devout Celtic aspirant Taliessin boasted that he had been inclosed.

Quadrangular oblong arks, of various lengths, were thus held to be the places of the actual abode of gods. The material of which they might be made was a matter of indifference; the form was all-important. The quadrangular fabric was regarded as more apt than any other for the abode of the god. Even the dilapidated cromlech shows that such form was most proper for the reception of the kist-vaen. The same was prescribed for the ark of Israel. When therefore men became inclined to give increased dignity as well as reverence to the god of their worship by enlarging his abode beyond the dimensions of the sacred ark, and chose to give fixedness to the locality of the divine abode, they applied to the skill of the architect, and called him to supersede the hand of the mechanic by rearing a fabric of solid materials, of brick, stone, or marble. Whatever the material, the structure must be quadrangular and oblong, for long opinion and practice affirmed that such form was most acceptable to the Deity, and was therefore indispensable. The sacred structures of Egypt show that such was the doctrine of that ancient nation: but it was not peculiar to Egypt; it was general; and it wrought in the caves of Hindosthan, in the cromlechs of Britain, in the temples of classical Greece, and in the far greater portion of the prouder temples of imperial Rome. The funereal soros, first formed within the barrow, was the model of the oblong quadrangular naos, or temple, whatever its dimensions, or wherever situate.

It has been very commonly supposed that the Romans borrowed the form of their temples from the Greeks, and the Greeks from the Egyptians. There seems, however, to be reason to doubt the truth of this opinion, and that each of these nations, in the construction of these works, acted upon some favourite principle, and that the differences (for there were considerable differences in their works) were owing to

the peculiar opinions severally entertained by each. The quadrangular oblong form was adopted, whether the temple were subterranean or superterranean: thus far they all agreed: but from this point, which may be regarded as the outset of the architecture of the temple, each seem to have followed the bent of their peculiar tastes and fancies, and varied the location of the parts of their structures and the character likewise so widely did they differ, as to preclude the supposition that any of them ever constructed their sacred fabrics otherwise than in accordance with their religious theories and their own opinions of utility and effect. A few notices of the discrepancies observable in the works of different nations will fully establish the truth of this position, somewhat novel perhaps, but yet true.

The Egyptian and the Greek, having constructed the temple, placed the pillars, the symbols of strength, the one within the inclosure, the other outside of the fabric. The pillars of the Egyptian temple were placed close, almost in contact; those of the Greek temple were always at least at a distance of three or more diameters. The roof of the several covered apartments of the former was invariably flat; the roof of the latter was always raised to or tended toward a ridge at an angle the same as that of the pediment of the front. In some instances the secos or more sacred part of the Greek temple was hypæthral, or open to the sky, like the altar when surrounded by the grove: the Egyptians always covered the sacred recesses or rooms of their temples; and the sacred idol, whether a compound material substance or a symbolical animal, sought reverence in a mysterious gloom, shunning not only the light of the sun, but the fresh air of heaven.

If any resemblance is to be found in the architecture of Egypt and of Greece, the capitals of the columns will afford it. The cup-like shape of many of the Egyptian capitals, nearly the same as that of the capital of the Corinthian order, was taken from the flower of the aquatic nymphæa lotos

plant, the symbol of the divine power by which the earth was raised above the waters at the creation. Of this accordance it may be justly observed, that it may, or rather must, be ascribed to a unity of principle, than to an imitation of practice. The doctrine of the earth having been raised above waters is a simple truth familiar to patriarchal tradition, and noticed in various ways by heathen fable: this its import has been clearly exhibited in the paintings of the Hindù theologues; and it were strange to suppose that the symbol should have been unknown in the regions not altogether remote from those in which the families of the Greeks were born. For these reasons the identity in form of the Egyptian and Grecian capitals may be rather ascribable to the common use of the symbolical lotos, than to a servile imitation of Egyptian usage, a practice to which the Greeks were never prone, and to whom, from their acknowledged ingenuity, it could never have been necessary.

