is reflected in the inanimate stone. They gave life to their work and freshness to old subjects. Each man followed his own bent. Some were a little in advance of their time, some behind it, so there are endless variations to patterns that superficially agree. A new turn was given to a scroll here, a different arrangement there; just small things that served to raise work from the conventional and commonplace. The olden craftsmen respected tradition. Forms that became established by custom were handed down from generation to generation. Certain ornaments continued to be used, almost unaltered, over a very long period. Not that patterns were slavishly followed; on the contrary, each man gave his own interpretation of what he knew had served so well, and fashioned his work in his own way. But he remembered something of that which had gone before. Traditions of ornamentation were just as much founded upon accumulated experience as were the main styles of architecture. The worker saw around him the forces of Nature, active yet unchanging, the abiding waterways, the ancient churches standing as they had done in times long past, and it was in a spirit of respect for the permanence of spiritual and material things that he pursued his craft. This was altogether good. Methods of workmanship, the treatment of features, and types of enrichment, were gradually evolved. They were governed by ordered principles that slowly grew together and became established, principles that served to check the introduction of inharmonious innovations which would have been out of sympathy with all those forms that, as a whole, were customary and usual. Doorways, windows, gables and ornaments, therefore, by their particular appearance, mark various steps in a long-continued process of development. Period followed period. After the pointed-arched doorways came the circular-headed; gables of simple outline in course of time became more complex; fashions in the shaping of wall-ties changed. But nothing happened suddenly. Craftsmen were content to solve their own problems without any show of haste. It was by such methods that incongruities were avoided. The national temperament always asserted itself and each individual as he carved his stone, laid his bricks, worked his wood, or wrought his iron, did his small part to keep alive the inherited traditions, and pass them on so that they should be vigorous to meet the needs of future generations.