ws, the
forms of which are repeated on the north and south, breaking the line
of the two historical tiers of niches which, with the Resurrection
tier, adorn this main division of the front. A bold string course
marks it off firmly and decisively from the fourth and upper division,
in which the three parts of the front become separate, the towers at
each side and the stepped gable, flanked by two graceful Early English
pinnacles, in the middle. The statuary is mainly confined to the
arcading of the second division, to the buttresses of the third, with
its continuous cornice of the Resurrection tier, and to the gable
front of the fourth; but the amount of it is largely increased by the
fact that the work is carried round three sides of the north-western
tower, which only touches the church on one side. The niches on the
sides of the south-western tower are almost empty.

THE STATUARY.--The statuary is not only the finest collection of
medieval sculpture to be found in England; but, separately, the
figures are with few exceptions finer than any others in this country,
while some of them are almost as beautiful as the greatest
masterpieces in Italy or France. It is strange that here, at the
outset of the Gothic period, the chief characteristics of the old
Greek spirit should be so apparent, the same restraint, the same
simplicity, the same exquisite appreciation of light and flowing
drapery: in other things there is difference enough, the form is less
perfect, the action is less free, though there is a deeper sentiment
and a higher power of spiritual expression; but in the essentials of
sublime statuary there is a singular agreement.

And, strange though it seems, it may well be that in these statues one
must look for the first signs of the influence of the Renaissance in
England. Romanesque work has but just died out, and already the old
spirit, destined in time to supplant the architecture which sprung
from it, is at work again. While the statues were being cut at Wells,
Niccola Pisano was reviving sculpture in Italy under the inspiration
of classical examples; and there can be little doubt but that it was
Italian sculptors who produced the statuary at Wells. Some of the
figures on the northern part of the front have been found to be marked
with Arabic numerals (_Somerset Proceedings_ 1888, i. 57, 62), and
these numerals, which did not become common in England till the
sixteenth century, were used in Italy long before,