Architecture in the United States. 19 



base : they are fluted, but this is necessary to prevent 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 sufficient to shew 

 us that during the period when it flourished most, which was from the 

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

 simplest 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 temples in which it was employed in 

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

 It paved the way 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 departure from it, and a still greater failure. 



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

 the 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 aflect us with 

 wonder and often with pleasure, they are wanting entirely in that 

 strong mastery over the soul which 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 work 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 will say, may have employed part of these ; but perhaps none 



* The Erechtheum, 



