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in forming fuch fcenes and profpects as are moft apt to delight the mind of the beholder I fhall in this Paper throw together fome reflexions on that partiCular art, which has a more immediate tendency, than any other, to produce thofe primary pleafures of the imagination, which have hitherto been the fubject of this difcourfe. The art I mean is that of architecture, which I fhall confider only with regard to the light in which the foregoing fpeculations have placed it, without entring into thofe rules and maxims which the great masters of architecture have laid down, and explained at large in numberlefs treatifes upon that fubject.

Greatnefs, in the works of architecture, may be confidered as relating to the bulk and body of the ftructure, or to the manner in which it is built. As for the first, we find the ancients, especially among the eaftern nations of the world, infinitely fuperior to the

moderns.

Not to mention the Tower of Babel, of which an old author fays, there were the foundations to be seen in his time, which looked like a fpacious mountain ; what could be more noble than the walls of Babylon, its hanging gardens, and its temple to Jupiter Belus, that role a mile high by eight feveral ftories, each story a furlong in height, and on the top of which was the Babylonian obfervatory. I might here, likewife, take notice of the huge rock that was cut into the figure of Semiramis, with the fmaller rocks that lay by it in the fhape of tributary kings; the prodigious bafor, or artificial lake, which took in the whole Euphrates, till fuch time as a new canal was formed for its reception, with the feveral trenches through which that river was conveyed. I know there are perfons who look upon fome of thefe wonders of art as fabulous, but I cannot find any ground for fuch a fufpicion, unless it be that we have no fuch works among us at prefent. There were indeed many greater advantages for building in thofe times, and in that part of the world, than have been met with ever fince. The earth was extremely fruitful, men lived generally on pafturage, which requires a much fmaller number of hands than agriculture: There

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were

were few trades to employ the bufy part of mankind, and fewer arts and fciences to give work to men of fpeculative tempers; and what is more than all the reft, the Prince was abfolute; fo that when he went to war, he put himself at the head of a whole people: As we find Semiramis leading her three millions to the field, and yet overpowered by the number of her enemies. "Tis no wonder, therefore, when he was at peace, and turning her thoughts on building, that he could accomplish fuch great works, with fuch a prodigious multitude of labourers; Befides that in her climate, there was fmall interruption of frofts and winters, which make the northern workmen lie half the year idle. I might mention too, among the benefits of the climate, what hiftorians fay of the earth, that it fweated out a bitumen or natural kind of mortar, which is doubtless the fame with that mentioned in Holy Writ, as contributing to the structure of Babel. Slime they used instead of

mortar.

In Egypt we ftill fee their pyramids, which anfwer to the defcriptions that have been made of them; and I question not but a traveller might find out fome remains of the labyrinth that covered a whole province, and had a hundred temples difpofed among its feveral quarters and divifions.

The wall of China is one of these eaftern pieces of magnificence, which makes a figure even in the map of the world, altho' an account of it would have been thought fabulous, were not the wall itself ftill extant.

We are obliged to devotion for the nobleft buildings that have adorned the feveral countries of the world. It is this which has fet men at work on temples and public places of worship, not only that they might, by the magnificence of the building, invite the deity to refide within it, but that fuch ftupendous works might, at the fame time, open the mind to vaft conceptions, and fit it to converfe with the divinity of the place. For every thing that is majestic imprints an awfulness and reverence on the mind of the beholder, and strikes in with the natural greatness of the foul.

In the fecond place, we are to confider greatness of manner in architecture, which has fuch force upon the imagination, that a fmall building, where it appears fhall give the mind nobler ideas than one of twenty times the bulk, where the manner is ordinary or little. Thus, perhaps, a man would have been more astonished with the majestic air that appeared in one of Lyfippus's ftatues of Alexander, tho' no bigger than the life, than he might have been with mount Athos, had it been cut into the figure of the hero, according to the propofal of Phidias, with a river in one hand, and a city in the other.

Let any one reflect on the difpofition of mind he finds in himself, at his first entrance into the Pantheon at Rome, and how the imagination is filled with something great and amazing; and, at the fame time, confider how little, in proportion, he is affected with the infide of a Gothic cathedral, tho' it be five times larger than the other; which can arife from nothing elle but the greatness of the manner in the one, and the meannefs in the other.

