Note 46 — BOOK IV. (continued 2)

In like manner the names assigned by Mr. Rickman to the successive of styles of Gothic architecture in England,—Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular,—cannot be replaced by numerical designations, First Pointed, Second Pointed, Third Pointed. For—besides that he who first distinctly establishes classes has the right of naming them, and that Mr. Rickman’s names are really appropriate and significant—these new names would confound all meaning of language. We should not be able to divide Early English, or Decorated, or Perpendicular into sub-styles;—for who could talk of First Second Pointed and Second Second Pointed; and what should we call that pointed style—the Transition from the Norman—which precedes the First Pointed?