Architecture of the Renaissance in England. By J. Alfred Gotch,
F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A., assisted by Talbot Brown, A.R.I.B.A. With 145 Plates and 180 Illustrations in the Text. 2 vols. (Batsford.) —This magnificent book covers part of the ground sketched in a book by Mr. Loftie, recently reviewed in the Spectator,—the " Renaissance " period of English architecture, when Gothic was gradually assimilating itself to classic forms, but rather by a natural eiolution of its own structure, along with borrowings in detail, than by a wholesale revolution from outside. It is a period whose spirit is one of state and magnificence in private dwellings, and of a design that seems to have the happiness and ease of knack and tradition about its main elements, along with a curiosity not very profound in feeling, but very pleasant in ex- pression in the details. Mr. Gotch's work is one for architects and professional students ; and it does the most useful possible thing for them, in presenting them with this splendid series of plates on a scale that makes them really available for study. It is curious bow little photography has been applied to this its proper work of reproducing monuments of the arts for reference and comparison. Mr. Gotoh adds a preface with a very interest- ing account of the architect's business in the seventeenth century, —the "surveyor," as Shakespeare calls him. He provided plans and general designs, but details were left to the knowledge and taste of the local craftsman. How much this means will be appre- ciated when it is remembered that it was the age of rich plaster ceilings, carved chimney pieces, elaborate leadwork on pipes, and fifty other decorative arts. Along with the plates is supplied a notice of each building, and subsidiary cuts of interesting details. The book is necessarily a large and costly one, but it takes away a reproach from English students of architecture, and gives to the world an adequate idea of the treasures of a beautiful period.
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