PROGRESS OF THE ARTS. 24:7 



inconsistencies and extravagances, of which we have noticed the occur- 

 rence, were results and indications of the fall of good architecture. 

 The elements of the ancient system had lost all principle of connection 

 and regard to rule. Building became not only a mere art, but an art 

 exercised by masters without skill, and without feeling for real beauty. 



When, after this deep decline, architecture rose again, as it did in the 

 twelfth and succeeding centuries, in the exquisitely beautiful and skilful 

 forms of the Gothic style, what was the nature of the change which 

 had taken place, so far as it bears upon the progress of science ? It was 

 this : the idea of true mechanical relations in an edifice had been re- 

 vived in men's jninds, as far as was requisite for the purposes of art and 

 beauty : and this, though a very different thing from the possession of 

 the idea as an element of speculative science, was the proper preparation 

 for that acquisition. The notion of support and stability again became 

 conspicuous in the decorative construction, and universal in the forms 

 of building. The eye which, looking for beauty in definite and signi- 

 ficant relations of parts, is never satisfied except the weights appear to 

 be duly supported, 7 was again gratified. Architecture threw off its 

 barbarous characters : a new decorative construction was matured, not 

 thwarting and controlling, but assisting and harmonizing with the me- 

 chanical construction. All the ornamental parts were made to enter 

 into the apparent construction. Every member, almost every mould- 

 ing, became a sustainer of weight ; and- by the multiplicity of props 

 assisting each other, and the consequent subdivision of weight, the eye 

 was satisfied of the stability of the structure, notwithstanding the cu- 

 riously slender forms of the separate parts. The arch and the vault, 

 no longer trammelled by an incompatible system of decoration, but 

 favored by more tractable forms, were only limited by the skill of the 

 builders. Every thing showed that, practically at least, men possessed 

 and applied, with steadiness and pleasure, the idea of mechanical pres- 

 sure and support. 



The possession of this idea, as a principle of art, led, in the course 

 of time, to its speculative development as the foundation of a science ; 



mechanical works of Archimedes into Latin, as we learn from the enumeration of 

 his work by his friend Cassiodorus (Variar. lib. i. cap. 45), " Mechanicum etiam 

 Archimedem latialem siculis rcdclidisti." But Mcckanicus was used in those times 

 rather for one skilled in the art of constructing wonderful machines than in the 

 speculative theory of them. The letter from which the quotation is taken is sent 

 by King Theodoric to Boethius, '.,0 urge him to send the king a water-clock. 



7 Willis, pp. 15-21. I have throughout this description of the formation of the 

 Gothic style availed myself of M: Willis's well-chosen expressions. 



