The massive simplicity and severe grandeur of the ancient Doric, disappear in the Roman, the characteristics of the order being frittered down into a multiplicity of minute members. This division is not only in itself injurious to the simple idea of strength, but the parts are separately composed in ignorance of the primitive intention. To their two more refined orders, the Ionic and Corinthian, the Greeks always added a base, to unite them sweetly and gracefully with the plinth step, or floor; to the Doric, this accessory was always denied, that strong contrast might lead the eye at once from the support to the firm position of the vertical shaft--thus apparently still more securely planted, as resting immediately on the solid platform of the building. In opposition to these obvious principles, the Romans used the Doric always with a base, composed, too, of various members; while in the capital they erred still more against propriety. The Doric capital of the Greeks is a masterpiece of composition;--formed of few and bold, yet graceful parts, it leads by degrees of increasing strength to the surmounting entablature, which, with its triglyphs and sculptured metopes, seems to the eye yet more ponderous--ready to crush the starved and fluttering members, fillet above fillet, which compose the capital of the Roman pillar. The Corinthian is the only order which the Romans have employed with almost the undiminished grace of the original; but even here is distinctly to be traced the pernicious effects of their system. In the Ionic, they have left comparatively few examples, while, still following out their principle, they added to the length of the shaft, and flattened the capital, thus losing much of the simple yet stately elegance which distinguishes this order. Their own Composite is in some measure a combination of the Ionic and the Corinthian, having the volutes of the former and the foliage of the latter, upon which it is anything but an improvement, since it contradicts the character, and in a great degree opposes the advantages, of the primitive. As far, then, as concerns the invention of forms, and the just conception of the elemental modes of Greece, the Romans failed. Their architecture was imperfect, both as a system of symmetry, and as a science founded upon truth and upon taste.