marvel that architectural art had produced, and it united all these magic qualities with a gravity and solemnity in the temple, a stern solidity in the castle, an asceticism in the monastery, a quiet, retiring sentiment in the seat of learning, a cheerfulness in its civic and domestic structures, and a deeply touching expression in its sepulchral monuments, which no style could possibly go beyond, and none have yet equalled. It presented, too, during its course, a beautiful series of variations. Its earliest phase stern and precise, with details rivalling the Greek in the studiousness of their contour; in its second, lighter and less severe; in its third, branching off into an infinity of charming lines, suggestive almost of vegetable growth; and in its last, while returning rather to earlier rigidity, indulging in new developments scarcely foreshadowed by its earlier forms. Thus, at Glastonbury, at Salisbury, in the choir of Westminster, in the naves of York and Winchester, and in the Chapels of King’s College and of Henry VII. we have a series of works, all belonging to the same general type of architecture, yet presenting diversities the most marked and beauties the most varied. Nor was it alone in its successive periods that varied phases were produced. Each country in which it flourished had its own series of national and provincial types. Thus, in France, in England, in Germany, in Spain, and in Italy, and even in far-off Scandinavia, we find it adopting ever-changeful forms, though all belonging to the same great stem.