Of the three orders perfected by the Greeks, the Corinthian would appear to be the most entirely original, and, at the time of its invention, the exactest symbol of their mind. The flower had fully bloomed, and decrepitude was already begun. They could no longer adequately execute the Doric order, with its integral sculpture and painting, and had ceased to be satisfied with the chaste gracefulness of Asiatic volutes. They began by raising the honeysuckle from around the necking of the Ionic capital, and extended it over a vase-form under a light abacus, intermingled with a few rosettes, but omitting altogether the volutes. To this was after ward added the Persepolitan water-leaf, and finally the crisp acanthus of Attica gave a rich variety to the order, which constitutes its crowning charm. The choragic monument of Lysicrates is the only pure type of this style; and if sculpture and painting must be banished from architecture, this is, doubtless, the most beautiful order extant. Architecture expresses the difference among races, as language does the variety of dialects. The Dorians built in the same style that was employed by Pindar, Æschylus, and Thucydides in speech. The simplicity and elegance of the Ionians are exemplified in their temple graces, not less than in Homer's matchless verse, and the smooth rhythm of Herodotus. The Corinthians, refined to effeminacy, were the last architectural inventors in the old world, and they stamped upon their production the delicate luxuriance which characterizes the language of Isocrates. The opposing principles of Dorism and Ionism which prevailed in all the institutions of Greece, politics, literature, customs, and art, were boldly embodied in sculpture and architecture. The former came from Egypt, and the latter from Asia; but both were alike indebted to western genius for the refined symmetry which their respective orders finally assumed. The zenith of perfection was not reached until the Doric influence was impregnated by the Ionic, the material by the spiritual, and Corinthian delicacy was born to perish in the grave of its exhausted parents.