It is true that the Romans, from a want of that delicacy of taste and eye which characterised the Greeks, failed to treat their details with the same refinement, though this was not always the case; but, in spite of this defect, the Roman style greatly amplified and extended the capabilities of classic architecture, rendering it capable of meeting every possible emergency and demand, whether of material or of construction, and giving it a cosmopolitan character suited to a people which had conquered the world, and which, if itself a race of iron, united under its world-wide sway the brass, the silver, and the gold of the older rulers of mankind. Of Egyptian architecture we have little but of vast tombs and colossal temples; of Assyrian and Persian structures much the same may be said. Of Greek we have little but the temples, and a few public works of a monumental character; while of Roman architecture we have works of every possible description, meeting every demand, necessity, or wish. Such works must have existed during older periods, but were probably on an inferior scale and of ephemeral construction; but those of Rome were marked and permanent in their structure, and have thus been handed down to our own day, so that we may say that the whole range of their architecture is perfectly known to us; and, so far as we are concerned, it is the first of ancient styles which can be called complete. As time went on, we find the arch, the vault, and the dome asserting, ever more and more, their supremacy. The influence of the Christian Church followed this on in the most marked manner; and, when the seat of empire was removed to a new, an Eastern and Christian metropolis, where no great monuments of older or Pagan art existed, this change would appear to have gone on with yet increased rapidity. We have of late years become better acquainted with the course of this change through the discovery of the ancient cities of Central Syria, and their illustration by the Count de Vogüé, which show us what the late Roman and early Byzantine buildings of every class were on a scale suited to provincial towns, though influenced by the local tendency to megalithic construction which pervades the old architectures of Syria. I have not time to dwell upon these most instructive remains, which, beginning in Pagan and going on into Christian times, culminate in the vast and splendid dome erected over the pillar of St. Simeon Stylites. I, however, commend De Vogüé’s work to your attention.