of one of these lines, which is found rarely was suggested, and almost forced on them, it in any other style, namely, the concave never seems to have taken root, as it were, or It is to be feared that the slightness of our to have developed itself in those remarkable acquaintance with Chinese habits of thought results, which ended in the production of a and history, and still more our ignorance of pure Gothic architecture. Something was those secret mysterious analogies, which wanting in the habits of thought and feeling make lines, and figures, and movements, and to render it equally productive. Whether colour, and material objects generally, real and designed representatives of moral and intellectual impressions, would render it difficult to account for their adoption of this elementary line. But the fact is unquestioned. Mr. Hope, indeed, with much probability, traces it to a rigid imitation of the Tartar tent :

the taste for the concave line among the Saracens flowed from a barbarous imitation of a corrupted Romanesque, or was associated with any astronomical notions-which is not improbable-we will not stop to inquire. Moorish architecture, like Chinese, though sufficiently characteristic, has never become systematised. Its primary line is one which is evidently incapable of producing variety, From this universal propensity to retrace, in or throwing itself out into general combinathe latter method of construction, the forms of tions. And we may turn therefore to the the earlier materials, we shall see that of the

Chinese still resemble, in all its parts, those of three other styles in which the theory here the tent, its original type. In the wooden pil-suggested is more strikingly illustrated. lars, destitute of marked bases and capitals, Of the three straight lines the horizontal, which support the ceilings in such numbers, we the perpendicular, and the oblique-the la see the poles: in the roofs, which from these is the one, which was evidently the germ of pillars project so far, convex (which externally the Egyptian; and we know enough of their gives the concave) alike in their spine, their institutions and associations to account not sides, and ribs, the awning of hides, or pliant stuffs, spread over ropes and bamboos; in the curling spikes that fringe their eaves, the hooks and fastenings; in the lowness and spread, and clustering of the different parts, the whole form, and appearance, and character belonging to the residences of the herdsmen, their ancestors.

only for the selection of it, but for its running out into the peculiar figure of Egyptian architecture. This figure, if our reader will turn to any work which represents Egyptian buildings, he will see to be that of a truncated cone or triangle. He will trace it in the shape of the façades of the temple, in the doorways, in the form of the columns, and the intercolumniations themselves, in the pyramids, the obelisks, the

Chinese houses seem to cling to posts which, when planted in the ground, have struck out and become fixed. The palaces only look like a number of collected awnings, and the very pagodas or towers in their loftiness are nothing more than a number of tents, piled on the top instead of standing by the side of each other. The aggregate dwellings, from the smallest vil- sphinxes-everything, in fact, which is peculage to imperial Pekin itself, in their distribution, liarly Egyptian. It will meet him at every resemble nothing but a camp; and when Lord turn. Here again is the fact which will not Macartney, after crossing the whole of the be disputed, however we may differ as to its Chinese empire, from south to north-from explanation; and the question before us is, Canton to the great wall, its farthest length- what is the connection between this confes. was, on the borders of Tartary, received by the sedly Egyptian figure and the oblique line, which is assumed to be the element of all Egyptian architecture?

emperor in a real tent, he scarcely perceived any difference to exist between it and the millions of tributary buildings he had viewed.'-p. 24.

To prove this connection, it must be shown And there is something not a little inter- that there was something in the predominant esting in the theory which would thus trace circumstances of Egyptian art, employed as in Chinese architecture the same rigid undeviating adherence to ancient notions, on which the stability of their empire is evidently made to rest.

If the reader will now turn to the Moorish style, he will find (and for the same reason, in the same part of the building) that the convex is here equally predominant. A Turkish mosque is a little forest of domes-the minarets swell. out into bulbs, the arches bend into horseshoes; and though, among the Arabs, as among the Christians, the introduction of the angle into the curve of the arch 9

VOL. LXIX.

it chiefly was upon religious buildings, which led first to the employment in them of the oblique line chiefly; and then from it to the natural suggestion of the figure of a truncated cone; and this is not difficult. The whole history of Egypt in its art, as well as in its politics and religion, exhibits one primary idea impressed on every part, the idea of unlimited but unvarying progression. It exhibits society under the presence of an enormous hierarchical power, which was not allowed to run into abuse, and destroy itself by its own excesses, but maintained a firm mas

of the hypothesis, that the peculiarities in a consistent style of architecture depend on its adoption of some peculiar figure, on which it works as a base; that this figure was generated or suggested by some peculiar elementary line; and that the adoption of this line depended on peculiar circumstances, and habits of thought in the age in which the style originated.

In turning to the Grecian architecture, the type of it is evidently to be found in a different -: and it must be line, the horizontal

tery and direction over the minds of the whole nation; knowing no other object than to preserve its power unincreased or undiminished; content to hand down its treasures of hereditary knowledge without thinking of additions to it; employing art to overawe the imagination; leading on generation after generation in a monotonous, undeviating procession of castes and families; guarding them on each side by gigantic institutions, consolidated by time and by religion; and bringing them up with an oppressive vigilance over thought, word, and action, in a slow ap- traced in a similar way. Let the reader turn proach to the awful portals of a mysterious to prints of the Grecian temples, even as late eternity, beyond which little was unveiled, as the Parthenon, and he will find, as he except to the priesthood themselves. Even might naturally expect among a people whose art-sculpture, and painting, and music, and art, and wisdom, and theology came originally medicine, were, we know, among the Egyp- from Egypt, vestiges of the Egyptian type tians subject to a most rigid superintendence, still distinguishable in the shape of the Doric which prohibited all variation. And this columns, the figure of the door-ways, and peculiar cast of thought, derived as it was even in the form of the façades. Even the from their political and religious system, and Parthenon does not present a parallelogram, emblematical of it, exhibited itself in their rebut the frustum of a pyramid or truncated ligious worship, as we know to be the fact, triangle, though the transition from it is chiefly in the form of processions. Proces evidently approaching. But the avenues are sions are the natural expression of a dominant abandoned. The Grecian temples stand by themselves, not as termini for lengthened processions, but as insulated objects for the eye.. And as, under a more popular form of religion, the people were no longer to be marshalled in solemn processions under the command of an overruling, perhaps a tyrannical, hierarchy, but to be gathered familiarly under the porticos of their temples, the porticos became the chief and most prominent

power.

feature in the Grecian architecture. But a

But processions move on in a line; and the line constantly presented to the eye of Egyptian art, when employed in architecture, and to that of the Egyptian people when en gaged in devotion, was the oblique, or foreshortened and projected line, such as is presented to every one who is advancing from one point to another straight before him. And this line suggested an avenue, and accordingly the approach to Egyptian temples was made through avenues of obelisks and sphinxes, forming in fact the real temple for the people, as the mysterious halls within the portals of the building, to which they led, were reserved for the priests and the initiated. But this avenue gives us the figure. As the oblique is the Egyptian line, what would be the Egyptian figure suggested by it, but the truncated triangle formed according to the laws of perspective, by the two lateral lines of an avenue, converging not to a point but to the front of a portico, and harmoniz-delight to fix itself at the angle of a Grecian

ing completely with ideas of grandeur, solidity, and immutability. And such being the primary figure, it was repeated on every part, in order to preserve unity and harmony unity and harmony being rendered perfectly compatible with great variety and multiplicity of detail, provided each variation be only a repetition, however modified, of the one primary type or figure.

We cannot dwell more on this point; but it may be sufficient to give a general notice

portico was for use. Art in those days was
not yet become meretricious to serve any
primary purpose but use: and its use was
shelter; and the shelter was found in the
roof; and in the roof, as before observed, is
therefore to be found the characteristic feature
of the new style, just as the characteristic line
of the Egyptian was found in its most im-
But the roof of a
portant part, the avenue.
portico presents a horizontal line: and-
although an eye accustomed, by the pecu-
liarities of Gothic architecture, to search for

the picturesque instead of the beautiful, might

colonnade, and so throw it into the Egyptian form, pillar dwindling behind pillar, and the lines of the base and the cornice converging into the truncated cone-such was not the temper of Grecian taste. It delighted in symmetry, and proportion, and regularity; in measuring relations, in adjusting parts, in taking centres, and forming systems, placing itself as a critic and spectator, and referring every object to its own eye. Remember the high rationalistic power of the Greek intellect, and its self-conceit; and how the power,

B

E

stimulated by the conceit, acted on every unconsciously in its daily operations of vision subject brought within the range of the Greek as well as in following out the theorems of mind, so as to convert its old traditionary Euclid, its first operation must be to draw a theology into philosophy, and its old traditionary philosophy into schools and sects of scepticism, and its government into democracy, and its morals into self-will and licentiousness, and its life into self-indulgence, and its religious worship into a luxury of the imagination and the senses, and its science into an amusement for captious wrangling intellects, and its art into an imitation of mere humanity, and an arrangement of symmetrical parts and flowing lines and then we may trace the altered form and character of the Greek architecture to the altered form and character of the human mind after its transition from the hierarchal monasteries and oppressive monotonous region of Egypt, to the stimulating atmosphere, and free soil, and unfettered for then he would not be able to bring the habits of the Grecian colonies.

triangle. It will take a point A, somewhere above the line B C (for the eye naturally mounts upward), and from this it will drop unconsciously two lines, A B, A C, and by these lines, and the angles they include, it will measure the comparative length of E B and E C, which is the object in view. We ask even a child to observe the process, by which unconsciously he bisects a line before him, and he will recognise it to be this. He does not go much above the basement line,

two portions of it into close contact and comImagine then a Greek portico first con- parison, but just high enough to make angles trived for shelter, and then to be ornamented at B and C large enough to be measured by for the gratification of an intellectual criticis- the eye: and hence it is that a low pediment ing eye, fond of symmetry and regularity; not too low, but still low-is a distinctive and the line which will present itself as the basis of the whole will be a horizontal line, the eye of the spectator being fixed from a distance on the centre. Accordingly in a pure Grecian building it is this line-the line of the architrave, frieze, and cornice, which, as occupying the most prominent place, receives the greatest amount of ornament; and from it are developed all the other parts of the building. This is an important fact, and ought to be carefully studied in order to appreciate the real deterioration of Greek architecture introduced by later styles, especially by the Romans.

feature in Grecian architecture; that a high pediment is faulty; that a pediment applied to a line of columns so long as not to be capable of being measured at one view, is out of place; that the centre of the pediment is always the centre of the building; that being one of the first parts followed out by the eye, it is susceptible with propriety of much ornament; and that it is applied with propriety only to the façade of the building, fronting the point where the eye of the spectator is supposed to be fixed. The figure is beautiful in fact, and peculiarly appropriate to Grecian architecture, because it falls in with the What then are the figures which such a natural action of the eye. For the same realine as contemplated under these circum- son, the parallelogram, the square, and the stances, and by a mind with these habits of circle, all which figures are formed by measurthought, would naturally suggest? If there ing equal distances, and observing a symmeare any such, they will be the figures pecu-trical arrangement of parts, are in harmony liarly appropriated to Grecian architecture. with the Grecian style; and the oblong And the Grecian figures are few and well parallelogram still more than the square, known they are the parallelogram more because it is laterally developed from the than the square, the depressed triangle exhibited in the pediment, never an elevated pyramid; the circle, and such elliptical curves as express the greatest degree of ease and freedom in the flow, with the least restraint and fewest interruptions. And we ought to be able to show how these and no others were generated from the horizontal line, just as the figure of the truncated trian- If we follow up this principle still further gle was generated from the oblique projected we shall observe that, as the horizontal line line of the Egyptians. Place then an eye in of the cornice is the basis, from which all the the bisection of a line, having for its object to other parts originally flow, in the most pure measure and symmetrize the two portions of and primitive Grecian style, as the pediment it, and according to the laws of common is made to drop upon it, so the pillars themoptics, by which every human being works selves and all the minutest subordinate orna

apex of the depressed triangle and the basement line. They are each produced by one and the same kind of mental operation. And the elliptical curves, easy, flowing, and unbroken, which are employed in the ornamental parts, are for the same reason appropriate, because they coincide with the natural tendency of a Grecian fancy and feeling.

