ppears in true importance, though
of barbarous and effeminate outline: and gorgeous decorations are
applied to it, and to the various horizontal mouldings which it carries,
some of them of great beauty, and of the highest value to the mediaeval
architects who imitated them. But a singularly gross mistake was made in
the distribution of decoration on these rich cornices (I do not know
when first, nor does it matter to me or to the reader), namely, the
charging with ornament the under surface of the cornice between the
brackets, that is to say, the exact piece of the whole edifice, from top
to bottom, where ornament is least visible. I need hardly say much
respecting the wisdom of this procedure, excusable only if the whole
building were covered with ornament; but it is curious to see the way in
which modern architects have copied it, even when they had little enough
ornament to spare. For instance, I suppose few persons look at the
Athenaeum Club-house without feeling vexed at the meagreness and
meanness of the windows of the ground floor: if, however, they look up
under the cornice, and have good eyes, they will perceive that the
architect has reserved his decorations to put between the brackets; and
by going up to the first floor, and out on the gallery, they may succeed
in obtaining some glimpses of the designs of the said decorations.

Sec. VII. Such as they are, or were, these cornices were soon considered
essential parts of the "order" to which they belonged; and the same
wisdom which endeavored to fix the proportions of the orders, appointed
also that no order should go without its cornice. The reader has
probably heard of the architectural division of superstructure into
architrave, frieze, and cornice; parts which have been appointed by
great architects to all their work, in the same spirit in which great
rhetoricians have ordained that every speech shall have an exordium, and
narration, and peroration. The reader will do well to consider that it
may be sometimes just as possible to carry a roof, and get rid of rain,
without such an arrangement, as it is to tell a plain fact without an
exordium or peroration; but he must very absolutely consider that the
architectural peroration or cornice is strictly and sternly limited to
the end of the wall's speech,--that is, to the edge of the roof; and
that it has nothing whatever to do with shafts nor the orders of them.
And he will then be able fully to enjoy the farther