[65] That the oblique or skew arch is an old invention is attested by the following passage in the _Handbook of Spain_, by Mr. Ford, who resided in that country several years: "Now visit the Alcazar (Cathedral, Seville); but first observe a singular Moorish skew arch, in a narrow street leading (from the cathedral) to the Puerta de Xerez: it proves that the Moors practised this now assumed modern invention, at least, eight centuries ago." [66] The kitchen was the first building erected by Wolsey in his new College, and has undergone no material alteration either in shape, size, or arrangement. It is a good specimen of an ancient English kitchen. [67] In a paper read to the Society of Antiquaries, describing the Trevelyan MS. TRADITIONS OF BATTLE-FIELDS. It has been frequently remarked that the general decay of local traditions, or the difficulty of obtaining particulars of events, or the sites of the most remembered passages of history, is, year by year, becoming more evident. It might be expected that in the vicinity of great transactions, among a rude and ignorant peasantry, we should find more frequent vestiges of the one memorable action which made their locality famous; yet, it is astonishing to find how often these are completely obliterated. Much of this falling-off in tradition may be referred to the more rigid test to which it is subjected by means of the printing-press; as well as to the new class of materials for history. For a century or so, the habit had prevailed of receiving implicitly the traditions and records of past times, assuming them to have been substantiated at the date of their publication. This mode of constructing history consisted merely of breaking up and re-arranging the old materials, which have been compared to stereotype blocks. The worthlessness of this mode of proceeding has become apparent; and now the opposite error has come strongly into vogue--that of going back to neglected documents of the same date as the transaction, and, on their evidence, revoking the settled deliberate verdict of past centuries. The vast accession of materials of this kind obtained of late years, is truly surprising. There is likewise another means of verifying the dates, places, and names, of great events: we mean in the visits of archæologists to the sites, and the comparison of the actual localities with recorded details; proceedings of the most pleasurable and intellectual kind.