and the seignory of the world, but vanity of vanities, universal vanity? The same would Croesus have preached from the flames; Bajazet from his cage; and Dionysius from his school. Where is now the splendor of the Consulate? Where the lictors and their fasces? Where the crowns and tapestry? Where the banquets and revels ? All those things are perished; a boisterous wind hath blown away the leaves, and left the naked trees, tottering, and almost plucked up by the roots. Where are the seven wonders of the world? Where is Nero's golden palace? Where are Diocletian's hot baths? Where is Julius's colossus, or Pompey's amphitheatre? They are all gone, there is no print of them remaining.

The things of this world are not only a shadow, but are very deceitful. They promise us goods and give us evils; promise us ease, and give us cares; promise security, and give us danger; promise us great contents, and give us great vexations. There is no felicity upon earth, no happiness which mounts on high, which is not depressed by some low calamity. It is not needful to attend the end of life to see the imposture of it. It is enough to see the alterations whilst it lasts. Be assured, that vain is all the greatness of the earth, if that of heaven be not gained by it. Since, then, all kingdoms, empires, honors, and greatness whatever, are but a shadow, and will presently vanish, and we are here in this world but as in an inn, from whence we are suddenly to depart; let us take care for our journey, and furnish ourselves with provision and a viaticum for eternity; let us clothe ourselves with such garments as we may carry along with us. This may be our comfort, that our wealth, whether we will or no, may be taken from us, but eternal happiness, unless by our fault, cannot. We may be deprived of honors against our wills, but not of our virtues, unless we consent. Temporal goods may perish, be stolen, and lost many ways, but spiritual goods can only be forsaken, and are then only lost when we leave them by our sins. The roses of glory in heaven do never fade, nor doth custom dull the lively taste of those celestial delights. I will therefore preserve myself in humility. I will not

confide in prosperity, nor presume upon my virtues, though never so great, since every man is subject to fall into those misfortunes he little thinks of. I will not trust in life, because it may fail, whilst the goods of it remain ; and will as little trust in them, because they may likewise fail, whilst it continues.

Blessed Lord! thou art my salvation, thou art my glory, my aid, and all my hope is in thee at thy right hand there are riches, greatness, and powers, for ever, without end.]

ELEVENTH WEEK-MONDAY.

ARCHITECTURE.-ITS

ANCIENT HISTORY AND PRACTICE

ROME.

THE genius of the Romans became ascendant, as that of the Greeks decayed. That most wonderful people, from small and even contemptible beginnings, rose, by their extraordinary energy and military prowess, accompanied with a noble and even romantic patriotism, to be rulers of the world. When Rome arrived at the height of its power, it contained, within its single precincts, the élite of the population and wealth of many districts. Its private citizens, going out as governors of provinces which had once been empires, after having, in their respective governments, exercised despotic power, and reigned in regal state, returned home with all the riches of which they had stripped those whom they ruled, and lived as individuals with the income of monarchs.

Thus, there gradually arose in Rome a demand for buildings, both public and private, on a scale such as the world had never yet beheld. The conquerors not only

concentrated the wealth, but the ingenuity of the subjugated nations, into the one imperial city, or diffused them over their limited native territory. Whatever was grand or luxurious, elegant or useful, in the vast range of their conquests, that active and inquisitive people noted and

* [Pronounced el'eet, and meaning the flower or select portion.--AM. ED.]

transferred to Italy, and there reproduced them on a scale of magnificence which far surpassed the originals. Aqueducts, bridges, forums, basilicas, temples, baths, theatres, amphitheatres, stadia, hippodromes, and naumachia, rendered the capital of the world the aggregate of all that was wonderful and useful throughout the whole extent of her mighty empire.*

to recite

"It were an endless task," (6 Mr. Hope, ," says the constructions, so well adapted to every useful purpose, and every object of magnificence, reared within, or in the immediate vicinity of Rome, aqueducts of prodigious length, which, from the adjacent mountains, carried in every direction streams of the clearest water across its vast plain into its inmost bosom; sewers of indestructible solidity, which again carried away every species of impurity; roads, as indestructible as ours are perishable, which, from the capital, diverged on every side to the utmost confines of the peninsula; and on these roads, bridges massy and durable, which joined the opposite banks of the widest rivers; forums or public porticoes, where its population might meet and converse sheltered from heat and rain, increased in the time of Augustus to the number of forty-five, and which, under Trajan, received the addition of that forum in which stood his triumphal column, surrounded by a forest of other pillars of granite of a single block of immense height and diameter; baths erected by Augustus, by Nero, by Titus, by Caracalla, and by Diocletian, each containing all that could serve for cleanliness, for health, for exercise, and for amusement, each seeming a palace in splendor, and a city in

* [The uses of forums and basilicas are explained in the succeeding extract from Hope. Amphitheatres were circular enclosures, with stone seats all around, rising above one another, for the exhibition of games and combats. Stadia were race-courses. Hippodromes were also courses for horse and chariot races. Naumachia were excavations or docks, into which water was admitted, for the exhibition of mock sea-fights. Some of these immense structures are memorials of the ferocity, as well as the magnificence, of ancient Rome and the ancient world. God be thanked that the amphitheatres, whose floors have drunk up so much blood, of persecuted martyrs, and infuriated gladiators and beasts, are now in ruins, telling silently of times which are past, and, as we trust, are to return no more.-AM. ED.]

size, and still by their ruins astonishing the world; basilicas for the administration of justice and the despatch of business, vast and superb beyond description; and even shambles so sumptuous, that, on a medal of Nero, appears a building inscribed Macellum Augusti,' [Shambles, or market of Augustus,] which, from the richness of its columns, might be mistaken for an amphitheatre; the Circus Maximus, [Greatest Circus,] for races, whose incredible size and magnificence prevented not several others, little inferior to it, from successively arising; the amphitheatre of Vespasian, computed to contain 109,000 spectators, of which, after one half had been pulled down in 1084, by the Norman Guiscard, lest it should be used as a citadel against him, and the other half had furnished the Popes with materials with which to build the palaces of Farnese, of St. Mark, and of the Cancellaria, the remains have struck with amazement the beholders of every successive age; the mausolea [tombs] of Augustus, of Adrian, and others; the gorgeous palaces of the emperors; the temples without number; the triumphal arches; the architraves, piers, cornices, acroteria,* of the richest granite, porphyries, and marble, such as to bewilder the imagination that pictures to itself the buildings to which they belonged, rising spontaneously, like plants wherever in a fruitful soil we thrust a spade. Not less remarkable were the buildings, erected in every province far and near. Amphitheatres at Verona, in Cisalpine Gaul, at Arles, and Nismes, and Vienne, beyond the Alps, and at Pola, on the Dalmatian shore, almost as stupendous as the Coliseum itself: Asia Minor, adorned by Augustus with several temples of the largest dimensions; Athens itself, endowed by Adrian with a temple of Jupiter Olympius, behind which the loftiest monument of the times of her independence—that consecrated by Pericles to Minerva-hid its diminished head; Antioch, doubled from what it was under its kings; and Alexandria, made, in the column which is called of Pompey, to forget the lesser prodigality of its Ptolemies; a temple of the sun at

* [Acroteria are the small pedestals placed on the angles of pediments, to support statues, &c.-AM. ED.]

Balbec, of which the mere base contained three stones, measuring from back to front, exclusive of the bold and rich cornice, ten feet five inches, from top to bottom thirteen feet, and collectively, from end to end, a hundred and ninety-nine feet; buildings equally astonishing, raised in the Decapolis of Palestine, and in the cities on the coast of Africa, and others, not less splendid, erected in different parts of Spain; the bridge on the Danube, and the Pont-du-gard in Gaul; the prodigious moles of different seaports; the gates of Arles, Nismes, Narbonne, Autun, and other cities innumerable; and even in a place scarce noticed in history, at Orange, one of the largest theatres known, and traces of an amphitheatre, and stadium, and naumachia, so stupendous that we can only account for its construction in that situation, by supposing that the spot was one where the whole population of the surrounding provinces met periodically for purposes of festivity."*

This splendid sketch contains, after all, but a faint view of the magnificence and extent of Roman architecture, on which, however, though the subject is tempting, I must not further dilate. But there are peculiarities which distinguished both the style of architecture of this era, and the purposes to which it was directed, from those of preceding ages, which require a short notice.

In the style, the radical difference in principle was the introduction of the arch, which, as I have already observed, if not wholly unknown, was at least but little employed, by more ancient nations. I have previously alluded to the restricted span of architecture in stone, when debarred of the use of the arch; and it will not be difficult to understand the vast new resources and powers derived from that discovery. Pillars and walls placed so far asunder, that no blocks of stone or beams of wood can connect them, may, by the arch, be embraced and combined. An area so spacious, that no flat ceiling could cover it, may, by the vault, be closed in with equal solidity and durability. By means of the vault the expense of cutting, of carrying, of raising masses of immense * Hope on Architecture,' pp. 56—59,