Architecture in the United States. 13 



as well as in politics : its style of architecture spread in all directions, 

 and soon fastened itself on the rest of Europe with a power from 

 which there is perhaps no release. The Corinthian order was al- 

 most exclusively employed : examples of the Doric were extremely 

 rare. Their architects formed what is called the Composite order 

 by uniting the Corinthian and Ionic : they reduced the volutes of the 

 Ionic in size, and added new ornaments both to this order and to the 

 Doric : they introduced a mutiplicity of curved lines : they formed 

 their temples in every variety of outline ; they aimed at delicate 

 nicety in the parts, rather than expression in the whole. Each of 

 these the reader will observe is a departure from simplicity. Pal- 

 myra and Balbec exhibit the best specimens of the Roman style. It 

 flourished most from the reign of Augustus to that of Hadrian ; after 

 which it declined with a rapidity nearly as great as that with which 

 it had risen. To the Romans, however, we are indebted for the 

 arch. Some traces of it may perhaps be discovered in ancient Egyp- 

 tian and Grecian monuments, but if known to these nations it was 

 little used : the Romans employed it frequently and with great ad- 

 vantage, as the Pantheon and numerous triumphal arches still at- 

 test. Their bad taste however was shewn in giving to it the Greek 

 column for a support, an object intended for straight, not for curved 

 lines, and adapted to no other. The pillars from which these arches 

 sprung were sometimes single, sometimes in pairs. The whole is 

 worthy of Mttle attention in itself, but we discover here and in the 

 line formed by the meeting of these arches, the first hint of the 

 Gothic style. The name applied to this order is apt to lead us into 

 error. The Goths had no more connexion with it than other nations, 

 and the term was first applied to it by Sir- Christopher Wren, when he 

 wished to bring it into contempt. Architecture, after the time of 

 Diocletian, had passed rapidly into neglect : the churches of Con- 

 stantino are in barbarous taste : the best artists in the reign of Justi- 

 nian could produce only a clumsy effort at the marvellous, and this 

 after repeated failures; and from this time we altogether lose sight of the 

 art. The last glimpse of it, shews it transferred to ecclesiastical ed- 

 ifices, and used only in these. Thus it rested till the crusades, when 

 all Christendom roused itself and a new impulse was given to this, as 

 well as to the other arts. A company was formed, consisting of na- 

 tives of Greece, Italy, France, Germany, and Flanders, who travel- 

 led through Europe, superintending the construction of ecclesiastical 



