“As we see our cathedrals now, the view that meets us differs much from that which would have greeted us in mediæval times. Then all was ablaze with colours. Through the beautiful ancient glass the light gleamed on tints of gorgeous hues, and rich tapestries and hangings, on walls bedight with paintings, and every monument, pier and capital were aglow with coloured decorations. We have lost much, but still much remains. At the Reformation the avaricious courtiers of Henry VIII. plundered our sacred shrines, and carried off under the plea of banishing superstition vast stores of costly plate and jewels, tapestry and hangings. In the Civil War time riotous, fanatical soldiers wrought havoc everywhere, hacking beautifully-carved tombs and canopies, destroying brasses, and mutilating all that they could find. Ages of neglect have also left their marks upon our churches; and above all the hand of the ignorant and injudicious ‘restorer’ has fallen heavily on these legacies of Gothic art, destroying much that was of singular beauty, and replacing it by the miserable productions of early Nineteenth Century fabrication.”--(P. H. D.) And now, in order to make our visits more enjoyable, let us refresh our memories with a slight _résumé_ of the four leading styles of English Architecture. The Pointed Arch appeared almost simultaneously in all the civilized countries of Europe. It was probably discovered by the Crusaders in the Holy Land and brought home by them. None of its charming and beautiful accessories, however, accompanied it; the graceful clusters of pillars, the tracery and mullions were to be developed by the Europeans. One of the first to use the word _Gothic_ to define Pointed Architecture was Sir Henry Wotton; and it seems that the word was finally determined as a definition by Sir Christopher Wren. An English critic says: “The pointed arch was a graft on the Romanesque, Lombard and Byzantine architecture of Europe, just as the circular arch of the Romans had been on the columnar ordinances of the Greeks; but with a widely different result. The amalgamation in the latter case destroyed the beauty of both the stock and the scion; while in the former the stock lent itself to the modifying influence of its parasitical nursling, gradually gave up its heavy, dull and cheerless forms, and was eventually lost in its beautiful offspring, as the unlovely caterpillar is in the gay and graceful butterfly.” Although Pointed or Gothic Architecture developed with almost equal vigour in every country of Europe, it reached its greatest perfection in France. Many of the finest earliest buildings in England were, to a great extent, French in their origin, or development; but, in the course of time, English Gothic Architecture became very original. In this country