1. The earliest stage of monumental A. in every part of the world seems to have been that in which it supplied to the existing generation the means of setting a mark on the face of the earth, of a nature so ineffaceable as that it should continue to be visible to future generations. No attempt was yet made to tell a tale either by the form of the monument, or by any figure or inscription engrave') on it. Apart from the tradition intended to accompany it, it was speechless—confessedly unintelligible. But it is easy to see how powerful would be the effect of such an erection in preserving that tradition from oblivion, and fixing it down to the particular locality; for so long as a conspicuous object existed, which obviously was the work of human hands, the cause of its existence would be a subject of curiosity, which could be gratified only by inquiries which must lead to a recital of the events intended to be commemorated. It was with this view that Joshua (xxiv. 20) took a stone, and set it up under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord, "And said unto all the people: Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it bath heard all the words of the Lord." To this primary class of monuments belong those tumuli or barrows, and conical heaps of stones called cairns, earns, or kearns, which, when they occur in Britain, we perhaps rightly ascribe to the Celtic portion of our forefathers, but which there is much reason to believe have been erected by every race at a certain stage of their progress. The barrow, it is true, is not wholly destitute of architectural arrangements. Occasionally it contains a passage or narrow gallery leading to a square inclosure or small chamber, in which the remains of bones, and of rude urns, drinking-cups, and other articles, sometimes of Roman or Brito-Roman manufacture, are found. The barrows are always, however, of the rudest and most inartificial construction, and in considering them we are only, as it were, on the threshold of architectural science.
2. The earliest class of erections to which this title can with any propriety be given, are those which are commonly spoken of as Druidical temples. These consist generally of separate stones, often of enormous size, raised on their ends, sometimes in a circle, and at other times so xs to inclose an oblong space, which in some cases is roofed in by hori zontal slabs. These roofing-stones are frequently of such prodigious weight as to give rise to many conjectures regarding the mechanical means by which, and the mechanical knowledge of those by whom, they were placed in the positions in which we see them. These strange, and, to us, almost wholly unintelligible remains of antiquity, when of great extent, assume an air of savage and gloomy majesty. Of this the most conspicuous instance anywhere to be found is that of Stonehenge (q.v.), in Salisbury plain in Wilt: shire. Wherever a Celtic population existed, these monuments are to be found, Druid ical monuments are more common in France than in England; and in France, as might be expected, they exist in the greatest numbers and variety in Brittany (q.v.), though none of them approach the magnitude, or, in some respects, the workmanship of Stone henge. The Celtic monuments of Brittany are of different classes. and have received different names—that which is most architectural in character being the dolmen, or cromlech, as it is called iu England. The cromlech consists generally of two rows of perpendicular stones, arranged so as to fit pretty closely to each other, and covered with horizontal roofing-slabs, thus forming a chamber, which is generally of such height as to allow a man to walk through it upright. But the largest and most perfect specimen of the dolmen is to be seen, not in Brittany, but in the neighborhood of Saumur on the Loire. It measures more than 80 ft. in length. To the same early stage in the science, though probably to a much earlier period in point of time, are to be referred those cyclo. pean walls and fortifications which at Tiryns and My cenm in Argolis excited the wonder of the later Greeks; the Etruscan walls at Fiesole; and the similar structures which are found both in Central and South America.
3. The next stage in advance of that primeval and prehistoric one of which the traces are thus so widely spread, is that at which the science seems to have culminated in all but the classical nations of antiquity, and those races which have had the benefit of their genius and invention. We have here an accurate measurement of parts, and a cor responding division of the building. The pillar also makes its appearance, though it is by no means used with the same freedom, nor does it exhibit the same variety of form to which it attained in Greek A. The stage of which we here speak was attained by the inhabitants of Central and Southern America before its discovery by Europeans; and in Mexico, even by the Toltecans, an earlier race, which had given way before the Mexicans of the days of Cortes. Peruvian A. exhibits neither columns nor arches; but the remains of the palace at Mitla possessed a portico with plain cylindrical columns; and the walls were covered with rude sculpture. In the cloisters of a building at Palenque, a species of ivartificial triangular arch, formed by courses of stones projecting over each other, was found. It is very instructive as showing the natural, and, so to speak, necessary charac ter of certain architectural forms at certain stages of national development, to find that the pyramid, which is little more than a regularly constructed cairn, is met with even more frequently in Mexico than in Egypt; and whether or not we regard it as the primary form of the pagoda of India, it certainly formed the basis both of Mexican and Egyptian A. The discussions which have been carried on with so much keenness as to the priority of date of Indian and Egyptian A., lose much of their importance when we find a race, acting in all probability independently of both, starting from the same primary form as the one, and in the discovery of the pillar and the arch, making two of the most impor tant of the further steps in advance to which they respectively lay claim. Keeping these facts in view, it would seem, moreover, that something more is required to prove an his torical connection between Doric and Egyptian A. than the circumstance that the col umns which they respectively employ possess a base, a shaft, and a capital, or that both are used to support an entablature. Even the loug unbroken horizontal lines which seem to indicate an affinity between the architectural styles of Egypt and of Greece, and which distinguish them both so sharply from the Christian A. of mediwval Europe, may be the result rather of a similarity of circumstances than an identity of origin. Though these styles agree in having columns, and though the columns support horizontal entablatures in each, they disagree in the forms of the columns, in the character of the entablature, and indeed, in almost every other particular. Whilst Greek pillars taper towards the top, and the walls are vertical, in Egyptian buildings the very reverse is the case, the pillars being vertical, and the walls sloped. When the effect of a whole Greek building, surrounded by a colonnade, and of an Egyptian building is considered, a certain similarity appears —the base in each case being wider than the upper part; but the result is produced in the one ease by sloping the pillars, and in the other, by sloping the walls, the external edges of which form a slightly acute angle with the base of the building. The great distinction, however, between the A. of Egypt and Greece consists in the stages which they respectively reached. The A. of Egypt retained throughout a character of gloomy strength, and never attained to the lightness, freedom, or variety of that of Greece. In the one case, the traditionary forms continued throughout to dominate and subdue the free spirit of art; in the latter, art triumphed over tradition, and owned no laws but its own. It is in this circumstance that the distinction consists between the stage of A. of which Egyptian may be considered the type, and of which Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian A. are also examples, and that ultimate stage which was reached by the Greeks in one direction, and by the various Germanic nations in another. See ARABIAN A., BYZANTLNE A., and GOTHIC A.