Palaces--Temples--Baths--Porticos--Arches of Triumph--Commemorative Pillars--Basilica, or Halls of Justice--Fora, or Squares--Bridges--without mentioning the astonishing highways, extending to the extremities of the empire--all were constructed on the same grand and magnificent plan. The art, in every part of its practice, partook of the national character of the people. Its applications were great, substantial, and useful--beautiful in execution, but this beauty dignified yet more as subservient to utility. The highest conceivable grandeur seemed but necessary, as commensurate with the wants and the durability of a dominion which was to be universal and eternal. Roman art has, in these respects, a character almost of moral dignity beyond all relics of antiquity. The records of their dead, though erections of more equivocal usefulness, partake of the same style, and, like the pyramids of Egyptian kings, have ceased to be monuments save of their own greatness. Some, and those but of individuals, or even a woman's grave, as towers of strength have rolled back the shock of feudal warfare; and the tomb of an emperor, turned into a palace, or a fortress, still overawes the city of the Cæsars. But, alas! the passing briefness of all things sublunary! The spirit's homage to this mightiness of mind and power, is due only to the labours of little more than a century and a half. The very greatness of these edifices proved a source of after corruption, by withdrawing attention from the delicacies of composition, and by substituting brute mass for the refinements of science. Even under the Antonines, decline from the age of Hadrian is perceptible--though more in taste than in practice. Under Commodus, architecture suffered most decided degradation--another proof how steadily the arts reflect, not only the mental, but the moral energies of the times. The downward impulse hurries onwards, occasionally stayed by the personal virtues or activities of the reigning prince. Severus has thus left evidence how far his age had fallen, and yet how superior to those that follow! between his triumphal arch and that of Titus, how great the difference!--yet, in point of design, far less than between his and Constantine's. The last splendours of Roman skill were elicited by the talents of Dioclesian, and great appear still to have been the practical resources of architecture--greater than usually admitted. The circular Hall in his Baths is inferior only to the Pantheon, and awakened the enthusiasm of Michael Angelo; his Dalmatian Palace was the finest building undertaken for twelve succeeding centuries. Few of the qualities which can ennoble the art, as an object of taste, survived this period. The works of Constantine, not excepting the founding of a capital, prove how complete was the lapse, since even his zeal could call forth only attempts to ungraceful and ineffective. CHAPTER XVII.