VER. 28. And of one beauty many blunders make;] Because the road to Tafte, like that to Truth, is but one; and thofe to Error and Abfurdity a thoufand.

VER. 29. Load fome vain Church with old Theatric ftate,] In which there is a complication of abfurdities, arifing both from their different natures and forms: For the one being for holy fervice, and the other only for civil amufement, it is impoffible that the profufe and lafcivious ornaments of the latter fhould become the retenuë, reverence, and fanctity of the other. Nor will any examples of this vanity of ornament in the facred buildings of antiquity justify this imitation; for those ornaments might be very fuitable to a Temple of Bacchus, orVenus, which would ill become the fobriety and purity of the prefent Religion.

Again, we fhould confider, that the ufual form of a Theatre would only permit the ar

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chitectonic ornaments to be placed on the outward face whereas thofe of a Church may be as commodioufly, and are more properly put within; particularly in great and close pentup Cities, where the inceffant driving of the smoke, in a lit-` tle time corrodes and destroys all outward ornaments of this kind; efpecially if the members, as is the common taste, be fmall and little.

OurGothic ancestors had juster and manlier notions than these modern mimics of Greek and Roman magnificence: which, because the thing does honour to their genius, I fhall endeavour to explain. All our ancient churches are called, without diftinction, Gothic; but erroneoufly. They are of two forts; the one built in the Saxon times; the other during our Norman race of kings. Several Cathedral and Collegiate Churches of the first fort are yet remaining, either in whole or in part; of which this was the Original:

When the Saxon kings became chriftian, their piety, (which was the piety of the times) confifted in building Churches at home, and performing pilgrimages to the Holy Land: and thefe fpiritual exercises affifted and fupported one another. For the most venerable as well as moft elegant models of religious edifices were then in Palestine. From thefe our Saxon Builders took the whole of their ideas, as may be feen by comparing the drawings which travellers have given us of the churches yet standing in that country, with the Saxon remains of what we find at home; and particularly in that fameness of style in the later religious edifices of the Knights Templars (profeffedly built upon the model of the church of the holy Sepulchre at Jerufalem) with the earlier remains of our Saxon Edifices. Now the architecture of the Holy Land was entirely Grecian, but greatly fallen from its ancient elegance. Our Saxon performance was indeed a bad copy of it, and as much inferior to the works of St. Helene, as her's were to the Grecian models fhe had followed: Yet ftill the footsteps of an

cient art appeared in the circular arches, the entire columns, the divifion of the entablature, into a fort of Architrave, Frize and Cornich, and a solidity equally diffufed over the whole mafs. This, by way of diftinction, I would call the SAXON Architecture.

But our Norman works had a very different original. When the Goths had conquered Spain, and the genial warmth of the climate, and the religion of the old Inhabitants, had ripened their wits, and inflamed their miftaken piety (both kept in exercife by the neighbourhood of the Saracens, thro' emulation of their science and averfion to their fuperftition,) they ftruck out a new species of Architecture unknown to Greece and Rome; upon original principles, and ideas much nobler than what had given birth even to claffical magnificence. For having been accuftomed, during the gloom of paganifm, to worship the Deity in GROVES (a practice common to all nations) When their new Religion required covered edifices, they ingeniously projected to make them refemble Groves, as nearly as the

diftance of Architecture would permit; at once indulging their old prejudices, and providing for their prefent conveniencies, by a cool receptable in a fultry climate.

And with what art and fuccefs they executed the project appears from hence, That no attentive obferver ever viewed a regular Avenue of well grown trees intermixing their branches over head, but it presently put him in mind of the long Vifto thro' a Gothic Cathedral; or ever entered one of the larger and more clegant Edifices of this kind, but it reprefented to his imagination an Avenue of trees, And this alone is that which can be truly called the GOTHIC ftyle of Building.

Under this idea of so extraordinary a fpecies of Architecture, all the irregular tranfgreffions against art, all the monitrous offences against nature, difappear; every thing has its reafon, every thing is in order, and an harmonious Whole arifes from the ftudious application of means proper and proportioned to the end. For could the Arches be otherwife than pointed when the Workman was to imitate that curve which branches make by their

interfection with one another? Or could the Columns be otherwife than fpilt into distinct fhafts, when they were to represent the Stems of a group of Trees? On the same principle was formed the spreading ramification of the ftone-work in the windows, and the ftained glass in the interstices; the one being to represent the branches, and the other the leaves of an opening Grove; and both concurring to preferve that gloomy light infpiring religious horror. Laftly, we fee the reason of their ftudied averfion to apparent folidity in these stupendous maffes, deemed fo abfurd by men accustomed to the apparent as well as real ftrength of Grecian Architecture. Had it been only a wanton exercise of the Artist's fkill, to fhew he could give real ftrength without the appearance of any, we might indeed admire his fuperiorscience, but we must needs condemn his ill judgment. But when one confiders, that this furprizing lightness was neceffary to complete the execution of his idea of a rural place of worship, one cannot fufficiently admire the ingenuity of the contrivance. This too will account for