With joy upon your height I stand alone, As on a precipice, or lie within Your shadow wide, or leap from stone to stone, Pointing my steps with careful discipline, And think of those grand limbs whose nerve could bear These masses to their places in mid-air: Of Anakim, and Titans, and of days Saturnian, when the spirit of man was knit So close to Nature that his best essays At Art were but in all to follow it, In all--dimension, dignity, degree; And thus these mighty things were made to be. --LORD HOUGHTON. It was in the erection of the temples of the gods, however, that Grecian architecture had its ornamental origin, and also made its most rapid progress. The primeval altar, differing but little from a common hearth, was supplanted by the wooden habitation of the god, and the latter in turn gave way to the temple of stone. Then rapidly rose the three famed orders of architecture --the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian--the first solemn, massive, and imposing, while the others exhibit, in their ornamental features, a gradual advance to perfection. First, unadorned, And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose; The Ionic then, with decent matron grace, Her airy pillar heaved; luxuriant last, The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath. --THOMSON, Passing over the earlier structures devoted to purposes of worship, we find at the beginning of the sixth century several magnificent temples in course of erection. Among these the most celebrated were the Temple of He'ra (Juno), at Samos, and the Temple of Ar'temis (Diana), at Ephesus. The order of architecture adopted in the first was Doric, and in the second Ionic. Both were built of white marble. The former was 346 feet in length and 189 feet in breadth; while the latter was 425 feet long and 220 feet broad. Its columns were 127 in number, and 60 feet in height; and the blocks of marble composing the architrave, or chief beams resting immediately on the columns, were 30 feet in length. CHER'SIPHRON, AND THE TEMPLE OF DIANA. The great Temple of Diana was commenced under the supervision of Chersiphron, an architect of Crete, but it occupied over two hundred years in building. It is related of Chersiphron that, having erected the jambs of the great door to the temple, he failed, after repeated efforts, continued for many days, to bring the massive lintel to its place in line with the jambs. He finally sank down in despair, and fell asleep. In his dreams he saw the divine form of the goddess, who assured him that those who labored for the gods should not go unrewarded. On awaking he beheld the massive lintel in its proper place, laid there by the hand of the goddess herself. An American sculptor and poet relates the incident, and gives its moral in the following poem: