48 PAPERS, ETC. 



raise his mind to higher and holier things than those of 

 this World, but are also proofs of the gratitude of those who 

 erected them to that Alinighty Being, who has given to 

 the inhabitants of this favoured distriet all things richly to 

 enjoy. 



Some of these beautiful edifices are no doubt of early 

 date, but by far the greater number are of that style which 

 Rickman has called Perpendicvdar ; and of these the 

 majority are comparatively of late date in the style, having 

 been buüt or modernized in the reigns of the tAvo first 

 monarchs of the Tudor dynasty, though no doubt many of 

 them are somewhat earher. The question has often been 

 asked — what was there in the circumstances of the times, to 

 account for the great move in church building, which 

 evidently took place between the reigns of Edward III. 

 and Henry VIII. ? Nor, as far as I am aware, has any 

 satisfactory answer been given to it. No doubt the splendid 

 ßimplicity of the works of Edington and Wykeham gave a 

 spur to the genius of Wainflete, and the builder of King's 

 College Chapel ; but stUl the circumstances of the natiol 

 at that time, occupied as it was by foreign wars and 

 domestic commotions, do not seem to have been such as 

 were likely to produce such works as these ; nor can the 

 local tradition, that these towers were built by Henry VII., 

 out of gratitude for the Services of the faithful West to the 

 Lancastrian cause, be admitted as satisfactory, — that selfish 

 and calculating monarch being more busily engaged in 

 filling his own cofFers, by the aid of such men as Empson 

 and Dudley, than in expending vast sums in works of piety, 

 though that elaborate specimen of stone panel work, his 

 chapel at Westminster, is no doubt an exception. 



It has always appeared to me that a more satisfactory 

 Solution of the difficulty might be found in the pious fore- 



