322 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMEPJCAN ACADEMY 



any national order that the Greeks were supposed to have stolen, the 

 case would be entirely different. But, so far from this, the " proto- 

 Doricists " have had great difficulty in finding even a few good ex- 

 amples for their argument. Indeed, Mr. Falkener, who seems to have 

 pursued the subject most enthusiastically in his " Museum of Classical 

 Antiquities," (London, 1861,) was able to scrape together but a pitiful 

 twenty-seven.* I have been unable to gain access to Mr. Falkener's 

 treatise directly, but my argument respects what the unanimous testi- 

 mony of quotations and references in other books shows to be his 

 strongest examples, namely, the Northern Tombs or " Grottos " at 

 Benihassan. 



As the curious traveller descries those rock-cut porticos on the east- 

 ern bluffs of the Nile valley, and notes the chaste and un-Egyptian 

 simplicity of their graceful shafts, he may be reminded quite ex- 

 cusably of some Greek distyle cella in antis, and may infer, though 

 not very logically, that therefore the world-renowned Greeks in their 

 columnar architecture were only plagiarists from the Egyptians. In 

 the path of this inference, as already repeatedly implied, stand several 

 insurmountable obstacles ; for the two species of proof referred to — 

 external and internal — indicate that iu respect of both outward ap- 

 pearance and inward motive the " proto-Doric " and the true Doric 

 must be thrown into different categories. These two classes of proof 

 I shall now proceed to state. 



§ 6. External Differences. 



The differences that may be distinctively called external lie either in 

 the dimensions of the forms, or in the number and character of the con- 

 stituent members. Under the head of mensurable differences may be 

 classed the differences (1.) in the rate of diminution of the shaft, i. e. 

 the ratio of the difference between the upper and lower diameters to 

 the distance between the points at which those diameters are taken, 

 or the height of the shaft; (2.) in the slenderness of the shaft, i. e. 

 the ratio between its lower diameter and its height ; and to these may 

 be conveniently added, (3.) in the number of flutes or faces susceptible 

 of fluting. Under the morphological differences, if we may call them 

 so, are to be grouped (1.) the various members which the Greek order 

 possesses, but the Egyptian lacks ; and (2.) the one member which the 

 Egyptian order has, but the Greek lacks. 



* Fergusson, Hist, of Architecture, i. 220 ; Wathen, Arts, Antiquities, and 

 Chronology of Anc. Egypt, (Loudon, 1843,) p. 180. 



