from a greater number of columns was attended not, indeed, by decreased height, but by decreased loftiness, or proportional height, that is, height as measured by either breadth or length. Paradoxical as this may sound at first, nothing can be more plain when once explained. Discarding nicety in measurement, we will call a tetrastyle portico about a square in height that is, about as high as wide; but add four more columns, extend it from a tetrastyle to an octastyle, so that it becomes about a double square in breadth, or twice as wide again, and the inevitable consequence is, that it is then only twice as wide as high; that is, as to proportion, only half as lofty as it was before. The expression of loftiness, in which altitude greatly predominates over breadth, was quite beyond the reach of the Greek system. Their temples might be planted on lofty eminences, but the structures themselves never towered upwards. As far as it went, their system was perfect-so complete, indeed, in itself as to be unfit for almost any other purposes than that for which it was expressly framed.

If the Romans corrupted the Doric and Ionic, they developed and matured the Corinthian Order, and also worked out a freer and more complex and comprehensive system of Architecture. To say nothing of their introduction and application of those important elements of both construction and design, the arch and vault, which hardly belong to a mere treatise on the Orders, it is to the Romans that we are indebted for varieties and combinations of plan that will be sought for in vain among Grecian structures. Of the Romans it may be said, "Mutant quadrata rotundis."

Circular forms, and curves displaying themselves not only in elevation and section, but in plan; and while, among the Greeks, Architecture was confined almost exclusively to external appearance and effect, in the hands of the Romans it was made to minister to internal display of the most enchantingly picturesque kind, as would be amply attested by the Pantheon alone. In that edifice, and Hadrian's Mausoleum

(now barbarized into the Castello di S. Angelo), the cylin drical form was exhibited upon an imposing scale; in the temple at Tivoli, in far less dimensions, but with the most captivating taste; and again in the tomb of Cecilia Meletta, we have a fine example of an unbroken astylar circular mass. In such structures as the Colosseum and other Roman amphitheatres, a different form of curvature, namely, the ellipses, was employed with admirable propriety and effect. In the interior, again, we find the hemicycle or concave semi-circular form, both frequently and variously applied by Romans in such edifices as their Baths, which afford many excellent studies for combination of plan.

To enter into the system of Roman Architecture as the subject would require, would very far exceed our present limits and purpose; much less can we pretend to treat here of the still more varied and complex Italian, or Modern European system, into which fenestration so largely enters, columniation being, more frequently than not, subordinate. Were we to touch upon the last mentioned style and its various elements, it could be only so superficially as to be more disappointing than instructive. Better that our reader should admire our forbearance, than complain of our unsatisfactory jejuneness. We may, however, permit ourselves to throw out one or two general remarks; the first of which is that it is a great error to confound with the Italian the two Ancient Classical styles, applying to them alike the epithet "Grecian," merely in contradistinction to Gothic, or Mediæval Architecture. It is absurd to pretend to test by the Greek style, one so totally differently constructed as the Italian ; an error that could hardly have been fallen into but for the practice of applying the same names to very different things. The term Order has quite a different meaning as applied to the original classical mode of the Art, from what it has in the other. In Italian composition, an Order is more frequently than not, mere decoration in the shape of columns and entablatures, fashioned secundum artem,

(a very different thing from artistically,) so as to resemble in detail, and certain conventional distinctions, those of the Ancients. Infinitely better would it have been, if, instead of allowing themselves to be misled by the pedantry of Vitruvius, the Architects of the so-called Revival, who showed much happiness of invention in other respects, had treated the Orders freely; or perhaps still better, had they worked out ideas of their own for columns and entablatures, whenever they had occasion for them, either as matters of necessity, or as mere decoration. Had Italians allowed themselves greater latitude in that respect, they would, in all probability, have been far less licentious upon the whole than they frequently were, and their buildings would have been more homogeneous-more of a piece. But they, forsooth, be one of the Orders or all of them at once, and a great deal else in the bargain. Therefore the affecting to retain the Ancient Orders in their purity, served no other purpose than that of making all the more evident how completely their first intention and character had been lost sight of.

The clinging with scrupulous punctillo to what had become dead-letter forms, after the system which they had produced had been abandoned, and exchanged for another and widely different one, was merely superstition and pedantry. It might show acquaintance with traditional learning and the writings of Vitruvius; but it also showed dulness of æsthetic feeling, or, what is not much better, deficiency of æsthetic power. There was, however, one mode of apply. ing columns, which, although generally regarded as the most licentious and un-orthodox, nay, even preposterous, because quite contrary to all classical practice and precedent, has at least one propriety, that of being rational, since columns there officiate as columns as real support; whereas in a great deal of Modern Architecture, that is admired for the correct taste it displays, columns and their entablatures are mere expletives, instead of actual compo

nent parts of the fabric, and simulate a mode of construction neither required for nor practiced in the fabric itself.

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The particular mode here alluded to is that in which arches are not introduced together with columns, but the arches are not only introduced together with colums, but the arches and columns are so indissolubly married together that they cannot be divorced, inasmuch as the arches are supported by the columns themselves, the former springing immediately from the capitals of the latter. Such combination, it might be supposed, would be gladly admitted as sufficiently legitimate, both because in accordance with rational architectonic principles, and because it greatly extends the resources of the Art; nevertheless such is the omnipotence of prejudice, that instead of being welcomed and adopted by us, it has been decried as a barbarism. an irresistible and crushing argument against it, we are told that columns were not originally intended to be so applied; -admirable logic, truly! There are a great many other things besides columns which have in course of time come to be applied to uses not originally contemplated. In regard to that combination of columns and arches according to which the latter spring immediately from the others, and are supported by them, there are two questions: the first and practical one, Do the columns afford sufficient support? the second and æsthetic one is, Is there also sufficient appearance of support; or is there anything contradictory to principle, to judgment and good taste? The first question needs no answer, since it answers itself; it being an indisputable fact that columns so employed do answer the purpose to which they are turned. The other question is not so easily answered: the prejudiced will of course answer it according to their own contracted taste and narrow notions, condemning the mode alluded to, without any inquiry into its merits and advantages, merely on the ground of its being quite at variance with the classical system of trabeated columniation, that is, with columns supporting a