PROGRESS OF THE ARTS. 361 



namesake in later times, Francis Bacon 4 . The re- 

 semblances consist mainly in such points as I have 

 just noticed ; and we cannot but acknowledge, that 

 many of the expressions of the Franciscan friar 

 remind us of the large thoughts and lofty phrases 

 of the philosophical chancellor. How far the one 

 can be considered as having anticipated the me- 

 thod of the other, we shall examine more advan- 

 tageously, when we come to consider what the 

 character and effect of Francis Bacon's works really 

 are (N). 



5. Architecture of the Middle Ages. But though 

 we are thus compelled to disallow several of the 

 claims which have been put forwards in support of 

 the scientific character of the middle ages, there are 

 two points in which we may, I conceive, really trace 

 the progress of scientific ideas among them ; and 

 which, therefore, may be considered as the prelude 

 to the period of discovery. I mean their practical 

 architecture, and their architectural treatises. 



In a previous chapter of this book, we have 

 endeavoured to explain how the indistinctness of 

 ideas, which attended the decline of the Roman em- 

 pire, appears in the forms of their architecture ; 

 in the disregard, which the decorative construction 

 exhibits, of the necessary mechanical conditions of 

 support. The original scheme of Greek ornamental 

 architecture, had been horizontal masses resting on 



4 Hallam's Middle Ages, iii. 549. Forster's Mahom. U. ii. 

 313. 



