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into diftin@ thafts, at a moreeadvanced period of the Gothic ftyle. 
So that, in England at leaft, the pointed arch and cluftering pil- 
lar have had different originals and periods of introdu@tion. This 
obfervation feems to me effetually to overturn the hypothefis we 
are at prefent examining, one main part of the fancied fimilitude be- 
tween Gothic, archite@ure, and the ancient fcenes of religious 
worfhip, being thus proved to have fprung from a different 
fource. 
4thly, If the pointed arch had been intended to refemble 
arcades formed by the branches of trees, we mutt fuppofe, that 
the ornaments of that arch would have had a clofe affinity to 
their original. But on the contrary we find, that leaves or foliage 
conftitute but an occafional and accidental, not an effential part 
of the Gothic ornaments. 
7- Tue fourth opinion on this fubje@ is, that the Gothic arch 
has probably taken its rife from thofe arcades we fee in the early 
Saxon and Norman buildings, where the wide femicircular arches 
‘conneting the alternate pilafters, crofs and interfe@ each other, 
and form at their interfeGion a narrow and fharp pointed arch. 
But there does not appear fufficient grounds for our attributing 
the origin of this, arch in general to the interfeQion of Saxon 
circles’; for! if! fo, the Gothic ‘archite@ture would have hada 
Saxon original: but we find it in countries where no other traces 
“of the Saxon. ftyle occur... Thus the pointed arch difcovers itfelf 
amongft the Moorifh arches in the famous palace of Alhambra , 
and not only the pointed arch but fluted pillar alfo is to be found 
K in 
