Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/132

 104 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [August, " from, the care of the various engines of " war, which you assigned to me, on the " recommendation of jour sister. As, " through your kindness, I have thus " been placed beyond the reach of pover- " ty, I think it right to address this " treatise to 3 r ou ; and I feel the more " induced to do so, from your having "built, and being still engaged in the "erection of, many edifices." We thus find that the straightforward integrity of Yitruvius was rewarded with a permanent office of respectable emolument and high trust under the em jD ire. If, in a pecuniary point of view, he' cannot be considered successful in the world ; and, if, as is too evident from his own writings, that — a thing not unusual with men of mark in later days, even the present — he met with opposition from his professional brethren, men of fewer acquirements, more pliancy and greater patronage ; manifestly it was owing to an irrepressible frankness of mind. Joseph had innocently told his dream, concerning his sheaf haviug arisen and stood upright ; and, behold, all his brothers' sheaves had stood round about and made obeisance to his sheaf; and Joseph was instanter hustled out of good society into the ruler- ship of a A^ast kingdom. Vitruvius had, indeed, the most utter contempt for sciolism, and the plainest possible way of showing it. For instance, he had the wretched impolicy to write : "In " the magnificent and spacious Grecian " city of Ephesus, an ancient law was " made by the ancestors of the inhabit- "ants, hard, indeed, in its nature, " but nevertheless equitable. When an " architect was entrusted with the exe- " cution of a public work, an estimate " thereof being lodged in the hands of a " magistrate, his property was held as " security until the work was finished. " If, when finished, the expense did not "exceed the estimate, he was compli- ■' mented with decrees and honors. So " when the excess did not amount to more than a fourth part of the origi- nal estimate, it was defrayed by the public, and no punishment was inflicted. But when the excess of cost was more than one-fourth of the estimate, he was required to pay it out of his own pocket. Would to God that such a law existed among the Roman people, not only in respect of their public, but also of their private buildings, for then the unskilful could not commit their depredations with impunity, and those who were the most skilful, in the in- tricacies of the art, would follow the profession. Proprietors would not be led into an extravagant expenditure, so as to cause ruin. Architects them- selves, from the dread of punishment, would be more careful in their calcula- tions, and the proprietor would com- plete his building for that sum, or a little more, which he could afford to expend. Those who can conveniently expend a given sum on any work, with the pleasing expectation of seeing it completed, would cheerfully add one- fourth more ; but when they find them- selves burdened with the addition of half, or even more than half, of the expense originally contemplated, losing their spirits and sacrificing what has already been laid out, they incline to desist from its completion. Nor is this an evil, which occurs in buildings alone, but also in the shows of gladia- tors in the Forum, and in the scenes of plays exhibited by the magistrates,* in which neither delay nor hindrance is admitted, since there is a necessity for their being completed by a certain ' time." From the above, and other similar outcroppings, it will be shrewdly sus- pected, that the one, and probably the only, point Vitruvius failed in, was want of tact : tact, that ready and most com- prehensive word, expressing so delicately the exquisite mental manipulation of the of distinguished individuals, erection of political wig- wams, and so forth. — Ed.
 * Modern municipal displays of fire-works, receptions