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The Romans did not build their walls entirely of bricks, they were used only as a facing or veneering; the same as we use front or pressed bricks, the remainder or backing of the wall being of concrete, and thus we find that a large number of the great Roman buildings are constructed of concrete, faced with brick.

The brick-work of the first two centuries of the Christian era, the crowning period of art in Rome, was superior to any other. In the third century, there was barely a perceptible change; but in the fourth there was a most decided deterioration, and brick-work went back with the times, old material being re-used extensively, as in the arch of Constantine.

Knowledge of the art of brick-making has probably at no time become entirely extinct in the east; but after the fourth century, in sympathy with the decline of all other arts, and the dying Roman civilization, the knowledge of this art gradually expired, and was lost in Western Europe.

The Romans made bricks extensively in Germany and in England, and though it might seem strange that such an art, when once acquired, should have been lost, nevertheless the remains of buildings between the Roman times and the thirteenth century show no evidence of bricks having been made in England.

In a few instances only were they re-used as old material from buildings left by the Romans, as at Colchester and St. Alban's Abbey, the old Roman town of Verulamium, near which the latter is situated, supplying material for it.

The buildings of the Anglo-Saxons were usually of wood, rarely of stone, until the eleventh century, and it is not im

probable that the primitive English churches may be among the earliest stone buildings of Western Europe, after the time of the Romans.

In these buildings the arches are generally plain, but sometimes they are worked with rude but massive mouldings; some arches are constructed of bricks, all of them taken from some Roman building, as at Brixworth, or sometimes stones are employed, and these usually have a course of bricks or thin stones laid upon the top of the arch, as at Britford Church, Wiltshire.

It has been thought that bricks were made in England, under the direction of Alfred the Great, as early as A. D. 886, and it is possible that, in rebuilding London and other cities which had been destroyed by the Danes, bricks were used; but this is not probable, as there are but few buildings in any part of Western Europe now in existence that are earlier than the eleventh century, and if bricks were made in the time of Alfred, in England, there are none at present in existence, and no authentic history of any building erected in his reign, in which they are said to have been used, and it is most probable that the earliest true modern, or Flemish, brick building existing in England is Little Wenham Hall, in Suffolk, which was erected in A. D. 1260.

In the reign of Henry VI. brick construction was not general, Hurtsmonceaux Castle, Sussex, built early in his reign, being one of the principal brick buildings of that period; but under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, the manufacture of bricks flourished, and they were used mostly for large

buildings, the smaller ones being of timber construction, in which small panels of ornamental brick-work were sometimes formed and exposed between the upright studs.

Only a few instances of early fourteenth century brickwork occur, and they are towards the close of the style; but in the fifteenth century brick-work became common, and we have in the Lollards' Tower of Lambeth Palace, built in A. D. 1454, and the Manor House, or older portion of Hampton Court Palace, Middlesex, built in A. D. 1514, good examples of the English brick architecture in mediæval times. The ecclesiastical and palatial architecture of Italy of this period is rich in many beautiful specimens of brickwork, and in addition to the employment of colored decorative brick-work, the most elaborate mouldings and ornamentation in terra-cotta and brick are exhibited.

Until the first quarter of the seventeenth century, the bricks made in England were of many different sizes; but by Charles I., in A. D. 1625, their size was regulated and made nearly uniform.

After the great fire of London, in September, A. D. 1666, brick was the material universally used in the reconstruction, and ornaments carved with the chisel were introduced into some of the brick-work erected towards the last of that century in that city.

In A. D. 1784, bricks were subjected to taxation by George III., which burden was not repealed until A. D. 1850 ; the tax for this time, two-thirds of a century, averaging about 48. d. per thousand for common bricks, and about 108. per thousand for the finer grades.

The material of which a town is built depends generally upon the geology of the surrounding district, as in a mountainous country like Scotland, cities of stone, such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, naturally abound; but London, and most of the great cities of England, being situated in alluvial valleys and plains, are built of bricks made from the alluvial clay beneath and around them, and in Holland and the other provinces of the Netherlands, where no stone, except a very soft and inferior sandstone is found, the use of brick as the chief building material became almost universal from earliest times, even the paving of the streets and other public works being done with bricks. There are buildings in some cities of the Netherlands in which stone has been largely used, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Peter Mortier, in a small book published in A. D. 1782, gives a description of the City Hall of Amsterdam. He says that the old City Hall was erected earlier than A. D., 1400, that the front and sides rested on divers stone columns, and that on one side there was a four-square stone steeple, that the building was burned July 7, A.D. 1682, and the heat was so great that everything was consumed, except a piece of brickwork in the steeple. The new building was constructed on the site of the old one, but was commenced in 1648, part of the old structure having been taken down to make room for the new. In order to obtain a foundation for the new building, 13,659 piles were driven, upon which were placed seven feet of brick-work to form the foundation.

It was under Wouter Van Twiller, of Amsterdam, a gov

ernor appointed by the Dutch West India Company, that the first brick buildings were erected in this country. In A. D. 1633, soon after his arrival on Manhattan Island, Governor Van Twiller erected for his own use a substantial brick house, which was the most elaborate private dwelling which had up to that time been attempted in America, and during the remainder of the Dutch dynasty this dwelling served for the residence of the successive chiefs of the colony. He also built several small brick dwellings for the officers, which with his own were erected within the walls of the fort. The bricks used in these buildings were brought from Amsterdam, and were of such a good quality that but few were broken in the long and rough voyage. The Dutch seem to have succeeded well in making a strong and very durable quality of brick, which bricks have been famous from an early period for soundness, and specimens of them brought over by the early settlers from Holland are yet to be met with in some of the old Dutch houses of New York.

Among the Puritan emigrants to New England money was very scarce; and, under Winthrop, carpenters and bricklayers, whose services were in great demand, and had a monopoly price, were forbidden to accept over 12d., and afterwards, in 1630, 28. per day, the penalty being 108. to giver and taker. The brick-layers were also the stone-masons, they ranked under the first head; but a much larger amount of building was done in wood and in stone than in brick in those times.

The earliest settlement in this country in which brickmakers are recorded as being part of the population was the

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