My main object at the present time is to trace the history, and investigate the character of those branches of this great round-arched style which have developed themselves in our own country: and my purpose in the foregoing remarks has been to lead you to view our own architecture, not as an essentially separate style, but as a part of that which pervaded Christian Europe, and extended till the Mahometan invasion, far both into Asia and Africa, which was the nucleus even of the Mahometan styles, and which in Sicily (as in the Holy Land and in Spain) again met and coalesced with its infidel offshoot, and produced by this reunion the noble architecture of Palermo, and other cities of Northern Sicily. Among all the races of Northern Europe, who were either conquered by Rome, or aided in the overthrow of her empire, I do not know that any has left a vestige of what may be viewed as indicating, in any intelligible manner, the previous existence among them of a distinctive style of architecture. Stonehenge and the cromlechs can hardly be viewed as exceptions; and, when the Angles and Saxons invaded Britain, they found, so far as we know, no architecture but the Roman, nor brought with them any of their own; while, to make matters worse, they seem to have devoted themselves to the destruction of what they found. What was the character of their buildings while they continued Pagan, we have no means of judging. We have proofs that timber was their most customary material, though it would be unreasonable to suppose that they were unable to build in stone. It is likely enough that their houses were generally of wood, for such was the case throughout the Middle Ages, and continues to be so to this day, where timber is abundant. Many of the churches afterwards were of the same material; but such also has at all periods been the case when dictated by local circumstances, and is still frequent in our colonies, so that it is insufficient to disprove the contemporary use of stone.