Distant history as represented by architecture is a subject which has engaged the attention of all students of national development, and to their extensive researches the public is deeply indebted. Architects and archaeologists also have pieced together the evidence available and have reconstructed the past with great thoroughness. The mode of life at different periods has been revealed by means of plans and other drawings, often prepared with infinite labour. By such illustrations and by the records which have been transcribed it is possible to visualize the appearance of the country and its inhabitants from the beginning. In this supremely interesting occupation we are helped by imagination and, moreover, we have the advantage of the imaginative efforts of others better qualified to clothe the framework of the story. To Sir Walter Scott the highest tribute must be paid, for though his visions and word-pictures cannot be relied upon always for minute accuracy, he caught the spirit of the past and with wonderful insight restored it in vivid language. His heart was in the work of making the past live again, and he succeeded in giving verisimilitude to the scenes he described. Illustrations abound of the buildings of Elizabethan and Jacobean date, from the measured drawings which owe their origin to prize competitions among students, to the elaborate pictorial reconstructions which sometimes astonish us by their wealth of detail and fanciful accessories. Painters in Victorian days attempted with varying success to interpret the past, generally introducing architectural backgrounds as settings for the _dramatis personæ_. One of the chief artists of the period to attain success in this direction was George Cattermole (1800-1868), who in such pictures as _The Hunting Party_ and _Old English Hospitality_ proved himself to be well equipped with the necessary imagination and knowledge. He successfully illustrated Scott, and, indeed, founded his fame on his drawings inspired by the great author’s romances. One of Cattermole’s most distinguished contemporaries was Joseph Nash (1808-1878), in whose work the figures as a rule are subordinate to the architecture. This was to be expected from one who had been trained in the office of an architect, namely, the elder Pugin. Yet Nash, while treating buildings with the respect due to them, did not err on the side of technical hardness. He made the beauties of architecture intelligible to the public, contriving also to appeal to the professional mind. His object was to produce essentially picturesque interpretations, to make a set of views of the mansions of England from a new and attractive point of view. To use his own words, he tried to make them interesting, “not as many of them now appear, gloomy, desolate and neglected, but furnished with the rude comfort of early times or exhibiting the more splendid luxury and elegant hospitality of later