Accordingly, in the northern climates, the dripstone gathered together
forms a peculiar northern capital, commonly called the Early
English,[47] owing to its especial use in that style.

There would have been no absurdity in this if shafts were always to be
exposed to the weather; but in Gothic constructions the most important
shafts are in the inside of the building. The dripstone sections of
their capitals are therefore unnecessary and ridiculous.

Sec. X. They are, however, much worse than unnecessary.

[Illustration: Fig. XXII.]

The edge of the dripstone, being undercut, has no bearing power, and the
capital fails, therefore, in its own principal function; and besides
this, the undercut contour admits of no distinctly visible decoration;
it is, therefore, left utterly barren, and the capital looks as if it
had been turned in a lathe. The Early English capital has, therefore,
the three greatest faults that any design can have: (1) it fails in its
own proper purpose, that of support; (2) it is adapted to a purpose to
which it can never be put, that of keeping off rain; (3) it cannot be
decorated.

The Early English capital is, therefore, a barbarism of triple
grossness, and degrades the style in which it is found, otherwise very
noble, to one of second-rate order.

Sec. XI. Dismissing, therefore, the Early English capital, as deserving no
place in our system, let us reassemble in one view the forms which have
been legitimately developed, and which are to become hereafter subjects
of decoration. To the forms _a_, _b_, and _c_, Fig. XIX., we must add
the two simplest truncated forms _e_ and _g_, Fig. XIX., putting their
abaci on them (as we considered their contours in the bells only), and
we shall have the five forms now given in parallel perspective in Fig.
XXII., which are the roots of all good capitals existing, or capable of
existence, and whose variations, infinite and a thousand times infinite,
are all produced by introduction of various curvatures into their
contours, and the endless methods of decoration superinduced on such
curvatures.

Sec. XII. There is, however, a kind of variation, also infinite, which
takes place in these radical forms, before they receive either curvature
or decoration. This is the variety of proportion borne by the different
lines of the capital to each other, and to the shafts. This is a
structural question, at present to be considered as far as is possible.

[Illustration: