It is nearly always difficult and sometimes an ungracious task to attempt to make sweeping distinctions and establish hard and fast boundary lines. Fortunately for us, we meet with an exception to this well-nigh invariable rule in the case of marking the division between Colonial and Georgian architecture. The one point on which we may seize to emphasise the distinction between these two modes of architectural expression, each exceedingly vital in its own field, is the introduction of the classic element in ornamental detail and the formal or balanced element in plan, an element that implies both external symmetry in the marshalling of mass and internal symmetry in determining arrangement. The Colonial mode of expression as exemplified in the architecture of early New England, New York, the Middle Colonies and the South, whatever local differences it might exhibit, was traditional and, to a certain extent, fortuitous. That is to say, it was informal and represented forms which homely considerations of convenience and the process of gradual cultural growth had dictated from time to time in the course of centuries. It was also mediæval in its affinities and, for the most part, unpretentious because it embodied only the essential features that the great mass of the people, whether in England, Wales, Holland, Sweden, or the German principalities had found requisite and desirable. In short, it was a folk growth and was essentially domestic and simple. Georgian architecture, on the other hand, echoed the spirit of the Renaissance. Its whole fundamental principle afforded a direct antithesis to the conceptions on which Colonial architecture was based. It breathed the atmosphere of the well-ordered classicism that had spread over the Continent and over England in the train of the New Learning and had its outward concomitant in the stately creations inspired by the masterpieces of Greek and Roman antiquity. However modified by the successive media of its transference from the original springs of inspiration, it still voiced the measured formality and easy restraint inherent in the ancient models. It was essentially the architecture of a well-to-do, polished and, if you will, somewhat artificial state of society that demanded a medium of courtliness and [Illustration: HOUSE OF HON. JOHN BLAIR, WILLIAMSBURG, VA.] [Illustration: CAREY HOUSE, WILLIAMSBURG, VA. Of true Colonial Southern type.] [Illustration: ROYALL HOUSE, MEDFORD, MASS. 1734. New England Georgian, first phase.] [Illustration: LEE HOUSE, MARBLEHEAD, MASS. 1768. New England Georgian, second phase.] [Illustration: ROYALL HOUSE. WEST DOORWAY.] [Illustration: ROYALL HOUSE. DOORWAY IN WEST PARLOUR.] [Illustration: LEE HOUSE. BANQUET ROOM.] [Illustration: LEE HOUSE. STAIRWAY.]