Moving farther, the character of the view becomes. greatly changed. The whole of the exterior of a lateral range of columns comes within the comprehension of the eye, together with the whole of the front, and a small part of the interior of the other lateral range. Nor is this advantageous view limited, in reality, as in picture, to a single point; every step is rewarded with a variety, and every passing cloud brings one. Twenty pictures perhaps might represent the varieties offering themselves at each step of twenty. But it were a tiresome business to examine twenty pictures, so nearly resembling one another, to find and ascertain and compare their varieties; whereas observing those varieties in the single real object, highly amusing, is also without labor; and the matter of regret often is that beautiful effects, given by changes in the atmosphere, are too transient. It is the merit of painting, as I before observed, not to pursue varieties, but to fix interesting objects, of a passing nature, in interesting points of view; so that the eye may rest upon and return to them. This is the peculiar advantage of painting, and a very high prerogative it is, when used as Claud and the Poussins and CorBeggio and Raphael have had talent to use it.

But, if painting is unequal to the representation of architectonic effects, far more must words be deficient: their best power is to revive, in the

mind of the hearer or reader, the idea of forms once seen, and direct to points, in the recollected objects, to which attention may be desired. Hence description is hazardous; for that may be complete for those practised in observation of architecture, which will be very deficient for the unpractised; and, what to the latter may be necessary and even grateful, may annoy the former, as tedious and superfluous. For this however, as for all other matters, I depend upon your kind acceptance of endeavours, and, should my letters pass into other hands, I must take my chance.

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LETTER VII.

Grecian Orders of Architecture.

It has been commonly remarked that the people of those countries which we call Oriental, or the East, have been remarkably adherent to fashions once established among them, and averse to changes. But the Egyptians, in their habits generally, beyond others monotonous, in their architecture rather furnish an exception. They had indeed a style of their own; but, within that style, they indulged in a capricious variety: we do not find, among the large remains of their magnificent antient buildings, any settled ORDER of architecture.

On the contrary all the oldest Grecian buildings, known to us, either by existing relics or by description, show a remarkable sobriety of taste, an extraordinary reserve in pursuit of variety; a scrupulous adherence to the manner of fair forms once approved and deserving to be so. During several centuries, all the Grecian temples, not in Proper Greece only, but in all the settlements of the nation, in Sicily, Italy, Asia, and Africa, appear to have been all, with small varieties only, of one general style of architecture, afterward distinguished by the title of the DORIC ORDER.

Was Homer inferior to Shakespear in power of imagination? Was Shakespear inferior to Homer in natural sensibility to just order and arrangement, and in power of discerning the becoming and the misbecoming? Though a hasty view of their works might lead to decide both questions in the affirmative, yet perhaps, in careful observation, ground may be discovered for much dispute on the subject. How far Homer's invention was checked, and his judgement chastened, by the fastidious taste of those for whom he composed; how far Shakespear's carelessness, of arrangement generally, and of the becoming often, was encouraged by the licentious fancies, which he was obliged to respect; and what was the real difference of mind between them, may be variously imagined, and will not be easy convincingly to show.

In architecture, however, it is evident, multifarious invention was not that in which Grecian genius prided itself; extravagant variety was not that in which Grecian taste was disposed to indulge. Nice selection, advantageous combination, and what the Greeks distinguished by the general terms of harmony, and the becoming, were what the Grecian mind was singularly directed to, and in the attainment of which it singularly excelled. Perhaps, as I believe I have before observed, among monuments yet remaining in Egypt may

be found the prototype of almost every form occurring in Grecian architecture. What may have been gathered from Phenicia or Palestine, however well the ingenious may guess, we cannot know. But to have chosen the most graceful forms, and the most harmonious combinations, even if not to have invented them; to have perseveringly adhered to them; to have prosecuted great improvement, without abandoning the original good principle; and exclusively to have transmitted them to late posterity, are certainly Grecian merits.

Nevertheless the proportions of the oldest Grecian temples, known by relics yet standing, and by authentic descriptions published, have not met with universal approbation. To the eye accustomed to the proportions afterward adopted, they have been apt to appear heavy and less graceful. The early architects, emulating, it may seem, the grandeur of the Egyptian style, and successful in adding the graces of harmony and simplicity, gave their buildings a massiveness, which even some cultivated minds have been disposed to reckon beyond elegance. Whether this judgement has ever been formed by those who have seen the buildings, or whether it rests wholly on delineated representation, I cannot tell. But, I remember at Rome a professional architect, eminent for extensive information and correct faste, affirming that the great temple of Pæstum,