It may here be remarked, with respect to what appears to have been the established colour of the triglyphs at Cyrene, that there is a singular correspondence between this practice of the Cyreneans and that which is attributed by Vitruvius to the artificers of early times when wood was used instead of stone in the construction of their buildings. For the parts which, in the wooden structures alluded to, corresponded to the triglyphs of later periods, are said by this author to have been covered with _blue wax_; and we have already stated that _blue_ was the prevailing colour of the triglyphs in buildings of all classes at Cyrene. It would thus appear that the colours, like the forms, of buildings, were adopted in imitation of early custom; and this circumstance will alone sufficiently account for the uniformity, in point of colour, of one building with another; and may be considered as a reason why fancy or caprice were not allowed, in these instances, to have their usual weight among a people who were strenuously attached to the practices and customs of their ancestors. “In imitation of these early inventions, and of works executed in timber,” (says Vitruvius, in the words of Mr. Wilkins, his English translator,) “the ancients, in constructing their edifices of stone or marble, adopted the forms which were there observed to exist. It was a general practice among the artificers of former times to lay beams transversely upon the walls; the intervals between them were then closed, and the whole surmounted with coronæ and fastigia of pleasing forms, executed in wood. The projecting parts were afterwards cut away, so that the ends of the beams and the walls were in the same plane; but the sections presenting a rude appearance, tablets, formed like the triglyphs of more modern buildings, and covered with _blue wax_, were affixed to them, by which expedient the ends, which before offended the eye, now produced a pleasing effect. Thus the ancient disposition of the beams supporting the roof is the original to which we may attribute the introduction of triglyphs into Doric buildings.” (Wilkins’s Vitruvius, vol. i. p. 63, 4.) Whatever may be the truth of these remarks of Vitruvius respecting the origin of the triglyph, it is singular that there should be so decided a coincidence between the practice which he has mentioned and that of the Cyreneans; we have in consequence been induced to lay the passage just quoted before the reader, and to submit to those who are most competent to decide the question, how far this analogy may be the result of accident, or how far it may be safely considered as obtaining in compliance with ancient custom.