except the apparent absence of a door, and altogether it seems, if finished, to deserve its name less than either of the other two.

Perhaps the most singular object among these tombs is the flat façade with 3 stories of pillars one over the other-slightly indicated in the left of the Corinthian tomb in the last woodcut (No. 290). It is like the proscenium of some of the more recent Greek theatres. If it was really the frontispiece to a tomb, it was totally unsuitable to the purpose, and is certainly one of the most complete misapplications of Greek architecture ever made.

Generally speaking, the interiors of these buildings are so plain that travellers have not cared either to draw or measure them; one, however, represented in the annexed woodcut, is richly ornamented,

and, as far as can be judged from what is published, is as unlike a tomb as it is like a vihara. But, as before remarked, they all require re-examination before the purpose for which they were cut can be pronounced upon with any certainty.

The next group of tombs is that at Jerusalem. These are undoubtedly all sepulchres. By far the greater number of them are wholly devoid of architectural ornament. To the north of the city is a group known as the tombs of the kings, with a façade of a corrupt Doric order, similar to some of the latest Etruscan tombs.' It is now

1 M. de Sauley has recently attempted to prove that these tombs are those of the kings of Judah from David downwards. Their architecture is undoubtedly later than the

Christian era, and the slab, which he calls the cover of the sarcophagus of David, is certainly more modern than the time of Constantine.

very much ruined. A somewhat similar façade, but of a form more like the Greek Doric, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, bears the name of the Sepulchre of St. James, and near this is a square tomb cut out of the rock, but standing free, and with a pyramidal roof, which is unlike anything else seen either here or in these parts. The most remarkable, however, is that called the Tomb of Absalom, consisting of a square basis, adorned with 4 Ionic columns on each face, and above this a low circular tower, which seems to have been intended to bear either a small domed building like the central one on the upper part of the Khasné, or a simple dome. The present somewhat anomalous termination is in masonry, and so unlike everything else of its class that we know of, that we must consider it as a modern improvement.

The third group is that of Cyrene, on the African coast. Notwithstanding the researches of Admiral Beechey and of M. Pacho, they are still much less perfectly known to us than they should be. Their number is immense, and they almost all have architectural façades, generally consisting of 2 or more columns between pilasters, like the grottos of Beni Hassan, or the tomb of St. James at Jerusalem. Many of them show a powerful reminiscence of Greek taste, though they are

for the most part undoubtedly of Roman date, and the paintings with which many of them are still adorned are certainly in Roman taste. None of them have such splendid architectural façades as the Khasné at Petra; but the number of tombs which are adorned with architectural features is greater than in that city, and, grouped as they are together in terraces on the hill side, they constitute a necropolis among the most striking of the ancient world. Altogether the group somewhat resembles that at Castel d'Asso, but is more extensive and far richer in external architecture.

Time has not left us a single built tomb in all these places, though there can be little doubt but that they once were numerous. Almost the only tomb of this class constructed in masonry known to exist. which in many respects is perhaps the most interesting of all, is found in Asia Minor, at Mylassa in Caria. In form it is something like the free standing rock-cut examples at Jerusalem. As shown in the woodcut (No. 292), it consists of a square base, which supports 12 columns, 8 of which support a dome, the other 4 merely completing the square. The dome itself is constructed in the same manner as all the Jaina domes are in India, being of the class illustrated by the diagrams in woodcuts No. 47 to 50, and, though ornamented with Roman details, is so unlike anything else ever built by that people, and so completely and perfectly what we find re-appearing 10 centuries afterwards in the far east, that we are forced to conclude that it belongs to a style once prevalent and long fixed in these lands, though it now stands as the sole representative of its class.

Another example somewhat similar stands at the opposite extreme of what may be called the Roman Eastern world, from the locality of which we last spoke, at Dugga, near Tunis, in Africa. This, too, consists of a square base, taller than in the last example, and surmounted by 12 Ionic columns, but here merely used as ornaments

293.

to support a cornice, the profile of which bears a remarkable resemblance to Egyptian forms. It was terminated apparently by a pyramid in steps, of which nothing now remains but the 4 head-stones of the corners, which serve to give character to the angles, which the simple pyramid so used always wants.

This and the St. Rémi tomb are perhaps the two most elegant examples of tombs which antiquity has left us, and those which might be most profitably studied for modern purposes.

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.

We know, not only from the descriptions and incidental notices that have come down to us, but also from the remains found at Pompeii and elsewhere, that the private dwellings of the Romans were characterised by that magnificence and splendour which we find in all their works, accompanied, probably, with more than the usual amount of bad taste. No palace except that at Spalatro has been preserved to our day, nor any building of such a class as to come under the head of domestic art; still, so much is to be learnt from what does remain, that it is impossible to pass over the subject altogether.

In Rome itself no ancient house-indeed no trace of a domestic edifice-exists except the Palace of the Cæsars on the Palatine Mount. Even this is now merely a heap of shapeless ruins, so much so as to have defied even the most imaginative of restorers to make anything of them except a vehicle for the display of their own ingenuity. The extent of these ruins, coupled with the descriptions that have been preserved, suffice to convince us that, of all the palaces ever built, either in the East or the West, this was probably the most magnificent and the most gorgeously adorned. Never in the world's history does it appear that so much wealth and so much power were at the command of one man as were held by the Cæsars; and never could the world's wealth have fallen into the hands of men more inclined to lavish it for their own personal gratification than these emperors were. Besides, they could ransack the whole world for plunder to adorn their buildings, and they could command the artists of Greece, and of all the subject kingdoms, to assist in rendering their golden palaces the most gorgeous that the world had then seen, or is likely ever to see again.

Notwithstanding all this splendour, this palace was probably as an architectural object inferior to the Thermæ. The thousand and one exigencies of private life rendered it impossible to impart to a residence

-even to that of the world's master-the same character of grandeur as may be given to a building wholly devoted to show and public purposes. In its glory the Palace of the Cæsars must have been the world's wonder; but as a ruin deprived of its furniture and ephemeral splendour, it probably would present nothing either pleasing or instructive. We must not look for either beauty of proportion or perfection of construction, nor even for appropriateness of material, in the hastily constructed halls of men whose unbounded power was only equalled by the coarse vulgarity of their characters.