churches
had been prosecuted with lavish munificence; so much so, that the
Reformed Church succeeded to an inheritance more than doubly sufficient
for its immediate wants.[840] A period, therefore, of great activity in
this respect was followed by one of nearly total cessation. In England
no church was erected of the smallest pretensions to architectural
design between the Reformation and the great fire of London in 1666,
with the solitary exception of the small church in Covent Garden,
erected by Inigo Jones in 1631.[841] 'During the eighty years that
elapsed from the death of Henry VIII. to the accession of Charles I.,
the transition style left its marks in every corner of England in the
mansions of the nobility and gentry, and in the colleges and schools
which were created out of the confiscated funds of the monasteries; but,
unfortunately for the dignity of this style, not one church, nor one
really important public building or regal palace, was erected during the
period which might have tended to redeem it from the utilitarianism into
which it was sinking. The great characteristic of this epoch was, that
during its continuance architecture ceased to be a natural mode of
expression, or the occupation of cultivated intellects, and passed into
the state of being merely the stock in trade of certain professional
experts. Whenever this is so, '_Addio Maraviglia!_'[842] The reign of
Puritanism was of course wholly unfavourable to the art; the period of
laxity that followed was no less so. Even Wren, of whose comprehensive
genius Englishmen have every reason to speak with pride, formed, in the
first instance, a most inadequate conception of what a Christian Church
should be. 'The very theory of the ground plan for a church had died
out, when he constructed his first miserable design for a huge
meeting-house.'[843]

Before the eighteenth century, Gothic architecture had already fallen
into utter disrepute. Sir Henry Wotton, fresh from his embassies in
Venice, had declared that such was the 'natural imbecility' of pointed
arches, and such 'their very uncomeliness,' that they ought to be
'banished from judicious eyes, among the reliques of a barbarous
age.'[844] Evelyn, lamenting the demolition by Goths and Vandals of the
stately monuments of Greek and Roman architecture, spoke of the mediaeval
buildings which had risen in their stead, as if they had no merits to
redeem them from contempt--'congestions of heavy, dark, melan