284 INDIAN SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. BOOK VII. comparison, in some respects, with any architectural productions in any part of the world. Their buildings, however, are so original, and so unlike any of the masterpieces of art that we are generally acquainted with, that it is almost impossible to institute any comparison between them which shall be satis- factory. How, for instance, can we compare the Parthenon with the Taj? They are buildings of nearly equal size and magnificence, both in white marble, both admirably adapted for the purposes for which they were built ; but what else have they in common ? The one is simple in its outline, and depend- ing on pillars for its external adornment ; the other has no pillars, and owes its greatest effects to its singularly varied outline and the mode in which its various parts are disposed, many of them wholly detached from the principal mass. The Parthenon belongs, it is true, to a higher class of art, its sculptures raising it into the region of the most intellectual branch of phonetic art ; but, on the other hand, the exquisite inlay of precious stones at the Taj is so aesthetically beautiful as, in a merely architectural estimate, almost to bring it on a level with the Grecian masterpiece. 1 Though their value, consequently, may be nearly the same, their forms are so essentially different that they hardly look like productions of the same art ; and in an art so essentially conventional as architecture always is and must be, it requires long familiarity with any new form, and a knowledge of its origin and use, that can only be acquired by constant study, which makes it very difficult for a stranger to realise the real beauty that often underlies even the strangest forms. When, however, these difficulties are conquered, it will probably be found that there are few among the Eastern styles that deserve more attention, and would better repay any study that might be bestowed upon them, than the architecture of the Mughals. Some little interruptions are experienced at the beginning of the narrative from the interpolation of the reigns of Sher Shah and his son Salim or Islam in the reign of Humayun. He was an Afghan by descent and an Indian by birth, and, had he been 1 Adopting the numerical scale de- scribed in the introduction to the ' True Principles of Beauty in Art,' p. 140 (' History of Ancient and Medieval Architecture,' vol. i. pp. 5, 6), I estimated the Parthenon as possessing 4 parts of technic value, 4 of aesthetic, and 4 phonetic, or 24 as its Index number, being the highest known. The Taj I should on the contrary estimate as possessing 4 technic, 5 aesthetic, and 2 phonetic, not that it has any direct phonetic mode of utterance, but from the singular and pathetic distinctness with which every part of it gives utterance to the sorrow and affection it was erected to express. Its index number would con- sequently be 20, which is certainly as high as it can be brought, and near enough to the Parthenon for comparison at least.
