Dean Stanley, in comparing it with Westminster Abbey, hardly overpraised it in saying: "Salisbury is all-glorious without, Westminster is all-glorious within." Canon Venables considers it "as an architectural composition, more especially as seen from the outside, the most perfectly designed building in the world." Elsewhere he speaks of it as "presenting none of those architectural problems so baffling and perplexing at Canterbury, Lichfield, or Lincoln." Its appearance from a distance has been the theme of poets, and a favourite subject for artists. Constable especially delighted to paint it. Among several of his different versions of the theme, the view from the meadows (with the rainbow), made popular by Lucas' mezzotint, is perhaps the best known.
Studying the building more closely one feels it is not accident that gives to it its peculiar charm, but pre-arranged design; the idea of one conception carried to its logical completion. This striking unity (despite the afterthought of the spire) certainly helps to impart an air of modernity to the building, that is lacking in far less ancient work, for oddly enough it is often the decaying features of the latest decorated style that impress the vulgar by their apparent age. The extreme care in the masonry has imparted a machine-like finish. As Professor Willis wrote: "The regularity of the size of the stones is astonishing. As soon as they had finished one part, they copied it exactly in the next, even though the additional expense was considerable. The masonry runs in even bands, and you may follow it from the south transept, eastward, round to the north transept, after which they have not taken such great pains in their regularity. It is almost impossible to distinguish where they could have left off, for it is hardly to be supposed they could have gone on with all at the same time."
If at first sight this regular and symmetrical detail offers a suspicion of mere mechanism, yet it is no less evident that after longer study the charms of this exquisite structure tell with a lasting power. Too subtle to extort admiration at first, it bewitches a student of architecture who notes the scholarly reticence of its detail, the masterly way in which, as a rule, the construction is legitimately ornamented and the decoration made an integral part of the whole design.