of the extra workmanship and additional material which, but for it, would be expended upon the roof itself. A wooden ceiling affords considerable scope for architectural treatment. I think the best general form is that of a polygonal "waggonhead" of five or seven sides. The wooden vault is, in spite of abundant mediæval precedent, not to be commended; it is an unnatural treatment of wood-even of oak, which affords the curved pieces. required for the ribs, and doubly so of the straightgrained deal, which is now almost always used—it originated in the deliberate substitution of an inferior material in the completion of work designed for and partly executed in stone; when finished, the wood and stone were painted exactly alike, so that it is impossible from below to say where one begins and the other ends; in fact, the whole was intended to be taken for stone, and is as dishonest a sham as the stucco stone "orders" of modern Regent Street.1 1 Many admirers of the works of the Middle Ages, unwilling to believe that anything mediæval is not admirable, not only excuse, but imitate wood vaulting and some other faults. For my own part, I am a complete sceptic as to the artistic purity of the Middle Ages. Honestly I believe, that if our ancestors did not make so much use of shams as men do nowadays, it was because they did not know how. I never, indeed, detected any of them in the capital offence of graining—they were no great admirers of bare oak-but they were certainly guilty of marbling, traces of which may often be found. Lest it should be said that the painting may be recent, I will cite an unmistakable case. I myself saw pieces of marbled chalk, forming part of the shrine of St Alban, taken out of a wall in which they had been built up for more than 300 years. I have not the book at hand for reference, but I think the process of marbling is described in the "Diversarum artium schedula" of the monk Theophilus. That the "old men " used their shams with better taste than is now done may be true, but that they had the wholesome horror of practical lies, which some attribute to them, and Stone and wood are not the only allowable materials for ceilings. For instance, I do not know why plaster should not be employed. The fact that we always use it in our houses is of itself a primâ facie reason why it should be suitable for churches. All it wants is a proper treatment. It is one of the affectations of "correctness' to reject materials merely because they were not used in the thirteenth century, or because ignorant people have in recent times put them to improper uses. All materials are good to those who know how to use them, and all are bad to those who do not. Men who now make stone vaults of wood have no right to laugh at James Wyatt for making them of lath and plaster. This Large churches may be sufficiently ventilated from the ceiling alone, but smaller ones require in addition some means of admitting fresh air lower down. can best be done by placing ventilators in some unconspicuous positions in the walls. In the sills of windows is a good place, if they are sufficiently high up; for the ventilators should always be above the heads of the congregation, in order to prevent draughts. It is a common and absurd practice to put ventilators into the windows themselves, the absurdity lying in the fact that the windows with the ventilators are often removed one after another to make way for painted glass, so that ultimately the church is left without any ventilation at all. which I hope may be adopted into the art creed of the future, I cannot admit. They made great use of false jewels; and old inventories constantly record counterfeit cloth-of-gold, counterfeit "bandekyn," and indeed all kinds of counterfeits. SECTION XXVI. OF ALMS-BOXES. ABOUT these there is but little to be said. There are two kinds, permanent and occasional. Of the first are the poor's-box, and that which is now often added to receive offerings for general church purposes. They should stand in the clear space west of the pews, where they can be seen by every one entering or leaving the church. But they ought not to be too near the doors, or they will be concealed by the crowd as the congregation is dispersing. In most cases the best place for them is against the two westermost pillars of the nave. There is often a great affectation of security about modern alms-boxes; they are of oak, strapped in all directions with iron, and sometimes have a whole row of padlocks. The security is altogether imaginary; the straps are only fastened on with screws, and often the box itself is fixed to the wall by the same means, so that any man with a screw-driver might in three minutes, without violence or noise, either open the box, or detach it from its place, and walk off with it. Some old almsboxes are really of very great strength; they are cut out of solid logs of timber, deeply fixed into the ground, and have lids secured by ironwork, which is not at the command of every man with a screw-driver. Even these, however, are not perfectly safe; indeed, an absolutely burglarproof box is only obtainable, if at all, at a very great cost. The best way to protect the alms-box from any systematic attempt at forcing, is never to allow its contents to accumulate for a sufficiently long period to become a temptation. A strong well-made oak box, well-fastened to its place by screws inside it, and having a good strong lock,' is secure against ordinary depredation, without iron straps or any nonsense of that kind. Some means should be taken to render impossible the abstraction of coin through the slit at the top by means of a piece of wax on the end of a whalebone-a common trick with small thieves. It may be prevented in various ways, the essence of all of which is to make a coin take a circuitous course in its descent from the slit to the bottom of the box. Over each box should be a legible inscription, explaining its purpose, and if any text or motto is added besides, it ought to be in different and less conspicuous characters than the first. For occasional boxes a written card will suffice. The poor's-box, if not also that for church expenses, should, I think, always be distinct and complete in itself; not only one compartment in a larger box, but a box with several divisions, each with its own slit and label, is often convenient where there are many minor objects being collected for. The regular alms-boxes should not 1 Or two or three, if the custom of the place require it. |