So, when a boy is first taught to
write Latin, an authority is required of him for every expression he
uses; as he becomes master of the language he may take a license, and
feel his right to do so without any authority, and yet write better
Latin than when he borrowed every separate expression. In the same way
our architects would have to be taught to write the accepted style. We
must first determine what buildings are to be considered Augustan in
their authority; their modes of construction and laws of proportion are
to be studied with the most penetrating care; then the different forms
and uses of their decorations are to be classed and catalogued, as a
German grammarian classes the powers of prepositions; and under this
absolute, irrefragable authority, we are to begin to work; admitting
not so much as an alteration in the depth of a cavetto,[171] or the
breadth of a fillet. Then, when our sight is once accustomed to the
grammatical forms and arrangements, and our thoughts familiar with the
expression of them all; when we can speak this dead language naturally,
and apply it to whatever ideas we have to render, that is to say, to
every practical purpose of life; then, and not till then, a license
might be permitted, and individual authority allowed to change or to
add to the received forms, always within certain limits; the
decorations, especially, might be made subjects of variable fancy, and
enriched with ideas either original or taken from other schools.
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