Note 411 — 1825

As Wordsworth says, in his note of 1827, "See Forsyth," it may be interesting to add Forsyth's account of the Pillar, in footnotes. "Trajan's Column, considered as a long historical record to be read round and round a long convex surface, made perspective impossible. Every perspective has one fixed point of view, but here are ten thousand. The eye, like the relievos of the column, must describe a spiral round them, widening over the whole piazza. Hence, to be legible the figures must be lengthened as they rise. This licence is necessary here; but in architecture it may be contested against Vitruvius himself." (Forsyth's Remarks on Antiquities, Arts, and Letters, during an Excursion in Italy in 1802-3, pp. 250, 251.)—Ed.