had been standing for about four hundred years, when St. Paul preached to the Ephesians, and "filled the whole city with confusion." The pure gospel, which the Apostle declared unto them, would lead to the entire destruction of the worship of "the great Goddess Diana;" instead, therefore, of answering St. Paul with arguments, "they all with one voice, about the space of two hours, cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians!"

CORINTHIAN ORDER.

A fanciful origin has been given to this order. A young Corinthian lady died and was sincerely mourned by her faithful nurse; as a tribute of affection, this humble friend placed upon the grave of her young mistress a basket, covered with a tile, containing her jewels. As if to beautify this act of love, a graceful

sweet a record in the annals of art to be apocryphal, but the Egyptian capitals were so frequently formed

of rows of delicate leaves, that Callimachus cannot lay claim to the invention; we may still believe that in this case genius may have seized upon an accidental circumstance, and reproduced, in a more perfect and beautiful form, what had long been invented.

The body of the capital

is a vase or basket; upon

FIG. 17.

it rests an abacus, not 00000000000000000000000

square, but four-cornered,

with concave sides, moulded and ornamented in the middle of each side with a honeysuckle or other flower. The lower part of the capital is decorated with two rows of leaves, eight

in each row. A space between the abacus and leaves is occupied by stalks formed into delicate volutes; larger volutes meet the four corners of the abacus.

The shaft of the Corinthian column originally had the same proportions as the Ionic, nine diameters in height; the moderns have made it still more slender, sometimes more than ten diameters. Anciently it was frequently found plain, but the finest specimens were fluted and filleted as it is when used at the present day.

The entablature and base were similar to the Ionic order, yet varied in different edifices, in the details.

One of the most perfect specimens of the Corinthian order (Plate VII.), is a beautiful little temple or monument at Athens. Why, or wherefore this has been called the Lantern of Demosthenes, would be difficult to discover. It is octagonal, with eight elegant columns.

The most magnificent temple at Athens, dedicated to Jupiter Olympus, was of this order. (Plate VII.) It was built of the purest white marble, and Art, in the zenith of her glory, could present no prouder shrine. Vitruvius says, this "structure is not spoken of with common praise; the excellence and sagacious contrivance have been approved of in the assembly of the gods."

The magnificent Corinthian columns of the exterior were sixty feet in height and six feet six inches in diameter. The area of the temple was half a mile in circumference. It had two ranges of columns on each side, twenty-one in each row, and ten columns at each end.

The Olympeium was founded by Pisistratus, five hundred and forty years before Christ, and completed more than two hundred years after, by the architect Cossutius, a Roman citizen employed by Antiochus Epiphanes. The ideal restoration given in Plate VII., may serve to convey a faint idea of its beauty. The Corinthian order was not much employed by the Greeks till after the conquest of Alexander. Subsequently, it was very generally chosen for all edifices