200 THE HOMERIC PALACE. 



Taking these circumstances into consideration, we 

 may justly conclude that the ancient Greeks derived 

 the elegances as well as the rudiments of art from 

 experience and the method of usefulness ; and that 

 they neither learned nor borrowed any invention of 

 moment from the Egyptians, or Phoenicians, or any 

 other foreign nation. The houses of mankind were 

 adapted to the exigencies and usages of life, the ad- 

 vantages of situations, and temperature of climate ; 

 and, after their likeness, the sacred fanes were erected, 

 only of firmer structure, of more stable materials, and 

 ampler scope : all their parts being enlarged, and 

 what were originally of wood, then constructed of 

 rock — yet the plan and antique disposition of the 

 work, as transferred to sacred from profane, were 

 religiously retained. 



The columns themselves differed in magnitude and 

 substance only ; while the more ancient, which were 

 each of single trunks of trees, and supported only a 

 wooden story of light weight, were doubtless more 

 slender in proportion to their height, than the mature 

 perfection of art would allow any of that order to be ; 

 neither did usefulness suffer their altitude to exceed 

 the measure of twenty feet, which then set the limit 

 to all erections of this nature. In the estimation of 

 the present age, they would be accounted more worthy 

 the-name of posts than of pillars. 



When wooden beams were to be placed for those 

 chapitres of pillars, they were allowed to be not only 

 more slender and thin, but also more rare in number, 

 and more remote from each other in relative distance ; 

 of which form and distribution in the more elegant 

 edifices of wood, the use, even during the empire of 

 the Caesars, plainly appears from paintings at Her- 

 culaneum not to have grown obsolete, and become 

 altogether extinct. 



W. E. 

 Parkwood. 



