3 1822024634453 presented to the UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO by CAPT. JOHN SINKANKIS 3 1822024634453 Social Sciences & Humanities Library University of California, San Diego Please Note: This item is subject to recall. Date Due FEB 1 9 1999" Cl 39 (5/97) UCSD Lib. LEADWORK 44 'That which gives to the leadwork of the Middle Ages a -particular charm is that the means they employed and the forms they adopted are exactly appropriate to the material. Like Carpentry or Cabinet work, Plumbing was an art apart which borrowed neither from stone nor wood in its design. Mediaeval lead was wrought like colossal gold- smith's WOrk." VIOLLET-LE-DUC. LEADWORK OLD AND ORNAMENTAL AND FOR THE MOST PART ENGLISH. BY W. R. LETHABY WITH I L L V S T R AT I O N S 1893 Macmillan & Co., London & New York, RICHARD CLAY ANI> SONS, LIMITED LONDON AND BUNtiAY. CONTENTS SECT. PAGE I. OF MATERIAL AND CRAFTSMANSHIP I II. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 5 III. OF LEAD COVERINGS TO BUILDINGS 17 IV. OF LEADED SPIRES AND TURRETS 20 V. OF DOMES 33 VI. OF ROOFS 36 VII. OF LEAD COFFINS 40 VIII. OF FONTS 51 IX. OF INSCRIPTIONS, ETC 65 X. OF THE DECORATION OF LEAD 72 XI. OF LEAD ORNAMENTATION OF OTHER MATERIALS 80 XII. OF DECORATIVE OBJECTS 84 XIII. OF LEAD GLAZING 87 XIV. OF LEAD STATUES 90 XV. OF LEAD FOUNTAINS 112 XVI. OF VASES AND GATE PIERS 114 XVII. OF FINIALS AND CRESTINGS 124 XVIII. OF CISTERNS, ETC 131 XIX. OF GUTTERS 137 XX. OF I'IPES AND PIPE HEADS 139 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. 1. EGYPTIAN INSCRIBED TABLET 7 2. GREEK QUIVER 8 3. BUILDER'S PLUMMET 9 4, 5. GREEK WEIGHTS 10 6, 7. GREEK WEIGHTS 1 1 8,9. CISTS FROM THE KIRCHERIAN MUSEUM . . 12 10. ROMAN JEWELLED Cup 14 11. SPIRE, BARNSTAPLE 26 12. ANOTHER" SPIRE 27 13. TURRET, BARNARD'S INN HALL 29 14. CALAIS BELFRY 32 15. ORNAMENTS FROM COFFINS, CONSTANTINOPLE. . 41 16, 17. CISTS, BRITISH MUSEUM 42 18, 19. ROMAN COFFINS, BRITISH MUSEUM 44 20 ROMAN COFFIN, BRITISH MUSEUM 45 21. THIRTEENTH CENTURY COFFIN, TEMPLE CHURCH 46 22,23. THIRTEENTH CENTURY COFFINS, TEMPLE CHURCH 47 24. COFFIN, WINCHESTER 48 25. AT MOISSAC 49 26. VESSEL, LEWES MUSEUM 52 27. FONT, BROOKLAND, KENT 54 28. FONT, BROOKLAND 55 29. FONT, EDBURTON, SUSSEX 57 30 FONT, WALTON, SURREY 59 31. FONT, PARHAM, SUSSEX .... 61 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii FIG. PAGE 32. HEART Box OF KING RICHARD 67 33. INSCRIBED CROSS 68 34. ARMS FROM BOURGES 70 35. INCISED DECORATION, BOURGES 75 36. PAINTED DECORATION, BOURGES 76 37. FLASHINGS, BOURGES 77 38. A VALANCE 78 39, 40. LEAD GLAZING 88 41. VENTILATING QUARRY 89 42. STATUE OF MERCURY 98 43. SUN-DIAL, TEMPLE GARDENS 100 44. CYMBAL PLAYER 106 45. TERMINAL AT CASTLE HILL 107 46. TIME, TEMPLE DINSLEY 108 47. VASE, HAMPTON COURT 115 48. FROM VASE, HAMPTON COURT 116 49. VASE, CASTLE HILL 117 50. ALBERT GATE 118 51. ALBERT GATE 119 52. VASE, KNOLE 120 53. CUPID, TEMPLE DINSLEY 121 54. SPHINX, SYON HOUSE 122 55. SYON HOUSE 123 56. FINIAL AT LILLE 126 57. FINIAL AT ANGERS 126 58. ANGERS i?8 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIG, CAGE 59. FlNlALS, BOURGES 129 60. FROM NEWCASTLE 130 61. POUNDISFORD PARK, TAUNTON 132 62. CISTERN, EXETER 133 63. CISTERN, LONDON 134 64. CISTERN, S. KENSINGTON MUSKUM 135 65. GUTTER, LINCOLN CATHEDRAL 137 66. GUTTER, TAUNTON 138 67. IJRAMHALL, CHESHIRE 140 68, 69. PIPK HEADS, HADDON HALI 141 70. PIPE HEAD, HADDON . . . .' 142 71. BODLEIAN, OXFORD 143 72. ST. JOHN'S, OXFORD 144 73. SHERBORNE 145 74. LIVERPOOL 145 75. ASHBOURXK 146 76. HADDON 147 LEADWORK $ I. OF MATERIAL AND CRAFTS- MANSHIP. TO none of the processes of modern mechanism do more vulgar associations cling than to " Plumbing." It is the very serviceableness and ductility of lead as a material that have brought about the easy and familiar contempt with which it is treated. While few are more worthy of artistic care no metal is more perfectly adaptable to noble use through a range of treatments that cannot be matched by any other metal whatsoever. It combines extreme ease of manipulation with practically endless durability, and a suitability to any scale, from a tiny inkwell, or a medal, to the statue of horse and rider, a Versailles fountain, or the greatest cathedral spire. The range of method in handling follows from the equal ease with which it can be B 2 LEADWORK [SECT. hammered out, cast, or cut, and all three, employed concurrently on the same piece. The main purpose of the pages which follow is not to set out a history of the use of this material in various forms, although this is involved. It is intended by pointing out the characteristics and methods of the art of lead working in the past to show its possibilities for us, and for the future. A picture of what has been done is the best means of coming to a view of what may again be done. But it cannot be too strongly asserted that the forms of past. art cannot be copied; that certain things have been done is evidence enough to show that we can- not do them over again. Reproduction is im- possible ; to attempt it is but to make a poor diagram at the best. Commercially produced imitations of or- namental works are infinitely beneath the merely utilitarian object which serves its purpose and attempts nothing more. Behind all design there must be a personality expressing himself; but certain principles of treatment and methods of working may be understood in some degree by a study of past work without going all through it again. History thus makes the experience of the past available to us, but it does not relieve us of the necessity of ourselves having experiences. There is a great stimulus in feeling one of a chain, and entering into the traditions of a body of art. The workman Bezin said to Mr. i.] OF MATERIAL AND CRAFTSMANSHIP 3 Stevenson of museums, " One sees in them little miracles of workmanship it fires a spark." New design must ever be founded on a strict consideration of the exact purpose to be fulfilled by the proposed object, of how it will serve its purpose best, and show perfect suitability to the end in view when made in this or that material by easy means. This, not the torturing of a material into forms which have not before been used, is the true ground of beauty, and this to a certain extent is enough without any ornamentation. Ornament is quite another mat- ter, it has no justification in service, it can only justify itself by being beautiful. In so far as history is involved here it has been necessary to refer to and to figure many works, not bearing the impress of a fine living style, but only passable exercises in the respectabilities of a sort of conventional design learnt by rote. As a general rule it will be found that the workers of the middle ages penetrated at once to the reason of a thing in structure and then decorated it with an evidence of fresh thought a delight in growth, form, humanity, in one word Nature, the source of all beauty and subject of all art. Each thing made is evidently by an artist; it expresses reasonable workmanship and happy thought in pleasant solution of some necessity of actual service. Many of the later things are not thus natural and spontaneous but pedantic and pompous, fulfilling their chief intention if B 2 4 LEADWORK [SECT. i. they were expensive ; while to-day the chief care of design is often to appear expensive without being so in fact. Only in our century in England would it be possible for the metals which are so especially hers, iron, tin, and lead, to have been so degraded that it is hardly possible to think of them as vehicles of art. It should not be so, for each of the metals can give us characteristics that others cannot, and the capabilities of lead have been sufficiently proved by more than two thousand years of artistic manipulation. The only way in which the crafts can again be made harmonious by beauty is for men with a sense of architectural fitness and a feeling for design to take up the actual workmanship and practise it themselves as they would painting or sculpture, seeking the delight of being good artists not the reputation of being -successful merchants or clever professional men. To any such, lead-working may be recommended. 2. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH. THE ease with which lead ores may be gained from the earth and then worked, is sufficient to show that the application of lead to the service of the arts must have been made very early. Nowhere does it seem to have been so easily found as "in England herself whch is the classic land of lead and tin" (Abbe Cochet). These two metals made the early fame of Brit- ain; they brought here the Phoenician trader and had doubtless much to do with the Roman occupation of this distant island. " Tin and lead," says Harrison in his Descrip- tion of England, " metals which Strabo noteth in his time to be carried into Marseilles from hence, as Diodorus also confirmeth, are very plentiful with us, the one in Cornwall, Devon- shire, and elsewhere in the north, the other in Derbyshire, Weredale, and sundry places of this island. . . . There were mines of lead some- times also in Wales which endured so long till the people had consumed all their wood by melting of the same." 6 LEAD WORK [SECT. Tin, which was of such sovereign necessity for the composition of bronze, was, with lead, an object of wide commerce, as we may learn from the prophecy of Ezekiel against Tyre, whose long black ships did the carrying trade of the world. As the Tarshish of Scripture is the Tartessus of classic authors an entrepot of Phoenician trade in Spain it may well be of English mined metal that the prophet speaks : " Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches ; with silver, iron, tin, and lead they traded in thy fairs." The Assyrian slabs which contain the accounts of the expedition into Syria in the ninth cen- tury B.C. include among the tribute exacted of Tyre and of Jerusalem itself " bars of gold, silver, copper, and lead." Solomon used lead in the structure of the great wall of Jerusalem. Sir H. Layard says the mountains three or four days' journey from Nineveh furnished iron, copper, lead, and silver in abundance, and he found instances of its actual use at Nineveh. Place also, in his excavations at Khorsabad, dis- covered a foundation inscription of Sargon II., the great builder of the eighth century B..C. en- graved on a plate of lead. A leaden jar and a piece of pipe were found by Loftus at Mug- heir. In Egypt it was sparingly used. Sir G. Wilkinson says : " Lead was comparatively .] AN HISTORICAL SKETCH useless, but was sometimes used for inlaying temple doors, coffers and furniture, small statu- ettes of the gods were occasionally made in this metal, especially those of Osiris and Anubis." In Egypt as well as in Babylonia it was the custom to make a deposit of several objects in the foundations, a tradition which we still follow to-day. At Daphnae Mr. Flinders Petrie found a set of little slabs of different stones and small plates of metal, gold, silver, copper, and lead, all engraved with the name of Psamtik. The lead tablet is here figured. The ornamental objects of lead to which the earliest date can be assigned are those found by Dr. Schliemann in his excavations at Mycenas and Tiryns. The Greeks very largely used lead for many purposes. It is twice mentioned in the Iliad, and its familiar use as a building material is shown by Herodotus, who says that Queen Nitocris built a bridge over the river at Babylon, of stone bound together with lead and iron ; and the story the Greek historian gives of the celebrated hanging gardens describes how they were raised on high terraces of arches covered with bitumen and sheets of lead. Sufficient actual examples of Greek lead work 1 See Dr. Schuchardt, translation 1891 (Macmillan). FIG. i. 8 LEADWORK [SECT. are stored up in museums, masonry with dowels of lead, inscribed tablets, small toys and tokens, little vases for eye salve about as large as a thimble, boxes for unguents, and sling bullets. These last are often inscribed so that the warrior might know his work, often with flouts and jibes and jeers. One in the Lewes Museum has ETTEI, " Well done " ; others have " Hit Hard," &c. In the museums of Athens are some small figures, a Dionysiac wreath of gilt lead leaves to be worn as a garland, a lead quiver for arrows about fifteen inches long, also plummets and market weights, with other objects. Mr. Cockerell found that parts of the early pedi- ment sculptures at ^gina were of lead, and lead is inlaid in the volute of the early Ionic capital from the archaic temple of Ephesus now in the British Museum. The plummets are interesting to us as builders' implements ; there are two or three dozen in the British Museum, about three inches high and one inch at the base taper- ing upwards : some are marked with the letter A on one side and on the obverse a little relief, a throne-seat with an owl. The te I i FIG. 2. .] AN HISTORICAL SKETCH owl was Athene's own symbol, and appears on the coinage of Athens in a form from which this seems copied. The Acropolis was her throne. We will stretch our imaginations far enough to believe that the A stands for Athens and that these are the very implements used in setting the masonry of one of the corner stones of the world's art the Parthenon. The market weights are re- markable in bearing devices like the types of coins. For the most part they are square cakes and the devices simple almost to rudeness, yet they have that im- press of style and grace in the design, with the large free handling in which is the exquisiteness of Greek art. A sketchiness so simple and easy can be the only right treatment for a metal so likely to receive injury in the use ; to these as in all art so considered the inevitable injuries of wear are little loss. We can hardly suppose that such a simple industry as making lead weights for the markets would have had artists capable of designing, and suggesting in relief types like these, rather we may suppose that some of the great coiners furnished the models, especially as they would be issued by the au- thorities of the several towns. FIG. 3. 