which would not reach from shaft to shaft, are long enough to lie securely on the caps, and, balancing one another, bear well a great superincumbent weight of wall. Thus, through a contrivance very different from the former, and even more inartificial, the office of an arch is, in considerable amount, performed. Either of these resources, or both, might lead to improvement, and at length to the perfect arch. It has struck me as a remarkable circumstance that, in a castle in England, I think that of Warkworth in Northumberland, I have seen the very contrivance of the old Argolic architects, used for the support of a chimney. Over a horizontal lintel or chimneybreast, two strait stones are placed so as to form a triangle with it. Their lower ends rest on the lintel's ends, over the jambs: their upper ends meet; and thus the jambs bear the whole superincumbent weight; all that stretches across the void being relieved from it. The architect of Warkworth surely did not get his knowledge from Mycena; but similar need led, at both places, to the same resource, whether invented for the occasion, or gained from prior example.

This very simple contrivance would lead most readily to the construction of the peaked arch. Where the space was too great, or materials too defective, for one stone on each pier to serve the purpose, two, or more, might be introduced,

only placing the lower stones more upright, and giving others successively a little more inclination to the middle. Thus it was easy to employ many; and so, with little art, to form a very powerful support for superstructure, over a large opening. If then, where this occurred, the semicircular arch was already known, the farther observation would be ready, that the peaked arch associates more nearly with the form of roof best adapted to throw off rain; and, moreover, if vaults "were desired, a vault constructed on the principle of the peaked arch, with the view to throw off rain, might be made much lighter than any arch without the peak; for, not only the weight to be supported is less, but the lateral pressure, even with the same weight, is less. Hence the peaked arch also wants less substance of pillar or pier, for its support, than any simple arch; and thus, where something less massive, less necessarily incumbering the floor, than the proper pier, is wanted for internal architecture, opportunity is afforded for giving support to the roof, or ceiling, with pillars of considerably smaller dimensions.

These advantages appear to have recommended the peaked arch to the Arabians, who seem certainly to have used it before it was known in Europe. But its very virtues, in failure of correct taste, led to extravagance. The Arabians, in their buildings, have shown the same fancy as in

their writings; fond of the marvellous rather than of the chaste; less studious of delighting, by elegance of design, than of surprizing, by a display of skill in execution. The result of proportions obviously just, and a beautiful fitness of parts to each other, was not pungent enough to satisfy their feelings; they were more gratified with the passion of wonder, excited by the real concord of apparent inconsistencies. Applying great skill, with little or perverse taste, they placed a ponderous superstructure, upon supports carrying the appearance of being utterly inadequate to the office imposed on them. Architecture of this character the Arabian conquests extended from Asia to distant Spain. But the Arabians appear to have had, no more than the Egyptians before them, what we call Orders of architecture; and among their buildings, spread to the west of Africa and to the east of India, what has been originally their own, what may have been gathered from ancient Egypt, and what the Greek empire, which they always bordered on and at length conquered, may have furnished them, will hardly now be ascertained.

English Ecclesiastical Architecture of the Plantagenet reigns. Salisbury Cathedral.

EXTRAORDINARY consequences, in various ways, could scarcely fail from so extraordinary an ebullition among nations, as that of the crusades. In armies marching, at the call of the pope, to fight, under especial benediction, the battles of the church, ecclesiastics and soldiers were uncommonly mingled: the monastical and the military character were, in some instances, incorporated. Some rays thus, from what existed in Europe of polite learning, and of that taste which polite learning has a tendency to form, brightened a little the military ignorance of the age. With many private estates wasted, and families beggared, to raise means for the favorite adventure, the ravage and desolation of extensive countries, and the destruction of millions of lives were, in the moment, the most striking result. Yet perhaps, in the end, compensation in public good did not wholly fail for all the private evil. New knowledge was acquired; new channels of trade were opened; activity was given to communication, before unknown; and commerce and wealth, and arts and civilization grew among the

western nations.

The ecclesiastical establishment, generally throughout Europe, but especially in England, was powerful, and consequently wealthy. With great means, and disposition enough for great luxury, beyond even worldly prudence, as in the final event appeared, still enjoyment was restrained, for the clergy, by ecclesiastical rule, and by the expediency of respecting popular prejudices, and engaging popular admiration and favor. In this state of things, to build churches, and especially cathedral and monastic churches, of a magnificence before unknown, became a fashion of the day. What had been seen in foreign parts, excited then, as was likely, fancy for novelties in architecture.

The first innovation in our country, however, was neither great nor happy. The tall, narrow, round-topped Constantinopolitan window, which was not without its grace, was changed for what has been called the lancet window. This, found, I think, in buildings as old as the reign of the first Henry, appears to me commendable neither for elegance nor utility.

A century or more had passed, and new crusades, and more eminently successful, had been made, when the circumstances occurred which produced the extraordinary migration of the city of Salisbury. The cathedral of the old town was within the walls of the earl's castle; where, at this day, in the form of the soil, covered