commission should be fixed at 1007.; and if the work exceed five per cent beyond his report, it should be arranged that there should be a deduction, from his commission, of five per cent on the excess of the amount beyond the original estimate. Thus, if the original estimate were 2000l., and the actual cost 2500l., the commission of the architect, instead of being 125l. as it would be by the present custom, would be only 757.; whereas, had the amount been within 21007., his commission would have been 100%. By thus reducing the architect's commission, instead of increasing it, when the expense exceeds the estimate, as is now the practice, the temptation to give in false estimates would be diminished; though these estimates are likely to be often made, as long as the inducement is so strong as it is at present.

Another very paltry trick common among some architects is, their custom of exacting from the builder a commission for all works done under their direction; and, if this be refused, informing the builder that his services are no longer required.

Having said thus much, allow me to point out a mode by which, I think, these abuses might be remedied. This is simply to form a society, not for eating and drinking, or backbiting their brethren, but to make rules for the governance of the profession; to make a fair tariff of prices, according to the variation of the market; to regulate the mode of measuring; and to enquire into every abuse or infringement connected with the profession. I have no doubt that if thirty or forty respectable members of the profession would form such a society, it would very soon eradicate the numerous abuses which at present exist; and that architects and surveyors would soon regain that respect with the public which they formerly possessed. SCRUTATOR.

London, Nov. 1833.

ART. II. On the Extent to which the elementary Forms of Classic Architecture are, from their Nature and Origin, fixed or arbitrary. By E. TROTMAN, Esq., Architect.

THE principles and circumstances which form the basis of Classic Architecture as a decorative science, are by no means so obvious to the ordinary observer as are those which constitute the foundation of the sister arts of Painting and Sculpture. In either of the latter, the efforts of the artist are purely imitative; and he who transfers to the canvass or the marble effects the most closely resembling those of nature, supplying the deficiencies of individual models by the beauties of collective observation, becomes the most complete master of his pursuit. In the study of architecture, however, the case is otherwise; the imitation of nature is of a limited and much more systematised character; and those

forms and combinations which are universally received, as applicable in general to the purposes of decoration, have their origin in circumstances that would seem to be involved in a degree of obscurity, which evidence no better than traditional must fail to dissipate. Yet, amidst all this apparent uncertainty, even upon matters of fundamental importance, it is curious to observe the zeal, approaching to acrimony, with which some architectural sectarians assert against each other an exclusive authority for the most minute characteristics of their own peculiar schools. The rigid admirer of Palladian taste cherishes an indifference approaching to contempt, for the delicacy of Grecian finish, and discerns in the simple beauty of Attic profiles little else than a poverty of ornament; while the professed imitator of the models of Pericles loses sight of the force and variety of Italian composition in the excess of his abhorrence for what he considers clumsy forms of moulding and enrichment- too often content to make the elegance of parts an apology for a spiritless whole. A more comprehensive and unprejudiced view of the subject would, however, suffice to show that the genuine principles of taste cannot be thus at variance with each other; and that we should have some higher authority for appeal than the dictates of fancy, or even of precedent, when we assume an exclusiveness that belongs only to mathematical demonstration, or to the palpable evidence of the senses. It may not be amiss, therefore, to enquire how far the primitive forms of architecture are the result of a demonstrable fitness of things, thereupon determining how much is left to the province of decorative taste. In pursuing such an enquiry, it will be necessary to reject, as altogether fabulous, accounts which are so opposed to the principles of analogy and historical truth as are those of Vitruvius with regard to the origin of architectural combinations; nor can we entertain much doubt as to the degree of credit which, in a subject of such remote reference, ought to be awarded to a writer who can gravely attribute the rise of human civilisation, and even the developement of the powers of speech, to the elementary agency of fire, accidentally produced by the attrition of the forest branches under the agitation of the wind. Indeed, the statement advanced by Vitruvius upon the point in question is unsatisfactory, for a twofold reason; both because he neglects to refer the characteristics of Grecian art to their undoubted source in the prototypes of Egypt, and because also he assumes a position unsupported by the principles of constructive analogy, in asserting that the forms of architecture, as embodied in stone, were derived from those which had previously and accidentally developed themselves in structures of wood. Now, to us it appears that the whole system of architecture has its origin in two great principles; first, the principle of fitness, which provides and regu

