[Illustration: HIGH STREET GATE.]
The Cathedral was commenced in 1220 by Bishop Poore and took about
forty years to build, but this period did not include the erection of
the tower and spire which were later additions. The fine and generally
admired west front is, from an architect's point of view, the only
part of the exterior that is not admirable. It is in actual fact,
fraudulent, just as the whole of the upper wall of St. Paul's
Cathedral is an artistic untruth. The west wall of Salisbury is a
screen without professing to be one. The porches are very small in
relation to the great flattish expanse of masonry above them; the
dullness of this was much relieved by the series of statues placed in
the empty niches about the middle of the last century. The original
medieval figures almost all disappeared through the zeal of the
Puritans.
Even the most careless glance down the long outline of the walls,
artistically broken by the two transepts, but never losing the regular
continuity of design, will show the observer that this perfect Early
English building was an inspiration of one brain and that the many
hands that worked for that brain carried out their tasks as a
religious rite.
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