I shall only observe, that the instance of the Church of Malmsbury produced by Mr. Carter, does not apply to the question, nor does it vouch the fact for which it is produced. It is, indeed, singularly curious to observe, that when your Correspondents An Architect and Mr. Carter both inveigh, as they do, so bitterly against all Compilations (as they are pleased to term every attempt at a deduction of historical events), and against all intelligence to be derived from books, Mr. Carter himself, for the purpose of proving the date of the Church of Malisbury, should be, as he is, driven to the necessity of refering, p. 322, to a very obscure modern publication, expressly described by himself as a Compilation. And this is still more unfortunate, because in a subsequent part of his observations he contends, though unreasonably, that none but an eye-witness competent evidence, which must necessarily apply as well to historical events as to buildings. He should at least have referred to Tanner, a respectable author, who apparently originally furnished that fact. But the date given is that of the original foundation only; and there is no proof that the present erection is of that age. Supposing it to be really so old, still Mr. Carter has not shewn that the workmen were Englishmen, which is the very point in question; and this is at least doubtful, because at that very period it was the practice to procure them from France and elsewhere. very In 675, the very year in which Mr. Carter dates the Church of Malms bury, Benedict Biscopius began to build St. Peter's Church in the Monastery of Wermouth; and in that year went over to France, to engage workmen to construct it after the Roman manner. See Bentham's Preface to his History of Ely, in Essays on Gothic Architecture, p. 31. Wilfrid Bishop of York, who in 675, the very same year with the dates of Malmsbury and Wermouth, founded the Conventual Church of Rippon, and in 674 that of St. Andrew at Hexham, procured some of his workmen, builders, and artificers, from Canterbury, and some from Rome and other parts of Italy, France, and other countries. Sée Bentham's Preface before cited, p. 38 and 39. The circumstance of some of these workmen having been procured from Canterbury, in which Mr. Carter exults p. 323, is by no means contradic tory to the supposition that the workmen came from France, but rather enhances the probability of it. The distance from Canterbury to Dover is so little, as every one knows who has travelled the road, as I have done, that it is very likely the workmen came from France, that they landed at, Dover, and proceeded to Cauterbury; but, finding employment there, did not continue their journey any further. In confirmation of this idea it may be observed, that William of Sens, who was employed in 1174 to repair and rebuild the Cathedral of Canterbury after the fire, was most certainly and evidently a Frenchman, aud, as his name imports, came from Sens in France. Governor Pownall, in his paper on the Origin of Gothic Architecture, inserted in the Archæologia, vol. IX. expressly mentions, p. 112, on the authority of Richard prior of Hexham, that St. Wilfrid learnt his architecture from Rome, and built his church at Hagulsted after that model. But there is every reason to think that the Church of Malmsbury is not by some centuries so old as Mr. Carter thinks it. William of Malmsbury, who lived in the reigns of Hen. I. Stephen, and Hen. II. and was him self a monk of that Abbey, speaks in his fifth book "De Pontificibus," edit. Gale, p. 350, of the whole Mo nastery of Malmsbury, most evidently from what he says including also the Church, as twice destroyed by fire; once in the reign of Alfred, and again in that of king Edward. By this last he most probably meant Edward the Confessor, not Edward the elder; because, as Edward the elder was Alfred's immediate successor,it maybedoubted, in any other mode of interpretation, whether there could have been time sufficient for the re-erection of so many. large buildings before they are represented as being a second time destroyed, particularly as it does not appear that the fire in Alfred's time happened early in his reign. A similar confla gration in the case of the Church of Canterbury in 1174, rendered it neces sary to take down and rebuild the greater part of that edifice, and partis cularly the arches and columns, which of course had been injured by the fire, and by the fall of the roof; and it appears that, after a lapse of ten years, that single edifice still remained unfinished. William of Malmsbury relates, it is true, as he heard it from others, according to the custom of his age, a miraculous story, how a beam for the roof of the Church, which, in build ing it, bad been cut too short, was by miracle lengthened, so as to fit the place; and how, notwithstanding the two fires before mentioned, it had escaped destruction. But such occasional instances of credulity, which occur in the writings of authors of the early ages, have never been held with men of the best sense and judgment a sufficient reason for rejecting their testimony as to positive facts. Malmsbury's credulity, therefore, as to the pretended miracle does not impeach his veracity as to the two fires, which are positive historical facts; and it should seem as if he conceived that the rest of the roof of the Church bad been consumed in both conflagrations, as otherwise, the escape of that beam would not