Page:Historical Lectures and Addresses.djvu/310

 There must have been a reason. Very often by following back these reasons, you can obtain for yourself a complete record of the past history of the place in which the church stands. There is nothing that suggests more subjects for study than does the history of ecclesiastical architecture.

It is the same also with civil architecture. It is exceedingly interesting to consider what were the countries that first of all built magnificent town halls and what were the characteristics of the common life which led to the building of these town halls. Some of you may perhaps have visited what I think is the most impressive building ever built by any municipality—the Cloth Hall at Ypres. It is to me quite the most splendid and the most magnificent of all civil buildings. Ypres remains a little town, with the mighty building crowning it, the most noble testimony to the activity of a mercantile centre that Europe to my knowledge contains.

Domestic architecture also is full of interest. Their are of course the magnificent palaces which adorn Italy, but they are not comparable to the domestic architecture of England. We do not know, I am sure we do not sufficiently know, the beauty of our English houses. Even the books which are written about these do not rate them one-tenth as highly as they deserve to be rated. The story of English civilisation could be perfectly read simply in English domestic architecture. We have the ruins of our old castles telling us how in olden times the great castle of a great lord was built so as to be strong and permanent; how around it clustered for protection the little wooden huts in