10 [SECT. We may take this first opportunity of re- marking that the patterns for all ornament intended for casting should be modelled like these, never carved, as is now so universally the case for cast iron and the applied enrichments of picture frames, the reason being that cast ma- terial of this sort, so easily injured, is unsuited for giving definition and high relief, and should accept all the limitations of material frankly FIGS. 4 and 5. Greek Weights. and make the most of dull suggestiveness ; for in all these the " best are but shadows " the modelling emerging from or melting away in the ground. In two attempts the present writer has made in modelling for lead casting wax was used in one instance, and in the other, where very delicate relief was required made up mostly of threads and dots, gesso was found to answer. The ram's head (see Fig. 4) for instance has AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 1 1 only the frontal, the lips, and the horn, made out, the rest the imagination sees transparently below the field. In the words of Blake " it is every- thing and nothing." The raised rim is a good protection. The second, a half Mina of ^gina, is yet simpler just a pot, but a beautiful one well placed. The third is Attic, a quarter Dim noun with scarabeus-like tortoise. The last is a Mina FIGS. 6 and 7. Greek Weights. of ^gina, it bears the well-known Greek rendering of the Dolphin and the^ letters M N A A T O P. " Market Mina." The dolphin has the "bowed back" Sir Thomas Browne pointed out as a "popular error" of painters, but the dolphin was to the Greek mind, rather the genius of the waving sea itself than any mere particular fish, and this is the time consecrated form, like this it swims amongst the undulating hair of the Arethusa 12 LEADWORK [SECT. of Syracuse, the most beautiful coin in the world. The Romans used lead extensively and much in the same way as we do for roof coverings and water pipes, in masonry and for coffins. In Rome an immense quantity of lead piping has been found. The pipes were formed of strips of cast lead bent round a rod and then soldered. FIGS. 8 and 9. From the Kircherian Museum. Most of the work was signed by the plumber, his name and that of the owner being impressed in the sand mould. 1 There are many beautiful cistae or circular boxes in the museums of Naples and Rome. These are decorated with little medallions, shells, beaded rods, &c., stock patterns which were impressed in the sand mould in such fresh 1 See Prof. Middleton, Ancient Rome. ii.] AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 13 combinations as the thought of the workmen suggested, just as a cook makes pie crust, which is the subject of nearly the only spontaneous decorative art now remaining to us. Figs. 8 and 9 are from the Kircherian Museum. Of the Roman leadwork in the British Museum the specimens are mostly coffins, and a number of ingots of lead. These " pigs " have been found in Cheshire, Staffordshire, Derby- shire, Nottingham, Norfolk, Hants, Somerset, and Sussex. Of these there are ten in the British Museum bearing names of emperors and dates which, put into our era, are A.D. 49, Claudius; 59, Nero; 76, Vespasian; 81, Domitian ; 117, Hadrian. These pigs are about 4^ by 18 inches ; and even they are not without design, for some of them have the well-known classic label to receive the name. A beautiful object, remarkable as an instance of lead used in an article of price, is a vase some 5 inches high. This is evidently a wine cup from the figures and emblems which decorate it Bacchus, Silenus, thyrsi bound with cords, and four genii of the Seasons carrying appropriate symbols, one being a garland, another a sheaf of corn ; around the middle is a belt set with glass jewels of varied colour, dull reds, greens, and blue, and below this is a wreath of vine (Fig. 10). Compare a very richly decorated vessel in the engravings of the Museo Borbonico. LRADWORK [SECT. Lead water pipes of Roman make are fre- quently found in England ; at Bath there is a water channel I foot 9 inches by 7 inches, of lead nearly one inch in thickness, and sheets of it 10 FIG. io. Roman Jewelled Cup. feet long lined the basin of the great bath, 30 Ibs. in weight to the foot. In the refuse of the Mendip mines Roman lamps and other articles of lead have been found. IK] AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 15 During the Byzantine era lead was much used. In a curious relief found at Tunis " the founder seems to have used up all the old models in his studio. Here a Good Shepherd, Peacocks, and stags drinking from the four mystical rivers, palms and vines, are found side by side with Silenus, a Victory, a Nymph, an Athlete, and scenes of the chase." In Saxon England lead was a staple commodity for export and used in great quantities at home. English merchants of lead and tin are mentioned as attending the French fairs from the time of Dagobert. During the middle ages it was largely applied to many purposes and manipulated by the various methods and decorated with the ornaments, particulars of some of which follow. England was still the best esteemed source of supply. About 1680 M. Felibien wrote a book on the crafts connected with architecture, in which he says that " The greatest part of the lead we use in France comes from England in large ingots called ' Salmons,' a little lead also comes from Germany, but it is dry and not so sweet as the English." Up to the 1 5th century sheet lead was cast only, but a coffin of the Duke of Bedford (Joan of Arc's) at Rouen is already laminated. Lead is an easy medium for the forgery of antiques, and some of the objects so produced are quite pretty. In the museum at Taunton 1 Perate, IS Archtologie Chrttienne. 1 6 LEADWORK [SECT. n. there is a small lead bottle which seems to be a forgery. The Plumbers' Company in London appears to have been in existence early in the fourteenth century. In 1365 (39 Edward III.) ordinances were granted to the Company which had then been in existence some years. In 1588 (31 Elizabeth) arms and crest were granted ; and in, 1611 (9 James I.) a charter was given renewing all powers and privileges. Throughout the middle ages lead was more extensively used in England than elsewhere our cathedral roofs, for instance, were all of lead, whereas abroad they are often of corrugated or flat tiles, stone or slate. The methods of conduct- ing water from the roof by stone gutters and gargoyles was much further developed in France than here, where lead always came to hand. Lead pipes with ornamental heads were first introduced here in England for this purpose, and they reached a development without parallel abroad. During the eighteenth century there was, as we shall see, a large industry in lead statues, and the plumber's art continued to the opening of the present century ; indeed, cisterns decorated with the old devices may be seen as late as 1 840, and some of the old methods have not yet passed entirely out of memory. The Exhibition of 1851 marked exactly the general eclipse of craft tradition. England was no longer to be saved by work, but by commerce. III. OF LEAD COVERINGS TO BUILDINGS. SHEETING buildings with decorative plates of metal has been one of man's architectural instincts. M. Chipiez, in his essay on the origins of Greek architecture, considers first : " The temple, metallic or covered with metal, which obtained in Medea, Judaea, and in Asia Minor. Greek writers like Pausanias speak of edifices having been con- structed