have been, as he evidently thought it, miraculous. Of the authenticity of this proof, as fully establishing the fact of the two fires, no intelligent reader can, I am fully convinced, have any doubt. It is impossible to conceive that the whole Monastery should have been, as William of Malmsbury expressly says it was, twice consumed, and yet, which he does not notice, that the Church, adjoining as it did the other buildings, could have escaped, especially as its roof was of timber covered with lead. The Cathedral of Canterbury, covered in like manner with a roof of timber and lead, caught fire in 1174, from the sparks arising from the flames which destroyed some adjoining houses; and it is evident that the effect of the fire, and the falling of the roof, would, in the case of Malmsbury, as it did in that of Canterbury, require that the arches, and perhaps some of the pillars, should have been rebuilt. Be sides, Mr. Carter himself admits, p. 322, that the third or upper story of the Malmsbury specimen is an addition done in the reign of Edward the Third; so that that part of the building is certainly not in its original state. Certainly, therefore, the probability is, that in that Church, as well in the Cathedral of Canterbury, a great portion of the internal part, including the nave, was re-erected, at least as to the arches, and all above them; and for the reasons abovementioned, and some others which will be here given, it is likely that these parts, with the exception of those noticed by Mr. Carter, are of the age of Edward the Confessor, who is generally spoken of in the early historians by the appellation of King Edward only, and who died in 1065. The early Historians speak of the Church of Westminster erected by this King, as being constructed in a new mode or style of building, which was afterwards copied by many persons; and it is conceived that the use of Pointed arches in the nave of Malmsbury, together with the above circumstance as to Westminster Abbey, and that of the fire in the reign of one of the Edwards, even though it is not specified which of them it was; fairly justify the conclusion, that the destruction took place in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and not in that of any other King of the same name. In consequence of a repair now going on, I cannot have access to many of my books; but I remember to have seen in some work, and I think it was in Mr. Carter's now publishing, an engraving of part of the nave of Malmsbury, with the date 675, given as the time of its erection. I was always fully persuaded it was not so old, for which reason I forbore to notice it in my own book; and the facts before-mentioned, relating to it, fully shew I was right in my opinion. Surely the error into which in this instance Mr. Carter has fallen, is a sufficient justification of the necessity for consulting books-a mode of instruction which none affect to despise, but such as are equally unacquainted with their contents, their value, their use, and their intention. The Author of the letter-press to the Antiquarian Society's publication of the Cathedral of Durbam has expressed himself in the following terms, as they appear in a note in the Preface to the Third Edition of the "Essays on Gothic Architecture," p. 3. "There is very little doubt that the light and elegant style of building, whose principal and characteristic feature is the high Pointed arch, struck from two centres, was. invented in this Country. It is certain that it was here brought to its This passage, which is here given as it stands in the place above referred to, evidently contains in the last sentence a grammatical inaccuracy, which I think it incumbent on me thus to notice, that my adversaries, if they should be told of it by any person, may not say that I had not perceived it. It should not be " substituted to," but substituted for. In another part of it there is also a similar error, in using the word "adds," instead of add; but that is supposed an error of the press. For the first assertion, as to the invention of Gothic Architecture in England, no authority or adequate reason is given. The improvement of an art is no ground for characterizing it by the name of the place where it was improved; it ought to receive its name from that where it was invented. Nor is the circumstance of its having received improvement in any one place, had that improvement been, as it was not in the present instance, exclusively confined to that spot, any evidence of its baving been invented in the same place or country. Of the traditions which this Author mentions I was before aware; but they amount to no more than this, that such a building was erected by the English-meaning, in fact, nothing further than that it was built while the English were in possession of the place, as they were, at times, of different parts of France. They do not imply that the artists were English; nor has the name of one English architect ever been mention ed as employed on these erections. After all it is certain, as can be proved by evidence, that even the buildings here alluded to are those of a late date; and the Abbey of Clugny erected from the design of Gunzo, a monk of that endowment, is greatly prior to any of them. It is manifestly utterly impossible, that Mr. Carter, in opposition to the strongest possible proof which exists Jao ontnjao to the contrary, and in defiance of trason, and all those methods which Mr. |