CHINESE ARCHITECTURE, that which is used by the inhabitants of China, and employed in their temples and other edifices. It would be very difficult to give such a definition as should point out the species of architecture practised by the Chinese; we must recourse to the descriptions of those who have drawn and actually measured their edifices with care. To the attainment of this, our materials are few. Sir William Chambers is the only author we are acquainted with, who has given representations of Chinese edifices from measurement, and who was able to discriminate, as an architect, those characteristic forms by which it is distinguished from other species of architecture, and to mark out its peculiar features. In his prethce he observes : "To praise too much or too little, are two excesses which it is equally difficult to avoid. The knowledge of the Chi nese, their policy and skill in the arts, have been praised without beamds; and the excessive encomiums that have been given them, show with what force novelty strikes us, and how natural it is to pass from esteem to admiration.
"1 am far from joining in the over-strained eulogies of the Chinese. If' I find among them wisdom and sublimity, it is only when I compare them with the people that surround them ; nor shall I put them on a parallel with the inhabitants, either ancient or modern. of our quarter of the world. At the same time. we must acknowledge, that our attention is due to this distinct and singular race of men, who, separated from the polished nations of the world. have, without any model to assist them, been able of themselves to mature the sciences and invent the arts.
" Everything that regards a people so extraordinary. has a claim to our attention ; but though we are pretty well instructed in most things respecting them. we are very little so in their architecture. Many descriptions that have been hitherto given us of their edifices, are unintelligible, the best give hut indistinct and contused ideas of them, and none of the drawings deserve the least attention.
" Those which I at present offer to the public, are drawn from sketches and measures that I took at Canton some years ago. I took them merely to satisfy my own curiosity. I had
not the least intention to publish them; and they would not have appeared at present, had I not yielded to the solicita tions of several amateurs of the fine arts. They have thought them worthy of the attention of the public, and that they might be useful in stopping the course of those extravagant productions, that appear every day, under the name of Chi nese; although the most part of them are pure works of fmcv. and the rest only mutilated representations that have copied from porcelain and various paintings on paper.
•• What is really Chinese, has at least the merit of being original. Seldom. or never, have this people copied or imitated the inventions of other nations. Our most authentic accounts agree on this point. Their government, their cus turns, their dress, and almost everything else, have continued unchanged for thousands of years. Their architecture has, besides, a remarkable resemblance to that of the ancients ; and this is the more surprising, es there is not the least pro bability that the one has been borrowed from the other.
" In the Chinese architecture, as well as that of the ancients, the general form of almost all their compositions tends to that of the pyramid. In both, the columns serve for supports, and in both the have diminutions and bases, which in many respects are similar. The ent•elns, so common in ancient edifices, are often seen in those of the Chinese. The ling of the Chinese differs but little from the peripteron of the Greeks. The atrium. and the monopterous and prostyle temples, have a considerable resemblance to some among the Chinese ; and the manner in which they construct their walls is on the same principle with the revincturn and empleeton, described by Vitruvins. There is, besides. a great resemblance between the utensils of the ancients and the Chinese ; both are composed oh' similar parts, eumbined in a similar manner.