Basilica Anglicana—Vi.

Fronde , in his History of England , has drawn a vivid picture of the panic which spread through all classes . Men lined the road armed with such weapons as the country afforded , determined to protect what then appeared to them institutions sacred ancl inviolable in their character . Cromwell , one of tho commissionersbore testimony to the popular

, Avrath , and at last paid with his head the penalty of his vacillation in the service of thc Tudor tyrant . Tlio populace besieged the commissioners in the very church , a conflict ensued , and much injury was done . Under Mary the cathedral was repaired , and under Elizabeth new privileges were given to the city and to the see . James I . affected much partiality

for the city and people of Norwich , and Charles I . found within its walls a welcome as hearty as ever monarch received . During the Commonwealth , however , the Cathedral of Norwich was nearly destroyed . Its painted windows were broken by thc Puritanic mallet , its monuments mutilated , dragoons were quartered in the nave and aisles , and

one pious soldier actually made a horsecloth of its altarcloth . Let us hear a contemporary and eye witness . Joseph Hall was at that time Bishop of Norwich . Like others of his class he was loyal to the king , and this virtue in his view was the deadliest crime in the view of the Puritans . Alas ! those were sad times for the splendour of religious- worship , and the fierceness of fanaticism blinded the mental view of

men , animated doubtless by religious aspiration ; but as has since been sorrowfull y found sadly mistaken as to the effect of their fanatical iconoclasm . "Truly , " says Bishop Hall , "it is no other than tragical to relate thc carriage of that furious sacrilege whereof our eyes and cars were the sad witnesses , under the authority and presence of Alderman

Lindscy Toftes , the sheriff , and Greenwood . Lord , what work was here ! what clattering of gfasses , what beating down of walls , what tearing up of monuments , what pulling doivn of seats , what wresting out of iron and brass from the windows and graves , what demolishing of curious stone work that had not any representation in the world but only of the cost of the founder , what tooting and piping upon the destroyed organ i

ppes ; and what a hideous triumph on a market day before all the country , when in a kind of sacrilegious and profane procession all the organ pipes , vestments , copes and surplices , together with the leaden cross which had been newly sawed down from over the green yard pulpit , and all the service books and singing hooks that could be had were carried to the fire in the public market place—a lewd wretch walking before the train , his cope trailing in the dirt

, with the service book in his hand , imitating in an impious scream the tune , and usurping the words of the litany used formerly in the cathedral ! Near the public cross all these monuments of so called idolatry were thrown into the fire ; not without much ostentation of a zealous joy in discharging ordnance to the cost of some who professed how much the }* had longed for that day . Neither was it any news upon the guild day to have thc cathedral , now open on all sides , filled with musketeers , waiting for the mayor ' s return , drinking and tobacconing as freely as if it had been turned into an alehouse . "

Such were the doings of our forefathers , such the horrible rancour which reli gious hate begets . May it be hoped that the passions of one age are the overflowing which fertilizes the next , and of which the fruits are wisdom , brotherhood , aud charity . The cathedral church of Norwich consists of navetransepts

, , and aisles , which run in a circular direction round thc east end ( corresponding in this respect with the form of the building ) , and four chapels . On the south side is a cloister , a feature which need hardly be called peculiar in the style of vu ' tbiteetiiYc of which this famous church is the type , but which iu some instances is found wanting . The length of the

building is four hundred and eleven feet , of the transepts one hundred and seventy-eight feet . The breadth of the nave and aisles is seventy-two feet . From the floor to the summit of the tower measures one hundred and forty feet , and to the top of the spire which tapers to a point and is elegantl y crocketted at the angles , the heig ht is three hundred and fifteen feet .

The Varying Character Of English Architecture.

THE VARYING CHARACTER OF ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE .

BY JOHN WILSON ROSS . WE are not among those who believe that Englishmen have no sympathy with art or artists of any kind , but move only in the mild sphere of making steam engines and calico prints ; that they are essentially it commercial , practical , peaceful people , who have an immense capital and fine

Ictrgc towns , ivhich they do not possess the capacity to embellish with beautiful edifices . So far from being of opinion that there is want of skill in English architects , we think that , whenever a great event calls for their talents , they are equal to the occasion . Indeed , whenever there has been a universal invitation to submit designsas at the Lille cathedral

, competition , and at that for new state offices in this country , they have carried off the first prizes , and no one has ever questioned the superiority of their designs . Doubtless there does exist a very foolish prejudice that foreign artists of every description surpass the English , although we have seen our own countrymen selected to do that which could not be

done so well by the native architects . Thus , at Hamburg , an English architect was chosen to rebuild the cathedral and the town hall , both of which aro the chief glories of that city . But though , when measured against the best men of foreign countries , our architects hold the foremost p lace , we must candidly admit that they influence A'ery little for the better

the style of our houses , particularly our secular public buildings . The causes , by which this is to be accounted for , are manifold ; one of the chief is , that thc question of style is treated by sortie as a matter of perfect indifference , and by others as a mutter of paramount importance . Is there any clue by which an architect is to be guided ? In what

direction should he wend his way . It ought not to be , in our opinion , towards meditevalism ; yet there is very little doubt , after recent experiences , that Gothic is chiefly aimed at . Gothic may be all very well in the erection of a church , or of such an ecclesiastico-secular structure as a nunnery , a monasterya Jesuits' collegeor even a college at a Protestant

uni-, , versity . It would have been a very great pity if the Eo yal Exchange , or St . George ' s Hall in Liverpool , the Eadcliffe Library at Oxford , or the Senate House at Cambridge , or any other important public building , had been erected in strong contradistinction from modernism ; and bearing upon it the stamp of archaism , had been chargeable with

anachronism , instead of being impressed , as it is , with all but the precise Anno Domini date of their erection . We are puzzled to know why architects should affect so much mediaivalism for our contemporary secular architecture , when in all other secular matters , whether of business or amusement , wc are every day removing further and further off from the characteristics of our earliest civilization .

The advocates of Gothicism assert , apparently Avithout a shadoiv of truth , that the perpendicular is essentially the style of England , and that if it be not the best , it is , at any rate , the home style . True enough , it did not come to us from another land ; certainly it never went avray from us to another climate , for assuredly the men of other countries

never had thc bad taste to choose to imitate it from us . But , after all , it is only a variety of the Gothic which in its due season ivas transplanted into our country ; and even as the Roman , the Saxon , the Norman , the pointed or early English , and the decorated sty les passed away and yielded p lace one to the other , so the perpendicular , the successor to

the decorated , wore itself out in turn in the days of the Tudors , by Avliich time it had stiffened and straitened itself up till nearly every flowing line was lost . During the reigns of Henry VIII . and Queen Elizabeth the last lingering traces of the Gothic disappeared . Circular and square forms began to take the place of the perpendicular , ancl the Italian style came into fashion , ancl—in a debased form it is true—continued in use for somewhat more than a century—that is ,