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28
Lectures on Fine Art.
[Lect.

to minister to his own cravings for such a supply of agreeable sensation.

So far as we can at present discover, the earliest attempt at architectural effect was the decoration of the face of the cave which formed the dwelling of the individual. Openings made for the access of light and ventilation, with more of less rude cutting, scarcely worthy of the name of sculpture or architectural decoration, were executed with rude implements at a very early age. Masses of stone left to support the superincumbent rock, as the natural cavern was enlarged, gave origin to those rude piers which, at first misshapen, subsequently squared, then reduced by the cutting off of the angles to an octagonal shape, and further shaped by additional cutting to a polygonal section, ultimately assumed the form of the cylinder slightly tapered; which, while occupying the least area in the chamber in which the columns stood, afforded the greatest supporting strength in proportion to any height in the smallest cubical area.

While on the one hand this was probably the primitive stone structure, there no doubt came into being during the same ages the rude hut of wood, such as, according to the Vitruvian theory, has been usually regarded as the primitive type of the Temple. Certain it is that at an extraordinarily early period in the history of mankind we meet with structures in which stone and other mineral substances simulate constructions in wood. It would be unnatural to suppose that these constructions has not their prototype in buildings of wood, although, from the perishable nature of that material, all evidence of their existence, other than this repetition in more permanent substances, may have disappeared.

As it will be obvious that to trace the history of structure is almost to trace the history of civilization, it would be folly to expect that in the course of this address it is possible to do more than glance at the great families of style in architectural construction. The details I must leave you

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