[177] Jer. xxii. 18.
[178] Most persons know—at least from engravings—the famous "Apprentice Column" in Roslin Chapel. That was perhaps the first church pillar that ever was wreathed with flowers, and those stone flowers are as fresh and beautiful now as when they were carved five hundred years ago.
[179] This old custom of copying in stone or marble the surrounding objects of nature has been imitated on the capitals of pillars in the church of St. Mary, Devon, which has recently been so beautifully restored in memory of the late Bishop of Exeter.
[180] Acts xiv. 13. Virgil, Æneid, i. 417; ii. 249.
[181] 1 Cor. xv. 42.
[182] Isa. lx. 13.
[183] Mark xiv. 4.
[184] This word, formerly spelt clear story, plainly expresses its own meaning—a clear or separate story or flight of windows. They are placed between the roof and the nave arches of a church.
[185] The word corbel, French corbeille, means literally a large flat basket. It is curious to note how the word obtains its present use in architecture. After the destruction of the city of Caryæ in Arcadia by the Greeks, Praxiteles, and other Athenian artists, employed female figures, instead of columns, in architecture, to commemorate the disgrace of the Caryatides, or women of Caryæ (see Dr. Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Caryatis). These figures were always represented with corbels or baskets on their heads. The basket, being thus placed between the head of the figure and the roof, was that which immediately supported the roof. Hence those projecting pieces of stone or wood which support the roofs of our churches, as well as other buildings, have received the name of corbels. Caryatides may be seen on the north and south sides of New St. Pancras Church, London—a church which externally possesses all the appearances of a heathen temple, and few of a Christian church.
[186] Although the carved roofs of this period cannot compare in point of elegance and beauty with those of an earlier date, yet, for the abundance of rich and elaborate detail in wood-carving (oak and walnut), no period equalled this. The bench-ends, screens, rood-screens, tombs of wood at this time were exquisitely beautiful. The roofs, however, were too flat, and externally they were concealed altogether by parapets.