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about; thirty principals were made of great masts, being fortie foote inlength a peece, standing vpright; betweene every one of these masts tenfoot asunder and more. The walles of this house were closed withcanuas, and painted all the outsides of the same most artificiallie with aworke called rusticke, much like to stone. This house had two hundredninety and two lights of glasse. The sides within the same house weremade with ten heights of degrees for people to stand vpon; and in thetop of this house was wrought most cunninglie vpon canuas, workes ofiuie and hollie, with pendents made of wicker rods, garnished with baie,rue, and all maner of strange flowers, garnished with spangles of gold, asalso beautified with hanging toseans made of hollie and iuie, with allmaner of strange fruits, as pomegranates, orenges, pompions, cucumbers,grapes, carrets, with such other like, spangled with gold, and most richliehanged.” *

It will be manifest, on comparing the decorations of these two struc-tures, that the corrupt taste which at this period began to prevail in the ex-terior embellishments, had also crept into those of the interior. Pompions,cucumbers, and carrots, much as they were esteemed as luxuries for thetable, were, from their utter gracelessness of form, but sorry substitutesin the latter, for the armorial and other elegant and curious deviceswhich enriched the former edifice. The chaste and vigorous feelingwhich distinguished the works of the earlier architects was then, indeed,nearly extinct, and English architecture becoming in all its ramificationsrapidly degenerate; although many of its features lingered in the hete-rogeneous compositions of succeeding artists for half a century longer, asappears at Brambletye House, Sussex, (the scene of a recent popularnovel), in which may be perceived perhaps the last glimmer of the Tudorstyle.

Holingshed.