"No, indeed, my dear; I can only tell you a very small part of their history, but still enough, perhaps, to increase the interest you already feel on the subject. First, then, I shall say something about the _stone-work_ of the windows; and what I say about windows applies very much also to the _doors_ of a church, only the doors are generally much more richly ornamented. Now there are some very simple rules by which we may commonly know from the windows pretty nearly at what period that particular part of the church was built. You cannot, of course, always tell from any thing still existing at what time the church was _first_ built, because often no part whatever of the first church is remaining. The font, from its sheltered position, is the most frequently preserved relic of the original church; sometimes one doorway alone remains, and sometimes but a single window to mark the earliest date of the church. "As I must not puzzle your brains with the hard words employed by persons learned in church building, I do not profess to give you the nice distinctions by which they arrive almost at exact dates. Ours must be a very rapid glance at the whole subject. The two great distinct characters, then, in church windows, as also in other parts of the building, are the _semi-circular arch_ and the _pointed arch_. The former is to be found in churches erected before the year 1150, and the latter since that year; but of course there are exceptions. The earliest round-headed windows (that the few buildings in which they are found were originally intended as Christian temples, I do not of course affirm) are the _Roman_, and these are easily known, for they are nearly always partly composed of red bricks[61]. Then come the _Saxon_; these are built of stone, but are quite plain, and generally as rude and rough as the Roman. You know the Romans held possession of our country from the year 50 before Christ till A.D. 450; and then the Saxons held the country till A.D. 1066; but it is impossible accurately to fix the dates of most of the churches they built. Next follow the _Norman_; these are more ornamental, and not so roughly executed; and after the Norman Conquest, when many clever builders and masons came over from Normandy, they were often most beautifully decorated. The figures of persons and animals, indeed, that are sometimes to be found (but more especially above the doorways) at this time seem very quaint and curious to us now, and often quite unintelligible, but no doubt they once all had an useful meaning and were specimens of the highest art of the time; very many of them are Scripture subjects. Sometimes triangular windows are to be met with of the Saxon and Norman periods, but very rarely. As I said before, some of their stone carvings appear to us to be very quaint and grotesque, and so too the arrangement of their windows was sometimes fanciful; they seem to have attempted occasionally[62], to represent the