of brass ; such was the legendary temple of Apollo at Delphi, that of Athena Calkhioecos in Sparta, and the treasury of Myron, tyrant of Sicyon. In the Eneld the temple erected at Carthage by the Phoenician Dido is also of brass." From Homer to the Arabian NigJits and the mediaeval romance writers, a metal-cased architecture, shining with gold, has been preeminently the architecture of the poets. It would almost seem as if in the Merovin- gian age Western Europe passed through the phase of a metal-cased architecture, but in this case it was lead that formed the external vest- 1 8 LEADWORK [SECT. ment an architecture of lead. " Under the Merovingian kings," says M. Viollet-le-Duc, " they covered entire edifices, churches, or palaces, in lead. St. Eloi is said to have so covered the church of St. Paul des Champs with sheets of lead artistically wrought." In England Bede mentions a parallel instance. Finian the successor of St. Aidan in the See of Lindisfarne built a church after the manner of the Scots of hewn oak with a thatched roof; afterwards " Eadbert also bishop of that place (638) took off" the thatch and covered it both roof and walls with lead." The exaggerated lead roofs of the early mediaeval churches in England were in nowise dictated by utilitarian considerations. The creeping of the lead on steep surfaces, the many burnings, and the great expense in large churches which would take literally acres of lead, made maintenance a burden, but they liked this metal casing, and that was enough. This is still more evident in the mediaeval delight in the tall leaded spires, not in their aspect as mere roof coverings, but intrinsically as metal shrines, looking on them with their decorations as vast pieces of goldsmith's taber- nacle work. The steep pitch of the roof of the main building when applied to a square tower quite naturally produced leaded spires. These already appear in the drawing made of Canterbury Cathedral about the year 1 1 60. HI.] OF LEAD COVERINGS TO BUILDINGS 19 That these metal-sheeted spires were the best loved form, and that stone was adopted at last but as a truce with fire is proved by the spires of lead which appear in the wall paintings (those that were at St. Stephen's for instance), in the MSS., and by the splendid leaded spire of St. Paul's which we shall speak of below. The spire so treated is not a mere roof, or a cheap substitute for stone, but takes its place in metal- cased architecture, as do also the leaded Byzan- tine domes of Sta. Sophia and St. Mark's. In that most splendid work of the English renaissance, the palace of Nonsuch, which was begun by Henry VIII. in 1538, the structure was what we call half-timber, the panels were filled with coloured and gilt reliefs by Italian modellers, and the timber framing is described by Pepys, who visited it in 1665, as sheeted with lead. This casing we may be sure was covered with delicate Italian arabesques. His words are, " One great thing is that most of the house is covered, I mean the posts and quarters in the walls, with lead and gilded." c 2 S IV. OF LEADED SPIRES AND TURRETS. OUR own old St. Paul's, the once highest steeple in the world, which rose 500 feet and more into the clouds, from whence it at last drew the lightning to its destruction, was the proudest example of these lead spires which for beauty at least equalled the finest examples in stone. When the second church, begun at the end of the eleventh century, was but just completed ; " the quire was not thought beautiful enough, though in uni- formity of building it suited with the church : so that resolving to make it better they began with the steeple, which was finished in A.D. 1 22 1." This was the lead-covered steeple, the only spire of the church which stood centrally over the crossing. It was 1312 before the modification of the old church was done, and thenceforth that part was known as the " new work." Within three years afterwards a great part of the spire of timber covered with lead being weak and in danger of falling was taken down and a new cross, with pommel large SECT, iv.] LEADED SPIRES AND TURRETS 21 enough to contain ten bushels of corn, well gilt was set on the top thereof by Gilbert de Segrave the Bishop of London with great and solemn procession, and relics of saints were placed in it. 1 The relics of saints were thus put at the apex as a safeguard from lightning. This lead spire, repaired in 1315, must have been the work spoken of as finished in 1221, and it was thus the earliest lead spire of con- siderable dimensions of which we have any know- ledge : it was an extraordinary development from the square lead pyramids that covered the Norman towers at Canterbury and other places. Stow says the height was 520 feet "whereof the stone-work is 260 feet, and the spire was likewise 260 feet. The cross was 15 feet high by 6 feet over the arms, the inner body was of oak, the next cover was of lead, and the uttermost was of copper red var- nished. The bowl and the eagle or cock were of copper and gilt also." The ball at the apex was three feet across and the weathercock four feet from bill to tail and three feet six inches across the wings. " Certes," says Harrison, " the toppe of this spire where the weathercocke stode was 520 foote from the ground of which the spire was one half." The measurements of Wren confirm the height of the stone tower (which alone was standing in his day) as being 260 feet, the spire, he says, had been 40 feet 1 Longmans, Three Cathedrals. 22 LEAD WORK [SECT. diameter at the base and rose 200 feet or more. It must have been altogether worthy of this vast church of twenty-five compartments in the in- terior vista of arch and vault, 600 feet in greatest length and 100 feet high. In 1444 the spire narrowly escaped destruction by light- ning, but the fire was put out. " In the year 1 56 1, the 4th of June, between the hours of three and four of the clock in the afternoon, the great spire of the steeple of St. Paul's Church was fired by lightning, which brake forth as it seemed two or three yards beneath the foot of the cross : and from thence it went downwards the spire to the battlements, stonework, and bells, so furiously that within the space of four hours the same steeple with all the roofs of the church were consumed to the great sorrow and perpetual remembrance of the beholders." 