on the altars; men could behold the blue heaven through those tall, narrow-pointed eastern windows of the Gothic choir as they sat at vespers. . . .  The cloud of incense breathed a sweet perfume; the voice of youth was tuned to angelic hymns; and the golden sun of the morning, shining through the coloured pane, cast its purple or its verdant beam on the embroidered vestments and marble pavement.” [18] Or read the extended rhapsody which closes the first volume, where, to counteract the attractions of classic lands, the author passes in long review the sites and monuments of romance in England, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France.  Aubrey de Vere says that nothing had been so “impressive, suggestive, and spiritually helpful” to him as Newman’s “Lectures on Anglican Difficulties” (1850), “with the exception of the ‘Divina Commedia’ and Kenelm Digby’s wholly uncontroversial ’Mores Catholici’” (1831-40).

THE STUDY OF MEDIAEVAL ART.—­The correlation of romantic poetry, Catholic worship, and mediaeval art has been indicated in the chapter upon the Pre-Raphaelites, as well as in the foregoing section of the present chapter.  But the three departments have other tangential points which should not pass without some further mention.  The revival of Gothic architecture which began with Horace Walpole[19] went on in an unintelligent way through the eighteenth century.  One of the queerest monuments of this new taste—­a successor on a larger scale to Strawberry Hill—­was Fonthill Abbey, near Salisbury, that prodigious folly to which Beckford, the eccentric author of “Vathek,” devoted a great share of his almost fabulous wealth.  It was begun in 1796, took nearly thirty years in building, employed at one time four hundred and sixty men, and cost over 273,000 pounds.  Its most conspicuous feature was an octagonal tower 278 feet high, so ill constructed that it shortly tumbled down into a heap of ruins.[20]

The growing taste for mediaeval architecture was powerfully reinforced by the popularity of Walter Scott’s writings.  But Abbotsford is evidence enough of the superficiality of his own knowledge of the art; and during the first half of the nineteenth century, Gothic design was applied not to churches, but to the more ambitious classes of domestic architecture.  The country houses of the nobility and landed gentry were largely built or rebuilt in what was known as the castellated style.[21] Meanwhile a truer understanding of the principles of pointed architecture was being helped by the publication of archaeological works like Britton’s “Cathedral Antiquities” (1814-35), Milner’s “Treatise on Ecclesiastical Architecture” (1811), and Rickman’s “Ancient Examples of Gothic Architecture” (1819).  The parts of individual buildings, such as Westminster Abbey and Lincoln Cathedral, were carefully studied and illustrated with plans and sections drawn to scale, and measurement was substituted for guesswork.  But the real restorer of ecclesiastical Gothic in