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wealth of the church; architecture produced either for- 

 tresses, or churches and monasteries; but scarcely any 

 other edifices, for public use or private accommodation. 

 Thus we find, that the arts, under the feudal system, were 

 in a rude and uncultivated state; and that all their pro- 

 ductions were uncouth and barbarous, like the people for 

 Avhose use and gratification they were intended. Architec- 

 ture was of a rude and massy character; chieMy emplojed, 

 as I have said, in the construction of castles, gloomy and 

 inconvenient, but strong, and not ill calculated for pur- 

 poses of defence, according to the imperfect military sci- 

 ence of the times, where the baron revelled with his nu- 

 merous retainers, or from whence he sallied forth, to spoil 

 the surrounding countr}'; or of churches, vast, dreary, dis- 

 proportionate, damp and dark, affording a type and image 

 of the chearless and oppressive darkness, the gross fabri- 

 cations, and dismal superstitions, which then prevailed over 

 the world. Sculpture was little known; and as imperfect, 

 in its conceptions and execution, as the architecture of 

 the age. Poetry, if it deserved the name, had received as 

 little improvement as the two former arts. The exercise of 

 it was confined, almost exclusively, to the minstrels; and 

 its object was merely the amusement of a race of rude 

 imcultivated and savage warriors, in their hours of festi- 

 vity. In conformity with the bigotry, ignorance and cre- 

 dulity of the times, the metrical productions of these rude 

 ages were, either uncouth dramatic pieces, founded on 

 Stories taken from scripture, and called mysteries; or ro- 

 mances, 



