Architecture in the United States. 21 



ates and overcomes vast mechanical difficulties, that we may be as- 

 tonished with the display of skill ; but here there is not one mechani- 

 cal difficulty throughout the whole : the Gothic employs every varie- 

 ty of ornament to dazzle or distract the senses ; the Grecian uses or- 

 nament sparingly if it uses it at all : the former calls in every adven- 

 titious circumstance to heighten the effect — painted glass, music, ob- 

 scurity ; it awes us with its vastness, it overpowers and subdues the 

 senses, and we gaze on it with wonder and with fear. The latter re- 

 jects every thing foreign to itself ; it never affects us with its size ; 

 it exerts itself chiefly on the outside, in the broad light of day ; our 

 senses grow clear and critical before it, it insinuates itself into our 

 very soul, and we become filled with lively and almost bewildering 

 admiration. 



Such was the Grecian art, and such the power of taste displayed 

 in it. To form their taste to this great effort and this severe scrutiny 

 required a preparation with which subsequent artists seem not to have 

 been familiar, and in the want of which may be traced the chief 

 cause of subsequent failure. Let us now try to discover what this 

 preparation was. 



They have left us no history of it, and we can form our judgment 

 only through what we know of the sister arts. Let us take the pain- 

 ter as an example. His art is far different, it is true, but yet his ed- 

 ucation may furnish us with some useful hints. He is made to begin 

 with the most simple lines, and one who watches him would think 

 that all this was an exercise of the pencil only ; but it is not so. If 

 he has the materiel of a painter in him, the moment he touched his 

 paper, commenced an exercise not only of his pencil, but in an 

 equal degree of his taste. He is probably not aware of it himself, 

 for it is a delightful exercise and is unheeded, but it is this very ex- 

 ercise of the taste that makes the labor of the pencil even tolerable : 

 destroy the workings of his taste, and the pencil will soon be thrown 

 aside. We may soon know this by observing the progress of an- 

 other : this latter has begun with the same ardor, and the same 

 honest hopes ; he draws a few lines, but grows listless as the other be- 

 comes more engaged, and then relinquishes the study : — the clumsiness 

 of his lines shews that taste has had no part in his labor. As the suc- 

 cessful student proceeds, and while still confined to simple lines, he 

 finds his taste becoming less easily gratified, and his labor therefore 

 more severe : exercise has rendered this faculty critical : lines which 

 pleased him at first are rejected one after another, until few are left 



