To this general outline, a few more minute particulars may be added, which will enable the reader easily to distinguish the remains of the Norman style, from that of the later added Gothic, in many of our cathedrals and churches.

The Norman column has no fixed proportions: in some instances, as in the crypts of many of our cathedrals, it is short and massive, as the Tuscan; in others, as in some parts of Canterbury, but especially in the noble twin churches of Caen, of Doric lightness. They are sometimes carved with a spiral groove, sometimes with a series of chevrons, and sometimes of lozenge work; and specimens of each may be seen in Durham and Canterbury cathedrals. On the capitals of these columns, the Norman sculptor seems to have allowed full scope to his fancy : from the plain moulding of the earlier period, to the volute and acanthus leaf in St. Peter's at Northampton; and the centaurs and sphinxes of Iffley church, every kind of plant, every species of animal, real or fabulous, find a place. In the specimens of foliage, it is interesting to trace the advancing skill of the artist; and among some of the later specimens, those especially in Canterbury, and which belong to the last period of the Norman style, are graceful combinations of leaf and flower, from which the artist of the present day might not refuse to copy.* But representations, both of the human

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* These capitals seem strongly to corroborate the opinion that the Norman owes its origin to the debased Grecian style, which prevailed during the earlier ages of the Lower Empire. If the reader turns to the view of San Paolo-that most ancient of the churches of Rome-he will

figures and animals, are most wretched; and the sculpture, embellishing the chief door-way of the cathedral, actually displays as little skill as the fair embroiderers of the Bayeux tapestry.

As the Norman column, in the midst of its abundant variety, had still its peculiar characteristics, so had the moulding. The most common of these was what has been called the "dental," or "herring-bone," but which Mr. Britton, with far more correctness, terms the "chevron." Perhaps there is scarcely a Norman structure in existence, that does not in some part display this favourite ornament; but there were others, which, as they are never used in Gothic architecture, are proofs, wherever they are found, of that portion being Norman. There are, according to the same accurate writer, "the embattled fret, the hatched moulding, series of undulating lines, and the cable, or twisted mouldding." In one instance alone is that strictly Gothic moulding, the quatrefoil, to be found, and that is in St. Giles's at Evreux.

Such were the characteristics of the Norman style; such was Westminster, as erected by the Confessor; such Roger of Salisbury's noble abbey of Malmsbury; such was the greater part of old St.

find both the arch and the column strictly Norman. The same opinion derives additional corroboration from the peculiarity of the ornaments. Where could the Norman sculptor find the sphinx and the centaur, except among the remains of classical antiquity? On one of the columns which support the chapel under the altar at York, we find, alternating with the rudest imitations of the human figure, three separate and well executed copies of the Grecian honeysuckle. The borders which enrich the black marble monumental stone of the countess Gundreda at Southover, present an elaborately Grecian pattern. These coincidences are too marked to have been fortuitous.

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Paul's; and such were the various abbeys and churches founded by our kings and queens, during the earlier half of the twelfth century; such too, although of inferior workmanship, and almost spoiled by modern improvements, is that oldest of all the London churches, St. Bartholomew the Great.

But this style, which awakened the intensest admiration, alike of Norman and Saxon, was, ere the close of that century, to yield to another, which still challenges the homage, not only of civilized Europe, but of the most enlightened architects of the present day-the Gothic.

The general characteristics of this beautiful style are too strongly marked, and too well known, to need description;* yet, although possessing such a strongly marked distinctive character, the most la

*The following passage, from " Architectural Remarks on German Churches," will be read with interest :

"The distinctive principle of construction in Gothic architecture, appears to be the admission of oblique pressures, and inclined lines of support. In Grecian architecture the whole edifice consists of horizontal masses, reposing on vertical props. In Gothic buildings, on the contrary, the pointed arch is always to be considered. as formed by two sides, leaning against the other at the top, and pressing outward at their lower ends. The eye recognizes this statical condition in the leading lines of the edifice, and requires the details to conform to it. We have thus in the Grecian building nothing but rectangular forms and spaces; and horizontal lines with vertical ones subordinate to them..... In Gothic works, on the other hand, the arch is the indispensable and governing feature: it has pillars to support it, and buttresses to resist its lateral pressure; its summit may be carried upwards indefinitely. All the parts agree in this character of indefinite upward pressure."

To this the following important remarks of the Rev. Mr. Kerrich may be added:

In the archivault of a semicircular arch all the mouldings will still be but concentric semicircles, all exactly similar to the arch itself; but in the Gothic arch it is not so; in this, every moulding on the face of the arch is concentric with its arch, but not similar to it. No two can be alike, for they are respectively composed of different portions of a circle, and each is a different arch. The eye feels the pleasure it is naturally formed to receive from this continued diversity; though very few, if any, of the spectators are at all conscious of the cause."

borious architectural antiquary finds insuperable difficulties, alike in tracing the first step and the last, of its transition from the Norman style.

The same difficulty, too, awaits the admirer of this beautiful school, who would learn from what source it was derived; and three separate theories, each supported by considerable learning and ingenuity, have been advanced. The first is, that the Gothic was derived from the peculiarly aisle-like appearance of a grove of trees; the second, that it was of oriental, if not of Saracenic, origin; and the third, that it arose from improvements of the Norman style. To the first theory, it has been objected that it seems very unlikely, that, after builders had for more than a century worked in stone, they should then begin to take pattern from wood; it is also remarked, that the aisle-like appearance of a grove would have been as likely to have struck architects of an earlier day, as those of the twelfth century. To the second theory, which assigns to this style an oriental origin, and of which the stronghold is, that the pointed arch certainly exists, both in the mosque of Omar at Damascus, and in the cloisters at Mecca, and that it first appeared in Europe contemporaneously with the Crusades: it has been answered, that, although the pointed arch is to be found in eastern buildings, it is in combination with accessories, that give it altogether a different character. The pinnacle, the flying buttress, the ranges of niches with figures (that utter abomination to the Mohammedan), the airy and graceful spire, with all its varieties, so different to the plain,

unrelieved column of the minaret-each seems to stamp the Gothic with a peculiar and underived character. Besides, it has been argued, would the soldiers of the cross, who were pledged to the utter extirpation of the Paynim, have sought in those heathen temples the exemplar of a Christian church? It is also farther remarked, that the oriental style was already well known to Europe, even two centuries before, through the medium of the building erected by the victorious Saracens of Spain, and their vanquished brethren of Sicily. The third view, which considers the Gothic as a modification and improvement of the Norman, obtains much plausibility from the fact, that, in some instances, the pointed arch, and the pointed window, are formed by excavating the space within the intersecting range of circular arches, of which St. Botolph's priory at Colchester, and St. Cross at Winchester, are specimens. This hypothesis has been opposed on the plea, that "a pointed arch, formed by the intersection of two circular arches, is not a Gothic arch." Still might not this have given the first idea of the beauty of the pointed arch, which succeeding architects carried out to perfection. In the numerous examples supplied by our cathedrals, we find the early Gothic and the enriched Norman blended together, with a unity and congruity which seems almost to countenance the theory that the one was the offspring of the other.

Still, the question is involved in much obscurity -an obscurity which yet more extended inquiries may perhaps be able to dispel; though, after all,