1 It was thus destroyed a hundred years before the great fire when the cathedral perished. London was a city of lead spires. Stow tells us that at St. Paul's School close by the Cathe- dral was " of old time a great and high clochiard or bell-house, four square built of stone and in the same a most strong frame of timber with four bells the greatest that I have ever heard. The same has a great spire covered with Jead with the image of St. Paul on the top." It was said that Sir Thomas Partridge won it by a throw of dice from Henry VIII., and pulled it down. 1 Stow. iv.] LEADED SPIRES AND TURRETS 23 Stow, who would have thought the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, to which we owe so much good work, much too cautious in its methods, reports with much pleasure, " This man was afterwards hanged on Tower Hill." At St. Bartholomew's Priory, Smithfield, was another of these timber spires. A spire said to have been even higher than this of St. Paul's was erected in the fourteenth cen- tury over the central tower at Lincoln. The two western towers also had spires which were taken down to save the cost of repair within this cen- tury. This group of three great leaded spires crowning the Hill-city must have been one of the most wonderful the whole world over. The central tower as it now stands is 270 feet high 54 feet on the face; it was finished in 1311. " The spire of timber covered with lead reaching a height of 524 feet which once surmounted it was destroyed by a tempest in 1548." l The plates in Dugdale's Monasticon engraved by Hollar and others surprise us by the number of leaded spires to the cathedrals not one of which has survived storm and flames or the crueller hatred of beauty which the modern mind has developed. There are those of the two west towers of Durham, western spires at Canterbury, Peterborough, and Ely, all three at Lincoln, and four smaller pinnacles at Norwich. Two square pyramids shown to the west tower 1 Cathedral Guide. 2 4 LEADWORK [SECT. of Southwell, were probably the original cover- ing of the twelfth century. These are now " restored " and they look as false as the word. The great central spires at Rochester and at Hereford and the central and two western spires at Ripon are shown of lead, as is also that of the beautiful isolated belfry at Salisbury, which was destroyed " to improve the view of the cathedral." Of three of these large central spires shown in Dugdale, Rochester and Here- ford rise from square towers with " broaches " : the first is of a curious and yet happy form, with recessed faces, and the other is an octagon of which the cardinal faces are wider than the alternate sides. The great spire of Ripon rose within the stone parapet of the tower, apparently at first twelve-sided with gables, and the spire itself twenty-four, each pair making a slight re- entering angle a beautiful composition it must have been of light and delicate shadow on the silver white of the old lead. This fair colour is of great importance ; several of the old spires which remain to us are as white as if white- washed. Modern ones, like the grimy thing at Lynn, would be improved by being whitewashed. The old, that at Minster in Kent for instance, tell as bright high lights in a general view of the land- scape such as that you obtain from Richborough. The finest of the English spires now existing constructed of timber and sheeted with lead is that of Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, the highest, iv.] LEADED SPIRES AND TURRETS 25 oldest, and most perfect. The stone tower with octagon projections at the angles, is 25 feet square and 65 high, standing free from the church to which it is attached by one angle only. The fleche itself is 85 feet from the eaves to the top of an enormous relic " pommel " some four feet in diameter, which is thus 150 feet in the air. The four octagonal projections carry large pinnacles 25 feet high, which at a little height disengage themselves wholly from the great fleche, but with consummate art all lean their axes inwards towards it as much as two feet. The wooden framing, carefully measured by Mr. Austin, 1 shows that this grouping of the lines was as much done from set purpose as the incli- nation of the lines in the Parthenon of which we hear so much. Each face of the leading has the rolls arranged in a double row of herringbone, and the faces of the pinnacles have the leading slanting in one direction only. Altogether it is a most interesting and most beautiful work of the thirteenth century. The drawing here given is of the fine old steeple at Barnstaple, which was saved from destruction by the good advice of Sir Gilbert Scott and lack of funds ! It is a delightfully careless and cheerful looking object, like that at Chesterfield, warped and nodding, which outrages the precise sensibilities of the townspeople ; it was erected in 1 389, as appears from the accounts 1 Spring Gardens Sketch Book, vol. v. FIG. ii Spire, Karnslaple. SECT, iv.j LEADED SPIRES AND TURRETS 27 and was repaired and altered in the seventeenth century (as shown by a date and initials, " 1636 W. T."), at which time the spire lights were opened out. The external bells are un- usual in England. There are two other spires of village churches in the neighbourhood at Braunton and Swymbridge. The spires at Chesterfield, Godalming, Almondsbury in Gloucestershire, Wrighton in Northumberland, and Harrow (1481), are among the finest that remain. Of the destroyed church at Reculver the west towers, which are retained as land- marks, had lead spires. In some spires in Norfolk, about Cromer, two or three feet of the lead- ing is omitted, thus forming an open band through which the timbering and a bell hung here may be seen. In some of the spires the lead is laid in vertical IG> I2- TV >r- T-1 strips, as at Minster in i nanet, and a sketch given from a church in Hertfordshire O shows the lower part in a way arcaded by an ingenious arrangement of the rolls. At great Baddow Church, Essex, vertical rolls run up about two-thirds of the spire, and the rest is plain. Generally, however, the lead work is arranged in herring-bone with careful irregu- larity and change so as to get a texture in the LEADWORK [SECT. surface so different to the dead and dreary accuracy we should attain to. Low square spires at Ottery St. Mary are good examples of lead texture for those who see some beauty in the jointing of the armour of a tortoise. The construction of the wood framing of the greater of these spires is a forest of intricate interlacing timbers, the best authority for which is the article Flectie in Viollet-le-Duc, or Burges' drawing of Amiens in his volume of careful studies of the Gothic art of France. The most decorated of these lead spires in England although not very large is at East Harling in Norfolk. It rises within the stone battlement and has an open stage with wood pinnacles and crocketed " flying buttresses " all covered with lead. The sides of the spire proper, very narrow and acute, have the rolls arranged in lozenges instead of the usual herring-bone or vertical lines, the lozenges are on one side as wide as the face, breaking into a zig-zag above, on another side are smaller lozenges three or four in the width changing into one again above: at the apex is a large finial knob. 1 Wren's knowledge of the spire of old St. Paul's possibly led him to try his hand at leaded spires, and the result in some of the City churches, particularly that one on Ludgate Hill that is such a perfect foil for the great dome of St. Paul's, shows his usual assured mastery. The 1 See drawing in Sketch Book of Architectural Association, 1881. IV.] LEADED SPIRES AND TURRETS 29 spire of St. Olave, Hart Street, is said to have a crystal ball at the apex. The smaller turrets on college halls are generally covered with lead in an ogee form. Those at Oxford have often a lozenge raised on each face, that on Barnard's Inn in the City is wholly enveloped in lead. A turret on the alms-houses at Abingdon has large letters and crowns, which are gilt, standing up free on