Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/412

382 begins his second chapter with the remark that "To suggest new methods of arrangement and new terms to express them, perhaps only tends to perplex and confuse the elements of the science; and some of those already proposed are sufficiently appropriate." But he has not firmness enough to act on this sensible opinion, being overruled by external influence, and proceeds to divide the Romanesque into four styles, and the "Gothic" into seven more: where each begins and ends it is in vain to attempt to make out, for as these distinctions are in a great degree imaginary and have no real existence, examples will continually occur in which two of his styles are so blended together in work that is evidently cotemporaneous, that any effort to separate them must be futile, and hence we suppose arises the confusion which we find in his attempt to distinguish them. Mr. Rickman's styles are so perfectly natural and true that any attempt to upset them and make fresh divisions is certain to fail when a large number of examples come to be examined in different districts. Rules which may seem good in one county will entirely fail in another. Mr. Rickman's divisions may naturally be subdivided into early and late in each style, and he always allowed for the transition from one style to another occupying a considerable period; of course many buildings being entirely of this transitional character. If the study were made more easy by multiplying names, each of these changes might have a separate name, but as we have always observed that the more names and the more divisions are made, so much the more are beginners puzzled, we deprecate their use especially in these manuals for beginners.

There is a clearness and simplicity about Mr. Rickman's system which renders it peculiarly easy to understand and to remember. A learner by his method, will be able to discriminate the style and age of a building in half the time that he could do so by Mr. Paley's or the Ecclesiologist's. Mr. Bloxam has had the good sense to retain Mr. Rickman's divisions of the styles and nomenclature, and his book continues to be the best manual for an archæologist. He is too fond of viewing all old buildings which present any anomalies as necessarily Anglo-Saxon, and he has introduced two new styles, the "Semi-Norman" and the "Debased," neither of which are properly styles at all; but on the whole his book is sensible and useful. The early editions were little more than "Rickman made easy," his language thrown into question and answer, and illustrated by Mr. Jewitt's beautiful woodcuts. The later editions however contain a good deal of original research, though too much confined to the "Anglo-Saxon style." On this subject Mr. Paley follows him implicitly, far too implicitly as we think, but we must reserve that question for another opportunity, and return for the present to Mr. Paley. His book is illustrated by some very pretty woodcuts by Williams, which are creditable to the artist, but do not exhibit the same accuracy or the same knowledge of the subject with Mr. Jewitt's; the artist has evidently engraved many of the drawings without understand-