it is at Lincoln, than to leave it, as it is at
York, half afraid, as it were, to proclaim its own existence.

Coming to the east end, we again find, as at the west, Lincoln throwing
away great advantages by a perverse piece of sham. The east window of
Lincoln is the very noblest specimen of the pure and bold tracery of its
own date. But it is crusht, as it were, by the huge gable window above
it--big enough to be the east window of a large church--and the aisles,
whose east windows are as good on their smaller scale as the great window,
are absurdly finished with sham gables, destroying the real and natural
outline of the whole composition. At York we have no gables at all; the
vast east window, with its many flimsy mullions, is wonderful rather than
beautiful; still the east end of York is real, and so far it surpasses
that of Lincoln.

On entering either of these noble churches, the great fault to be found is
the lack of apparent height. To some extent this is due to a cause common
to both. We are convinced that both churches are too long. The eastern
part of Lincoln--the angels' choir--is in itself one of the loveliest of
human works; the proportion of the side elevations and the beauty of the
details are both simply perfect. But its addition has spoiled the minster
as a whole. The vast length at one unbroken height gives to the eastern
view of the inside the effect of looking through a tube, and the
magnificent east window, when seen from the western part of the choir, is
utterly dwarfed. And the same arrangement is open to the further objection
that it does not fall in with the ecclestiastical arrangements of the
building....

In the nave of York, looking eastward or westward, it is hard indeed to
believe that we are in a church only a few feet lower than Westminster or
Saint Ouens. The height is utterly lost, partly through the enormous
width, partly through the low and crushing shape of the vaulting-arch. The
vault, it must be remembered, is an imitation of an imitation, a modern
copy of a wooden roof made to imitate stone. This imitation of stone
construction in wood runs through the greater part of the church; it comes
out specially in the transepts, where a not very successful attempt is
made to bring the gable windows within the vault--the very opposite to the
vast space lost in the roofs at Lincoln. Yet with all this, many noble
views may be got in York nave and transepts, provided only the beholder
takes