Σ

7.1931

THE

MUSIC OF THE EYE;

OR,

ESSAYS

ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE BEAUTY AND PERFECTION OF

Architecture,

AS FOUNDED ON AND DEDUCED FROM REASON AND ANALOGY, AND
ADAPTED TO WHAT MAY BE TRACEd of the

ANCIENT THEORIES OF TASTE,

IN THE

THREE FIRST CHAPTERS OF VITRUVIUS.

WRITTEN WITH A VIEW TO RESTORE ARCHITECTURE TO THE
DIGNITY IT HAD IN ANCIENT GREECE.

BY PETER LEGH, ESQ. M. A.

"Sunt certi denique fines

"Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum."

HOR. LIB. I. SAT. i. v. 106.

PRINTED

LONDON.

FOR WILLIAM WALKER, STRAND

JAMES CARPENTER AND SON, OLD BOND-STREET;

AND PRIESTLEY & WEALE, HIGH-STREET, BLOOMSBURY.

1831.

704.

NOTE.

It is intended that the profits of this edition shall go towards a fund for building a Church at,

or near Torkington, in the parish of Stockport, Cheshire.

ADDRESS.

THE Music of the Ear is the art which treats of the harmony of sounds; why may not, therefore, the art which treats of the harmony of visible objects, be called the "Music of the Eye?" The resemblance of Music to Architecture is traced in these essays, in essay i. sect. 3, and in essay iii. sect. 28: there is, however, a better reason for calling Architecture the Music of the Eye. We learn from Hesychius and

μεσική

τέχνη,

other lexicographers, that μsokn and Texvn, music and art, were among the Athenians synonymous words; Architecture, therefore, as the most noble art, more particularly deserves this appellation.

Notwithstanding, however, the importance and dignity of Architecture, and many of its respectable and noble professors and authors, it is unquestionably not an art held in the esteem it ought to be: nor is