lumns at the bottom, the face of the architrave resting on the capital retreats within the top of the trunk, as in the Pantheon of Agrippa. Pilasters are either plain or fluted. In ancient edifices this was not always regulated by the columns, but perhaps depended on the taste of the architects, or destination of the edifice. The columns are plain on the portico of the Pantheon, while the pilasters are fluted; and the contrary, on the portico of Septimius Severus. When pilasters are fluted, the angles or quoins are frequently beaded, such as those of the Pantheon, in order to strengthen the angles, and the flutes are generally of a semicircular section. The faces of pilasters are sometimes sunk within a margin, and the pannels charged with foliage, arabesque, or grotesque ornaments, or instruments of music and war, or sometimes these compounded, according to the destined purpose of the place in which they are employed. The pannels of the pilasters, in the Arch of the Goldsmiths at Rome, are charged with winding foliage and trophies of war. Pilasters, when placed on the front or outside of a building, should project one quarter of their breadth at the bottom; but when placed behind a range of columns, or in the interior of a building, should not project more than the eighth part of the same breadth. In a large recess, when two or any even number of insulated columns support an entablature, which terminates at each end upon a wall or pier, a pilaster is most commonly placed against each wall or pier, to support the extremities of the architrave. When the entablature over the columns is recessed within the surface of the wall or pier at each end, the pilaster projects towards the column, its thickness is shewn on the front, and its breadth faces the void or adjacent column: in this case the architrave may either profile against the sides of the aperture or recess, or it may return at each interior angle, and then again at the exterior angles, and proceed along each wall or piers. If the intermediate columns and extreme pilasters are so ranged as to project a small distance beyond the face of the wall at each end, the pilasters shew the same breadth towards the front as towards the void, and the entablature may be continued unbroken, as in the chapels of the Pantheon, and if it breaks it must be at the extreme VOL. I. or most distant angles. Pilasters are of great strength to a wall, as well as ornamental to the building; they are less expensive than columns, and in situations where they are either placed behind a range of columns, or support the extremes of an entablature across an opening, they are more concordant with the walls to which they are attached. Clustered pilasters, or those which have、 both exterior and interior angles, and the planes of those angles parallel and perpendicular to the front, may be executed with good effect, when the order is plain, as in the Tuscan: but in the three Grecian and Composite orders, this junction should be avoided as much as possible, because the triglyphs and capitals of these orders always meet imperfectly in the interior angles. The same may also be said of Ionic and Corinthian capitals of half pilasters, meeting each other in the interior angles of rooms. In the Ionic order it becomes necessary to make a difference between the capitals of pilasters and those of columns; for, in the capitals of the columns the projection of the ovolo is greater than that of the volutes; but as the horizontal section of the ovolo is circular, the ovolo itself is bent behind the hem or border of the volutes: now supposing a vertical section through the axis of the column to be perpendicular to the face, and another through the middle of the breadth of the pilaster, and that the corresponding mouldings are equal and similar in both sections; then, because the horizontal section through the ovolo is rectangular, as in the trunk, the ovolo would, if continued, pass over the volutes, or must terminate abruptly and shew the profile of the moulding, which is a palpable defect. This therefore renders it necessary to give the ovolo so much convexity on the front, as to make its extremes retire, and pass behind the back of the border of the volutes; or to make the ovolo of small projection; or to twist the volutes from a plain surface, which the ancient Ionic has, and make every part of the spirals project more and more towards the eye; or lastly, to project the whole abacus, with the volutes, beyond the projection of the ovolo. thing is also to be observed with regard to the Corinthian and Composite capitals, where the upper part of the vase projects beyond the middle of the abacus, and would, in the pilaster capitals, pass over the face of the spirals or volutes. Y The same Persians and Caryatides. Instead of columns, or pilasters, it is sometimes customary to support the entablature by human figures; the males of which are called Persians, Talamones, or Atlantides; and the females, Carians, or Caryatides. The history of these Vitruvius relates as follows: "Caria, a city of Peloponnesus, having joined with the Persians against the Grecian states, and the Greeks having put an end to the war, by a glorious victory, with one consent declared war against the Caryatides. They took the city, destroyed it, slew the men, and led the matrons into captivity, not permitting them to wear the habits and ornaments of their sex; and they were not only led in triumph, but were loaded with scorn and kept in continual servitude; thus suffering for the crimes of their city. The architects therefore of those days introduced their effigies sustaining weights, in the public buildings, that the remembrance of the crime of the Caryatides might be transmitted to posterity. The Lacedæmonians likewise, under the command of Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, having at the battle of Platea, with a small number, vanquished a numerous army of Persians; to solemnize the triumph, erected with the spoils and plunder the Persian Portico, as a trophy, to transmit to posterity the valour und honour of the citizens; introducing therein the statues of the captives, adorned with habits in the barbarian manner supporting the roof." There can be little doubt but that human figures, and those of inferior animals, had a very early introduction in architecture, and are of more remote antiquity than that assigned by Vitruvius; for we are informed by Diodorus Siculus, that in the sepulchre of Osymanduas there was a stone hall four hundred feet square, the roof of which was supported by animals instead of pillars: the number of these supports is not mentioned. The roofs of several Indian buildings, supposed of the most remote antiquity, are sustained in the same manner. In Denon's travels in Egypt, among other fragments, are represented five insulated pilasters or pillars, bearing an entablature: the fronts of the pillars are decorated with priests or divinities. The