which is experienced, if at all, in a very inferior degree by a foreigner. The temples of Egypt, of Greece, and of Rome, besides their intrinsic grandeur, carried with them, doubtless, the veneration of the people, on account of the sacred solemnities with which they were associated. A similar observation may be made in relation to the palaces of princes. It is not merely the magnificence of the building, but the awe attached to rank and dominion, which strikes the mind in such instances, and affects the taste.

There is certainly, however, a peculiar style of architecture appropriated to particular kinds of building, which indicates a power in the art to express a distinct character, and to call forth specific feelings, independent of adventitious or accidental association. Thus, there is something venerable in the massive proportions, and immense and elevated arches of a mighty Gothic temple, which inspires awe in every mind, at once approving itself to the taste as appropriate to the object to which it is devoted; while the lighter and more airy structure of the palace, while it still exhibits grandeur and magnificence, is divested of that mysterious sublimity, which well befits the worship of the unseen Deity, but would be felt as out of place in the residence of the most powerful of mortals.

On whatever principle of our nature these sentiments depend, whether they be original or acquired, there can be no doubt that they equally indicate design in the Allwise Framer of the human soul. It is not from theory, but experience, that the perception of beauty, sublimity, or grandeur in the productions of the architectural art is derived.

NINTH WEEK-THURSDAY.

ARCHITECTURE.-ITS ORIGINAL

STATE-MATERIALS EM

PLOYED.

THE art of building is connected with the seasons of the year in a different manner from food and clothing,

which we have already considered. Both of the latter, deriving their materials from organized existences, either vegetable or animal, depend directly on the produce of the soil and the seasons. The former, on the contrary, obtains large supplies from the mineral kingdom, and derives little aid from the other departments of Nature, with the exception of trees, the most gigantic of vegetable productions, which require many successive revolutions of the seasons to mature.

In one respect, however, architecture is intimately connected with the changes of the year, as it is owing to these changes, that shelter for human beings is rendered peculiarly necessary. Were the seasons of one uniform temperature, and the climate always mild, and free from the annoyances either of intense heat or of violent tempests and rains, the necessity of artificial habitations would have been but little felt, except as the means of defence against enemies, or against the ravenous beasts of the forest. But the alternations of heat, moisture, and cold, which the progress of the year exhibits, in almost every region of the earth, have rendered shelter in a prepared dwelling one of the first necessaries of life.

That this art existed before the flood, we have express testimony from Scripture; and that it had made considerable progress in that primitive era of the world, is rendered probable by the early attempt of the descendants of Noah, to erect a building of tremendous dimensions on the plain of Shinar, where they first took up their residence. The confusion of their language, and their consequent dispersion, caused some of their tribes to lose the arts which had survived the flood, and all of them to conform their habits and modes of living to the circumstances of the locality in which they happened to be placed. Hence originated various styles of architecture, adapted to the peculiar exigences of the climate, to the inconveniences to be avoided, to the comforts within their reach, and to the materials with which they had to operate.

We have, even in the present day, specimens of the lowest and rudest species of architecture which human beings, in any period of their history, ever formed. The

New Zealander digs his wretched habitation in the sand; the native of Australia raises a temporary habitation for himself of wicker-work, in the form of a bee-hive, and of dimensions just sufficient to shield him from the blast; the Carib, wandering among the trackless forests of the Western World, scoops, within the hollow of a decaying tree, a dwelling, whose foundations are deep-rooted in the earth, and whose top waves high in the air; the Tartar, on the central plains of Asia, suits his place of shelter to his wandering life, and, as he drives his herds from pasture to pasture, constructs his portable habitation of the hides of those very animals which he uses for his food; while, on the road, he spreads them as an awning over the wagon which conveys his family.

The simple wants of the savage state, however, do not suffice man as he advances in civilization. Even the wandering Tartar, when his wealth and power increase, extends his views, and converts his simple tent into a habitation abounding with conveniences, and splendid with embellishments; and if, leaving his deserts, he emerge into regions of greater fertility, he is glad. to adhere to the soil, and, employing more substantial materials, to collect around him the comforts and luxuries of a permanent mansion. It is a Tartar race which inhabit the extensive plains and mountains of China, and there raise for themselves houses of wood, of stone, of clay, or of brick.

