, who adopted this
stile, don't seem to have considered the propriety of their adoption. The
climate of the country, possessed by the Moors or Saracens, both in Africa and
Spain, was so exceedingly hot and dry, that those who built places of worship
for the multitude, employed their talents in contriving edifices that should be
cool; and, for this purpose, nothing could be better adapted than those
buildings; vast, narrow, dark, and lofty, impervious to the sunbeams, and having
little communication with the scorched external atmosphere; but ever affording a
refreshing coolness, like subterranean cellars in the heats of summer, or
natural caverns in the bowels of huge mountains. But nothing could be more
preposterous, than to imitate such a mode of architecture in a country like
England, where the climate is cold, and the air eternally loaded with vapours;
and where, of consequence, the builder's intention should be to keep the people
dry and - warm For my part, I never entered the Abbey church at Bath but once,
and the moment I stept over the threshold, I found myself chilled to the very
marrow of my bones - When we consider, that in our churches, in general, we
breathe a gross stagnated air, surcharged with damps from vaults, tombs, and
charnel-houses, may we not term them so many magazines of rheums, created for
the benefit of the medical faculty? and safely aver, that more bodies are lost,
than souls saved, by going to church, in the winter especially, which may be
said to engross eight months in the year. I should be glad to know, what offence
it would give to tender consciences, if the house of God was made more
comfortable, or less dangerous to the health of valetudinarians; and whether it
would not be an encouragement to piety, as well as the salvation of many lives,
if the place of worship was well floored, wainscotted, warmed, and ventilated,
and its area kept sacred from the pollution of the dead. The practice of burying
in churches was the effect of ignorant superstition, influenced by knavish
priests, who pretended that the devil could have no power over the defunct, if
he was interred in holy ground; and this, indeed, is the only reason that can be
given for consecrating all cemeteries, even at this day.
    The external appearance of an old cathedral cannot be but displeasing to the
eye of every man, who has any idea of propriety and proportion, even though he
may be ignorant of architecture as a science; and the long slender
