THE INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL AND CHAPTER HOUSE.[ToC]
he ground plan of Salisbury is a well-proportioned double cross with the arms, of the choir transepts, more important than usual. Indeed, the exquisitely proportioned and balanced symmetry of every portion, as of the whole, which almost places Salisbury among classic buildings, is as marked in its ground plan as in any part of the building. As an appreciative student of the building has written: "This is the great beauty of Salisbury, the composition of its mighty body as a whole. So finely proportioned and arranged are its square masses of different heights and sizes, so splendid are the broad effects of light and shadow they produce, so appropriate is the slant of the roof lines, and so nicely placed and gracefully shaped are the simple windows, that for once we can give no thought of regret either to the circling apses of continental lands or the rich traceries and surface carvings and figures—sculptures of later generations. The whole effect is in the strictest sense architectural. Few large buildings teach so clearly the great lesson that beauty in a building depends first of all upon composition, not decoration; upon masses, not details; upon the use and shaping, not the ornamentation of features; and very few show half so plainly that mediæval architects could realize this fact. We are too apt to think that Gothic art cannot be individual without being eccentric, or interesting without being heterogeneous ... but Salisbury is both grand and lovely, and yet it is quiet, rational, and all of a piece, clear and smooth, and refined to the point of utmost purity. No building in the world is more logical, more lucid in expression, more restful to the mind and eye."[7]
THE NAVE, LOOKING WEST.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Poulton.[ToList]
The number of its pillars, windows, and doorways is said to equal the hours, days, and months of the year; hence the local rhyme, attributed, on the authority of Godwin, to a certain Daniel Rogers:
"As many days as in one year there be,
So many windows in this church we see;
As many marble pillars here appear
As there are hours throughout the fleeting year;
As many gates as moons one year does view—
Strange tale to tell! yet not more strange than true."