Those British architects 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
adopted than those buildings, vast, narrow, dark, and lofty,
impervious to the sun-beams, 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.
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