Excerpt from A Treatise on the Five Orders of Architecture: Compiled From the Works of Sir William Chambers, Palladio, Vignola, Gwilt and Others, With Illustrations, Notes and Essays on Various Phases of Classical Architecture

This book is intended to be one of instruction, and it contains sufficient information, rules and directions to enable any studious or ambitious young workman to obtain a fair, workable knowledge of the design and con struction of the Greek and Roman Orders of Architecture. The thirty-nine full-page plates, show beautiful examples of classic work, many of them being figured, giving dimen sions and correct proportions of the work, so that the student may easily work out a series of designs to suit the work in hand, if it so happens to demand classic treat ment. The designs for doors, windows, and details given should prove guides for the proper formation of such work in harmony with the style and character of the main structure: a most important matter in the designing of an edifice of any pretension.

The compiler of this work has endeavored to adhere closely to the rules and proportions as laid down by that eminent architect, Sir William Chambers, who based all his efforts on the rules and usages as practiced by the old masters, and which, up to this date, have never been superseded. There have been many attempts made by modern architects, to modify and change the proportions, and the assembling of the various orders, and while there has been a partial success in some instances, the greater number of these departures have been more or less failures, some of them miserable failures, and it would have been much better all round, if no departure had been attempted.

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