the slant- ing faces. At Hampton Court there are turret roofs, ogee with crockets and finials and little pinnacles set round at the springing. At Nonsuch leaded turrets surmounted the great octagons at the angles, they were probably much deco- rated and certainly of considerable size, making very picturesque compositions, as we may FIG. 13. Barnard's Inn Hall. 3 o LEADWORK [SECT. see in the rude views of the palace which exist. In France and Germany there are many remarkable leaded spires, but we can only stay to mention the steeple at Chalons-sur-Marne, the central fleche at Amiens, and the belfry at Calais. The steeple at Chalons is a most interesting work, large and well-designed, with faint and fascinating remains of a gorgeous scheme of colour decoration patterning the whole surface of the lead with figures and canopies resembling the drawing on stained glass, the lead rolls passing across the design like the iron glazing bars. This was carefully drawn by Burges and illustrated in the Builder for 1856, and the whole spire is represented to scale in the Sketch Book of the Architectural Association for 1883. This is a work of the end of the thirteenth century, and the decoration was done in the following century. It will be well to mention it more particularly later, but as Viollet- le-Duc says that nearly all the lead work of the middle ages was so decorated we may conclude that such a magnificent spire as St. Paul's was not entirely bare of gold and colour. The fleche at Amiens, which rises from the roof some 100 feet of "transparent fretwork which seems to bend to the west wind," is well illustrated in Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionary as well as by Burges. Every resource of the art was lavished on it, pinnacles and niches, lead statues, iv.] LEADED SPIRES AND TURRETS 31 tracery, great circular coronets of pierced cast work. The sheet lead was diapered with fleurs- de-lis, and all was decorated with designs in colour and gold. Although perfectly Gothic in form it is a work of the sixteenth century, and the painting is in the manner of the Re- naissance. At Calais the fine belfry represented in Fig. 1 4, which was completed about 1 600, is in some respects very English in character, while on the other hand it is a northern representative of a class of bulbous spires which are as much cupolas as spires, and were probably often intended as fantastic domes These, although later found all across Europe, from Russia to Belgium, were never naturalised in England on a large scale, our nearest approach to them being in the ogee cupolas of small turrets and lanterns and some of Wren's spires. In Holland they were very much affected in the most extravagant forms, and they are now the constant form of church spire seen in eastern Europe. They seem much at home in such a city as Buda-Pesth, and have doubtless characteristics which endear them to those of Mongolian blood and speech. It is an interesting point to decide whether these forms are in origin actually Eastern " travelled topes as a friend says or whether they are the natural outcome of a combination of spire and dome in a period of extravagant and declin- ing taste. LEADWORK [SECT. iv. Kit;. 14. Calais Belfry. V. OF DOMES. THE Romans covered domes in lead ; during the Byzantine empire they very generally did so. Constantinople in the age of Justinian was a city of lead domes, as it has always since remained. The domes of St. Sophia are still covered with lead laid over the brick- work. This tradition was carried on by the Greek master builders who erected the great mosques for the conquerors. A large mosque has as many as twenty or thirty domes of all sizes grouped about the central one. The bazaars, caravansaries, and bakeries, have long level rows of cupolas. This prospect of dome beyond dome in a succession as of billows is of marvellous beauty in a general view of the city as seen from the sea. The lead is laid over the brickwork, the rolls are very small, and as they have no wood core the lines are very irregular. Some of the lead domes of Constantinople were melon-shaped, that is having large convex gores. A Turkish example of this remains in an ogee-shaped dome at the angle of the Seraglio wall near St. Sophia. 34 LEADWORK [SECT. Most interesting works of* this tradition are the " domes " or rather domical roofs of St. Mark's at Venice. Those eastern-looking forms which give such fantasy to it were raised to their present form on wooden framework in the thirteenth century. They are sheeted with plain rolls except the bulb-formed lanterns, which are much like an umbrella in which every gore has a salient angle, a " ridge and valley." These five timber-framed spire-like domes, erected for their own sake and not lying close to the interior form of the building, in this respect resemble northern spires. The whole group rising over the level front of St. Mark's is a work of the highest imaginative genius. It is not a building with a dome but a building roofed in domes, bubbling over with domes ; and it expresses the metal shrine idea in perfection. The original leaded domes of St. Mark's were copied from those of the church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople, a church built by Justinian. At the Renaissance the leaded dome became a popular commonplace especially at Venice. For the most part these were covered like a roof with ordinary rolls. By forming ribs and panels in the wooden foundation a more elaborate but not more successful aspect is obtained. St. Paul's is well designed in this way. This design with the great ribs Sir Christopher Wren considered " less gothick than sticking it full of rows of little windows " as at St. Peter's. It was first intended v.] OF DOMES 35 to cover St. Paul's dome with copper, but 500 was saved by substituting lead at a cost of 2,500. At the National Gallery a very careful and refined work, one of the last of the old scholarly dead language sort we call classic the lead covering is formed into raised scales and frets, very well and successfully done of its kind. VI. OF ROOFS. THE Romans used lead as a roof covering. In the West " one can hardly (Viollet- le-Duc says) explore the ruins of a Gallo- Roman erection without finding some sheet- lead that had been employed for gutters or roofs." In the East Eusebius says of Constantine's Basilica (the Holy Sepulchre) at Jerusalem " the roof with its chambers was covered with lead to protect it from the winter rain." In England Bede tells us of Wilfrid having roofed his church at York with lead in the seventh century, and it has continued without a break in its use as the most perfect of coverings. The methods employed in the middle ages are described by Burges and Viollet-le-Duc. The latter well remarks that of lead covering, as well as many other parts of the construction of buildings, we are a little too apt to think overmuch of the perfection of our modern methods while we are too little careful to learn the experience acquired by our forefathers. The old cast lead is much thicker than the modern milled lead, being as much as twelve or SECT, vi.] OF ROOFS 37 thirteen pounds to the foot of surface. It is certainly not quite even in thickness, and