Architecture in the United Stales. 10 



base : they are fluted, but this is necessary to prisvent the appear- 

 ance of heaviness : they have the exact shape required for strength : 

 their capital swells out just as an object should do when preparing to 

 support a heavy weight. The entablature is also simple. But if 

 this quality is so striking in the best efforts of architecture, its ab- 

 sence is no less so in those edifices which mark the downward pro- 

 gress of the art. We know little of its early history except what we 

 can gather from the ruins themselves, but these are suiScientto shew 

 us that during tlie period when It flourished most, whicli was from the 

 time of Solon to that of Pericles, a period of two hundred years, the 

 shnplest Doric was almost exclusively employed. Towards the close 

 of this term, the Ionic appears to have come into notice. I do not wish 

 to depreciate this order, for it is a neat and beautiful one, but it must 

 be allowed to be far less simple than the Doric : it admits of more, 

 ornament, and one of the first ten:iples in which It was employed in 

 Greece,* was in shape a wide departure from tlie simple oblong form.- 

 It paved the w^ay for the gay Corinthian, an order apparently unknown, 

 at all events not used, before the age of Pericles. The Corinthian 

 is the very opposite of simplicity, and of course this quality is almost 

 entirely unknown in the Roman style : every change they made was 

 a further de2:)arture from it, and a still greater failure. 



But simplicity is only a quality of good architecture, and tliough 

 tlie two are inseparably connected, we must look still further for the 

 principles of the art. This quality Is a striking feature in the Egyp- 

 tian style, but although the antiquities of that country affect us with 

 wonder and often w^ith pleasure, they are wanting entirely In tliat 

 strong mastery over the soul w^hich is always possessed by the Gre- 

 cian art. In what then lies this power ? Let us turn again to the 

 Grecian Doric temple and, if possible, search it out. The edifice is 

 of no great dimensions, and the effect therefore does not proceed 

 from size : the w^ork is exquisitely finished, but other edifices of ex- 

 quisite finish have not this effect, and it is therefore not in careful fin- 

 ishing : simplicity is predominant throughout, but we have just seen 

 that it is not in simplicity : the order is noble and striking, and the 

 form is a beautiful one, but others have employed both of these and 

 have failed ; it is therefore not in them. Other architects, the rea- 

 der w^ill say, may have employed part of these j but perhaps none 



The Ercchtheum. 



