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semicircles, or from their being parts of a composition, and 
from their not having been designed as individual features ; 
and I shall hereafter exhibit Norman arcades, which are 
exact parallels thereto : thus endeavouring to prove that the 
same geometrical principles were acted upon by the architects 
of Norman and Early English edifices. 
Before entering upon the consideration of the details of 
pointed architecture, a few observations must be made as to 
transition buildings, or those in which we find the attributes 
of the circular and pointed styles united. 
If we look to the works of nature, we find " nexus utrius- 
que generis," or links uniting every variety of organization, 
and these are remarkable for the total absence of beauty. 
Man, dissatisfied with the works of creation, has in every age 
pourtrayed ideal creatures, the offspring of his perverted 
imagination. Berosus, in noticing the monsters depicted upon 
the walls of the temple of Belus at Babylon, says they con- 
sisted of hideous creatures of two-fold principles. — ( Cory's 
Ancient Fragments of Phoenician JVriters.) 
We shall find the same peculiarity both in sculpture and 
architecture, wherever a melange has been attempted of parts 
having no aflfinity with each other. Cicero, in one of his 
letters to Atticus, condemns in the strongest terms the prac- 
tice among the Romans, (in his time,) of importing Grecian 
statues, and subsequently altering and dedicating them to 
Roman heroes and citizens. (" Odi falsas inscriptiones sta- 
tuarum alienarum.") 
In Whalley, Roche, Romsey, Malmesbury, and Kirkstall 
Abbeys, the Temple Church, London ; Steyning, and Shore- 
ham churches, Sussex ; Canterbury, Lincoln, Winchester and 
other cathedrals, we find excellent examples of architecture 
in a state of transition between the Norman and the Pointed 
styles ; but however valuable they may be for the purposes of 