tended by anything more than the architraves; Why then should not the columns support the and the columns were the principal supports. arch? This was accordingly soon done, as in Dioclesian's palace at Spalatro: but when this occurs, there is an end of the supremacy of the horizontal entablature lines. Why should not the arch take all the cornice mouldings, and the entablature disappear altogether? There is no stability in the Roman system, nothing satisfore went on, as on these principles it should factory, nothing final. This architecture therehave done, breaking up more and more—arches, columns supporting arches, one order over another, one story over another, tall towers with many windows, coupled pillars, grouped openings, innumerable attempts at variety, repetitions, multiplications and modifications were introduced. All the forms and rules of classical architecture were cast loose, and there was no

longer any fixed model or limit to the caprice or adaptations of the builder.'-p. 219.

ments flow downwards from it. Compare no consistency. Again, the arch was in fact the best specimens of Doric and the later the principal line of the opening, notwithstandcorruptions of Greek architecture which suc-ing that the Romans did not allow it to be atcecded it, and a remarkable difference will be observed on this point. In the former, the fluting of the pillars, the triglyphs, the gutta, the minutest details in fact, are managed to carry the eye downwards from the cornice, until it reaches the base; and then it was made to rest upon a solid substructure, binding the whole together by one horizontal line, as the corresponding line of the cornice locked it together from above. And in all this there was no interruption to the natural action of the eye; every part was in unity and harmony with the primary idea, and the whole was beautiful. But in the later Greek style this perfect harmony soon begins to disappear. The fundamental principle of utility is lost sight of, and the columns,which are mere accessaries, are made the chief and most ornamental part, instead of the architrave or roof. The point on which the eye is to rest, and which is therefore most elabo rately worked, is lowered to the capital of the pillar, and from that to the fluted shaft. Instead of preserving the uniform descending lines from the frieze, ascending lines are introduced; that is, by giving bases to the pillars, and altering their proportions, the eye is carried up m the ground to the architrave, and thus vo counteracting movements are brought ato collision, and simplicity is destroyed. When the Grecian architecture was trans-operation in order to obtain an idea of a curve. ferred to a Roman soil, a still further corrupAnd every fresh point thus taken introduces tion took place. If Rome suffered herself a new movement, and thus distracts and disto be led captive by Grecian art, she still turbs the eye. At first, indeed, these arches, retained much of her original wildness and as in the Coliseum, were sunk within the uncouthness-she never possessed that quick columns, so that the lines did not appear promiintuition and instinctive sensibility to har- nently. But even in the Coliseum an obsermony which characterized the Greeks-and vant eye will perceive the distraction caused was not only incapable of appreciating the by the successive horizontal lines of the cordelicacy, which shaped upon one consistent nice as confused with the perpendicular lines of the columns; and in order to retain the simprinciple even the minutest details of the genuine Greek architecture, but in her attempt to grasp the grand and gigantic she was obliged to combine a number of parts without being able to give them unity. The introduction of the circular arch was the last and

most fatal blow to the simplicity of Grecian

architecture.

6

Dr. Whewell has not expressed precisely the mode in which this scene of confusion was generated by the intrusion of the arch. But the account of it is that every fresh curve or circle requires a new centre to be taken by the eye, from which diverging radii may be drawn to the circumference; since, however unconsciously, we must perform this

ple impression of vastness and sublimity, it must in reality sink all these details, and content itself with embracing the one grand outline of the building as a whole.

We have no intention of tracing at present the still further corruption which ensued, when the circular arch was made to rest upon the The seeds of destruction,' says Dr. Whewell column, and the barbarisms crept in which are most justly, were sown in the system of classi-known under the name of Norman and Saxon cal architecture as soon as the arch was intro- styles, as well as the early and later Italian. duced. For, what was the arch to do, and Mr. Hope's work has thrown great light on where was it to be put? It was placed for a this point. All alike are corruptions of the long while between two columns, having its Roman; when men, without science or acute own impost, and leaving the columns to do sensibility to harmony, were left without their work in supporting the great entablature. Grecian models, and could do little more than But why were the arch and the entablature to combine and multiply the two leading ideas of the Roman, namely, the column and the arch, but without understanding the laws of proportion, or regulating their ornaments upon

be both there? The entablature was to consist

of large blocks, strong enough to support themselves as lintels; the arch was to supersede the necessity of such blocks. Here, therefore, was

