easy to employ splendour of decoration than a nice adjustment of forms and proportions'.

Architecture as it existed during the Augustan age, and immediately before that period, is usually distinguished by the term antique; but after the commencement of the fourth century, the prevailing style, by licentious modifications, had begun to exhibit marks of diminished grandeur. The domestic architecture

+ Vasari says that the ruin of the arts was accomplished by Constantine's removal of the seat of the empire from Rome to Byzantium, because he carried with him into Greece not only all the best sculptors and other artificers of that age whom he could procure, but also an infinity of statues and other ornaments of the most exquisite workmanship.-Vol. i. p. 215.

2 Critics in the Grecian orders remark that the triumphal arch of Severus is less perfect than that of Titus, and that the monument of Constantine's triumph over Maxentius is charged with columns, statues and other ornaments purloined from the arch of Trajan and irregularly placed.Dr. Milner's Treatise on Ecclesiastical Architecture, p. 12. Holdsworth says, the three most celebrated triumphal arches in Italy are all either Trajan's or ornamented from Trajan's, and alludes to those at Ancona and Benevento, as well as to that of Constantine at Rome.-Spence's Anecdotes, p. 257.

of the middle ages, says Hallam, did not attain any perfection even in Italy, where, from the size of her cities and social refinements of her inhabitants, greater elegance and splendour in building were justly to be expected'.

The three Grecian orders, as they are generally called, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian,―styles which constitute the beauty and magnificence of classical architecture,— are defined by the columns and entablature, and received their distinctive appellations long after their original invention.

There are no examples of the Greek Doric at Rome; this style was never deemed proper for domestic architecture, in which the Tuscan, a Roman invention, appears to have superseded it. Of the latter it is exceedingly difficult to collect anything ancient; excepting the simple form of the capital and base of the column, no ancient entablature exists. In antique

1 State of Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 424. 2 Forsyth, one of the best of modern authorities, says, "The Doric appears at Rome in very few monuments, and

examples the Doric column is without a base, and the entablature is always more massive than that of the other orders, the strength of the column preparing it for a greater burthen. The Pæstan Doric, of high antiquity, differs from that of the Parthenon; each has its admirers, and both are acknowledged to be admirably adapted to their respective situations'.

so Latinized that we lose the original order; and of the order called Tuscan, nothing is to be found in these nor I believe in any ruins. The total disappearance of this order I would impute to its own rules. In Tuscan edifices the inter-columniations were so wide, that wood became necessary to form the architrave, and a mixture of brick rendered the whole fabric more destructible."—Remarks on Italy, p. 154, &c.

Amongst the various remains of ancient architecture, none perhaps have so grand an effect as the Doric temples in Sicily and at Pæstum, though from their general look of massiveness, and from the columns being without bases, none are more opposite to what are usually considered as light buildings. But may it not be doubted whether the giving bases to those columns, and consequently a greater degree of lightness and airiness to the whole, might not proportionably diminish that solid massive grandeur which is so striking to every eye?-Price's Essay on the Picturesque, vol. ii. p. 242.

The Ionic order is next in point of antiquity, and is perhaps most preferable for domestic buildings'. Dr. Clarke traces the origin of the volute and capital of this order to a scroll which occurs on Greek vases, and was a symbol of water; but it is more probably derived from Egypt, where architecture had been carried to a high degree of perfection. The best specimens of the Greek Ionic volute are found in Asia Minor, where the fronts and flanks of the columns are different in their forms. The ancient bases of this order have no square plinth

1 Sir Henry Wotton, a gentleman eminent for his learning and knowledge of the fine arts as they existed in the reign of James I., and who wrote a treatise on the Elements of Architecture, which was afterwards translated into Latin and prefixed to the Works of Vitruvius, gives the following definition: "The Ionique order doth represent a kind of feminine slenderness; yet, saith Vitruvius, not like a light house-wife, but in a decent dressing hath much of the matron. The body of this column is perpetually channelled like a thick plaited gown; the capital dressed on each side not much unlike women's hair in a spiral wreathing; the cornice indented; the frize swelling like a pillow, and therefore by Vitruvius not inelegantly termed Pulvinata.”

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beneath them. Dentils, members of the cornice belonging to the Ionic order, are generally omitted in the remains at Athens.

Architecture, says Sir Uvedale Price, is the divinity that raises the porches of cottages, and the rude posts that support them, into porticos and colonnades'. The dentils are sculptured in the cornice, to represent the ends of rafters or secondary timbers forming the ornamental coffering of the ceiling; and upon which the corona, or upper member of the cornice, rests. These are considered by Vitruvius to be as characteristic of the Ionic order as the capital of the column itself.

The Corinthian order was that to which the Romans under the Emperors were most partial. Although of Greek origin, examples of it are rare in Greece; but at Rome the remains exhibit

1 Essay on the Picturesque, vol. ii. p. 385. The porches and posts of the one, answer those purposes as effectually as the porticos and columns of the other; projecting roofs, sheds with brackets and rails, have in another style the effect of cornices and balustrades.-Ibid. p. 384.