I have, in my last lecture, mentioned the introduction of purely Byzantine architecture at Venice, as especially illustrated in St. Mark’s and the churches at Torcello, etc., and, I may add, in secular buildings. I mentioned also its transference, apparently by the Venetians, into the south-west of France, where and whence it exercised a very decided influence on the subsequent architecture, and I have, in one of my early lectures, shown the extension of that influence at a later date--in the form of architectural sculpture--into the north of France, and thence into our own country. I will here add that parallel, though not exactly similar, evidences of Byzantine influence pervade the Romanesque of Germany, whose rulers were in constant communication with the Eastern Empire--an influence greatly promoted in decorative art by the importation of woven fabrics, metal-work, jewellery, and illuminations from the East into the West. From such united influences, added to and aiding the earnest strivings after refined and improved art, arose the Romanesque architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, becoming at length a perfectly original, consistent, and artistic development of arcuated architecture. I have, in my previous lectures, gone much into detail in recording and explaining the history of the development of this Romanesque into the subsequent pointed-arch style. It is, perhaps, mockery to refer you back to lectures which probably no one now present heard; but time will not allow me to do more, and should they be published, you may perhaps think it worth your while to refer to them. As the Byzantine was the Christian architecture of the East, so was the Pointed style the culminating Christian architecture of our own group of nations in the West; and, while the former had the disadvantage of being developed during ages of gradually declining civilisation, the young and vigorous shoot which grew from it in the West had the immense advantage of developing itself during the vigorous upstriving of a new and better civilisation. To ourselves it is incomparably more interesting, inasmuch as it became the architecture, _par excellence_, of our own and immediately neighbouring countries. It grew up in this country with our institutions; it is of the same age with our constitution and our system of laws, and in many respects with our ecclesiastical polity. It adapted itself to our climate, our materials, and our scenery. In this style are the monuments of our kings and of our forefathers; and, above all, in its original and identical temples do we still celebrate the offices of our holy religion. Well, then, may we say--in common with each nation of Western Europe--that this is our own, our natural and our national style!