y are a
kind of stone lace-work, required for the ornamentation of the building,
for which the statues are often little more than an excuse, and of which
the physical character is, as above described, that of ghosts of
departed shafts.

Sec. VIII. There is, of course, much rich tabernacle work which will not
come literally under this head, much which is straggling or flat in its
plan, connecting itself gradually with the ordinary forms of independent
shrines and tombs; but the general idea of all tabernacle work is marked
in the common phrase of a "niche," that is to say a hollow intended for
a statue, and crowned by a canopy; and this niche decoration only
reaches its full development when the Flamboyant hollows are cut
deepest, and when the manner and spirit of sculpture had so much lost
their purity and intensity that it became desirable to draw the eye away
from the statue to its covering, so that at last the canopy became the
more important of the two, and is itself so beautiful that we are often
contented with architecture from which profanity has struck the statues,
if only the canopies are left; and consequently, in our modern
ingenuity, even set up canopies where we have no intention of setting
statues.

Sec. IX. It is a pity that thus we have no really noble example of the
effect of the statue in the recesses of architecture: for the Flamboyant
recess was not so much a preparation for it as a gulf which swallowed it
up. When statues were most earnestly designed, they were thrust forward
in all kinds of places, often in front of the pillars, as at Amiens,
awkwardly enough, but with manly respect to the purpose of the figures.
The Flamboyant hollows yawned at their sides, the statues fell back into
them, and nearly disappeared, and a flash of flame in the shape of a
canopy rose as they expired.

Sec. X. I do not feel myself capable at present of speaking with perfect
justice of this niche ornament of the north, my late studies in Italy
having somewhat destroyed my sympathies with it. But I once loved it
intensely, and will not say anything to depreciate it now, save only
this, that while I have studied long at Abbeville, without in the least
finding that it made me care less for Verona, I never remained long in
Verona without feeling some doubt of the nobility of Abbeville.

Sec. XI. Recess decoration by leaf mouldings is constantly and beautifully
associated in the north with niche decoration, but requires