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60
Lectures on Fine Art.
[Lect.

appearance of bulk to infinity by multiplying equal parts to a greater limit than is within the power of the mind to count within the space of time in which any first impression can be obtained from any one point of view. In the elimination of architectural "true principles" I fear that the monuments of Assyria, Persia, and India, help us forward to little more than the enforcement of the lessons derivable from a study of ancient Egyptian Art. To the Classical Theory of design we shall presently recur: and it may suffice now only to note, that Rome gave out but a feeble echo of Greek excellence. In Rome traditions of sound structure were sedulously maintained, while the more volatile spirit of pure beauty which had flashed with electric light over the favoured land of "the citron and myrtle" was allowed, in architecture and the other arts to evaporate, as emperor after emperor held sway in the Seven-hilled City, and was gathered to his fathers.

The Byzantine tendency to splendour in vigorous but somewhat unmethodical fashion was brought, by the affinity inherently possessed by the Mahometan races for symmetrical regularity and duly balanced colour, into order and perfection. Their faith, which forbade the introduction of representations of animated nature, deprived them of one of the highest resources of architectural art—the capability of writing upon structure a legible expression of purport and story; that quality which Mr Fergusson has so well described as phonetic.

The principal quality, which we may find invariably vindicated by Romanesque architects, or those who connected the traditions of classical art, through various types, with mediæval art, consisted in a knowledge of the effect of vastness produced by the multiplication of regular subdivided parts, equally subdivided themselves in their turn. The long rows of columns which decorated the early Christian churches, the arcadings, which ultimately formed one of the principal characteristics of the style, all exhibited excellent ideas of general

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