The following pages, which have been translated under my supervision by Miss Florence Simmonds, give such an account of the birth and evolution of Gothic Architecture as may be considered sufficient for a handbook. Mons. Corroyer writes, indeed, from a thoroughly French standpoint. He is apt to believe that everything admirable in Gothic architecture had a Gallic origin. Vexed questions of priority, such as that attaching to the choir of Lincoln, he dismisses with a phrase, while the larger question of French influence generally in these islands of ours, he solves by the simple process of referring every creation which takes his fancy either to a French master or a French example, here coming, be it said, into occasional collision with his own stock authority, the late Mons. Viollet-le-duc. The Chauvinistic tone thus given to his pages may be regretted, but, when all is said, it does not greatly affect their value as a picture of Gothic development. Mons. Corroyer confines himself in the main to broad principles. He travels along the line of evolution, pointing out how material conditions and discoveries, and their consequent social changes, brought about one development after another in the forms and methods of the architect. In a treatise so conceived, the fact that the field of observation is practically restricted to France, the few excursions beyond her frontier being made rather with a view to displaying the extent of her influence than with any desire for catholicity of grasp, is of no great moment. The English reader for whom this translation is intended, will get as clear a notion of how Gothic, as he knows it, came into being, as he would from a more universal survey, while he has the advantage of some echo, at least, of the vivacity, which inspires a Frenchman when his theme is "one of the Glories of France."
W. A.