d this, it is necessary that he should have some general idea
of the connexion of the architecture of Venice with that of the rest of
Europe, from its origin forwards.

Sec. XVII. All European architecture, bad and good, old and new, is
derived from Greece through Rome, and colored and perfected from the East.
The history of architecture is nothing but the tracing of the various
modes and directions of this derivation. Understand this, once for all:
if you hold fast this great connecting clue, you may string all the types
of successive architectural invention upon it like so many beads. The
Doric and the Corinthian orders are the roots, the one of all Romanesque,
massy-capitaled buildings--Norman, Lombard, Byzantine, and what else you
can name of the kind; and the Corinthian of all Gothic, Early English,
French, German, and Tuscan. Now observe: those old Greeks gave the
shaft; Rome gave the arch; the Arabs pointed and foliated the arch. The
shaft and arch, the frame-work and strength of architecture, are from
the race of Japheth: the spirituality and sanctity of it from Ismael,
Abraham, and Shem.

Sec. XVIII. There is high probability that the Greek received his shaft
system from Egypt; but I do not care to keep this earlier derivation in
the mind of the reader. It is only necessary that he should be able to
refer to a fixed point of origin, when the form of the shaft was first
perfected. But it may be incidentally observed, that if the Greeks did
indeed receive their Doric from Egypt, then the three families of the
earth have each contributed their part to its noblest architecture: and
Ham, the servant of the others, furnishes the sustaining or bearing
member, the shaft; Japheth the arch; Shem the spiritualisation of both.

Sec. XIX. I have said that the two orders, Doric and Corinthian, are the
roots of all European architecture. You have, perhaps, heard of five
orders; but there are only two real orders, and there never can be any
more until doomsday. On one of these orders the ornament is convex:
those are Doric, Norman, and what else you recollect of the kind. On the
other the ornament is concave: those are Corinthian, Early English,
Decorated, and what else you recollect of that kind. The transitional
form, in which the ornamental line is straight, is the centre or root of
both. All other orders are varieties of those, or phantasms and
grotesques altogether indefinite in number and species.[18]

Sec. XX. This G