and small topfinishing projection, of the exterior architrave. Small alterations and additions, however, in some of the earlier temples, show that this did not quite satisfy; but it was an advantageous step toward improvements which followed. The interlacing of the beams and joists, overhead, suggested the early ornaments of the ceiling.

In the earlier temples the doorway seems to have been generally the only aperture of the cell. Some grace of connection, to make this not a mere hole in a wall, remained desirable; and the more, as it presented itself in the middle of the portico. The form of the architrave, resting on the columns, and bearing the superstructure, might readily offer itself as fitting for the lintel of the doorway, resting on its posts and also bearing the superstructure. Satisfying, in the lintel, the extension of its form, from the top down the sides of the doorway, would also be an obvious expedient for harmonizing all. The decoration, thus extended from the lintel to the doorposts, given in the same manner to the perpendicular as to the horizontal, has obtained, in modern architectonic phrase, altogether the title of architrave. When windows came to be added, this form was equally appli. cable, wanting only the addition of the sill.

Here is found so much done, that little more would be needful toward the completion of ordinary rooms, where splendor of ornament, or

striking architectonic effect were not required. Nevertheless the remaining examples of Grecian design, for the interior, need only be compared with the exterior of the same buildings, to evince, I think, that the attention of architects, in the ages of the purest Grecian taste, had not been called to effects within equally as to those without.

History furnishes a glimpse, a most imperfect glimpse, of what cannot but excite the architect's curiosity. The royal palace of Macedonia is said to have been adorned with the best paintings of Zeuxis, one of the most celebrated painters Greece ever produced, in the age of the very best taste in exterior architecture. What then was the architecture of the interior of that palace, whose apartnients were so superiorly adorned? The king, Archelaus, whose taste and munificence led him to be the patron of the greatest painter of that age of the fine arts, was also the patron of one, whose works, yet extant, rank him among the greatest poets, Euripides. Such a prince surely would not leave his palace wholly unimproved by those architects of his day, whose talents have been celebrated by cotemporaries and by posterity, and are in some degree known by their works even yet existing.

It is however possible, and indeed there seems ground to say probable, that the chambers of the Macedonian palace, adorned by the pencil of

Zeuxis, were not of much more architectonic merit than those adorned with some of Raphael's finest paintings, and thence called Raphael's chambers, in the Vatican palace at Rome; and I think it may be ventured to be added that they were probably not of less architectonic merit. For when, in the progress of things, after the successful exertions of the Grecian architects to give the highest grace to exterior architecture, in the temples, it came to be desired to give a richer elegance to the inside of buildings, and to decorate what we call rooms, that middle style of building, between inside and outside, in the portion of the temple between the colonnade and the cell, would furnish, as I have already observed, at once all that was most necessary. When a building is to be divided into rooms, the rectangular, the universal form of the Grecian temple, must necessarily prevail. The floor and walls and ceiling then being decided, the first want of the architect, for decoration, would be to connect the bottom of his walls gracefully with the floor, and the top with the ceiling; and thus far the interior of the temple colonnade would at once, as we have seen, supply him. His only remaining positive want then would be a finishing for his doors and windows, for which also the temple, we have observed, afforded him an advantageous model.

When the conquests of Alexander had esta

blished the Greek nation over all the western part of Asia, and made it master of Egypt, the wealthy kingdoms, which it composed in those countries, became, far more than Greece itself, the scenes of increased splendor and new design in architecture. But the destructive and numerous revolutions, ensuing, have left so little remaining, that, unable to proceed on Grecian ground, I was reduced, in the conclusion of my last letter, to conduct you by a great leap, over time measured by centuries, and space from Greece to Italy, to reach objects for farther notice; to which also I must, in my next, return.

LETTER XI.

Interior Architecture.-Grecian Circular Building.-Roman Circular Building.-Roman Interior Architecture.

AMONG the ancient Greeks and Romans, not only the religious worship, but the business of the civil assemblies and courts of justice was conducted in the open air, and the ancient theaters were roofless. Splendor of interior architecture thus was among them comparatively little desired. But when occasion arose to accommodate multitudes with shelter, in religious or in civil occupations, then a new care came upon the architect: to provide sure support for an extensive roof must be a principal matter for his attention. The purpose indeed of the gymnasium or palæstra, and the stoa or portico, was shelter against sun and rain; but, for this, the midway style, in the manner of the portico and peristyle of the temple, sufficed; nor would the multiplication of columns, within the precinct, occasion any great inconvenience. The growing luxury of public baths, perhaps, first produced, among the Greeks, the demand upon the architect to design a complete room, of large dimensions. The great hall of the baths, of the later times, appears to have been sometimes a very large room and very splendid.