Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/81

 It was a real Architecture, applicable to all purposes—secular, domestic, civic, religious—because its principles proceeded rather from a course of reasoning than from a rigid form. It was of the very nature of its form to adapt itself to all the requirements of the structure. All the structures of that period are stamped with the seal of their time. The building not only of sound and substantial, but of comely and attractive, edifices came naturally to the builders and workmen of that time. It has been remarked that one common artistic motive ruled the construction of everything, from the minster to the wayside chapel, from the manor house to the cottage, from the banqueting hall to the barn. The rise of this great Architecture in Europe was mainly the awakening of the ancient Gallic or Celtic spirit of Northern and Western France. That epoch produced the finest abbeys and churches of Wales, as of other lands. In Tintern and Valle Crucis and Abbey Cwm Hir and Strata Florida, there can still be seen evidences of the richness of detail and the wealth of decorative power which are instinct in the