or the semblance of use, for the frieze and cornice, are certainly far less obvious in the interior than in the exterior. The projection of the cornice, however, seems quite in proper place as an assisting support to the ceiling; and the ablest architects of the Augustan age, it appears, thought the frieze, and architrave, forms fitter to hold the situation under it, in lofty rooms, than any other they could devise, and would no where substitute a novelty.

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The rectangular plan, as we have before observed, is so generally best adapted to the most ordinary purposes of architecture, that it must be the generally prevailing plan; and we find that, notwithstanding the just fame of the Pantheon, Roman taste, even for temples, reverted to the Grecian parallelogram. Mostly also, for the Roman temples, as for the Grecian, the exterior was still the principal object of decoration. In the magnificent ruin, known by the name of the temple of Peace, we find indeed a richness of interior, that may, when perfect, have vied with that of the Pantheon. That the building called the temple of Peace, however, was a temple, seems on better ground doubted than imagined. But, whatever was its purpose, its ruin is equally a valuable source for the architect; and in the same merit that called the temple of Diana, at Nimes in

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Languedoc, excels. The chambers of Livia's and Titus's baths at Rome, offer much for the decorator with the pencil, but, as I recollect, not for the man of the chisel.

A French architect at Rome, of time long-before the passion of the French revolution had that vent, which shortly proved how much the evils of simple despotism are obscured by the flames of despotism in the hands of a multitude, calculated that there were more cubical feet of stone in Vespasian's amphitheater alone, vulgarly the Colosseum, than in all the boasted edifices of Lewis the Fourteenth. Yet, among even monarch architects, I suppose none ever equalled altogether, in splendor of buildings, that strange mixture of virtues and vices, of vast talents and vile passions, the emperor Adrian. But, of his magnificent buildings, very little of interior architecture remains. That once most splendid edifice, his tomb, so far like the Grecian temple as it was pomp without, and misery within, when stripped of every decoration, and despoiled of every limb, remained and remains, an object of admiration; and, though raised without any view to use, it has become, by ready conversion, a fortress, for either defence or controll of the adjacent city, more powerful than the art of the age of its spoliation, and many following ages, could construct.

The age of Adrian has been called, not unaptly, a second Augustan age; a character which held, in considerable degree, through the reigns of the Antonines. Ruin, equally to the arts and the empire, revived under the monster Commodus ; for it is a vain expectation of despots, that the arts shall flourish, when the people are oppressed. Diocletian's talents brought out a reviving gleam, which returned under Constantine; but, through the fever of the intervening times, with weaker and nearly expiring lustre.

LETTER XII.

Decline of Roman Architecture.-Gothic Architecture.Arabian or Saracenic Architecture.-Buildings of Charlemain's Age.

My last letter touched upon the reign of Constantine, which, far as decline in the arts had gone, is, nevertheless, an important era in architecture. The establishment of the Christian mode of worship required a style of building considerably differing from the common heathen. temple. Instead of a mere sacristy for the priests, the term at which the pomp of processions ended, and in front of which, under the vault of the sky, sacrifice was performed, shelter was required for the multitude, offering their prayers according to the ritual, and receiving instruction from their pastors. New plans were therefore wanted, for buildings of great dimensions, with new and superior attention to the interior. The Pantheon then, rather than the Parthenon, would be the model.

But the circle, as I have before observed, with its advantages, has denying qualities. Of all buildings, then common, the Greek basilicon, or hall of justice, described by Vitruvius, and of which an example remains nearly perfect, in, I

forget the name of the church, at Rome, was found most convenient for the Christian mode of worship. It was nearly the Egyptian hall of Vitruvius, with some added parts, which the convenience of the judicial business required. Some buildings of this kind were consecrated, and an analogous plan was adopted for many more, wanted to accommodate the multitudes who now embraced, or were imboldened to acknowledge, the hitherto persecuted faith. This plan, with some varieties in the detail, and commonly with the addition of the transept, to give the form of the cross (an addition advantageous for the interior, but far otherwise for the exterior effect) became general for Christian churches through all succeeding times.

But, the zeal for bringing the new religious establishment to completion, while the government was favorable, would not wait the slow progress, which the small proportion, then existing, of able artizans, with their best exertion, could make. A cathedral was provided for the capital by the conversion of a basilicon, adjoining the palace of the Lateran family, dedicating it to St. John. This building, you know, lost its pre-eminence in the times of the successful resistance of the Roman barons to the pontifical claims of absolute sovereignty, when the policy of the popes gave the prerogative to St. Peter's, on the other side