Note 9 — INTRODUCTION.

The common appellation of this mode, Gothic, is equally improper with the preceding, as the reign of the Goths was at an end long before its introduction: indeed its origin is wrapped in obscurity. Sir Christopher Wren, and after him many architects and antiquaries, have attributed it to the Saracens, and hence called it Saracenic; but their grounds are very questionable. Perhaps the homely conjecture, that it arose from the pointed form in the intersecting Saxon arches, may be as near the truth as one derived from more laborious researches; indeed, from the specimens of early Gothic which I have seen, I am of opinion, that cogent reasons may be adduced, to prove it rather to be of natural growth from the Saxon modes, and formed in its characteristics by gradual alteration, than a new system of remote and detached origins.