any other principle than a capricious fancy. J of one field of view, and not a small fraction of And the fault in all was the same, that, in mul- it only, like a temple seen at a little distance. tiplying parts they introduced a diversity of Hence the horizontal lines are necessarily dislines radiating from different centres, and car-placed and overmatched by the perspective: the sides, however long the building is, are rerying the eye in contrary directions-and a duced to narrow strips on the retina of a person variety of figures, not repetitions or modifica- looking along the edifice; and the two vertical tions of some one primary type, but each of lines which bound the end and divide it from them unconnected with the other. the sides are really the master lines of the whole scene, controlling and regulating all the rest. All the horizontal lines, however strong or long, stop or bend when they come to these vertical boundaries; and the spaces on one side or on the other of them (a side and an end) are occupied by forms and combinations altogether different. The building will therefore then only be reduced to harmony and consistency, when the principal lines and members of the architecture submit to be regulated by these irresistible lines.'-p. 213.

The nature of the religious worship was changed. The portico and colonnade, therefore, were no longer the principal object in building; the horizontal line was therefore lost sight of as the fundamental idea, and until a new idea developed itself, every attempt to adapt the old style to new circumstances produced only confusion.

By degrees, however, this new idea did arise, and with it a new style. As processions were the characteristic of the Egyptian worship-and popular gathering round the tem-religion another idea, that of elevation. If But with Christianity there came also into ple and under the shelter of colonnades was the chief object in the Grecian-so Christianity introduced a wholly new practice, not without its symbolism and mystery, that of collecting a whole assembled congregation under one roof. It is a remarkable peculiarity, full of meaning, and pregnant with important architectural results.

filled the

permanence and immutability were the characters of the Egyptian system, and symmetry and rationalism those of the Grecian, elevation is the peculiar idea of Christiany. It raised man from the ground, lifted up his nature to a communion with the Deity, led up his eye in constant hope to another world, and a heaven above him; roused his intellect; Another circumstance,' says Dr. Whewell, lightened his cares; broke the fetters of his 'which perhaps still more advanced this change flesh; sublimed his affections; was, that in the Christian temples the worship- whole sphere of his vision with grand and pers were within the temples, and the edifice aspiring spectacles; shook off the chains of was hence calculated for an interior spectator. the slave; dignified the helplessness of woIt is remarkable how necessarily this will be men; fractured the barriers of castes which seen. on a little consideration, to change the kept subjects in perpetual degradation; introwhole character of the building. A temple, or duced into the whole man a tone of noble and a series of temples, intended to be seen from without, and formed on the Grecian model, lofty thought, and imparted it freely to all would have a line of entablature, which would men. And there is nothing fanciful or arbi have a natural and congruous reference to the trary in asserting a close connection between horizontal line on which they stand; and it the moral and spiritual elevation of the Chriswould not happen, in any common point of tian doctrines, and the physical form in which view, that this reference would be obscure or the idea soon became embodied. If we caninterrupted. The temple would be seen as a not express the former without using words whole, and the entablature of one or of two derived from the latter-if we cannot witness goodness and power without both thoughts and gestures which mount upwards, we may be sure there is a close and indissoluble connection between the two; and that thoughts which lift themselves up from earth to heaven, will embody themselves in structures exhibiting a similar analogy.

sides, supported by well-formed pillars, would be simple or beautiful. But for buildings to be seen from within, the case is different. To extend them by an extension of horizontal architraves resting on columns would produce a space without grace, dignity, convenience, or the possibility of being lighted. When such buildings were made spacious and splendid, the height was increased at least in proportion to the other dimensions, probably more; and windows, one Upon these two new ideas combined there range over another, were inserted in order to arose the system of Gothic architecture. The light this space. The space was covered with perpendicular line was its primary idea; and a series of vaults, one to each window or group the necessity of an enclosed roof the circumof windows: hence naturally the necessities of stance which fecundated it with all its imporsuch vaulting led to pointed arches, vertical tant consequences. Its first movement is to lines, and other Gothic features. But I now be traced in the piling up of range upon observe further, that even without taking into

account the consequences of vaulting, the inte- range of disproportioned columns and circular rior view necessarily introduced a style of build-arches, in the structure of towers, and in the ing which had reference to vertical lines. The unnecessary elevation-unnecessary so far interior view of a building occupies the whole as mere ordinary utility was concerned