ings which were raised upon them; and the care taken to keep them in repair is the best characteristic of Roman architecture. It is only in a proud city, where the lives and health of men are precious,-where the wants of the people are attended to, that such an idea could be so extensively executed; and in vain would Greece and Asia look among all their buildings for anything like this. Theirs were the sumptuous edifices of vanity; but Rome had buried under ground a moral monument, greater than all that Athens held up to human admiration.

As the wealth and power of Rome increased, public buildings became more numerous and splendid. The Etruscans were her teachers in this as in the other arts; but the utility which characterised it in the new city, compared to the futile ends on which it was employed at home, most accurately corresponds with the principles here laid down. The most remarkable building of Etruria, according to Pliny, was the tomb of Porsenna, at Clusium,-a wonderful but useless construction. But Tuscan architects in Rome were employed to fortify, to adorn, and to cleanse the city; to make it great, strong, and wholesome, as well as magnificent. Although so many monuments of Athenian greatness still remain, it cannot be denied that strength and solidity are more commonly found in the proud relics of Rome, so many of which still wear a freshness more disproportioned to their years than any of Greece.

When the city was rebuilt, after the invasion of the Gauls, no regular plan was followed; but the houseless inhabitants raised a shelter upon any spot of ground which they could clear out. The direction of the public sewers was not observed; and the subterraneous passages often crossed the streets. This disorder remained always detrimental, and was one of the impediments to the entire and complete beauty of Rome. Augustus might boast, that the city which he found of brick he left of marble. He could not make the streets regular, or turn them into the direction of those vaults which, from the first to the latest ages, remained superior to all that luxury had superposed.

The more general use of arches and of domes was one of

the great and valuable innovations made by Roman architecture; and the invention of the latter, indeed, has been supposed to belong to it. But what even exceeded this in utility, was the application of cement, and the use of small stones united by it. The most ancient remains of buildings so constructed are found in the country of the Etruscans; and to them the invention has been ascribed, although improvements were made in Rome. Many of the monuments still existing were built in this manner; and the artificial matter is as firm and as hard as any employed in the natural state. The secret of composing it is now lost; but the invention is more valuable than all that the Greeks have left in this art. It has enabled men to use materials which otherwise would have found no employment, and has furnished easy means for building of every description. It has contributed to architectural comfort still more than to architectural magnificence, and should be more highly prized by mankind in general, than all the models of Athenian taste.

To this discovery must be attributed the durability of the buildings scattered over every country where the Romans triumphed, and which exceed in number those of any other people. Wherever they went, they built as if they never were to be dislodged; and monuments of their art exist in Spain, Gaul, Britain, Germany, as well as in Italy. The bridge of Trajan across the Danube, constructed by Apollodorus of Damascus, surpassed all that Greece or Rome possessed. The city of Antinopolis, in Egypt,-the wall of defence in Britain,-the temple of Olympian Jove, at Athens, begun six centuries before, but finished by Adrian, were not equalled by any constructions of the same emperor in his own city. It was rare when utility was not the intention of all these constructions, as the bridge, the wall, and still more the numerous aqueducts built in almost every country, can testify. In an age when the science of hydraulics is little understood, and no powerful means of raising water are possessed, the most evident expedient is to keep it on the highest level. Without masonry this is hardly practicable; and the deficiency of knowledge in one branch made the Romans recur to that in which they were better

versed. Hence the stupendous aqueduct near Carthage, the Pont du Gard, in France, one at Segovia in Spain; and others which, long after the respective countries had been evacuated, continued to serve for their original pur

poses.

