THE history of Architecture still to be considered, extends through fifteen centuries to the present time. This interval may be divided into three eras. I. Period of the circular arch. II. Period of the pointed arch. III. Revival and practice of classic art. The theories so abounding in this particular portion of the subject, must be reviewed as in themselves forming part of the information which the reader has a right to expect; but the notice will be brief, the narrative, it is hoped, enabling the judgment to deduce its own conclusions from facts, independently of all opinion. For this reason, the preceding division is adopted, characterised only by the style of architecture, without reference to those minute distinctions and disputes about names, the great sources of obscurity and unsettled hypothesis in treating of the building of the middle ages. It may be remarked, _in limine_, that the term, 'Gothic Architecture,' is of late invention, and appears to be used in two distinct, or indeed opposite meanings. First, to denote the whole system of architectural erection intervening between the decline of the ancient classic modes, and their reappearance soon after the revival of letters. In this sense, it is usually employed as expressive of something barbarous and unscientific. In the second place, the phrase is employed by a large school of writers and artists, to denote a system or systems of art, arising, it is acknowledged, among men of rude cultivation in other respects, yet claiming original principles of invention, and very refined rules of practice--so far even as to be an imitation of natural prototypes of very distant, yet tasteful associations. Each of these theories exclusively taken, seems to be disproved by the course of history, when all preconceived notions are laid aside, and when art, as ought ever to be the case, is fairly made its own interpreter.