the land of which they form a part, unless we begin our research with the wonderful spot which enabled the first of Greek poets, the first no less of Greek geographers, to fill up his verse with the sounding formula: Τίρυνθά τε τειχιόεσσαν. There is moreover one aspect of Tiryns which will give it a special interest to any one who has already seen something of the primitive cities of Italy, but to whom Tiryns itself is his first introduction to the primitive cities of Greece. He who has visited Fæsulæ and Tusculum, he who has looked thoroughly at Rome itself, will feel a certain impression come strongly upon him that his work is imperfect as long as he keeps himself on the western side of the Hadriatic. Tusculum, above all things, points to Tiryns. The collection of primæval remains in Greece and Italy made long ago by Dodwell--an observer, we may add, second only to the great name of Leake--was perhaps unlucky in helping to give greater currency to the dangerous word Pelasgian. But it was a great gain to bring the Greek and Italian examples together. It would be a greater gain still to bring together as many examples as possible of the same kind from all parts of the world. The rash theorist may be indeed led into any number of those wild imaginings which find their expression in names like “Druidical” in Britain, and “Pelasgian” in Italy and Greece. But the critical inquirer, the votary of the Comparative method, will be strengthened in his researches by seeing how in the art of building, as in everything else, like effects spring from like causes, how the same stage of process leads to the same results in distant lands and distant ages. The helpless devisers of theories about the origin of the arch, and especially of the pointed arch, may profitably learn that the arch has been striven after in endless places--that it has been successfully striven after in many places--that the pointed arch, simply as a constructive form, is as old as the round, and most likely older. The guide who shows the single “arco Gotico” at Tusculum illustrates the state of mind in which professed inquirers into architectural history were only two or three generations back. To them the Gothic style and the pointed arch meant the same thing. That belief, as well as many other kindred beliefs, may be well unlearned on the akropolis of Tiryns.