is subject to faults in the casting, but it is not so liable to crack as is milled lead. The old lead employed has also a considerable quantity of silver and arsenic in it, which was the cause of the beautiful white oxide it obtained. Modern lead blackens as the preparation of lead now includes its " de-silverisation." The acid of timber which has not lost its sap decomposes lead ; old building timber was water-seasoned as only ship timber now is. The chief difficulties that had to be overcome in the use of lead were the weight of the sheets of lead to be maintained in position, and the great dilatation of the metal under the heat of the sun, so that it had to be at once strongly attached and free to move. The method followed was to nail it at the top and roll the lateral edges together. The roofing at Canterbury was of twelve-pound lead and about 2*0 between the rolls. The thirteenth century lead of Chartres Cathedral, " covered externally by time with a patina hard, brown, and wrinkled, and shining in the sun," was in sheets eight feet long, attached at the top by nails with very large heads and held at the bottom by clips of iron that passed down between the sheets and turned over the bottom edge of the upper one. The rolls were formed by turn- ing over the margins one in the other without a 38 LEADWORK [SECT. wood roll ; they were much smaller than the modern ones. Our milled lead is rolled out in sheets about 1 6 x 6 feet and is usually cut in half lengthways, and 4^ inches is allowed in each edge to form the rolls which are thus 2 '-3" apart. Lead one inch thick is sixty pounds to the square foot, so six-pounds lead is / O th of an inch in thick- ness. We generally make the mistake of putting a longitudinal roll along the ridge, but it is not so done in our old roofs, nor should it be, for the running out of the rolls frets the ridge into a simple decoration. The lead covering of old roofs should be jealously maintained its loss is irreparable. If repair becomes absolutely necessary for the protection of the building, such lead should be recast, it should never be replaced by milled lead. The old metal is easily recast on the ground, and this is now frequently done, but not frequently enough. It was cast on a wood table with a projecting margin or curb all round ; on this slid up and down a cross piece notched down to give the proper gauge to the lead which it levelled. Where lead was applied to the vertical or steep planes of dormers or spires the interlocking of the sheets in herring-bone was a practical as well as an artistic expedient. Where nails had to be driven through exposed lead, in repairs or otherwise, flaps like little shields were laid over vi.] OF ROOFS 39 them soldered on the top edge. Lead, where used to incase wood tracery, as in the open work of spires or dormers, was secured by means of laps and rolls without solder so that it was free to expand and contract. The modern plumber is much too apt to employ soldered joints even in structural work. Small openings were made like little dormers, for ventilation of the roof timbers, by dressing a stout piece of lead up into a triangle or half circle in front dying back on the roof with the back turned up under the tiles or slates. Sometimes cast ornaments were applied to a slated roof ; the disc with undulating rays on the slated apex of the north-west tower at Rouen is an instance. VII. OF LEAD COFFINS. IN the later classical period lead was much used for coffins ; several of very fine work- manship have been discovered in Syria, some of these, very delicately ornamented are figured by Perrot,and Chipiez. 1 In the Louvre there is a finely decorated example of the Roman period, and large numbers of Roman lead coffins have been found both in England and in France. There is a very beautifully decorated early Christian coffin in the museum at Cannes, this has a border of vine and birds with monograms of Christ XP. IX 0YC.- Fig. 15 shows portions of ornamentation from a remarkable series of coffins now in the museum of Constantinople. There are some eight or ten of these and all decorated in the most elaborate way with tendrils and medallions beautifully modelled in very slight relief. None of the symbols are definitely Christian, but they evidently belong to the same school as the last named. The neigh- bourhood of Beyrout and the ancient Sidon was 1 History of Art, "Phoenicia." '-' Illustrated by Reber. SECT. VII.] OF LEAD COFFINS the site of the discovery of most of these coffins of early Christian date. The coffins found in England are not so much Roman as strictly Anglo-Roman, for far more have been found here than in any other country, such as have been found in France are near our shores as if certainly made of our lead, and the ornamentation of the English examples has a common likeness in the use of the scallop shell FIG. 15. Ornaments from early Christian Coffins, Constantinople. which is not represented abroad. The compari- son can best be made in a little book by the learned archaeologist Abbe Cochet of Rouen, Les Cercueils de Plomb (1871), in which the examples found in France are figured. These English coffins and sepulchral cists are mostly in the British Museum and at Colchester. The cists are plain circular boxes some ten inches diameter by fourteen inches high ; LEADWORK [SECT. one of these is decorated by simple circles and another has crossed rods of "reel and bead," with applied small panels of chariots and horses. The coffins have been found chiefly in the Lon- don district in the Minories, Stepney, Stratford ; at East Ham, Plumstead in Kent (this last is now in Maidstone Museum) at South fleet and FIGS. 16 and 17. Cists, British Museum. at Colchester and Norwich. They are decorated by rods of " bead and reel " differently arranged on the lids in zig-zags or lozenges, with scallop shells and plain rings placed in the spaces. The rods and shells were evidently separately im- pressed into the flat field of the sand mould and that with the artful carelessness which shows vii.] OF LEAD COFFINS 43 that the designer and the workmen were one and the same person, an artist. With these simple elements compositions are made of quite classic distinction and grace. Mr. Alma-Tadema apparently drew the fine leaden oleander tub in his picture from these coffins, and it makes a perfect flower-pot. A coffin found at Pettham in Kent was decorated by a simple cord which passed around once transversely in the middle and then each of the spaces thus formed on lid, sides, and ends had diagonals of cord. A fragment of one in the museum at Cirencester is more finished and refined, it has a saltire of the twisted bars with terminations at their ends, and in one of the spaces is a small female head. The coffins are made like a modern paper box with a lid lapping over the sides. Some sketches are given from those in the British Museum. That shown in Fig. 19 was of full length (6 ft.) but only a part of the lid remains. The other two (Figs. 1 8 and 20) are less than 4 ft., one of which is ornamented with rings and ropes and curious forms like the letter B. Those at Colchester are like the former. These coffins are all very white with oxide. The French examples