Amid the splendour and solidity of public buildings, private architecture long continued mean and incomplete. But when republican manners became corrupted, private luxury was engrafted upon public magnificence. The first who lent his aid to promote this perversion, according to Pliny, was Scaurus, the edile, and son-in-law of Sylla, who constructed a theatre large enough to contain thirty thousand persons, adorned by three hundred and sixty columns of marble, and three thousand statues of brass; and which was more pernicious to the city than even the wars and proscriptions of Sylla. From that period, excesses in architecture became as common as in other luxuries. The choicest marble was used in domestic constructions, and so commonly, that in despite of the epigrams of Catullus, an inferior officer of Cæsar's army who had enriched himself in Gaul, covered with it the walls of his own dwelling. After the conclusion of the Mithridatic war, the rage for private building increased. The hotels or palaces of wealthy citizens were decorated with the utmost magnificence. The age of Augustus considered the application of this art to domestic gratifications as one of its best glories. In the reign of Tiberius, opulent Romans were not satisfied unless their habitations were as extensive as the farm of Cincinnatus had been; and their cellars were often as large as the entire possessions of the men who founded the republic. It was not until the golden house of Nero reached from the Palatine to the Esquiline hill, that he deigned to say he had a dwelling which it was possible for him to inhabit.

The excellence of the Romans in this art, and their inferiority in painting and sculpture, are highly characteristic. Of the fine arts, architecture is that which presents the most grandeur and the most solidity, and it is the only one which is strictly useful. It fills the whole space between the extremes of beauty and convenience, and its feebler

productions are the most valuable.

It is the art, then,

The

which the most essentially belongs to pride and to Rome. But, beside this, it is the only one useful in war. bridge of Trajan served to pass an army across the Danube, -the wall of Adrian to protect it against an enemy,-the aqueduct of Segovia to supply it with water. But in what manner could painting or sculpture-could music, poetry, or eloquence be employed to defeat a host of combatants ? As most materially belonging to the art of war, architecture is the lawful property of that people whose entire prosperity and power were derived from martial industry.

Many of the useful arts which, in Greece, were in their infancy, were here improved. Mechanics had been reduced to more general principles, and more powerful engines were employed. The serviceable metals were worked more easily, the precious were reserved for ornament. In short, all that is considered by true civilisation as contributing to general comfort, was superior in Rome; as she herself passed through different modes and stages of social improvement, to the excessive luxury which caused her decline.

To a people so military, the sedentary occupations of commerce could not be attractive; and, as long as the necessity of conquest was greater than the desire for indulgence, the Romans appeared rather averse to trade. They soon, however, became acquainted with the seas which surrounded Italy, and navigated even beyond them. Polybius records the articles of a treaty with Carthage, under the very first consulate, by which they bound themselves not to pass the Fair promontory, lying about twenty leagues to the west of that city, and immediately opposite to the southern point of Sardinia. The nature of the traffic which they carried on is not certain; but it does not appear to have been effective; for, though the ports of the most fertile countries were open to them, they knew little how to profit by them. During the famine which occurred under the consulate of T. Geganius and P. Minutius, the best expedient which the senate could discover was to send out colonies to Velitræ and Norba; and the distress was not relieved until Coriolanus returned with a large booty of provisions,

taken from the Antiates who had attacked the Romans in the hour of want.

As this people conquered, they became acquainted with the productions of many climates, and increased their speculations in proportion to their victories. Commercial adventurers hazarded themselves and their property beyond their former boundaries, and the destruction of Carthage left them heirs to all her industry. Their communication with Egypt opened a traffic with India, so extensive, that four hundred thousand pounds were annually sent thither. As all the world was at peace while under their dominion, commerce was not molested by pirates, but continued to follow the taste of the nation, as it varied from necessary to luxurious industry, until the removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople, when Rome ceased to be the capital of the commercial as of the martial world. A faithful register of Roman exports and imports, from the foundation to the fall of the city, would be as instructive a document as the history of her laws and battles.

After the epocha of Roman civilisation, industry, like every other branch of social improvement declined; and the ferocious idleness of northern ruffians overwhelmed, in one common ruin, almost every art, whether necessary or luxurious.

The period which elapsed before industry can be said to have revived, was not, however, marked by the absence of every species of labour. Society, in its decline, may forget both poetry and philosophy; but building and weaving it remembers, and the humbler occupations are not interrupted. The utmost change which they experience is the degree of perfection to which they are carried, or the end to which they are directed. In peace, men do not fabricate the instruments of war; but should hostilities arise, the workmen who lately polished steel, apply their dexterity to harden it; and ornaments are laid aside for swords and helmets.

Many of the arts of industry survived the inroads of the Goths and Huns; neither did the barbarians reduce the condition of the conquered people as low as it once had been. Even after the cruel visit of Alaric, individual