II

The PREFACE.

Measures of the federal Mejnkers, and a certain turn of their Figures, has }

as yet j no certain Ovules, in which all ArchiteBs agree 3 each having en-deavourd to give these Farts all possible FerfeBion, chiefly in ivhat re-fpeels the Froportion : so that several, tho by different Ways, have, inthe Opinion of the judicious, had equal Success: Which shews that theBeauty of a Building is so far like that of a humane Body, that it consistsnot so much in the exaBness of one certain Froportion, or Conformity ofSizy, which the Farts have one with the other, as in the Grace of the Form,which is nothing else hut its agreable Modification, upon which, an excel-lent and perfeB Beauty may be founded, without ftriBly observing this Very: kind of Froportion. For as a Face may be hands om, or homely, with oneand the fame Froportion, since the Change we observe hi the Farts, when,for Instance, Laughing lessens the Eyes, and ividens the Mouth, is likewhat we fee in the fame Face, when it weeps 5 this very change of Fropor-tion, which pleases in the one, being disagreeable in the other 3 and on thecontrary, two Faces, with different Froportions, may be equally beautiful:So we fee in Works of ArchiteBure, Very different Froportions, so grace-ful, as to be equally approvd of by the judicious, and such as have the trueTaji of JrchiteBure.

But as it must be granted, that no one certain Froportion is absolutelyrequired in the Beauty of a Face, it is, notwithstanding, likewise true,there is a Froportion, from which, it cannot Vary much, without losing theFerfeBion of its Beauty 3 there are also, in ArchiteBure, Fffies of Fro-portion, not only in the general, such as are those which distinguish the Orderseach from other, but likewise in the particular Farts, from which we cannotdeviate, without losing much of the Grace and Elegance of the StruBure :but in these Froportions, the ArchiteB has a sufficient Latitude to augmentor dinunifi) the Dimensions of the Farts, as occasion shall require. ’Tis byVirtue of this Frivilege, that the Ancients have made Works so extraordi-nary in their Froportions, such as the Doric and Ionic Cornices of the The-atre o/'Marcelhis, and that of the Frontispiece of Nero, which are halfas large again as they ought to be, according to the Fffi.es of Vitrnvius -And on the fame Account, all those that have wrote of ArchiteBure, varyfrom each other 5 so that we cannot find, either in the remains of the Buil-dings of the Ancients, or among the great Number of ArchiteBs that have

treated

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