have been [found at Boulogne, Beauvais, Amiens, Angers, Rouen, and Valogne near Cherbourg, but none are like the English in having rods of beads with scallop LEADWQRK [SECT. FIGS. 18 and 19. Roman Coffins, British Museum. VII.] OF LEAD COFFINS 45 shells. One has only groups of rings which, simple as it is, makes a design. Another at Rouen has a human head in a circle at the centre with six lions' heads in octagons. That at Valogne has a trunk-shaped lid with flying genii and birds ; and one at Nismes has lions and griffins, and between each pair per- sons planting a vine. There is just enough evidence to show that the use of leaden coffins was continued by the English after they had superseded the Romans. St. Guthlac, Abbot of Croyland, was, Leland says, buried in a sarco- phagus of lead. And St. Dunstan was buried at Canterbury in a lead coffin. Directly after the Conquest we find them in use. At Lewes there FIG. 20. Roman Coffin, British Museum. I ^HKBSl^^^^KM? FIG. si. -Thirteenth Century Coffin. Temple Church. SECT. VII.] OF LEAD COFFINS 47 are two coffins of De Warren (1088), and his wife the daughter of the Conqueror (1085) ; -r FIGS. 22 and 23. Thirteenth Century Coffins, Temple Church. they are covered with the reticulated meshes of a net, both sides and lid as if cast from actual netted cord. At the heads are the names WILLELM, GVNDRADA. St. Dunstan was re-interred in the new work at Canterbury in 1 1 80 in a coffin of lead which was "not plain, but of beautiful plaited work." Some most remarkable coffins thus decorated were discovered in 1841 in relaying the floor of LEADWORK [SECT. JL the Temple Church in London ; the style of their design would show that they were made about the year 1200. They contained the bodies represented above them by the cross- legged stone effigies of knights. These coffins were drawn and published by Mr. Edward Richardson in 1 845, from whose careful drawings are made the accompanying illustrations. The extreme delicacy of the ornament is most remarkable. Here again the pattern design is made up of portions several times repeated in similar or different combinations ; the panels were either cast to the required number and then arranged on a board from which the final mould was made ; or the parts were im- pressed separately in a smooth and level surface of moulding sand, and this with all the rapid ease of self-sufficient art. They are about 6 feet 6 inches long, and some are formed like the stone coffins of the time with a circular end for the head. The sides as well as the covering are de- corated in the richest example by two of the same small Fie. 34. VII.] OF LEAD COFFINS 49 square patterns alternating, and in others by vertical cords at intervals. At Winchester there has recently been ex- posed a fifteenth century coffin bearing on the lid a cross and the arms of the Bishop Courtenay. (Fig. 24.) Later the form was made to conform more closely to the body, being rather a wrapping than a box. That of Henry IV. (1413) at Canter- bury was of this form, as also was that found at Westminster under the tomb of Henry VII., the latter had a small cross at the breast only. The heart-box of Richard Cceur de Lion is mentioned in another place. There is a heart casket in the British Museum, circular and much 50 LEADWORK [SECT. vn. like a flower-pot ; on the lid is the device of a spear-head within a garter, and engraved outside is this inscription :- " Here lith the Harte of Sir Henrye Sydney. Anno Domini 1586." A fine coffin (Fig. 25) is represented in the lead group of the entombment at Moissac in France. This is 1 5th century work. VIII. OF FONTS. ENGLAND is extremely rich in the posses- sion of early fonts in lead ; these are for the most part alike in being of the twelfth or early thirteenth century. Nearly all of them agree in being circular and have other similarities which with many repetitions in their design would seem to relate them to one family. As in Sussex there are in the neighbouring villages of Edburton and Piecombe two fonts substantially alike, and in Gloucestershire another pair, with others that have close resemblances ; they have been claimed for local manufacture, yet a strong case could be made out for most of them coming from one common centre. As, further, there are several specimens in Normandy entirely parallel, the question arises whether the type arose here or there, for there can be no doubt as to one set being indebted to the other. As England was so especially a lead producing and exporting country, and as such a number of these fonts remain with us broadly scattered over the country, while there are but comparatively few in E 2 LEADWORK [SECT. France, and those mostly in Normandy, this, with the local coincidences pointed out, would seem to give us the best claim. FIG. 26. Vessel, Lewes Museum. There is in the Lewes Museum a lead cistern- like object of Saxon work, which is represented in Fig. 26. It is about 14 inches long and 8 inches high, the sides are decorated with triangles of interlacing patterns cast with the lead. It has two handles of iron ; but as it would be much too heavy for a movable vessel, and as the small foreign lead font in Kensington Museum has handles also, it is probably a font. The cross in the decoration would go to confirm this. Some of the fonts of Norman date it cannot be doubted were made in England. But unless we would claim the two figured by Viollet-le- viii.] OF FONTS 53 Due and that at St. Evrault-le-Montford which is similar to ours at Brookland described below, we can hardly claim to have made all our own. Possibly examples were brought here, as was the case with several black stone fonts in England. Some of these lead fonts (that at Wareham for instance) appear to have been cast in one piece. But for the most part they are small low cylinders cast flat in sheet with the ornaments repeated usually more than once in the sand mould ; the casting was then bent round and soldered. In one case, where it is not joined so as to form a cylinder, but with the sides spreading to the top, the band of ornamentation which was straight on the sheet runs up as it approaches the joint in a most amusing way. The patterns consist of delicate scroll-work, arcades and boldly modelled figures 10 or 12 inches high ; a moulding strengthens the upper and lower edges. They stand on stone pedestals. There are altogether some twenty-eight or thirty of these fonts in England. The font at Brookland at Kent is very small, only 1 1 inches high, an arcade surrounds it of two stages in twelve bays. In the upper tier are the signs of the Zodiac with their Latin names, and below the subjects of the labours appropri- ate to the months with their names in Norman French. This scheme of imagery is well known abroad but while often occurring in English MSS. this is one of very few examples of its LEADWORK [SECT. FIG. 27. Font. Hrookland, Kent. VIII.] OF FONTS 55 treatment in sculpture. Although the scale of the figures is small and they are but slightly modelled, there is a great deal of character, appropriateness, and grace, in their gesture. FIG. 28. Font, Brooklaiul. A: comparative table of the usual scenes which accompany the signs has been given in Arch