Is there not, too, such a thing as a period of decadence in any style? Just as there is good and bad Saxon work, good and bad Norman work, so must there have been good and bad Roman work. We are told in an account of the Roman excavations at Silchester that "examination showed that the rubble masonry of the whole western range (of the basilica) was of a _very poor character_." "The stones (in a part of the Roman wall of London) form a mere skin, between the tile bonding courses, to the thick _irregular_ rubble core." In the same wall, above the bonding course of three rows of tiles at the ancient ground-level, "the body of the wall is composed throughout its height of masses of ragstone, with now and then a fragment of chalk, bedded _very roughly_ in mortar which has been pitched in, not run in, sometimes with so little care as to leave occasional empty spaces amongst the stones." It seems useless to multiply quotations for the purpose of establishing an obvious fact--viz. that granting a general _idea_ and method pervading a building (as, we believe, there is clearly in St. Martin's nave), it is quite possible that at a time of decadence, and in the hands of inferior (perhaps British) workmen, this idea should be somewhat roughly carried out. This would be eminently the case if we attribute the erection of the nave towards the close of the fourth century--not so very long before the Roman evacuation of Britain. Since writing the above, we have been informed by Mr Micklethwaite that he places the nave of St. Martin's as dating from the seventh century--but he gives no reason for doing so, except that he thinks the form of the western windows and some other things about the work indicate that period--and he acknowledges that there is nothing to fix the date closer. We have, however, at some length, pointed out reasons that seem to us to militate against his theory, and they need not be re-stated. Though his opinion is deservedly weighty, he has not been able to be present at any of the excavations. APPENDIX C EASTERN APSE, ETC. Mr Livett has addressed to us the following communication with reference to the probability of there having been an eastern apse in the church, and has furnished the subjoined sketches to illustrate his remarks:-- [Illustration: Tracings of Apse (Livett's three sketches)] "No doubt exists in my mind that in the western half of the chancel we have the oldest part of the existing church of St. Martin's, and I am inclined to think that it is part of the first church built upon the site. We must recognise, however, the possibility that the foundations of a still earlier church remain undiscovered, either under the present nave or elsewhere in the churchyard.