nience may be greater than from the frequency of the smaller span, and cylindrical form, of the columns.

The architect of Diocletian's Spalatrian palace, observing these things, appears to have proposed to unite the advantages, avoiding the inconvenjences, of both the column and the pier. To effect this he would use the column as a pier, and, instead of a horizontal architrave, he would throw an arch from column to column. Whether he invented, or whether he adopted, his scheme, it appears, was favored with imperial patronage; and, in the splendid palace in which, under that patronage, it was executed, it had every advantage for exhibition.

Nevertheless, for the exterior of buildings, as it was there used, either the feelings of succeeding architects, or the popular feeling, though amid the wreck of all the arts, revolted at it; for I know not where the thing was repeated. But for. the interior, recommended by its convenience, it obtained extensive popularity. It is found in numerous churches of the middle ages on the continent, and in all those, of our own country, of the Saxon and first Norman times; ready convenience recommending it, when art was rude, and popular taste uncultivated and gross. The unfitness of a column to support even an arch, simply, but still more an arch with a superincum

bent weight of wall, is obvious to every discerning, even though uncultivated, eye.

In course of time however, even time of barbarism, remedy for this was imagined. The column was increased in proportional thickness, sometimes even to the scale of the oldest Doric, and the graceful diminution of the shaft, with its rising height, was abolished. Thus certainly the column became fitter to perform the office of a pier. Nor did an air of grandeur, however grace might be deficient, always fail in the result. Such is the style of the oldest churches of our country, of the later Saxon and earlier Norman reigns.

A distinction has been commonly proposed between the Saxon and Norman architecture; and it has been said by an elegant writer, the late lord Orford, that the Saxon is marked by its rudeness, and the Norman by its superiority, in both design and execution. This fancy however, I think, has been wearing away, as the antiquities of our country have been more carefully inquired after and more fully made known. To evince its futility it might suffice to compare the cathedrals of Oxford and Durham; the former acknowledged Saxon, the latter Norman. What merit any buildings, of either time, might have, was owing, I apprehend, to architects neither Saxon nor Norman, but either Italian, or, perhaps, rather Constantinopolitan. Peculiarities, indi

cating difference of age, may possibly be found among those buildings, but objects rather for the antiquarian than the inquirer after architectonic principles. The best architecture of the Saxon and Norman times bears, nearly equally, much of the character of that of the later Grecian empire.

LETTER XIV.

Sources of a new Style of Architecture-Introduction of the Pointed Arch into European Building.

WHEN the northern conquerors had reduced Europe, with slender exception for the eastern empire, to general barbarism, so that the laity, of all ranks, were unlettered, some sparks of science yet maintained existence, though but a sickly existence, in monasteries. Western Europe, politically much divided, was then, for ecclesiastical concerns, closely united under one head, of mighty authority. In this state of things arose the extraordinary commotion, originating from Rome, called the crusade; which put the affairs of nations, within, and very far beyond, the wide pale of the Roman church, into a new train; and, among other matters, produced powerful effects on architecture.

The Arabs, or Saracens, against whose conquests in Asia the rude steel-clad knights of western Europe directed their fury, were, comparatively a polished people. They had, as I have already observed, their own architects and their own style of architecture. Not only their wealth inabled, and their disposition to luxury excited them, to cultivate the art, but, disposed to letters, they excelled in mathematical science. This, highly important to perfection in building skill, is however no way connected with fine taste or feeling for the fine arts; and unfortunately fine taste appears to have been not naturally an Arabian virtue.

Nevertheless the western Europeans, and especially the Normans and English, eager for adventure, and, though ignorant, alive to curiosity, looking everywhere, and ready to admire, found what to admire in the Saracenic buildings. The Greeks, as we have formerly observed, in their outset in the art, had been led by the circumstances of their times and climate to direct their attention, for matters of taste, almost only to the exterior; and thus they gathered Principles, admirably adapted to the grace of the outside, but not equally to that of the inside of buildings. The Saracens, in similar climate, but otherwise in circumstances different, studious of the exterior, especially for monumental architecture, neverthe

less directed their utmost skill more generally to splendor within; and, however wide of perfect elegance, they succeeded so as to produce some pleasing, but more surprizing effects.

The purposes of the Grecian public buildings, of the best ages, as we have formerly observed, little required wide openings, unless for the gates of fortified towns; and there probably the Ornamental was generally dispensed with. Nevertheless for convenience often, as well as on many occasions for grandeur, wide openings, with ample provision for massive superstructure over them, must be desirable; and thus the ingenuity of builders was directed to the art of Arching.

An investigation of the steps, discoverable among ancient buildings in different parts of the world, by which the art of arching has been perfected, might form a curious chapter in a history of architecture. The oldest existing example, probably marking itself as a first step toward that art, is that I have formerly noticed, which, it is said, is to be given to the world in a publication preparing by Mr. Gell. But, among Daniel's views in India, there is represented a very different contrivance, which however may also have been a first step toward arching. On massive pillar are laid stones, caps rather than capitals, overhanging the shaft considerably, in the line of the colonnade. Stones