This harmony, therefore, between the intellectual and the merely beautiful--the very perfection of the science of taste--the Greeks sought not by perilous experiments to disturb. Not that among them the vigor of independent genius was cramped; proper latitude of composition being allowed, licentiousness of fancy was restrained; each artist thought, in due subordination to the principles of a system which he knew to be as unchangeable as the laws that ensured the stability of his edifice. Hence, in every remain of Greek art, something peculiar is discoverable--some exquisite adaptation of parts to circumstances--to proportion--to feeling; but this never obtrudes--never is the general symmetry, or prevailing character, in the least interrupted. Even the orders observe the same law of composition. They are but variations of one grand abstraction of stability and grace, which may be termed the ideal of architecture. Each varies from another in detail, but the result is one and the same concord; the proportions in each differ, but the analogies of proportion are in all cases congenial. Even when, by addition or absence of parts, there is discriminative form, still the same final result of purpose or propriety is evident. In all, the same master lines meet the eye, guide the comprehension over all divisions, and bind the entire design into one grand harmonious whole. Similar means and similar harmonies everywhere occur; the same in all is the last impress on the mind of symmetry and majestic repose--of grace and dignity--of steadfast tranquillity--of unlaboured elegance--and of rich simplicity. The system in this, its perfect wholeness, the Romans never conceived, and upon this entireness their style first broke. They appear to have deemed that lightness and grace, here the great objects of their pursuit, were to be attained not so much by proportion between the vertical and horizontal, as by comparative slenderness in the former. Hence, in the very outset, is detected a poverty in the Roman architecture, even in the midst of profuse ornament, which, as we advance, continually increases with the practice whence it originated. The great error was a constant aim to lessen the diameter, while they increased the elevation, of the columns and supporting members generally--an error, as remarked by Plutarch, 'to a Greek eye' perceptible so early as the reign of Domitian. Hence the incongruities of the Roman orders, which yet are mere plagiarisms from the Greek, and upon this defective principle.