f architectural effect.

The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection,
since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancient
world, was probably built by artists from Tyre. It was not remarkable
for size,--it was, indeed, very small,--but it had great splendor of
decoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid
platform of stone, and bearing a striking resemblance to the oldest
Greek temples, like those of Aegina and Paestum. The portico of the
Temple as rebuilt by Herod was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the
Temple itself was entered by nine gates, thickly coated with silver and
gold. The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold,
and was dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticos and palaces
with which it was surrounded gave to it a very imposing effect.

Architectural art in India was not so impressive and grand as in Egypt,
and was directed chiefly to the erection of temples. Nor is it of very
ancient date. There is no stone architecture now remaining in India,
according to Sir James Fergusson, older than two and a half centuries
before Christ; and this is in the form of Buddhist temples, generally
traced to the great Asoka, who reigned from 272 B.C. to 236 B.C., and
who established Buddhism as a state religion. There were doubtless
magnificent buildings before his time, but they were of wood, and have
all perished. We know, however, nothing about them.

The Buddhist temples were generally excavated out of the solid rock, and
only the facades were ornamented. These were not larger than ordinary
modern parochial churches, and do not give the impression of
extraordinary magnificence. Besides these rock-hewn temples in India
there remain many examples of a kind of memorial monument called
_stupas_, or _topes_. The earliest of these are single columns; but the
later and more numerous are in the shape of cones or circular mounds,
resembling domes, rarely exceeding one hundred feet in diameter. Around
the apex of each was a balustrade, or some ornamental work, about six
feet in diameter. These topes remind one of the Pantheon at Rome in
general form, but were of much smaller size. They were built on a stone
basement less than fifty feet in height, above which was the brickwork.
In process of time they came to resemble pyramidal towers rather than
rounded domes, and were profusely ornamented with carvings. The great
peculiarity