Gothic forms which it
unites.

Sec. LXXX. There have been made lately many subtle and ingenious endeavors
to base the definition of Gothic form entirely upon the roof-vaulting;
endeavors which are both forced and futile: for many of the best Gothic
buildings in the world have roofs of timber, which have no more
connexion with the main structure of the walls of the edifice than a hat
has with that of the head it protects; and other Gothic buildings are
merely enclosures of spaces, as ramparts and walls, or enclosures of
gardens or cloisters, and have no roofs at all, in the sense in which
the word "roof" is commonly accepted. But every reader who has ever
taken the slightest interest in architecture must know that there is a
great popular impression on this matter, which maintains itself stiffly
in its old form, in spite of all ratiocination and definition; namely,
that a flat lintel from pillar to pillar is Grecian, a round arch Norman
or Romanesque, and a pointed arch Gothic.

And the old popular notion, as far as it goes, is perfectly right, and
can never be bettered. The most striking outward feature in all Gothic
architecture is, that it is composed of pointed arches, as in Romanesque
that it is in like manner composed of round; and this distinction would
be quite as clear, though the roofs were taken off every cathedral in
Europe. And yet, if we examine carefully into the real force and meaning
of the term "roof" we shall perhaps be able to retain the old popular
idea in a definition of Gothic architecture which shall also express
whatever dependence that architecture has upon true forms of roofing.

Sec. LXXXI. In Chap. XIII. of the first volume, the reader will remember
that roofs were considered as generally divided into two parts; the roof
proper, that is to say, the shell, vault, or ceiling, internally
visible; and the roof-mask, which protects this lower roof from the
weather. In some buildings these parts are united in one framework; but,
in most, they are more or less independent of each other, and in nearly
all Gothic buildings there is considerable interval between them.

Now it will often happen, as above noticed, that owing to the nature of
the apartments required, or the materials at hand, the roof proper may
be flat, coved, or domed, in buildings which in their walls employ
pointed arches, and are, in the straitest sense of the word, Gothic in
all other respects. Yet so far forth as the roofing alo