L 64 a 
date as is afferted, or not, it is evident that the introdu@ion of 
this arch into military buildings could not have arifen from any 
defire of imitating the original fcenes of religious worfhip; it muft 
therefore have taken its rife cither from a fuppofition of its fupe- 
rior ftrength, beauty, or other peculiar advantages: And _ this 
being once admitted, there is immediately affigned a more pro- 
bable and fufficient reafon for its introguCtion into religious archi- 
te€ture alfo. 
3dly, One of the principal arguments in favour of Doétor 
Stukely’s opinion is, that the Gothic flyle comprehends not only 
the pointed arch but the flender and cluftering pillar alfo; the one 
reprefenting the ftems of the trees, the other the arches formed 
by the interfeCtion of their boughs. “ Could the arches be other- 
“ wife than pointed,” fays Do€tor Warburton, “ when the work- 
“ man was to imitate that curve which branches make by their 
“ interfeGion with one another? Or could the columns be other- 
“ wife than fplit into diftin@ thafts, when they were to reprefent 
“ the ftems of a groupe of trees?’ But this argument overturns 
the hypothefis in confirmation of which it is advanced; for on 
this fuppofition the flender and cluftering pillar fhould be of the 
fame date with thé pomted arch; and they fhould have been in- 
feparable companions in art as they are in nature, of which it is 
pretended, that this ftyle is a clofe copy. Now we know, that the 
pointed arch when firft introduced into England, was not fupported 
on flender pillars, but on the maflive columns of the Saxon 
order, which were in fafhion at tlat time; and afterwards on the 
flender fluted pillars of the Normans, which were at length fplit 
into 
