=Colonial Style Developed.=--Thus there was developed a skill of design in the use of wood alone and of wood in combination with brick that is distinguishable as a distinct style, to which the term “Colonial” has been applied. It is a style in no sense monumental, even when it includes spires, columns and porticoes. On the contrary, it is characterised by simplicity and reserve but is saved from insignificance by the quiet dignity of the whole and the refinement of the details. The wooden spires of the innumerable meeting-houses distributed over New England, many of which were designed by the almost forgotten worthies, Ascher Benjamin and Ithiel Town, present a type of their own, distinguished by extreme sensitiveness of outline and aspiring grace and airiness. These are veritable creations, growing logically out of the wood construction. And even in the porticoes, although their columns are structurally shams, being mere shells enclosing a post, the feeling of woodwork is so frankly retained, that in association with the wooden walls they seem quite reasonable. A corresponding unity of effect is achieved in the best examples of wooden domestic buildings, such as the =Craigie House=, Longfellow’s home in =Cambridge=; the =Sherburn House, Portsmouth=, and innumerable other examples throughout New England. They are characterised by the choice proportions and distribution of the windows, by the pilasters running up through two stories, to a well-designed cornice, broken in the centre by a pediment that serves as a porch. The roofs vary. Some are flat; some slope up from front and rear, with a gable at each end. In other cases, the continuous slope is broken by a _gambrel_ into two slopes, forming an obtuse angle, as in the Mansard roof. While again, the roof may be _hipped_, sloping up, that is to say, from all four sides, the four planes meeting in hips or ridges.