molten sea, recorded in Holy Writ, was supported by twelve bulls. In the Odyssey of Homer, translated by Pope (book vii. ver. 118,) we find the effigies of animals, both rational and irrational, employed as decorations, which appears by the following extract. Two rows of stately dogs, on either hand, In sculptur'd gold, and labour'd silver stand. These Vulcan form'd with art divine, to wait Immortal guardians at Alcinous' gate; Fair thrones within from space to space were rais'd, Where various carpets with embroidery blaz'd, The work of matrons: these the princess prest, Day following day, a long continn'd feast, Refulgent pedestals the walls surround, Which boys of gold with flaming torches crown'd. However these representations of animals were not employed as columns to support an entablature, but merely as orna ments. In Stewart's antiquities of Athens, we find a most beautiful specimen of Caryatic figures, supporting an entablature, consisting of an architrave cornice of a very elegant profile. Among the Roman antiquities, there are likewise to be found various fragments of male figures, which may be conjectured from their attitudes, and ornameats, to have been the supports of the entablatures of buildings. Besides Persians and Caryatides, it is sometimes customary to support the entablatures with figures, of which the upper part is the head and breast of the human body, and the lower part an inverted frustrum of a square pyramid, with the feet sometimes projecting out below, as if the body had been partly cased: figures of this form are called terms or termini, which owe their origin to the stones used by the ancients in marking out the limits of property belonging to individuals. Numa Pompilius, in order to render these boundaries sacred, converted the Terminus into a deity, and built a temple on the Tarpeian Mount, which was dedicated to him, whom he represented by a stone, which, in course of time, was sculptured into the form of a human head and shoulders, and other parts, as has already been defined. He was on particular occasions adorned with garlands, with which he appeared of a very pleasant figure. Persian figures are generally charged with a Doric entablature; Caryatic figures with Ionic or Corinthian, or with an Ionic architrave cornice; and the Termini with an entablature of any of the three Grecian orders, according as they themselves are decorated. Male figures may be introduced with propriety in arsenals or galleries of armour; in guard rooms, and other military places, where they might represent the figures of captives, or else of martial virtues, such as Strength, Valour, Wisdom, Prudence, Fortitude, and the like. As these figures should be of a striking character, they may be of any colossal size that will agree with the architecture of the other parts of the buildings. In composing Caryatides, the most graceful attitudes and pleasant features should be chosen ; and to prevent stiffness, their drapery and features should be varied from each other, in the different figures of the range; yet a general form of figure should be preserved throughout the whole of them. Caryatides should always be of a moderate size, otherwise they might appear hideous to the fair sex, and destroy those endearments, so fascinating in the sex represented by them. They may be employed, as Le Clerc observes, to sustain the covering of a throne, and represented under the figures and symbols of heroic virtues : if to adorn a sacred building, they must have an affinity to religion; and when placed in banqueting rooms, ball-rooms, or other apartments of recreation, they should be of kinds proper to inspire mirth and promote festivity. As Termini are susceptible of a variety of decorations, they may be employed as embellishments for gardens and fields, representing Jupiter as protector of boundaries, or some of the rural deities, as Pan, Flora, Pomona, Vertumnus, Ceres, Priapus, Faunus, Sylvanus, Nymphs, and Satyrs. They are also much employed in chimneypieces, and other interior compositions. Orders above Orders. When two or more orders are placed one above the other, the laws of solidity require that the strongest should be placed lowermost; and also, that their axes should be in the same vertical lines. When the columus of the orders are of the same diameter, their altitudes increase from the Tuscan, Doric, and Ionic to the Corinthian, and consequently in this progression: the Tuscan is stronger than the Doric, the Doric stronger than the Ionic, and the Ionic stronger than the Corinthian; therefore if the Doric be the lowest order, the Ionic is the succeeding order; and if there be a third order, the Corinthian is in consequence the next. But since the dif ferent stories of a building should rather be of a decreasing progression upwards than even of an equal altitude to each other, it follows that the superior columns should not only be diminished in order to lessen the insisting weight from the inferior, but also to accommodate the heights of windows. The rule given by Vitruvias (b. v. c. 7.) for placing one order above another, is to make the columns of the superior order a fourth part less in height than those of the inferior. Scamozzi's rule is to make the diameter at the bottom of the shaft of the superior order equal to the upper diameter of the inferior order. Let us now suppose that the Ionic of nine diameters is to be raised upon the Doric of eight diameters as in the Roman Doric; according to the rule given by Vitruvius, the bottom diameter of the Ionic will be of that of the Doric, a quantity much less than is to be found in any ancient or modern example of the diminution of the Doric shaft; which diminution is the lower diameter of the superior order by Scamozzi's rule. In insulated columns, when the diminution of the superior order is very great, the intercolumn becomes so wide, and the entablature so small, and consequently weaker, that it is in danger of breaking; and if a third range is added, this defect must be increased. The Vitruvian rule is therefore not so applicable as the Scamozzian, which, for the above reasons, is universally esteemed the best, and is the same as if the several shafts had been cut out from one long tapering tree; on the other hand, when the diminution of the inferior diameter of the superior order is too little or nothing, the columns will not only be too high for the windows, but the lower order will be loaded with unnecessary weight. Let the stronger order be made the superior; for example, let the Doric be placed upon the Ionic, and allowing the shaft of it to diminish five-sixths of its bottom diameter, the height of the Doric column will be only 64 diameters of the Ionic below: this would not only make a complete Attic of the Doric, but would render the application of the orders in this inverted way useless, as they could not be made to accommodate the stories of the building, nor could the upper ranges sup |