Having now arrived at the point where Gothic architecture reached its climax, we may briefly sum up its leading characteristics. It is essentially pointed or vertical; its details are mostly geometrical in its window traceries, clusters of shafts and bases, but this geometric quality is only one of construction and form and not of its inner spirit and motive, for plants copied directly from nature were used in beautiful profusion. If we compare a large Gothic church with a comparatively small one, we shall find the columns, windows, ornaments of the former are not so very much larger than those of the latter, but that there are double or three times the number of them. This is not the case in a classical building, where each feature has to be enlarged in proportion to the size of the building. It is the constant sub-division of a Gothic Church which adds so to its apparent size. Ornamentally, the Gothic is the geometrical and pointed elements repeated to their utmost and afterwards combined with the elaboration of natural objects, plants, flowers, etc., growing in the neighbourhood of the work. This is a great feature, but the most striking point in all good Gothic work is the wonderful elaboration of geometric tracery, vesicas, trefoils, quatrefoils and an immense variety of other ornament. In regard to the sizes of our great churches it may be of interest to note that our longest English cathedral is Winchester. York and Lincoln, although not so long as Winchester, are in superficial area very much larger. The largest English church of a non-cathedral rank is Westminster Abbey, which has, moreover, the distinction of being the loftiest internally; the nave being 104 ft. in height. The largest parish church is that of S. Nicholas, Great Yarmouth, which exceeds in superficial area no fewer than eight of our cathedrals. [Illustration: Examples of Perpendicular Ornament. Panel. Crocket. Tudor Rose. Portcullis. Fleur de Lys.] CHAPTER VI. THE PERPENDICULAR STYLE. Towards the close of the XIVth century a great change came over English Gothic architecture, a change which was to a certain extent a return to classical ideas. The curvilinear tracery gave place to a rigid vertical and horizontal form, with the result that windows and panels instead of being filled with curved bars of stone, were sub-divided by straight perpendicular bars and transoms or cross-bars.