and southward, into the Arabic regions, where it became the natural accompaniment of the pseudo-christianity of Mahomet, the western Church not being yet sufficiently advanced for it to fructify there. It is to be recollected, also, that the Grecian mind had been more immediately and more deeply affected by Christianity than the Italian, and that there was an almost total separation between the two empires, both temporal and religious; so that in countries habituated to the old Roman style, the new impulse given to the world ran, for some period of time, along the old track, and only, at last, gradually separating itself, manifested a direction of its own.

That this divergence should make its appearance at a point farthest from the old centre, was but natural. Up to this point, in the history of the Western Church, we have, for the general type of Christian architecture, the Basilica, with two side aisles, and a loftier nave between them, the walls of which were marked by three divisions; namely, first, that of the range of arches opening into the side-aisles; secondly, that of the plain space which was to be allowed either for the abutment of the aisle-roofs, or if there were a gallery over the aisles, as in the Basilica of Vitruvius, for the veils which concealed that from below; and, thirdly, that of the windows for lighting the nave itself. This part of the church was probably at first flat-roofed, with wooden beams. Beyond the transept or cross-nave which ended the side-aisles, and in continuation of the main nave, was the choir or chancel, so called from the cancelli or bars which excluded all the laity from entrance; and this was terminated by the absis, and was probably built with thicker walls, and vaulted, as we early read of the arcus triumphalis, by which it was entered, and on which the cross, as trophy of the meek conqueror, was affixed. Hence we have, for the essentials of our building, the absis, the choir, the transept, the side-aisles, and the nave; and of the nave, the three stories; the pier-arches, opening into the aisles; the triforium, which, either with a range of blind arches or other ornaments, occupied the abovementioned intervening plain space; and the windows of the story that rose clear above the aisles, thence called the clerestory windows. The old Roman groined vault (the use of which had been, for a while, suspended in the Western EmVOL. VII.-No XIII.

C

pire, by the adoption of the Basilica for the form of the Christian temple) had been resumed ;—" at first, indeed, in its sim"plest trunk-shape, and resting on a continued lateral string, "until, in order to obtain in the naves and aisles of churches, 66 greater spans and spaces, not only across, but between the 66 pillars, arches were carried from pillar to pillar, both in the 66 long and in the transverse direction, so as to form squares "of arched stone, filled in with rubble work; within which "we observe, gradually appearing more and more, other ad"ditional ribs of cut stone, so as to form, within the square "of the first four arches, St. Andrew's crosses, supporting, be"tween their four spandrils, the four groins of a vault, com

posed of lighter materials; and with this formation, the "arches at right angles in the square being still round-headed, " and the ribs rectangular and crossing, still flat, may be said "to end the gradual developements of the vault in the Lom"bard style."-Page 270.

It is to be remarked, by the way, that in the Lombard style the Christian Basilica possessed a feature still further removed from its old Roman prototype even than the arched nave, we mean the cupola which crowned its intersection with the transepts; this was, perhaps, adopted from the Eastern Constantinopolitan form, or else it arose, naturally enough, from the use of vaulted roofs and the cross shape; for two vaults, crossing at right angles, seem of themselves to suggest and require some distinguishing and pre-eminent ornament; and what could this be but an additional elevation? These cupolas were sometimes round, sometimes octagonal or polygonal, but seldom rose to any considerable height above the mass of the building, and belong, therefore, more to the internal effect, with which, be it observed, the spire of the pointed style has no connection at all.

"Just, however, at the period when the Lombard, or what "may be more particularly called the round style of architec"ture, appeared, through the dominions of the Latin Church, "most firmly and universally established; when it had, from "its first source, spread in every direction as far as the most "extended influence of that church itself; when its forms "might have served to mark the precise limits of the papal "authority; when, from its universal prevalence, it seemed

"to have secured an unlimited direction; we see it all at once, "in the latter half of the twelfth century, abandoned for a "style, both in its essential principles, and its ornamental ac"cessories, entirely new, and different from it, and from every "former style."—Page 345.

But before we proceed to this great period, we must premise some observations on the corporation of builders or freemasons; as, without a clear insight into the history of this body, which was devoted, altogether, to the designing and construction of religious edifices, and which received the accumulating tradition of former experience, and could, consequently, from a very extensive comparison of different plans, take a more abstract and general view of the whole nature of the established form of building, the sudden metamorphosis of the heavy and round, into the light and pointed, would appear unaccountable and miraculous.

