Doric, differing altogether in proportions from the original type or order. The shaft no longer tapers visibly upwards, or, what is the same thing, expands below. Before we come to speak of the Orders severally and more in detail, there are some other matters which require to be noticed; one of which is the origin of the Greek system of columniation, or the prototype upon which it was modelled. Following Vitruvius, nearly all writers have agreed to recognize in the columnar style of the ancients the primitive timber hut, as furnishing the first hints for and rudiments of it. Such theory, it must be admitted, is sufficiently plausible, if only because it can be made to account very cleverly for many minor circumstances. Unfortunately, it does not account at all for, or rather is in strong contradiction to, the character of the earliest extant monuments of Greek architecture. Timber construction would have led to very different proportions and different taste. Had the prototype or model been of that material, slenderness and lightness, rather than ponderosity and solidity, would have been aimed at; and the progressive changes in the character of the Orders would have been reversed, since the earliest of them all would also have been the lightest of them all. The principles of stone construction have so evidently dictated and determined the forms and proportions of the original Doric style, as to render the idea of its being fashioned upon a model in the other material little better than an absurd though time-honoured fiction. Infinitely more probable is it, that the Greeks derived their system of architecture from the Egyptians; because, much as it differs from that of the latter people with regard to taste and matters of ornamentation, it partakes very largely of the same _constitutional_ character. At any rate the doctrine of a timber origin applies as well to the Egyptian as to the Hellenic or Grecian style. Indeed, if there be any thing at all that favours such doctrine, it is, that construction with blocks of stone would naturally have suggested _square_ pillars instead of round ones; the latter requiring much greater labour and skill to prepare them than the others. But, as their pyramids and obelisks sufficiently testify, the most prodigal expenditure of labour was not at all regarded by the Egyptians. That, it will perhaps be said, still does not account for the adoption of the circular or cylindrical form for columns. We have therefore to look for some sufficiently probable motive for the adoption of that form; and we think that we find it in _convenience_. In order to afford due support to the massive blocks of stone placed upon them, the columns were not only very bulky in proportion to their height, but were placed so closely together, not only in the fronts of porticoes, but also within them, that they would scarcely have left any open space. Such inconvenience was accordingly remedied by making the pillars round instead of square.