wide, and descending low. The mullions numerous, and the upper division of the window filled with many small compartments, often having trefoil heads. The great multiplication of windows affords a prominent characteristic of this style.

The ORNAMENTS of this architectural class were distributed in gorgeous profusion. The most estimable consist of numerous statues of kings, queens, saints, prelates and other persons. The abundant niches, tabernacles, canopies, pedestals, tracery, fasciæ, and pendents, are of the most elaborate workmanship, and are usually finished with exquisite delicacy. With ostentation consonant to the general arrangement of the building, armorial bearings and family devices are introduced to a great excess. Painting and gilding were frequently employed, to heighten the magnificent character of the whole.In the unique instance of Henry the Seventh's chapel, the ornaments of the exterior are almost as plentifully disposed as those of the interior.

ECCLESIASTICAL STRUCTURES DISPLAYING THE FLORID, OR HIGHLY-DECORATED, ENGLISH STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE.

REIGN OF EDWARD THE FOURTH, FROM 1461 TO 1483.

The most splendid example is afforded by St. George's chapel, Windsor. This structure is the work of several reigns; but the design, and greater

Noticed in the Beauties.

part, of the present edifice are gene- Berkshire, P. 243-254. rally attributed to Richard Beau

champ, Bishop of Salisbury, who was appointed master and surveyor of the works by King Edward the Fourth.

Church of Honiton, greatly enlarged,]

and ornamented with its curious Devonshire, P. 300.

screen, in this reign................. j

Parts of the church of Charing, in

cluding the tower.........

Noticed in the Beauties.

Kent, P. 1217.

Church of St. Lawrence, Norwich.........Norfolk, P. 162.

Chapel on the bridge of Wakefield, built)

by King Edward the Fourth, in me

mory of his father, and those of his Yorkshire, P. 804-805. party who fell in the battle at that

place.....

REIGN OF EDWARD THE FIFTH, 1483; AND Reign of
RICHARD THE THIRD; FROM 1483 TO 1485.

The first of these reigns is merely nominal; and the latter was. too short and troubled to afford any distinguishable change in the national style of architecture.

REIGN OF HENRY THE SEVENTH, FROM 1485 to 1509.

The Florid, or Highly-Decorated, English style, in the plenitude of its costly and elaborate characteristics, is chiefly exemplified in chapels, regal, mortuary, and attached to churches; and in porches, monuments, screens, thrones and stalls. It is remarked by Mr. Dallaway that "there is, perhaps, no parish church which exhibits a complete specimen of this style, in all its parts."*

Many parochial churches, evincing the broad lineaments of the Florid style, were, however, erected in the present reign. Mr. Warton observes" that most of the churches in Somersetshire, which are remarkably elegant, are in the style of the Florid Gothic. The reason is this: Somersetshire, in the civil wars between York and Lancaster, was strongly and entirely attached to the Lancastrian party. In reward for this service, Henry the Seventh, when he came to the crown, rebuilt their churches. The tower of Gloucester cathedral, and the towers of the churches at

* Observations on English architecture, p. 56.

at Taunton and Glastonbury, and of a parochial church at Wells, are conspicuous examples of this fashion." The same writer adds, "that most of the churches of this reign are known, besides other distinctions, by latticed battlements, and broad windows.". open Mr. Lysons, in the volume of Magna Britannia for Cornwall, observes "that the greater part of the churches in that county, appear to have been rebuilt in the 15th, and succeeding century."

The following remark of Mr. Essex may not be unacceptable in this place. After stating that there were but few alterations in the constructive methods of building with stone, from the reign of Henry the Third until the introduction of Grecian architecture, Mr. Essex observes that, "about the times of Henry the Seventh and Henry the Eighth, it was customary to chequer the fronts of brick and stone buildings with black flints, sometimes in regular square figures, and sometimes intermixed with stone, in imitation of open Gothic work. Many of those were neatly executed, and still have a tolerably good effect; as may be seen in several fine towers of churches in various parts of the kingdom, particularly in Norfolk and Suffolk, where this fashion greatly prevailed a little before the Reformation."*-It is, however, sufficiently ascertained that the use of flints, disposed nearly in the manner described above, on the facings of ecclesiastical structures, although prevalent in the reigns noticed by Mr. Essex, is by no means confined to those eras, but occurs in buildings of a much earlier date.†

Noticed in the Beauties.

Essex, P. 387-388.

Bishop Alcock's chapel, Ely Cathedral....Cambridgeshire, P. 163-4.
Church of Walden, (finished in the
reign of Henry the Eighth).............
The Lady chapel, Gloucester Cathedral.}

To this building the date of 1499. is!

ascribed, in the account of Glouces- Gloucestershire, P. 544-5.

ter cathedral published by the Society

After the reign of Henry the Seventh, the pointed style of architecture declined rapidly in excellence, and soon fell into entire disuse. With the dissolution of religious houses was rejected the mode in which it had been so long customary to erect the buildings appertaining to such foundations. The Italian artists, whose prejudice against this style has been already noticed, were unquestionably instrumental in accelerating its downfal; but the incongruous mixtures of irregular and ill-executed imitations of the Grecian orders with the declining English, was a proof of barbarity in taste more deplorable than that which Vasari anathematized in those who raised the works called German, in Italy, as has been remarked in a previous page. This base commixture, and degradation even of the relics of a fine and venerable mode of architecture (further polluted by the addition of numerous absurd devices) remained in practice until the Grecian style, in its purity, was revived by the mature judgment of Inigo Jones, in the time of Charles the First.

One of the last buildings, approaching to the character of pure English,

English, that was erected in the time of Henry the Eighth, is the Abbey church of Bath, completed in 1532. Lord Orford observes that he recollects no later instance of the unmixed Gothic (or English) than the tomb of Archbishop Warham, at Canterbury. This monument was constructed soon after the year noticed above as that in which the Abbey church of Bath was finished.

SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS.

The sepulchral monuments of England and Wales present a subject of too much interest with the topographer, to remain entirely unnoticed in this "Introduction." But a satisfactory essay on the history of monuments raised to the memory of the dead, including remarks on the various habiliments of the corpse; ou the different kinds of coffins; on the architectural variations in the monuments of different ages; on the peculiarities of dress exhibited in the figures; and on the progress of the arts, as connected with the sculptural embellishments of these mournful, but gratifying, memorials; would occupy more pages than those dedicated to the whole multifarious matter of our introductory volume. These topics are largely discussed, and illustrated, in the elaborate work of Mr. Gough. From that laborious production, aided in some instances by the brief notices of Mr. Grose; by the remarks of Mr. Lethieullier; by various other papers in the Archæologia; and by the information contained in the Beauties of England and Wales; are collected the following hints toward intelligence; which are chiefly designed to act as criteria, enabling the reader to distinguish between the probable 2 L4

*

ages

Gough's Sepulchral Monuments, &c. Vide List of Books treating generally of England and Wales.

+ Grose's Addenda to his preface to the Antiq. of England and Wales. Archæol. Vol. II. p. 291-300.