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earliest Christian churches were constructed. In such an 

 edifice, the original of the clustered pillar is found in a simple 

 round post, begirt with slender willow rods, whose loose sum- 

 mits were brought to meet from all quarters, and bound 

 together artificially so as to produce the frame-work of the 

 roof; and the tracery of our Gothic windows is displayed 

 in the meeting of rods and hoops, affording an inexhaustible 

 variety of beautiful forms of open-work. 



The Decorated period followed the Early English. "When 

 it Mas recollected, that it prevailed during what might be 

 designated the age of cliivalry and romance, it was not won- 

 derful that it exhibited so many marks of the purest taste and 

 the most lively imagination. It was, par excellence, the poetic 

 style. A budding of this period might be recognised by the 

 window filled with flowing tracery — by the great beauty and 

 exquisite workmanship of the crockets, finials and bosses — by 

 the bold flying buttress — and the elegant ball-flower boss. 



The Perpendicular period came next. Buddings in tins 

 style were remarkable for the gorgeous fan-like tracery of the 

 roof — the heraldic character of its ornaments — the geometric 

 divisions of the window — the general use of the transom, 

 winch was occasionally embattled. Panelling was general, 

 doorways began to be widened, and pendants were used as an 

 ornament to the roof. Henry the Sevenths Chapel, at West- 

 minster, was a most exquisite illustration of this style — an 

 edifice which had been almost universally admired; and 

 King's College Chapel, at Cambridge, was another specimen 

 which had received almost equal admiration. 



After this period English architecture declined, and no 

 new style had been introduced in ecclesiastical edifices. 



The author then described the internal arrangement of a 

 monastery and abbey, and passed a fitting eulogy upon the 

 eorreel taste which induced the monks to choose such beauti- 

 ful sites for their buildings. 



tie then descanted upon the judgment with which, in 



