SECTION XIX. I have said that the two orders, Doric and Corinthian, are
the roots of all European architecture. You have, perhaps, heard of five
orders; but there are only two real orders, and there never can be any
more until doomsday. On one of these orders the ornament is convex:
those are Doric, Norman, and what else you recollect of the kind. On the
other the ornament is concave: those are Corinthian, Early English,
Decorated, and what else you recollect of that kind. The transitional
form, in which the ornamental line is straight, is the centre or root of
both. All other orders are varieties of those, or phantasms and
grotesques altogether indefinite in number and species. [Footnote:
Appendix 7, "Varieties of the Orders."]

SECTION XX. This Greek architecture, then, with its two orders, was
clumsily copied and varied by the Romans with no particular result,
until they begun to bring the arch into extensive practical service;
except only that the Doric capital was spoiled in endeavors to mend it,
and the Corinthian much varied and enriched with fanciful, and often
very beautiful imagery. And in this state of things came Christianity:
seized upon the arch as her own; decorated it, and delighted in it;
invented a new Doric capital to replace the spoiled Roman one: and all
over the Roman empire set to work, with such materials as were nearest
at hand, to express and adorn herself as best she could. This Roman
Christian architecture is the exact expression of the Christianity of
the time, very fervid and beautiful--but very imperfect; in many
respects ignorant, and yet radiant with a strong, childlike light of
imagination, which flames up under Constantine, illumines all the shores
of the Bosphorus and the Aegean and the Adriatic Sea, and then
gradually, as the people give themselves up to idolatry, becomes
Corpse-light. The architecture sinks into a settled form--a strange,