excepted, I cannot tell) to gain from picture a just idea of the effects of any building of a kind he never saw; and, beyond most other buildings, beyond any equally simple in general design, the effects of the Grecian temple evade graphical representation. The architect's geometrical elevation, showing the thing, in one point of view, exactly as it is, shows it however so as it cannot possibly be seen by the human eye. Picture, even if less accurate, yet giving the perspective, so as to exhibit the proportions, not as they really are, but nearly as to the beholder's eye they would appear, offers a far juster idea of the visual effect. But the power even of picture is extremely deficient for the purpose. Some circumstances indeed the painter can command very advantageously. He can chuse the one point in which the building to be represented is seen to most advantage; he can chuse the circumstances of the atmosphere most advantageous for light and shade and coloring; and effects transient, and almost momentary, in nature, he can fix, so that the beholder's eye may dwell upon them and return to them.

Here is the advantage of the painter's art, and it is great. For its deficiencies, I remember being particularly struck with an idea of them, on first visiting the Flavian amphitheater at Rome, in modern times called the Colosseum, and I will therefore proceed to mention what then

fied me.

occurred to me. In that magnificent and celebrated building, it was not the exterior, with its several ranges of columns and arches, that gratiThe vast whole is frittered into a comparative littleness. The lofty surmounting wall, with its pilasters, resting on its triple basement, would in its ample sweep, when perfect, I dare say, have a perspective that would be pleasing, as well as highly magnificent; but, to enjoy it, the eye must avoid stooping to the incongruous flutter of the triple basement below. I am however here rather anticipating a subject that would belong more properly to some future letter; but I could not wholly omit notice of the exterior, though my immediate business is to pass to the interior of this stupendous building. When I entered the slowly winding corridores, of simplest construction, owing all their effect to forms and proportions and nothing to ornament, when, in stepping on, I saw the effect continually changing, yet always pleasing and always great, I ceased to wonder at the eulogy and admiration of those who have described this splendid relic of Roman imperial magnificence; and at the same time I ceased to wonder that, of the many representations of it by able artists, none conveyed ideas of architectonic merit, at all commensurate with that admiration and eulogy. For it is not the one point of view, which the painter may, with

happiest art represent, that excites the admiration and eulogy of the moving observer; but the continual variety of effects, which he finds at every step, at every turn of the cye, and which the painter cannot give.

Let us then consider the parts of the Grecian temple, and their combination, when it had already a cell surrounded by columns, with a roof over all, but remained otherwise in a style of primeval simplicity. The columns are arranged in form of a parallelogram, inclosing walls of the same figure. The shafts of the columns are surmounted with projecting caps; the architraves rest on these; the ends of the joists rest on the architraves, forming what is called the frieze: the eaves, overhanging the frieze, crown the work, forming what is thence called the cornice,

A building could not be raised on a simpler plan, one more evidently a single whole, with the parts more obviously belonging to one another, and all necessary to all; and yet with this simplicity there is a variety, that, if we consider it in detail, may appear surprizing. The variety is given by the separation and contrast of parts, leaving connecting bonds; so that the unity of the whole remains evident. The columns are so many separate solids, with voids of just space between them; connected above by the intablature; below by the floor: their circular form is contrasted

with the angular of all the rest of the building; and their perpendicular position with the horizontal lines below and above them. The small deviation of the outline of the shaft from the perpendicular, gives a character peculiar to itself, and the fluting multiplies this variety; producing a kind of intricacy highly amusing and pleasing to the eye, without involving it in any difficulty to comprehend the whole ; without anything adverse to the general character of simplicity. The horizontal lines of the architrave then contrast with the perpendicular, and nearly perpendicular, of the columns; yet they form one bond of connection for all. The projections in the frieze, called triglyphs, the moldings and breaks of the eaves or cornice, and the deviation from the horizontal in the lines of the roof, meeting in a point, as seen in front, and, as the eye discovers in other points of view, forming a ridge, complete the system of variety of parts, harmonized in a single and well-combined whole.

Farther to examine this building then let us place ourselves first overagainst the middle of the portico. The eye sees, you are aware, not the geometrical elevation, but the perspective. Looking then first downward, it sweeps over the level surface of the floor, on which all rests, and which connects all, interrupted by the shafts of the columns; between which, penetrating, it catches

the perspective of the lateral range of columns on each side. Raising the view then, it finds amusement among the converging and diverging lines of the shafts and their flutings, with their various lights and shadows. In following those lines it meets no check till it reaches the capital, thwarting them. This member introduces it to a new system of lines, those of the intablature, parallel to the floor from which it began its course. Here it discovers a new intricacy, which, if leisure occurs, may be examined with new amusement. To complete the survey then, the eye has only to glide by the easy, ascent of the pediment to the apex, a line quite in a new direction, but carrying it to no great distance from those before observed; whence descending again, it may glance over the whole, and all being harmonized, with all its variety it will strike as simple in its elegance.

In this view, nevertheless, advantageous as it is, we take the building not in its most advantageous point. Far more varied and pleasing will be the effects, as the eye moves from the central station. Diverging, a little only, it will see still the interior of each lateral range of columns: but whereas, from the central point, it saw each range the exact counterpart of the other in lines, and differing only in the accidental and ever-altering* circumstances of light and shade, it now sees them in a perspective differing in the lines also.