man,

This opinion agrees with that of the late ingenious Mr. Essex, as noticed by Mr. Kerrich, in an essay published in the sixteenth volume of Archæologia. He believed, says the latter gentle'that the Gothic architects were induced, or rather driven to, the use of the pointed arch, by their practice of vaulting upon bows, and sometimes covering, with such vaults, spaces which were irregular; that is, not square, but longer in one dimension than the other."

Mr. Kerrich, who presents the above opinion of a writer well known and equally respected by most antiquarian readers, himself considers all investigation concerning the period at which this style was invented, as a hopeless, if not nugatory, enquiry. His conjectures are, accordingly, elicited incidentally, and not given in a systematic form. Thus casually introduced, they require only brief notice, and they chiefly refer to the origin of the characteristical arch of this order.

He appears inclined to attribute the invention of pointed architecture to the English; but, contrary to the opinions of most other writers, who look for the rise of this style in a refinement of art, he, in one place, supposes that even the ignorance and want of skill in the artificers of the Middle ages, may have contributed to the formation of this novel mode. Thus, he surmises that rude workmen may, through accident, have "stumbled on" the pointed arch, among others deviating from the semi-circle, and their vanity have induced them to set it forth, merely as something new.

In another page he affords more gratification, and suggests it as being possible that this form might be taken from a figure produced by two equal circles cutting each other in their centres; which was frequently used to circumscribe the representation of our Saviour, over the doors of " Saxon and Norman churches;" and also in episcopal and conventual seals.

Mr. Wilkins, in a communication inserted in the fourteenth volume of Archæologia, presents some remarks, which favour the ●pinions of those who deem it likely that the transition of styles,

from

from the massy and circular to the slender and pointed, arose simply from a progressive movement of the art of architecture. towards refinement and beauty. The principal observations which he submits on this subject, are comprised in the following passages.

If we examine many of the deviations of this (the English) style "from the Norman, we shall find that they are not so considerable as are apt to be imagined; for instance, the division of the windows of Gothic structures by mullions, is not peculiar to that style. We find, in some Norman buildings, the windows separated into two lights by a column as a mullion. In the cloister at Norwich, which is early Gothic, columns alone are used for the same purpose, and the heads of these lights are circular, but have the addition of the cuspfoliation; in mauy other instances the column is still used, jointly with some other mouldings.

"The clustered columns, so conspicuous in this species of architecture, do not vary, very considerably, from the Saxon and Norman, in which it was not unusual to place smaller columns round the principal pier: that part of the pier which appeared between the columus is now formed into mouldings, and the number of these smaller columns increased. Perhaps, the result of a more particular enquiry into the differences subsisting between the Norman and Gothic styles, might satisfy us that we need not go to Palestine or Germany for authority to account for the origin of the latter."

Lord Orford (Walpoliana, volume second) maintains that this style of architecture appears to bespeak an amplification of the minute, not a diminution of the great; and conjectures that shrines for reliques were the prototypes of churches. But this conjecture is scarcely deserving of notice, in the present section of our enquiries, as it merely removes the point of investigation, and leaves us to seek for the origin of the invention among the designers of shrines. In his Anecdotes of Painting, the same writer is inclined to consider the pointed style, merely in the light

2H 4

light of an improvement upon previous degradations of Roman architecture.

Such are the most important opinions presented by various authors, on a subject that needs no mystery to add to its interest with the enquirer into the architectural antiquities of this country, or those of several other parts of Europe. It is unpleasantly obvious that each writer presents a theory alone, and none afford a clue to legitimate historical information, or gratify us with actual discovery. While temperately contented with the repu tation of forming a system, all are entitled to consideration; but where individual opinion is the sole basis of literary production, we expect liberality of sentiment to solace the want of determinate intelligence.

The best duty of the present writer has been performed, in presenting these various opinions in a compressed form; since no attainable path of research holds forth the promise of unexplored fact, to supply the place of ingenious conjecture. A very few remarks, of a general tendency, may be subjoined.

