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Yes indeed, if we had lived in Venice in early days, as islet after islet was built upon, we should have grudged it but little, I think, though we had been merchants and rich men, that the Greek shafted work, and the carving of the Lombards was drawn nearer and nearer to us and blocked us out a little from the sight of the blue Euganean hills or the Northern mountains.
"Le Borgne," I ask, "was any one here?" Le Borgne's cheeks corrugate in wrinkles of bronze that leer an evil laugh, and he pretends not to understand. "Le Borgne, was any one here with you?" Le Borgne shifts his spread feet, mutters a guttural grunt, and puffs out his torch; but the shafted flame reveals his shadow. I can still hear him beside me in the dark.
The melancholy and uncertain gleams that she shot from between the passing shadows fell full upon the rifted arches and shafted windows of the old building, which were thus for an instant made distinctly visible in their ruinous state, and anon became again a dark, undistinguished, and shadowy mass.
Thus, the Pisan Romanesque might in an instant be pronounced to have been formed under some measure of Lombardic influence, from the oblique squares set under its arches; and in it we have the spirit of northern Gothic affecting details of the southern; obliquity of square, in magnificently shafted Romanesque.
For a short time they paced to and fro between its shafted pillars gazing at the spectators grouped around, and evidently, from their jests and laughter, not a little entertained by the scene. As the clock struck twelve, however, all sounds were hushed, and the courtly party stationed themselves on the steps leading to the choir.
In defiance of the legendary terrors which tradition had attached to the original communication, Fenella, followed by Peveril, now boldly traversed the ruinous vaults through which it lay sometimes only guided over heaps of ruins by the precarious light of the lamp borne by the dumb maiden sometimes having the advantage of a gleam of moonlight, darting into the dreary abyss through the shafted windows, or through breaches made by time.
The meanest tower of a freebooting baron or squire who lived by his lance and broadsword, is consecrated by its appropriate legend, and the shepherd will tell you with accuracy the names and feats of its inhabitants; but ask a countryman concerning these beautiful and extensive remains these towers, these arches, and buttresses, and shafted windows, reared at such cost, three words fill up his answer they were made up by the monks lang syne."
The meanest tower of a freebooting baron or squire who lived by his lance and broadsword, is consecrated by its appropriate legend, and the shepherd will tell you with accuracy the names and feats of its inhabitants; but ask a countryman concerning these beautiful and extensive remains these towers, these arches, and buttresses, and shafted windows, reared at such cost, three words fill up his answer they were made up by the monks lang syne."
The ruins of Tintern Abbey and Melrose Abbey, whose solemn influences have inspired the poets of our own age with thoughts akin to the contemplations of their Cistercian founders, belong to a later period of ecclesiastical architecture; for the dwellings of the original monks have perished, and the "broken arches," and "shafted oriel," the "imagery," and "the scrolls that teach thee to live and die," speak of another century, when the Norman architecture, like the Norman character, was losing its distinctive features and becoming "Early English."
He should have a long shafted spoon that sups kail with the Devil. Happy man, happy cavil. He sits above that deals aikers. Hame is hamely, though never so seemly. He hes wit at will, that with angry heart can hold him still. He that is hated of his subjects, cannot be counted a King. Hap and an halfpennie is worlds geir enough. He is fairest dung when his own wand dings him.
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