RPENDICULAR.

This style prevailed till the Reformation, at which period no country
could vie with our own in the number of religious edifices, which had been
erected in all the varieties of style that had prevailed for many
preceding ages. Next to the magnificent cathedrals, the venerable
monasteries and collegiate establishments, which had been founded and
sumptuously endowed in every part of the kingdom, might most justly claim
the preeminence; and many of the churches belonging to them were
deservedly held in admiration for their grandeur and architectural
elegance of design.

But the suppression of the monasteries tended in no slight degree to
hasten the decline and fall of our ancient church architecture, to which
other causes, such as the revival of the classic orders in Italy, also
contributed. The churches belonging to the conventual foundations, which
had been built at different periods by the monks or their benefactors, and
the charges of erecting and decorating which from time to time in the most
costly manner, had been defrayed out of the monastic revenues, and from
private donations, being seized by the crown, were reduced to a state of
ruin, and the sites on which they stood granted to dependants of the
court. The former reverential feeling on these matters had greatly
changed; and as the retention of some few of the ministerial habits, the
square cap, the cope, the surplice, and hood, which were deemed expedient
for the decent ministration of public worship, gave great offence to many,
and was one of the most apparent causes which led to that schism amongst
the Reformers, on points of discipline, which afterwards ended in the
subversion, for a time, of the rites and ordinances of the Church of
England, any attempt towards beautifying and adorning (other than with
carved pulpits and communion-tables or altars) the places of divine
worship, which were now stripped of many of their former ornamental
accessories, would have been regarded and inveighed against as a popish
and superstitious innovation; and a charge of this kind was at a later
period preferred against Archbishop Laud. Parochial churches were,
therefore, now repaired when fallen into a state of dilapidation, in a
plain and inelegant mode, in complete variance with the richness and
display observable in the style just preceding this event.

Details, originating from the designs of classic architecture, which had
been partially revived in Italy,