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of a shoe to the foot; they also added volutes to itscapital, like graceful curling hair hanging on each side,and the front they ornamented with cymatia and festoonsin the place of hair. On the shafts they sunk channels,which hear a resemblance to the folds of a matronalgarment. Thus two orders were invented, one of amasculine character, without ornament, the other bear-ing a character which resembled the delicacy, ornament,and proportion of a female. The successors of thesepeople, improving in taste, and preferring a more slenderproportion, assigned seven diameters to the height ofthe Doric column, and eight and a half to the Ionic.That species, of which the Ionians were the inventors,has received the appellation of Ionic. The third species,which is called Corinthian, resembles in its character,the graceful elegant appearance of a virgin, in whom,from her tender age, the limbs are of a more delicateform, and whose ornaments should be unobtrusive. Theinvention of the capital of this order is said to befounded on the following occurrence. A Corinthian virgin,of marriageable age, fell a victim to a violent disorder.After her interment, her nurse, collecting in a basketthose articles to which she had shewn a partiality whenalive, carried them to her tomb, and placed a tile on thebasket for the longer preservation of its contents. Thebasket was accidentally placed on the root of an acanthusplant, which, pressed by the weight, shot forth, towardsspring, its stems and large foliage, and in the courseof its growth reached the angles of the tile, and thusformed volutes at the extremities. Callimachus, who,for his great ingenuity and taste was called by theAthenians Catatechnos, happening at this time to passby the tomb, observed the basket, and the delicacy of thefoliage which surrounded it. Pleased with the form andnovelty of the combination, he constructed from the hintthus afforded, columns of this species in the countryabout Corinth, and arranged its proportions, determining