| [No. 415] | Thursday, June 26, 1712 | Addison |
Adde tot egregias urbes, operumque laborem.
Virg.
Having already shewn how the Fancy is affected by the Works of Nature, and afterwards considered in general both the Works of Nature and of Art, how they mutually assist and compleat each other, in forming such Scenes and Prospects as are most apt to delight the Mind of the Beholder, I shall in this Paper throw together some Reflections on that Particular Art, which has a more immediate Tendency, than any other, to produce those Primary Pleasures of the Imagination, which have hitherto been the Subject of this Discourse. The Art I mean is that of Architecture, which I shall consider only with regard to the Light in which the foregoing Speculations have placed it, without entring into those Rules and Maxims which the great Masters of Architecture have laid down, and explained at large in numberless Treatises upon that Subject.
Greatness, in the Works of Architecture, may be considered as relating to the Bulk and Body of the Structure, or to the Manner in which it is built. As for the first, we find the Ancients, especially among the
Eastern
Nations of the World, infinitely superior to the Moderns.
Not to mention the
Tower of Babel,
of which an old Author says, there were the Foundations to be seen in his time, which looked like a spacious Mountain; what could be more noble than the