lates its larger component members and masses; and, secondly, that of beauty, which adds to each of these the embellishment suited to its situation and office. The principle of fitness has regard to the properties of the material employed, to the purposes of the structure erected, and to the peculiarities of the climate possessed. This being the case, it is obvious, so far as the nature of the material is concerned, that the forms which would suggest themselves as appropriate to erections in woodwork are not those which would be in any degree significant, or even applicable, where stone was the material of construction; since the fibrous nature of the former substance fits it for a slight species of building, in which the bearings are long, and the points of support are few; while in the latter the work becomes necessarily massive, the bearings being short, and the points of support numerous. If, therefore, we would perceive in what manner the principle of fitness has given rise to the various members of architectural composition, we have only to refer to the remains of Egyptian monuments as the most venerable for remote antiquity; remains which, while they display the exemplars of classic taste, afford a grand picture of the power of art, when even emerging in its simplicity from primitive rudeness. Looking back through these to the first invention of column and entablature, we see the builder of the pristine temple adopting, in the construction of his ponderous supporting masses, somewhat of a cylindrical form, so that his pillars shall present no angles to impede the way; arranging them in a row, and giving them such a height as his unpractised judgment may deem calculated to afford a covering of sufficient loftiness for the area to be enclosed, having first insured their stability by giving them that expansion at the lower extremity, for which he would hardly need to seek an example from nature in the spreading root of the tree, or the widening base of the rock. In thus forming his line of columns, he finds their distances from each other necessarily limited by the length in which he may have been able to procure blocks to lie upon and connect their summits. Hence his intercolumniation becomes fixed at a lofty proportion, since his columns must rise to the height of a spacious avenue or chamber, while they remain confined as to relative distance by the nature of the material which they have to sustain. These columns being raised, he places on the head of each a cubical 'block, the top of which, by being left square, may afford a broader bed to the superincumbent mass, while its lower side is reduced to a circular form, correspondent to that of the shaft; and hence a simple capital. (fig. 1. a.) This done, he proceeds to connect the top of each to that of its neighbour by a series of blocks laid horizontally, of a depth and thickness nearly equal to the upper substance of the columns, forming thus his

epistylium or architrave (b). Before, however, any space can be enclosed, the whole operation must of course be repeated (unless the equivalent of a wall be adopted) by the erection of another line of columns behind the former, with similar capitals and epistylia; and the only part of the task then remaining is, to form a covering across from one line to the other, by means of large slabs of stone, of depth suited to their surface, and which, being allowed to overhang the rest of the work, will extend the area of shelter, and preserve the rest of the masonry from the effects of the weather, thus becoming a kind of cornice (c). In these parts, therefore, without any attempt at decoration, we obtain, upon the first and most obvious principle of constructive fitness and constructive expression, an order of architecture, rude, indeed, but complete in all the members used in Egyptian practice, which did not exhibit any thing perfectly analogous to the remaining portion of the Greek entablature, the frieze.

The introduction thus of the primitive masses was soon suc

ceeded by the invention of mouldings, which constitute geometrical decorations of the simplest of all kinds, and are the exclusive property of architecture. These, in Egyptian works, first appear in the form of the great hollow which cornices were made to assume (a, in figs. 2. and 3.); and in that of the large

3

of the columns themselves; in all of which applications of moulding it is meanwhile to be ob

served that the

absence alike of

variety and of

minuteness was in strict accordance with the character of the primitive members, few and bold, and with the simplicity appropriate to the earliest works of art.