“Rare and ever to be wisht maye sownde heere Instruments w^{ch} fainte sprites and muses cheere, Composing for the Body, Sowle, and Eare, Which Sickness, Sadness, and Fowle Spirits feare.” Sir Henry Wotton, in his “Elements of Architecture,” implies that it was a place for indoor exercise, for he says, in advising as to the aspect of the principal rooms of a house, that on the north side should be placed “all that are appointed for gentle motion, as galleries.” It can hardly have been meant for pictures, as the fashion of collecting them and _articles de vertu_ had not yet arisen. Galleries were generally lighted all down one side and at one or both ends; indeed, continuous lighting was necessary, for their immense length would have rendered lighting from the ends only utterly futile. The illustration from Astley Hall, Lancashire (Fig. 146), gives a good idea of one of these rooms: it is probable, however, that its interest was originally enhanced by an elaborate plaster ceiling. Most of the bedrooms, at any rate those of any importance, were decorated in the same way as the living rooms; panelled walls, heraldic ceilings, and good chimney-pieces are still to be found in many bedrooms even of moderate size. CHAPTER XI. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--PERSONAL DESIGN--TRANSITIONAL TREATMENT. With the end of the second decade of the seventeenth century there opens a new chapter in English Architecture. Hitherto it had been largely impersonal; now it began to be personal, and its finest manifestations were henceforth to be linked with great names, with Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh, and others. The main cause of the change is to be found in the pursuit of the Italian ideal. Up to this time the erection of houses and churches had not been thought of as “architecture,” but merely as “building.” The processes employed, both in regard to design and to construction, were the outcome of tradition. We have already seen how tradition had been modified in the sixteenth century by the introduction of Italian features, and the imperfect study of Italian models, in obedience to the prevailing fashion of the day, which demanded that particular form of decoration. But it must have been obvious to all instructed eyes that the efforts of English designers, so far as they aimed at a faithful transcript of the foreign copy, had been very wide of the mark. This was only to have been expected from the nature of the circumstances. There was no single mind at work controlling the whole of the design in all its branches. It is true that surveyors were employed to give a general superintendence. These men usually supplied a plan of the house, and not infrequently an elevation. This, at any rate, was the case during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, although there is little evidence that it had been the custom in earlier times.