I have seen an obfervation upon this fubject in a French author, which very much pleased me. It is in Monfieur Freart's parallel of the ancient and modern architecture. 1 fhall give it the reader with, the fame terms of art which he has made use of. I am obferving (fays he) a thing, which, in my opinion, is very curious, whence it proceeds, that in the fame quantity of Superficies, the one manner feems great and magnificent, and the ether poor and trifling; the reafon is fine and uncommon. 1 fay then, that to introduce into architecture this grandeur of manner, we ought fo to proceed, that the divifion of the principal members of the order may confift but of few parts, that they be all great and of a bold and ample relievo, and swelling ; and that the eye beholding nothing little and mean, the imagination may be more vigorously touched and affected with the work that ftands before it. For example; In a cornice, if the gola or cymatium of the corona, the coping, the modillions or dentelli, make a noble show by their graceful productions, if we see none of that ordinary confufion which is the refult of thofe little cavities, quarter rounds of the aftragal, and I know not how many other intermingled particulars, which produce no

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effect

effect in great and may works, and which very unprofitably take up place to the prejudice of the principal member, it is most certain that this manner will appear folemn and great; as on the contrary, that it will have but a poor and mean effect, where there is a redundancy of thofe smaller ornaments, which divide and Scatter the angles of the fight into fuch a multitude of rays, fo prefed together that the whole will appear but a confufion.

Among all the figures of architecture, there are none that have a greater air than the concave and the convex, and we find in all the antient and modern architecture, as well in the remote parts of China, as in countries nearer home, that round pillars and vaulted roofs make a great part of thofe buildings which are defigned for pomp and magnificence. The reafon I take to be, becaufe in thefe figures we generally fee more of the body, than in those of other kinds. There are, indeed, figures of bodies, where the eye may take in two thirds of the furface; but as in fuch bodies the fight muft fplit upon feveral angles, it does not take in one uniform idea, but feveral ideas of the fame kind. Look upon the outfide of a dome, your eye half furrounds it; look upon the infide, and at one glance you have all the profpect of it; the intire concavity falls into your eye at once, the fight being as the center that collects and gathers into it the lines of the whole circumference: In a fquare pillar, the fight often takes in but a fourth part of the furface; and in a fquare concave, muft move up and down to the different fides, before it is mafter of all the inward furface. For this reafon, the fancy is infinitely more ftruck with the view of the open air, and fkies, that paffes through an arch, than what comes through a fquare, or any other figure. The figure of the rainbow does not contribute lefs to its magnificence, than the colours to its beauty, as it is very poetically defcribed by the fon of Sirach: Look upon the rainbow, and praise him that made it; very beautiful it is in its brightnels; it encompaffes the Heavens with a glorious circle, and the hands of the Moft High have bended it.

Having thus fpoken of that greatnefs which affects the mind in architecture, I might next fhew the pleafure that rifes in the imagination from what appears new and beautiful in this art; but as every beholder has na

turally

urally a greater tafte of these two perfections in every building which offers itfelf to his view, than of that which I have hitherto confidered, I fhall not trouble my reader with any reflections upon it. It is fufficient for my prefent purpose to obferve, that there is nothing in this whole art which pleafes the imagination, but as it is great, uncommon, or beautiful.

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Quatenus hoc fimile eft oculis, quod mente videmus.

I

Lucr. 1. 4.
.. V. 754.

Objects ftill appear the fame

To mind and eye, in colour and in frame.

CREECH

At first divided the pleafures of the imagination into fuch as arife from objects that are actually before our eyes, or that once entered in at our eyes, and are afterwards called up into the mind either barely by its own operations, or on occafion of fomething without us, as ftatues, or defcriptions. We have already confidered the firft divifion, and fhall therefore enter on the other, which, for diftinction fake, I have called the fecondary pleasures of the imagination. When I fay the ideas we receive from statues, defcriptions, or fuch like occafions, are the fame that were once actually in our view, it must not be understood that we had once feen the very place, action, or perfon that are carved or defcribed. It is fufficient, that we have feen places, perfons, or actions in general which bear a refemblance, or at least fome remote analogy, with what we find reprefented. Since it is in the power of the imagination, when it is once ftocked with particular ideas, to enlarge, compound, and vary them at her own pleasure.

Among the different kinds of reprefentation, ftatuary is the most natural, and fhews us fomething likeft the object that is reprefented. To make ufe of a common inftance, let one, who is born blind, take an image

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