But these ornaments were often absurdly introduced into the old Gothic style; as in the magnificent portico of the schools at Oxford, erected about the year 1613, where the builder, in a Gothic edifice, has affectedly displayed his universal skill in the modern architecture, by giving us all the five orders together. However, most of the great buildings of Queen Elizabeth's reign have a style peculiar to themselves, both in form and finishing; where, though much of the old Gothic is retained, and great part of the new taste is adopted, yet neither predominates; while both, thus indistinctly blended, compose a fantastic species, hardly reducible to any class or name. One of it's characteristics is the affectation of large and lofty windows; where, says Bacon,

you shall

have sometimes faire houses, so full of glass, that one cannot tell where to become, to bę out of the sun, &c*."

* Essays, xii.

After what has been here incidentally said on this subject, it may not be amiss to trace it higher, and to give some observations on the beginning and progressive state of architecture in England, down to the reign of Henry VIII. A period in which, or thereabouts, the true Gothic style is supposed to have expired.

The Normans, at the conquest, introduced arts and civility. The churches, before this, were of timber, or otherwise of very mean construction. The conqueror imported a

more magnificent, though not a different, plan, and erected several stately churches and castles *. He built more than thirty monasteries, among which were the noble

Videas ubique in villis ecclesias, in vicis et urbibus monasteria, novo edificandi genere exsurgere." Will. Malmesbur. Rex. Willhelmus. De Gest. Reg. Ang. 1. 3. p. 57. fol. Lond. 1596, ed. Savil.

abbies of Battel and Selby. He granted a charter to Mauritius, Bishop of London, for rebuilding St. Paul's church with stone brought out of Normandy. He built the white tower, in the Tower of London. The style then used, consisted of round arches, round-headed windows, and round massy pillars, with a sort of regular capital and base, being an adulteration, or a rude imitation, of the genuine Grecian or Roman manner. This has been named the Saxon Stile, being the national architecture of our Saxon ancestors, before the conquest: for the Normans only extended its proportions, and enlarged its scale. But I suppose, at that time it was the common architecture of all Europe. Of this style many specimens remain: the transept of Winchester cathedral, built 1080 the two towers of Exeter cathedral, 1112: Christ-church cathedral at Oxford, 1180: the nave of Glocester cathedral, 1100: with many others. The most complete mo

1

numents of it I can at present recollect are, the church of St. Cross near Winchester,

built by Henry de Bloys, 1130; and the abbey church at Rumsey, in Hampshire; especially the latter, built by the same princely benefactor. Another evidence of this style, is a circular series of zig-zag sculpture, applied as a facing to porticos and other arches. The style which succeeded to this was not the absolute Gothic, or Gothic simply so called, but a sort of Gothic Saxon, in which the pure Saxon began to receive some tincture of the Saracen fashion. In this the massy rotund column became split into a cluster of agglomerated pilasters, preserving a base and capital, as before; and the short round-headed window was lengthened into a narrow oblong form, with a pointed top, in every respect much in the shape of a lancet; often decorated, in the inside, with slender pillars. These windows we frequently find, three together, the centre one being higher

than the two lights on each side. This style commenced about 1200. Another of its marks is a series of small, low, and close arch-work, sometimes with a pointed head, placed on outside fronts, for a finishing; as in the west end of Lincoln and Rochester cathedrals, and in the end of the southern transept of that of Canterbury. In this style, to mention no more, is Salisbury cathedral. Here we find, indeed, the pointed arch, and the angular, though simple, vaulting; but still we have not in such edifices of the improved or Saxon Gothic, the Ramified Window, one distinguishing characteristic of the absolute Gothic *. It is difficult to define these gradations; but still harder to explain conjectures of this kind in writing, which require ocular demonstration, and a conversation on the spot, to be clearly proved and illustrated.

*

They then seem to have had no idea of a Great Eastern or Western Window.