[Illustration: 678. Spire of the Chapel of St. Sang, Bruges. (From a Sketch by the Author.)] [Illustration: 679. Window in Church at Villers, near Genappe. (From a Sketch by the Author.)] Belgium is rich in small specimens of transitional architecture, and few of her more extensive ecclesiastical establishments are without some features of this class, often of great beauty. Their age has not yet, however, been determined with anything like precision by the Belgian antiquaries; but on the whole, it seems that in this, as in most other respects, this country followed the German much more closely than the French type, hesitating long before it adopted the pointed arch, and clinging to circular forms long after it had been employed elsewhere, oscillating between the two in a manner very puzzling, and rendering more care necessary in determining dates than in most other parts of Europe. Besides this, none of the Belgian buildings have yet been edited in such a manner as to afford materials for the establishment of any certain rule. Perhaps the most interesting specimen of the transitional period, and certainly one of the most beautiful ruins in the country, is the abbey church of Villers, near Genappe, a building 338 ft. in length by 67 in width, built with all the purity of what we would call the Early English style, but with a degree of experimental imperfection in the tracery of which I hardly know an example elsewhere. The representation given above (Woodcut No. 679) of one of the windows of the transept will explain this; throughout it the tracery consists of holes cut into slabs; yet this church is said to have been commenced in 1240, and only finished in 1276. In Germany such a date would be probable; in France a similar specimen would be assigned to a period from 70 to 100 years earlier. Among the many efforts made in Belgium to get rid of the awkwardness of the pointed form for windows was that in the choir of Notre Dame de la Chapelle, at Brussels (begun 1216), where the circular tracery is inserted in a circular-headed window, producing a much more pleasing effect, both internally and externally, than the pointed form, except with reference to the vault, with which it is so little in accordance that the experiment seems to have been abandoned, and no attempt made afterwards to renew it. Besides those already mentioned, Belgium possesses about twenty first-class churches of pointed architecture, all deserving attentive consideration, some of them being almost unrivalled edifices of their class. Among the earliest of these is the cathedral of Liège, begun in 1280, exhibiting the style in great purity. It has no western entrance, but, like St. Croix, St. Jacques, and all the principal churches of this city, is entered by side porches.