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 own fault if they do not know how simple and straightforward we really are.

I return to the fact that England early displayed a sense of stubborn independence of foreign influences. It was largely due to the Norman Conquest that this did not mean isolation, but only independence, which showed itself in assimilating what was in accordance with the national temper, and rejecting what was not. It is curious to trace this in the development of architecture. The impulse came from the Normans, but the English soon gave the Norman forms a meaning of their own. One point will serve to illustrate the tenacity of the English traditions. The great Norman churches were of basilican form, terminating with an apse. Little by little, in subsequent days, English architects replaced them by the rectangular chancels to which they had been accustomed in their simple churches. Indeed, the whole process of the evolution of ecclesiastical architecture was a gradual reversion to the primitive form of the Celtic building. So was it with the movement of the Renaissance. England remained unmoved by it so long as it was a foreign importation, and only received it from her own scholars when it assumed the practical form of serious criticism. The national form given to the New Learning enabled England to withstand the influence of the Reformation on the Continent, and work out its own ecclesiastical changes on its own lines. Not till this was accomplished, did the literary and artistic impulse of the New Learning find an expression in the reign of Elizabeth, moderated and inspired by the vigorous awakening of a new