3.'}6 GRECIAN AND GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. Nov. 1, 



the whole has been ranged over again and again, as if 

 in a large building confifting of many apartments, that 

 the mind can be enabled, with great labour, to form 

 even then but an inadequate idea of thefizeand magnir 

 ficence of the whole. 



In the above defcription I have taken no notice of the 

 dome ; becaufe this is an adventitious idea in architec- 

 ture, entirely borrowed from the central lanthcrn of. 

 the Gothic llrufture, not at all belonging to the Gre- 

 cian flile. For though Michael Angelo, who built the 

 model from which St Paul's was copied, conceived the firft 

 hint of the beauty of that rotundity of figure from the 

 Pantheon at Rome, yet it is plain to the moft fuperficial 

 obferver, that the idea of placing it in the centre, and 

 offupporting it upon open pillars, and of illuminating it 

 by windows on every fide, above the level of the roof of 

 the other parts of the building, were all borrowed from 

 the lantern towers in the middle of Gothic cathedrals, 

 which were introduced into univerfal practice long be- 

 fore Buonuoretti was born. If, therefore, this part of 

 the ftrufture dcferves praife, it ought to be ixferred to 

 the Gothic, rather than the Grecian fhlle of architec- 

 ture ; — and It will, I believe, be admitted, that though 

 the dome be the only objeft in this cathedral which 

 produces a great and ftriking elteft, it has that effcft 

 much diminiflicd, by its being prepofteroufly allied with 

 the ponderous mafles, abrupt angles, and heavy projec- 

 tions of the Grecian ornaments with which it is here 

 conjoined, in comparifon of what it would have had if 

 reared In the lighter manner, fo charu£leri(lic of the 

 Gothic ftile. 



It ought not, however, here to efcape notice, that 

 though the advocates for the Grecian ftile of archltecr 

 ture infift chiefly on the fewnefs and fimplicity of its 

 parts, as its molt characteriftic feature of elegance and 

 beauty, when compared with the Gothic, which \&^ 

 fay they, fo much broken and confufed as to give nq, 



