My object in the present lecture is not a criticism of the principles
of art so much as an enumeration of its various forms among the
ancients, to show that in this department of civilization they reached
remarkable perfection, and were not inferior to modern Christian nations.

The first development of art among all the nations of antiquity was in
architecture. The earliest buildings erected were houses to protect
people from heat, cold, and the fury of the elements of Nature. At that
remote period much more attention was given to convenience and practical
utility than to beauty or architectural effect. The earliest houses were
built of wood, and stone was not employed until temples and palaces
arose. Ordinary houses were probably not much better than log-huts and
hovels, until wealth was accumulated by private persons.

The earliest monuments of enduring magnificence were the temples of
powerful priests and the palaces of kings; and in Egypt and Assyria
these appear earliest, as well as most other works showing civilization.
Perhaps the first great monument which arose after the deluge of Noah
was the Tower of Babel, built probably of brick. It was intended to be
very lofty, but of its actual height we know nothing, nor of its style
of architecture. Indeed, we do not know that it was ever advanced beyond
its foundations; yet there are some grounds for supposing that it was
ultimately finished, and became the principal temple of the Chaldaean
metropolis.

From the ruins of ancient monuments we conclude that architecture
received its earliest development in Egypt, and that its effects were
imposing, massive, and grand. It was chiefly directed to the erection of
palaces and temples, the ruins of which attest grandeur and vastness.
They were built of stone, in blocks so huge and heavy that even modern
engineers are at loss to comprehend how they could have been transported
and erected. All the monuments of the Pharaohs are wonders, especially
such as appear in the ruins of Karnak,--a temple formerly designated as
that of Jupiter Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the
Great, the first of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that
architecture in Egypt reached its greatest development. Then we find the
rectangular-cut blocks of stone in parallel courses, the heavy pier, the
cylindrical column with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and
massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier an