Sculpture, and
Painting, successively, setting before the reader some of the more
interesting passages which respect each art, while we at the same time
mark with what degree of caution their conclusions are, in our judgment,
to be received.

30. Accepting Lord Lindsay's first reference to Egypt, let us glance at
a few of the physical accidents which influenced its types of
architecture. The first of these is evidently the capability of carriage
of large blocks of stone over perfectly level land. It was possible to
roll to their destination along that uninterrupted plain, blocks which
could neither by the Greek have been shipped in seaworthy vessels, nor
carried over mountain-passes, nor raised except by extraordinary effort
to the height of the rock-built fortress or seaward promontory. A small
undulation of surface, or embarrassment of road, makes large difference
in the portability of masses, and of consequence, in the breadth of the
possible intercolumniation, the solidity of the column, and the whole
scale of the building. Again, in a hill-country, architecture can be
important only by position, in a level country only by bulk. Under the
overwhelming mass of mountain-form it is vain to attempt the expression
of majesty by size of edifice--the humblest architecture may become
important by availing itself of the power of nature, but the mightiest
must be crushed in emulating it: the watch-towers of Amalfi are more
majestic than the Superga of Piedmont; St. Peter's would look like a toy
if built beneath the Alpine cliffs, which yet vouchsafe some
communication of their own solemnity to the smallest chalet that
glitters among their glades of pine. On the other hand, a small building
is in a level country lost, and the impressiveness of bulk
proportionably increased; hence the instinct of nations has always led
them to the loftiest efforts where the masses of their labor might be
seen looming at incalculable distance above the open line of the
horizon--hence rose her four square mountains above the flat of Memphis,
while the Greek pierced the recesses of Phigaleia with ranges of
columns, or crowned the sea-cliffs of Sunium with a single pediment,
bright, but not colossal.

31. The derivation of the Greek types of form from the forest-hut is too
direct to escape observation; but sufficient attention has not been paid
to the similar petrifaction, by other nations, of the rude forms and
materials adopted in the haste of