Other Asiatic tribes inhabit the burning plains and extensive mountain ranges of India. There the first emigrants seem to have found shelter for themselves, by digging into the bowels of the earth, and excavating cool habitations in the barren rocks which skirted their prolific soil. Thus arose the stupendous excavations of the Bahar; and thus were formed, along the banks of the Ganges and the Burrampooter, those cities of caves, of which some served as retreats for the living, while others were left as receptacles for the dead. Extending into the fertile plains, where this resource no longer availed them, the same people accommodated themselves to circumstances, sometimes building substantial piles of those

very stones, perhaps, which had been quarried in excavating their habitations in the solid rock; and sometimes making use of the mud, reeds, and rushes, found in the bed, or on the banks of their rivers.

Similar circumstances, gave rise to similar modes of constructing habitations in the north of Africa, as in the south of Asia. Travellers have thus been surprised to find a wonderful coincidence, in the early dwellings of the inhabitants of Egypt and of India; and, as along the banks of the great rivers of the latter, so along the course of the Nile in the former, were dug those subterranean cities, which, having served as places of residence for the living, were converted into sepulchres for the dead; while in their plains, the slime and rushes which their waters abundantly yielded, furnished them here, as in the distant regions of Hindostan, with materials, slight and perishable indeed, but of easy application for their ordinary structures. In both localities, too, the inhabitants, as they advanced in civilization, sought for more permanent edifices for their gods, and for the palaces and tombs of their great men, by making use of the durable rock, which was brought from a distance, and wrought and raised at great expense. These, and other similarities, have led many to conclude, that those distant tribes betrayed a common origin, when it is possible that corresponding circumstances, merely led men possessing a common nature, to exercise their ingenuity in a similar way.

The use of bricks in masonry was very early introduced. As soon as men began to construct high buildings, at a distance from mountains and forests, they would find themselves at a loss for materials. It is probable that stone was not first used for this purpose, as tools would be wanting. The cutting and hewing of stone would require the knowledge of more arts than men were acquainted with in those early ages. They began with using bricks; that is, clay, formed in square moulds, and dried in the sun, or baked in stoves. Of such materials, the tower of Babel was built. The Egyptians also made very early use of this substitute for reeds and crude clay.

In the first efforts of European architecture, we find several traces of local peculiarities. There, immense forests, while they encumbered the soil, offered their aid in furnishing the means of shelter. As soon as the aboriginal inhabitants desired a more secure and convenient habitation than was to be found beneath the shelter of the overhanging rock of the mountain, or the thick foliage of the wood, they found it in the gigantic vegetation with which they were surrounded; and the wooden hut arose to form ever after the model for their most refined architecture.*

NINTH WEEK-FRIDAY.

ARCHITECTURE.-ITS ORIGINAL STATE-TOOLS EMPLOYED.

ARCHITECTURE could make but little progress, till mankind had discovered certain arts, which are absolutely necessary to its advancement; such as the making of machines for the raising and transporting of weighty bodies, the art of taming animals, and training them to carry materials; and, last of all, the art of working iron, that most useful of all the metals. It is true, however, that wonderful efforts have been made, without the knowledge of these arts. The people of Mexico and Peru, when first visited by the Spaniards, had neither carts, sledges, nor beasts of burden, but transported their materials by mere strength of arm. They knew nothing of scaffolds, cranes, or other machines, employed in other divisions of the globe in the construction of buildings. They were even ignorant of the use of iron. Notwithstanding all this, they had the address to raise buildings of stone, which are beheld with admiration even at the present day. Patient labor supplied the place of tools. Their way of dressing stones, was to break them with certain flints, very hard and black, and then polish them by rubbing one

* Hope on Architecture. Introduction, and chaps. ii and iii.