the south aisle of Yarnton Church, Oxfordshire, constructed A. D. 1611, may
be instanced as a curious specimen.

[Illustration: Arabesque.]

Q. What peculiarity may be noted in the alterations and additions of this
era?

A. A very common practice prevailed, from about the middle of the
sixteenth century, when any alteration or addition was made in or to a
church, of affixing a stone in the masonry, with the date of such in
figures. Thus over the east window of Hillmorton Church, Warwickshire,
(which is a pointed window of four lights, formed by three plain mullions
curving and intersecting each other in the head, which is filled with
nearly lozenge-shaped lights, but all without foliations,) is a stone
bearing the date of 1640. In the south wall of the tower of the same
church (which is low, heavy, and clumsily built, without any pretension to
architectural design) is a stone to denote the period of its erection,
which bears the date of 1655. Pulpits, communion-tables, church chests,
poor-boxes, and pewing of the latter part of the sixteenth and of the
seventeenth century, also very frequently exhibit, in figures carved on
them, the precise periods of their construction.

Q. What specimens are there of this style of late or debased and mixed
Gothic?

A. Annexed to Sunningwell Church, Berkshire, is a singular porch or
building, sexagonal in form, at the angles of which are projecting columns
of the Ionic order supporting an entablature. On each side of this
building, except that by which it communicates with the church, and that
in which the doorway is contained, is a plain window of the Debased Gothic
style, of one light, with a square head and hood moulding over. The
doorway is nondescript, neither Roman or Gothic. This building is supposed
to have been erected by Bishop Jewell. The chapel of St. Peter's College,
Cambridge, finished in 1632, exhibits in the east wall a large pointed
window, clumsily designed, in the Debased style, and divided by mullions
into five principal lights, round-headed, but trefoiled within; three
series of smaller lights, rising one above the other, all of which are
round-headed and trefoiled, fill the head of the window, the composition
of which, though comparatively rude, is illustrative of the taste of the
age. On each side of the window, on the exterior, is a kind of
semi-classic niche. In Stowe Church, Northamptonshire, are a number of
windows inserted at a general reparation of the