tied together, and connected by the horizontal lines, orString-courses, which traverse them from end to end; andthat each of these single Compartments embodies withinitself the spirit of the whole design, and may he said torepresent, individually, the main idea of the Building.
It is this portion of such a building then,—a singleCompartment of the Exterior and Interior of the MainWalls of the Choir or Nave , and its adjacent Aisle—thatwe have selected for the purpose of instituting thatcomparison which will enable us to fix and define thecharacteristics of the Seven Periods of English Archi tecture .
Neglecting, therefore, for the present, the Gable Ends,the Towers and Turrets, the Porches, the Doorways, theChapels, the Cloisters, and all the other adjuncts of anEcclesiastical Building, and bestowing our entire atten-tion upon these Exterior and Interior Compartments,we will proceed at once to a comparison of their severalparts, and consider in order the mode of treatment theyreceived at the hands of the builders, of each of theseSeven Periods, commencing with the earliest and de-scending to the latest.
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