A large window is necessary, because a number of small parts will never constitute one great whole; but if a few large parts, such as the window here mentioned, the gateway, and another large window in the cloister, be properly introduced, they will extend the impression of greatness, and overpower all the lesser parts of the building in the same manner that the great west entrance of the Abbey takes off the attention from the smaller windows in the same massive pile. It may, perhaps, be observed, that, in the cloister proposed, I have not strictly followed the architecture of the Abbey, which is either Saxon or Norman (a distinction in which very learned antiquarians have differed in opinion). It is certainly of a style anterior to the kind of Gothic distinguished by pointed arches and pinnacles. But I conceive there is no incongruity in mixing these different species of Gothic, because we see it done in every cathedral in the kingdom; indeed the greatest part of this Abbey itself is of the date and style which I have adopted.
