104 Architecture in the United States. 



be his object. When there is any thing about them, in richness or 

 brilliancy, to call off the attention from the design, from the mental 

 character of his labors, it is a fault ; and the fault is in proportion to 

 such an effect. In this point Italian artists fail the most. Perhaps 

 ^t is a feeling that their powers are not equal to their task ; more 

 probably it is a perversion of taste : — but be the cause what it will, 

 they crowd together jasper, and porphyry, and alabaster, and verd 

 antique, till the senses are dazzled and bewildered by the finery ; and 

 then we come from their edifices, with a confused sensation that we 

 have seen some splendid object — and nothing more. This is the 

 effect at first : this richness soon palls on the taste, and then we give 

 them no further attention. This effect is felt by all who visit that 

 country, and is evident in the books of travels some of them give, 

 and also in the guide book through their cities. The talk is all about 

 jasper, and verd antique, and rosso antico, till the patience of the 

 reader is exhausted. Travellers there all tell us that their attention 

 soon becomes languid : but how different is it in Greece. In Greece 

 the curiosity is always awake ; the feelings always under powerful 

 action ; the admiration ever excited ; each \'isit to the Parthenon 

 makes us love it the more. " But the Parthenon is of marble" — 

 true, but this circumstance is always felt to be an inferior considera- 

 tion : it is not brought out glaring and bold ; it strikes us only in its 

 character of adaptation to the grandeur and majesty of the edifice, 

 that mighty effort of mighty minds. There is a little temple in 

 Greece, in which we can suspect no such effect : it is of the rudest 

 material ; and yet that temple has a charm about it scarcely inferior 

 to that of the Parthenon. I speak of the temple of Jupiter Panhel- 

 lenius in Egina. It has received little notice from travellers, for it is 

 in an island seldom visited. The modern Romans however in sub- 

 stituting ornament for taste are doing little more than following their 

 ancestors. There was more wealth at Rome than at Athens ; they 

 had far more in their power, as far as materials were concerned, 

 than the Athenians ; and perhaps it was this very fact tliat led to a 

 degenerate taste. In taste Athens was the admiration of the world : 

 they could excel her only in the size and cosdiness of their edifices ; 

 and so they erected mountains of brick work, and loaded them 

 with ornaments; but Athens, standing as it did in simple grandeur, 

 still bore the palm. In the one case, taste was formed on the princi- 

 ples of nature, every where simple, chaste and beautiful in its forms; 

 the artist studied these, till they became a part of his being, his 



