Architectural Reveries.

light streaming through them , imparted an almost supernatural effect , as of pictures of coloured . other ; and with these advantages neither the defective drawing of the period , nor the necessity of surrounding every feature of a different colour ivith the broad line-joints of lead-work , materially

injured the grandeur and imposing richness of those A ast pictorial compositions ivhieh at once both decorated and lighted the great cathedrals of the thirteenth , fourteenth , aud "fifteenth centuries . Tho great painted windows ivas , in fact , the most striking triumph of Mediioval artand it ivas its

, great success which led to the continually increasing size of the windows as a field for this kind of church decoration , which proved itself so much more brilliant than any profusion of painting or gilding could possibly be on the opaque walls . Hence arose tho extreme development of another

striking feature in the Gothic architecture—the buttress—the increased strength of which was rendered necessary by the abstraction of such large portions of the Avails as windoiv space ; ancl , with the increased size and importance of this featurearose the necessity for its decoration

, , during ivhieh process , with its canopied niches and fretted pinnacles , it became one of the leading features in the external architecture of our Gothic cathedrals .

With the increased decoration of the Avindows in ecclesiastical buildings , those of private dwellings proportionately increased in richness and appropriateness of ornament , and in general delicacy of architectural treatment . In great cities , indeed , window decoration developed itself in an

exuberance of artistic device that often renders each AA'indoiv quite an artistic study in itself . Tracery ivas not resorted to so profusely as in church AvidoAvs , Avhere ib was a necessary support in such wide openings ; but its beauty was so strongly felt that architects could scarcelbe

exy pected to abandon it altogether in their domestic architecture . Yv e therefore find it introduced in the upper parts of ivindoAvs where it would not obstruct the look-out . The amount of this tracery in the Avindows of domestic architecture greatly

differed in different countries , being most profuse in Venice , and in parts of Spain , and perhaps least so in Germany ancl Flanders , ivhere , on the other hand , the Church Gothic found its greatest degree of exuberance . . If , however , in the Avindows of the household facade the features of tracery were

but sparingly used by Gothic architects , they found a . vent for their skill in this class of decoration in tho traceried framework with which they often surrounded their dormer ivindoivs , some of the work of which is more rich and delicate than any to bo found in churcharehictectnre ; among other

, examples , those of the Hotel des Mathurins at Paris , and of the Palais de Justice at Rouen , may bo cited as extremel y beautiful . And while tracery was thus made available for the gabled top and its surroundings in the dormer window , the

decoration of those of the facade by means of the enrichments of the- architrave , and the introduction of a surmounting label , decorated with appropriate ornament in allusion to the profession or trade of the owner of the house , led to a distinct class of ornament iu domestic windows which had not

developed itself in those of the churches . Even the painted glass was not entirely neglected by the Gothic architect of domestic architecture ; but the windows of ordinary houses had to be considered as things of use , as Avell as decoration . They had to be seen throughas well as to admit light ; and

, yet a means ivas found to introduce it , without inconvenience , by the adaptive skill of those true artists ; and in the upper part of the window , far above the eve-line , painted shields of arms and

other brilliantly-coloured ornaments wore introduced , adding greatly to the richness of the interior decoration , Avithout impeding the view from the window , or materially decreasing the supply of light . The richness and delicacay of ivindoiv

ornamentation which arose in the next great architectural epoch ( that of the revival ) ivas of extraordinary beauty and almost endless variety , so much so that to dwell fitly upon its marvellous details ivould bo impossible in this essay ; but those of Heidolburg , those of the chateaux of Francis I .

and Henri II . of Prance , and many most exquisite and ivell knoivn examples in Germany , Spain , and Italy , should be carefully studied by all ivho ivould fully understand and appreciate the history of window architecture .

ToAvards the close of the seventeenth and durumthe Avhole of the eighteenth century , the treatment of this architectural feature has but an inferior story to toll ; and yet art was not then in a rapid decadence , as has "been till recently thought ancl stated . It had but assumed a neiv phase , and

succumbed , as it were , to a neiv influence . It Avas less profuse of striking ornament , less demonstrative , but in many respects more delicate and refined , especially in the last half of the oft-decried eighteenth century ; and had not the great revolution—the Neapoleonic era ivith its classic mania

•—and the subsequent reaction in favour of Medirevalism interrupted the onward course of the styles of art wliich were developing themselves in the eighteenth century , they might have rapidly led to very interesting and beautiful results , the precise character of which can never now be known .

Ihe neiv power to ivhieh the direction of art had partially unci gradually succumbed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was that of the rapidly increasing female influence . It is in fact , to this kind of influence that the greater delicacy ancl refinementand the less demonstrative

, and somewhat more colourless character of art in those epochs may be traced . The exclusively female qualities of mind had been in matters of art , as in many other fields of human activity , almost a dead letter before those periods ; but