[Moos ol 
Eaftern. ‘“ When the Saxon kings,” fays he, “ 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 exercifes affifted and fupported 
“one another: For the moft venerable, as the moft elegant mo- 
“ dels of religious edifices were then in Paleftine. 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 fianding in that country with the 
“ Saxon remains of what we find’ at home. Now the architec! 
“ ture of the Holy-land was entirely Grecian, but greatly fallen 
“ from its antient elegance. “r? Ste 7 Pope's Effays, vol. 3, Ep. 4. 
And Mr. Ledwich, in his learned’ effay on’ the architeQure of 
our Englith churches, advances very ingenious atywalenes to fhew 
that the Saxon flylé had an Eaftern origin, ‘and produces a ftriking 
inftance from ‘a Syriac MS. | of “the Evangelifts, written A: D. 
586, preferved in the Medico-Laurentian library at Florence, 
which contains drawings of arches ornamented with’ every cha- 
racteriftic of, the Saxon ftyle. * Cornelius Le Brun has publithed 
many views of Eaftern buildings, ‘particularly of thofe in the 
Holy-land ; and in all’ thefe only one Gothic ruin, the church 
near Acre, and a few pointed ‘arches occur, and thefe were built” 
by the Chriftians when in poffeffion of the country. In Sales 
Koran, the temple of Mecca is reprefented as built with femi- 
circular not pointed arches. Neither did Pocock, Norden, or 
Shaw difcover any traces of this ftyle, as far as we can argue 
from 
* Grofe’s Antiquities, Pref. 
