hedrals of the Middle Ages, but it covered twelve
times the ground of the temple of Solomon, and from the summit of the
Acropolis it shone as a wonder and a glory. The marbles have crumbled
and its ornaments have been removed, but it has formed the model of the
most beautiful buildings of the world, from the Quirinus at Rome to the
Madeleine at Paris, stimulating alike the genius of Michael Angelo and
Christopher Wren, immortal in the ideas it has perpetuated, and
immeasurable in the influence it has exerted. Who has copied the Flavian
amphitheatre except as a convenient form for exhibitors on the stage, or
for the rostrum of an orator? Who has not copied the Parthenon as the
severest in its proportions for public buildings for civic purposes?

The Ionic architecture is only a modification of the Doric,--its columns
more slender and with a greater number of flutes, and capitals more
elaborate, formed with volutes or spiral scrolls, while its pediment,
the triangular facing of the portico, is formed with a less angle from
the base,--the whole being more suggestive of grace than strength.
Vitruvius, the greatest authority among the ancients, says that "the
Greeks, in inventing these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the
naked simplicity and aspects of a man, and in the other the delicacy
and ornaments of a woman, whose ringlets appear in the volutes of
the capital."

The Corinthian order, which was the most copied by the Romans, was still
more ornamented, with foliated capitals, greater height, and a more
decorated entablature.

But the principles of all these three orders are substantially the
same,--their beauty consisting in the column and horizontal lines, even
as vertical lines marked the Gothic. We see the lintel and not the arch;
huge blocks of stone perfectly squared, and not small stones irregularly
laid; external rather than internal pillars, the cella receiving light
from the open roof above, rather than from windows; a simple outline
uninterrupted,--generally in the form of a parallelogram,--rather than
broken by projections. There is no great variety; but the harmony, the
severity, and beauty of proportion will eternally be admired, and can
never be improved,--a temple of humanity, cheerful, useful, complete,
not aspiring to reach what on earth can never be obtained, with no
gloomy vaults speaking of maceration and grief, no lofty towers and
spires soaring to the sky, no emblems typical of consecrat