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"When Rome became abandoned and neglected; when "Milan, Ravenna, Pavia and Verona, from being remote pro“vincial cities, were raised successively to the rank of capi"tals; it may be supposed, that among the arts exercised in Lombardy, that of building held a pre-eminent rank. We "cannot then wonder that, at a period when artificers of "every class, from those of the most mechanical to those of "the most intellectual nature, formed themselves into exclu"sive corporations,-architects, whose art may be said to offer "the exact medium between those of most urgent necessity " and those of mere ornament, or indeed in its wide span to "embrace both,—should, above all others, have associated "themselves into similar bodies, which, in conformity to the

general style of such corporations, assumed the title of free "and accepted masons, and was composed of those members, "who, after a regular passage through the different fixed stages "of apprenticeship, were accepted as masters and made free to "exercise the profession on their own account. In such an age, " however, Lombardy itself, opulent and thriving as it was in "comparison with other countries, soon became nearly satu"rated with public edifices, and unable to supply these companies of masons with sufficient employment. These Italian "corporations, therefore, began to look abroad, towards northern climes, for that employment which they no longer found

"at home; and no longer destined to exercise their art in any "single country, but in whatever regions, most distant from "each other, their services might be required; seeking a mo"nopoly, as it were, over the whole face of Christendom,— "required an authority, a protection, an exclusive privilege, "which no single temporal sovereign could give them out of "his own dominions, or would give them, even within them. "This they could only obtain in the different parts of Europe "that acknowledged the religious supremacy of the Pope, "from that head of the whole Latin Church. Now, as the "erection of new churches and monasteries was, in a manner, "to raise new estates for the Pope himself, the masons were "regarded as troops of labourers working in his cause, as "much as the missionaries, who were sent before to collect "business for them; and thus they obtained the requisite

powers, probably soon after Charlemagne had put an end "to the kingdom of Lombardy, and the fears of the Pope "from that quarter, by annexing those dominions to his own." -Page 233.

Afterwards, many natives of other countries, and many ecclesiastics of the highest rank, abbots, prelates and bishops, conferred additional honour on the body of freemasons by becoming members of it.

"The militia of the Church of Rome, which diffused itself "all over Europe in the shape of missionaries, to instruct na"tions, and to establish them in their allegiance to the Pope, "took care not only to make them feel their want of churches " and monasteries, but, likewise, to teach the manner in which "that want might be supplied."

"Wherever the masons came in the suite of missionaries, or arrived of their own accord to seek employment, they appeared headed by a chief surveyor, who governed the whole troop, and named one man out of every ten, under the name of warden, to overlook the nine others; set themselves to building temporary huts for their habitation, around the spot where the work was to be carried on; regularly organised their different departments; fell to work; sent for fresh supplies of their brethren, as the object demanded them; shortened or prolonged the completion of the edifice as they liked, or were averse to the place, or were more or less wanted in others; and when all was finished, again raised their encampment, and went elsewhere to undertake other jobs. The architects of all the sacred edifices of the Latin Church, wherever such arose,—north,

south, east or west,-thus derived their science from the same central school; obeyed, in their designs, the dictates of the same hierarchy; were directed in their constructions by the same principles of propriety and taste; kept up with each other, in the most distant parts to which they might be sent, the most constant correspondence; and rendered every minute improvement the property of the whole body, and a new conquest of the art.”

And hence it is, that at each successive period of the masonic dynasty,

" on whatever point a new church or monastery might be erected, it resembled all those raised at the same period in every other place, however distant from it, as much as if they had both been built in the same place, by the same artist."

"And thus we find churches, as far distant from each other "as the north of Scotland and the south of Italy, more minutely similar than those erected within the single precincts " of Rome or Ravenna; and we not only see, over the whole "region where the Latin Church had been established, one "single sort of architecture, but, that at whatever subsequent "period there happened to be in the sacred architecture, "either at its fountain-head, or on any other point, any change " or improvement, the knowledge and adoption of the same "reached every other point so rapidly, as almost to appear, "everywhere, the effect more of a general and simultaneous “inspiration, than of a progressive advancement and circula❝tion. Hence, too, from this well-organized co-operation it "arose, that precisely in those periods of the profoundest ignorance, when other much easier arts were making only slow "advances, the most difficult and complicated art of sacred "architecture, that of calculating the weights and pressures "of arches most stupendous, and the supports and resistance "these require, and the forms which the arches, and the pillars, " and the buttresses, and the pinnacles supporting and com"pressing them, and the stones composing these members, "should have, for the purpose of perfect solidity and cohesion, "acquired a perfection so great, so contrasted with the general ignorance which existed in all other things, so superior even "to that science in the same objects displayed at the present "time, when in all other arts it has become infinitely greater, "that it could not be credited, did not the proofs subsist in "the works of those ages still extant."-Page 243.

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