OF GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE TUE next step in the history cf architecture, leads us to consider it as practised in the Grecian states ; and here, although during its early stages niuch uncertainty pre vails, yet by the aid of ancient historians and scientific travellers of modern times, we are enabled to trace a to lerably connected view of the rise and progress of this school of the arts.
To conceive the Greeks totally ignorant of the state of architecture in Egypt and Persia, at a period when those immediately adjacent empires had long existed in great splendour, had constructed edifices of the greatest magnificence, and were the countries from whence, if the Greeks were not originally colonies, they certainly very early derived the first rudiments of their know ledge, would be carrying credulity to an unwarrantable length. That the Greeks benefitted by the architecture of Egypt and Persia, and even India, is rendered still more probable, by considering, that their early sages uniformly drew their information from these countries ; that the commencement of the most rapid progress of ar chitecture in Greece corresponds with the time of their connection with Egypt in the reign of Psammaticus ; and that the pillars of the finest ancient edifices in each of those countries, in their shafts, capitals, and other orna ments, afford sufficient hints for a people less ingenious than the Greeks.
But this singular peopl,, situated in a rugged, and, in a great measure, insulated country, at the junction of Asia with Europe, and at no great distance from Africa, with the benefit of a fine climate, and unfettered free dom, appear to have collected, refined, and carried to a much higher degree of perfection, the knowledge and arts of those great countries to the east and south of them ; and in what regards poetry, eloquence, painting, sculpture, and architecture, they produced in the course of a few centuries, specimens which succeeding genera tions have not been able to surpass.
Egypt had no wood, but abounded in mountains of granite,porphyry, and marble. These circumstances, and
the extensive use which the earliest inhabitants made of natural and artificial caverns, must have led thein to form their peculiar style of architecture.
Greece, on the contrary, was possessed of forests, and the essential parts of their finest structures are evidently derived from the application of the materials which they furnished. The columns and entablatures correspond precisely with upright posts and horizontal beams of wood ; and, above all, the pointed roof of their temples, which in Egypt and Persia had hitherto been flat, is pecu liarly their own. In what regards decoration, the Greeks chiefly made use of the essential parts, and they bestowed their attention almost upon the ex ternal parts of the edifices.
These appear to be the general distinguishing features of Greek architecture ; and, without excluding that peo ple from the preceding labours of their neighbours in les ser points, it is evident that many essential parts are pe culiarly their own; and scarcely had they attempted buildings of any considerable magnitude, when their judgment, skill, and taste, were displayed to a degree which placed the architecture of Egypt, Persia, and In dia, in the infancy of the arts. It was certainly greatly in favour of Greece, that, in process of time, fine mar bles were employed ; but, independent of the excellence of this material, there was more expression of mind in the formation of one statue by an eminent Greek sculp tor, than in myriads of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Of the Doric Order.
The first distinct character of the architecture of the states of Greece, has been denominated Doric; from the country in which it was invented. In the earliest speci mens, the diameter of the pillars, in proportion to their height, bears a strong resemblance to those used in some of the Egyptian temples ; but the triglyphs, metopes, and mutules, represent the disposition of wooden beams, and the ends of the rafters which compose the sloping roof.