From the commencement of the tenth century we find one style of architecture for a time spreading over the plains of Lombardy, the valleys of Switzerland, and that of the Rhine, and extending itself over Saxony and all the civilised parts of Germany. I do not say that the style was absolutely identical; but still it was essentially the same. It was promoted by the same all-pervading political influence; and there can be no doubt that the same ecclesiastics, and even the same artists, were engaged in carrying it out; and that even among those most remote from one another a constant interchange of views as to taste and construction was ever going on, while the differences which we observe would arise rather from those of climate, material, and proximity to the relics of ancient art, than from any essential or intended difference of style. The force of the influence brought to bear at this period upon the furtherance of art may be judged of from the accounts we have of the schools of art and science established so far north as Hildesheim (in the neighbourhood of Brunswick and Hanover), by Bernward, Bishop of that see, at the close of the tenth and the commencement of the eleventh century. Bernward was tutor, and afterwards chancellor, to Otho III., and there are extant portions of an elaborate treatise on geometry from which he instructed that prince. He was himself skilled in many arts, as wall-painting, the illumination of MSS., mosaics, working in metals, cutting and setting precious stones, as well as in architecture itself; and it is said that “whenever he found a youth with a feeling for art, he took him into his laboratory, and instructed him with the greatest kindness in giving the required forms to stubborn metals, hard stone, wood, and ivory. The most artistic of these young men he always took with him when he travelled, especially when he went to Italy, that their taste might be improved by seeing masterly works of art, and hence be enabled to execute similar works at home.” Bernward rebuilt his cathedral and erected the church of St. Michael at Hildesheim (still existing); and of his works in metal there remain the gates and the spiral column (of which casts may be seen at the Crystal Palace), as well as the great corona, in the cathedral. I have dwelt the longer on these particulars because we happen to have more complete records of Bernward than of most of his contemporaries in art, and because the sphere of his operations was at a point so distant from the recognised centres of art; and when it is recollected that he was cotemporary with the erection of many of the great Romanesque cathedrals of Germany--as Mayence, Spire, and Bamberg, and of multitudes of less important churches (at the dedication of many of which he was present), and further, that he lived earlier than the erection of the Cathedral of Pisa, the Church of St. Mark at Venice, or St. Zeno at Verona--it will