Fig. 117.—Ely Cathedral, Eastern Front.
It forms one of the finest specimens of the Early English style. The noble development of its triforium is an inheritance from the Norman church, with whose levels it was made to range. The liberal use of Purbeck marble adds vastly to the beauty of the work: the pillars are entirely of this material, including even their richly foliated capitals, as are the long and elaborately carved corbels which carry the vaulting shafts.
The carrying out of the whole—its proportions, its details, its mouldings, the massive strength of its construction, united with just a sufficient degree of lightness, the great elegance of its vaulting, and the grandeur of its eastern façade—render it one of the most valuable objects of study which we possess. The tomb of its founder is a wonderful work of art—a canopied effigy surrounded by statuettes, angels, and even subjects, all in a single block of Purbeck marble.
There are other works of our period at Ely, and fine ones; but we must not linger there, but proceed onward to Peterborough.
If the three great arches which form the west front here are to be viewed as portals, I was certainly wrong when I said that English portals were small and inconspicuous. These are, in fact, of such vast elevation as to deprive them of that title. The whole may be viewed as a vast portico, it is true, but the doorways are within it, and of moderate dimensions, while above them, and still below the arches, are considerable windows. It is, in fact, a design which stands quite by itself, and can scarcely be judged of by ordinary parallels.
I confess that to my eye it has always appeared as a glorious conception, though one not often to be repeated. Had its flanking towers been completed in the same style, the two great towers which backed it up completed with their spires, and the odd little chapel which has been thrust into its central arch been omitted, I know few fronts to which it would yield in grandeur, and none in originality.