The form of the pointed arch, to which feature of the English style the chief attention of many writers has been directed, was, unquestionably, known long before its adaptation to a peculiar and consistent order of architecture. It has been observed that the embryo of this arch is to be seen in the inclined stones over the entrance into the great pyramid at Ghize, în Egypt, and in buildings of the Chinese,"

Mr. Hawkins† justly remarks that "the mode of striking the curves for the pointed arch as a geometrical form, is clearly pointed out in the first proposition or problem of Euclid, in which

In Stevenson's supplement to Bentham's history of Ely cathedral, notes, p. 27, it is observed that “forms very similar to a pointed arch will be found in plate 31, of Stewart's Ruins of Balbec. Plate 20, of Denon's Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt. Over the entry of the galleries of the pyramids of Cheops. In Chinese buildings; and in Revelry's Justinian's Aqueduct. History of the origin of Gothic architecture, p. 92.

which he gives the mode of describing an equilateral triangle upon a given finite straight line." Whoever had demonstrated this problem, must, therefore, have drawn the arch in question. It will be recollected that Euclid lived rather more than thre centuries before the Christian era.

Although we thus clearly ascertain a period at which the prin ciples of the pointed arch might be known equally to the scholar and the architect, there is great difficulty in discovering the first ages in which such an acquisition of knowledge was practically applied by the latter.

In Horsley's Britannia Romana are representations of several Roman sepulchral stones, displaying arches of this form; and the authority of these has been insisted on, with great earnestness, by Mr. Whitaker, in his Cathedral History of Cornwall;* but it is proved that the draughtsman who assisted Mr. Horsley was inaccurate in one instance, and the evidence of others is therefore suspicious. The mistake to which I allude, occurs in Britannia Romana, Middlesex, p. 192. The stone there engraved is preserved in the Arundelian collection, at Oxford; and Sir Richard Hoare shews that the arch is round, not pointed. He states that it was "carefully examined and drawn by Mr. Carter;" and an engraving from the drawing made by that antiquary, is inserted amongst the inscriptions in Sir Richard Hoare's Introduction to the Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin.

It

• The reader may find a long train of learned, but unsatisfactory, speculations concerning the early use of the pointed arch by Roman builders, in the second section of the second chapter of this romantic piece of antiquarian writing. Mr. Whitaker there brings forward the church of St. Martin's, at Canterbury, as an undoubted specimen of Roman architecture in Britain; but the fallacy of this opinion is explained in the Beauties for Kent, p. 908909; where is presented a description of that building.-After oxpatiating on the gateway at Antinopolis, and the entrance to the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, he, with great confidence, describes "the peaked arch as being diffused by the Romans along Roman Judea, Roman Egypt, Roman Spain, and Roman Britain."

It would be difficult to name, with certainty, the existence of a pointed arch, in European buildings, of an earlier date than those indications of such arches exhibited by the semi-circular, intersecting, arcades already noticed. We are not entirely destitute of authority for believing that arcades of this description were used, as ornaments, by the Romans in Britain;* and it is uniformly admitted, by the most judicious writers, that they present the first resemblance of the pointed arch in the European architecture of the Middle ages, however different may be the opinions of such authors, concerning the derivation of the pointed style, as a methodised order.

The great crror of several writers who have formed theories on the subject of this style, appears to consist in the direction of their notice to parts, without viewing the whole as a surprising adaptation of architectural rules to the production of a new general effect. Thus, one seeks to ascribe the origin of the pointed arch to a foreign soil, and rests contented if he think that he has established his position; while another (and a writer of great taste and ingenuity) has satisfied himself with bringing the slender pillars, and spiral ornaments, from the east, and suggests that the pointed arch was exported from Europe, in return.

It would certainly appear to be doubtful, from the evidence at present adduced, whether the first hints of this novel mode of architecture were not brought from the east, by the crusaders. But, if thence derived, the idea must have been crude, and of so little avail, as scarcely to authorize us in believing that this style, as practised in Europe, was, in its grand principles of ordination, adopted from that country. The classes of pointed architecture in England are well known to be various, and appear to

grow

In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1801, p. 1161, is a description by R. Uvedale, accompanied by an engraving, of a Roman tesselated pavement, which was discovered at Louth, in Lincolnshire. "It is composed of circular compartments, one of which is ornamented with a series of columns and intersecting arches." See, also, Britton's Architectural Antiquities, Vol. I. article St. Botolph's priory church.