Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/324

 240 NOTICES OY NEW PUBLICATIONS. country no Gothic structures exist in anywise differing materially from those of the Midland Counties, thei'e would seem to be just grounds for believing that the progress of ecclesiastical architecture in Scotland received a sudden and irrecoverable check about the end of the thirteenth century. Whether it was that the profuse zeal of David the First and his immediate successors had already sufBciently stocked the country with religious esta- blishments, or that the distractions and impoverishment occasioned by the war with England, and the prolonged contest between the families of Bruce and Baliol for the crown, put a stop to the cultivation of every peaceful art, is uncertain ; but it is beyond doubt that the practice of church building ■was in all but a state of entire suspension during the whole of the period that elapsed between the accession of John Baliol in 1293, and the death of Robert the Third in 1406. " By reference to Spottiswoode's list of Religious Houses, and other authentic sources, it will be seen that nearly the whole of the collegiate churches, although in sti/le belonging to the Middle-Pointed period,, were not erected until about the middle of the fifteenth century, and there appears to be no reason for supposing that the Middle-Pointed portions which are appended to the original work of the cathedrals and monasteries are of much earlier date. An examination also of other churches and chapels, seemingly of parochial origin, that are to be met with here and there, either nearly entire or in a state of ruin, will assist in bearing out the view here taken. Among them only two styles are to be found, Norman and Middle -Pointed, the former generally of advanced character, but at same time remarkably consistent and jiure ; while on the other hand, the latter presents so many anomalous combinations of form, accompanied too, not unfrequently, with such feebleness and tenuity of expression as can scarcely fail to suggest not only an absence of chronological agreement, but a falling away into those vague and depreciated conceptions of artistic design which characterized the general decline of Church Architecture throughout the whole of Britain a little anterior to the epoch of the Reformation." Notwithstanding the frequent mention of the " Middle-Pointed style," if by this name we are to understand the style which prevailed in the fourteenth century, usually called the Decorated style, it does not appear that any of the buildings here described really belong to that style at all. In other parts of the work the author does not seem to distinguish the frequent patching, and the use of old materials, such as doorways and windows, in rebuilding a church, which constantly prevailed at all periods, and is always puzzling to beginners. The author has described only thirty-four churches, and with almost un- intelligible descriptions of these he has filled a volume of respectable dimen- sions. The omissions strike us as remarkable in an account of the churches of Scotland ; no mention is' found of Melrose abbey church, or Glasgow cathedral, or Stirling church, or Jedburgh abbey, or Holyrood chapel. The same number of pages might very well have included all the remains Avorth noticing in Scotland, whether churches, cathedrals, or castles, and