208 NOTICES OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS. niomimeuts not loss attractive, and distinct in certain features of local character. The Central Committee of the Institute has cordially recognised the value of this undertaking ; and the work is conmiended to the notice of the Society as published under their sanction. Its merits as a local guide have, doubtless, been appreciated by those who visited Oxfordshire during the meeting recentl}' assembled in the University ; but the instruction which it conveys, as an aid to the scientific classification of architectural examples, must render it a Manual of permanent and extensive utility. AN INQUIRY INTO THE CHRONOLOGICAL SUCCESSION OF THE STYLES OF ROMANESQUE AND POINTED ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. By Thomas Inkehsley. London, 8vo. John Muiray, 1850. This is an attempt to discriminate more particularly between the pecu- liarities of the styles of architecture prevalent in France from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. The author seeks, by careful comparison of the dates of the ecclesiastical edifices in the difl'erent provinces, with such authentic facts as could be gathered connected with their erection or conse- cration, to establish a more exact chronology, not only of the period when the Romanesque assumed the character which sufiiciently distinguishes it from the debased Roman, but also of the time when the circular arch and its concomitant features gave place to the pointed forms, more strictly denominated Gothic, with all its successive transmutations, to its final extinction amidst the prurient absurdities of the period of the Renaissance. Nor is this task by any means so easy as may at first sight appear, and accordingly the author has wisely done little more than transcribe from his notes the result of his personal observations on ninety or a hundred of the cathedrals or principal churches of France. Availing himself of a conventional division of the period of which he treats into five difl'erent epochs, which he denominates Romanesque, Transitional, First Pointed, Second Pointed, and lastly. Flamboyant, he proceeds to enumerate under one or other of these heads all the examples cited ; he then argues (and we are not disposed to gainsay his opinion) that, on comparing the dates of these buildings with those of a corresponding- class in England, it will be found that (except perhaps in the province of Normandy) the earliest French first Pointed style preceded that commonly known to us as "Early Pointed," — that geometrical Tracery or "Deco- rated" was invented and in use by our neighbours, at least half a century before it was adopted in this country, — that this latter style prevailed on the continent until it was in turn superseded by the Flamboyant, and must, therefore, have continued in use long after the introduction amongst us of the " Perpendicular." This style, of which we possess so many beautiful examples, it will be observed, has no place assigned to it in the author's arrangement ; indeed, most writers have agreed in considering it as an exclusively English species of the Gothic architecture, which was in vogue here at the time when the Flamboyant was first introduced into France. When it is remembered that few of the larger edifices were not the work of many difl'erent epochs before finally arriving at completion, it will be evident that extrenic care was required in assigning dates to each parti-