The capitals of the other Grecian orders are so far different from the Egyptian, that it is impossible to suppose that they can have been borrowed from Egypt. The Ionic capital has been supposed to have had its form from the compressed lotos. The curvature of this volute bears indeed a near resemblance to the horn of the ram, which was an apt symbol of strength, and an animal the favourite object of reverence with the Asiatic nations. Amun, symbolized under the form of a ram, was not unknown in Egypt; yet the horn of the animal never appeared in any capital: whence it must be inferred that the Greeks did not take the Ionic capital from Egypt. The same may be said of the Doric capital. Whether it was or was not a form of the lotos, it was of a character too simple for Egyptian approbation; and was not borrowed, but rather invented, by the Greeks of Doris. These facts strongly controvert the notion, that the nations of heathen antiquity were wont to form their sacred structures in imitation of those of the neighbouring countries. The facts do

more: they prove that each formed their sacred structures upon its own principles, and used symbols significant of its own principles. The Egyptian formed not unfrequently the head of Isis into a quadrangular capital, doubtless of the same import as the globe placed between the horns of the crown of the goddess. The Persian disciple of Zoroaster gave the head of his favourite symbol, the bull, in the capital of the pillar of his architecture. The disciple of the Sastra not unfrequently gave to the higher part of his column the mighty elephant. The Indian, the Persian, the Egyptian, each exhibited his own symbols in his architecture. It were strange to affirm that the Greek did not do the same. If the Greek acted in accordance with his own opinions in the structure of the column, all his capitals, the Corinthian, the Ionic, and the Doric, may be regarded as the lotos under different circumstances and degrees of distortion from implied pressure. This variety is a clear evidence of ingenuity and invention altogether abhorrent of imitation.

That Rome conquered Greece by her arms, but Greece conquered Rome by her arts, is a remark rather trite than true; but upon the authority of such remark it has been imagined that all the structures of Rome, whether sacred or civil, especially those of the later ages of her republic, or the earlier ages of her empire, were of Grecian invention, and consequently that all their beauty and magnificence was owing to Grecian taste. Such sentiment is utterly unworthy the greatness of imperial Rome. That she bore the arts, as she did the spoils, and even the gods of the conquered nations, to her own proud abode, will not be denied; but that she was destitute of all the arts and elegances of civilized life till she imported them from Greece, and that she had no fixed principles of her own, is far from the truth. The mention of her temples made by history, her mighty structures, works wrought even in the infancy of her power, her laws also, and public institutions, tell that she was great even

from her infancy; and that when she transferred the inventions of other countries to the cities and fields of Latium, she engrafted them upon her own, and made them there bear better and richer fruit than in their native soil they had ever before produced. This is especially true of her sacred structures; they are such as the science and skill of subsequent ages has never been able to surpass; they are such as all succeeding generations have been eager to imitate.

That the buildings at Rome at the first foundation by Romulus were little else than mud cottages covered with thatch, must, from the rudeness of the age and want of means and opportunity, be believed. Even in the reign of Numa the temple of Vesta was of wicker-work, roofed with the same materials. The sacred structures of the city were doubtless nearly of the same description, till, in the reign of the last Tarquin, the foundations of the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter were laid, of such magnitude, that they were not finished during his reign. This king being of an Etruscan family, must have been partial to the theory of the religion of his nation, and well versed in their arts; whence it is inferred that the temple whose foundation he laid partook of the character of others builded by his nation. It is with reason believed that the magnificent structures of Pæstum were of Etruscan fabrication: it may therefore be inferred that the temple of the Capitol must have been of similar form. The temples of Pæstum are called Doric, but they gain that title from the form of the capitals only; in other respects, as to the shape of the column, which is nearly conical, and the intercolumniations, they scarcely retain any of the Doric proportions, and cannot be said to be imitations. of the Grecian architecture. The columns more nearly resemble the conical pillars Icin and Boaz which king Solomon set up in the vestibule or porch of the temple at Jerusalem. These were more conical in their forms than the columns of Pæstum, and shew that the Etruscan and Roman,