Thus, whatever idea, whatever purpose, whatever need, whatever fancy, predominates in him when he builds, it takes shape, it finds expression, it embodies itself, forthwith, in fitting material, fittingly contrived, and is, according to his habitative wish, his taste in a tabernacle, possibly a pig-sty, possibly a palace; for his range of invention stretches over every thing that lies between the two. The founders of the great commonwealths of antiquity--the Grecian statesmen and warriors, the Roman consuls--lived at home, during the most glorious period of their several states, in an extreme simplicity; content with a truly noble penury, while they built up the grandeur of their country. The constructive propensity of the Athenian instead of a private direction towards his personal gratification, took the generous form of a passion for public monuments; that of the Roman turned itself, until the decline of the Republic began, upon the rearing of trophies and triumphal arches, rather than of lordly mansions; and dictators sometimes, consuls often, were called from the cot and the plough to the supreme trusts of war and peace. But this was all in the spirit of ages and institutions, when the citizen lived in the state and sought his private, in the public greatness and happiness. Modern times present few individual instances of the like. In those ancient politics, the state leaned on the citizen; in our modern, the citizen leans on the state. Then, public life was much, private life was little; now, it is reversed, the citizen wants not to help the state, but wants the state to help him. Now, over-civilization has so multiplied the conveniences of life, and habit has rendered its indulgences so necessary, that he who, being great, can live without and above them, has need to be of a rare elevation, an inherent grandeur of soul.