occupying their place. The voussoirs, thinking their great adversary
utterly defeated, are at no trouble to show themselves; visible enough
in both the upper and under archivolts, they are content to wait the
time when, as might have been hoped, they should receive a new
decoration peculiar to themselves.

Sec. XI. In this state of paralysis, or expectation, their flank is turned
by an insidious chamfer. The edges of the two great blank archivolts are
felt to be painfully conspicuous; all the four are at once beaded or
chamfered, as at _b_, Fig. LXX.; a rich group of deep lines, running
concentrically with the arch, is the result on the instant, and the fate
of the voussoirs is sealed. They surrender at once without a struggle,
and unconditionally; the chamfers deepen and multiply themselves, cover
the soffit, ally themselves with other forms resulting from grouped
shafts or traceries, and settle into the inextricable richness of the
fully developed Gothic jamb and arch; farther complicated in the end by
the addition of niches to their recesses, as above described.

Sec. XII. The voussoirs, in despair, go over to the classical camp, in
hope of receiving some help or tolerance from their former enemies. They
receive it indeed: but as traitors should, to their own eternal
dishonor. They are sharply chiselled at the joints, or rusticated, or
cut into masks and satyrs' heads, and so set forth and pilloried in the
various detestable forms of which the simplest is given above in Plate
XIII. (on the left); and others may be seen in nearly every large
building in London, more especially in the bridges; and, as if in pure
spite at the treatment they had received from the archivolt, they are
now not content with vigorously showing their lateral joints, but shape
themselves into right-angled steps at their heads, cutting to pieces
their limiting line, which otherwise would have had sympathy with that
of the arch, and fitting themselves to their new friend, the Renaissance
Ruled Copy-book wall. It had been better they had died ten times over,
in their own ancient cause, than thus prolonged their existence.

Sec. XIII. We bid them farewell in their dishonor, to return to our
victorious chamfer. It had not, we said, obtained so easy a conquest,
unless by the help of certain forms of the grouped shaft. The chamfer
was quite enough to decorate the archivolts, if there were no more than
two; but if, as above noticed in Sec. III., the