inted blind arch on each side with trefoiled head within it;
with three lofty pointed windows, each divided into two lights by a
central mullion, and with arch-heads filled with cinquefoil and
quatrefoils; with north buttress so large as to contain a wheel
stair--is the finest part of the cathedral. Above the western window is
a vesica, set within a bevilled fringe of bay-leaves arranged
zigzagwise, with their points in contact. Of this Ruskin said in his
lecture,[165] "Do you recollect the west window of your own Dunblane
Cathedral? It is acknowledged to be beautiful by the most careless
observer. And why beautiful? Simply because in its great contours it has
the form of a forest leaf, and because in its decoration it has used
nothing but forest leaves. He was no common man who designed that
cathedral of Dunblane. I know nothing so perfect in its simplicity, and
so beautiful, so far as it reaches, in all the Gothic with which I am
acquainted. And just in proportion to his power of mind, that man was
content to work under Nature's teaching, and, instead of putting a
merely formal dog-tooth, as everybody else did at that time, he went
down to the woody bank of the sweet river beneath the rocks on which he
was building, and he took up a few of the fallen leaves that lay by it,
and he set them in his arch, side by side for ever."

Six of the stalls with, and several others without, canopies still
survive, and on one of the misereres are the arms of the Chisholm
family, surmounted by a mitre. Three bishops of this name presided in
Dunblane,[166] and the stalls were probably provided by the first,
Bishop James Chisholm, dating between 1486 and 1534. The stalls were
probably brought from Flanders, and the carving is spirited and full of
grotesque figures.[167] Other bishops, who ought gratefully to be
remembered for building done, are Bishop Dermoch (1400-1419) and Bishop
Ochiltree (1429-1447). Maurice, Abbot of Inchaffray and Bishop of
Dunblane (1320-1347), is described as a man of fervent spirit, who gave
great encouragement at the battle of Bannockburn, and was chosen by King
Robert the Bruce as his chaplain and confessor.[168] There are some
vestiges of the bishop's palace still left to the south-west of the
cathedral; and the Bishop's Walk, leading southward not far from the
river, and overshadowed by venerable beech trees, will always be
associated with Leighton, of whom Burnet wrote, "He had the most
heavenly dispositi