ordinance of the
late Roman and Renaissance architects, who, attaching it to the shaft as
if it were part of its shadow, and having to employ their shafts often
in places where they came not near the roof, forthwith cut the
roof-cornice to pieces and attached a bit of it to every column;
thenceforward to be carried by the unhappy shaft wherever it went, in
addition to any other work on which it might happen to be employed. I do
not recollect among any living beings, except Renaissance architects,
any instance of a parallel or comparable stupidity: but one can imagine
a savage getting hold of a piece of one of our iron wire ropes, with its
rings upon it at intervals to bind it together, and pulling the wires
asunder to apply them to separate purposes; but imagining there was
magic in the ring that bound them, and so cutting that to pieces also,
and fastening a little bit of it to every wire.

Sec. VIII. Thus much may serve us to know respecting the first family of
wall cornices. The second is immeasurably more important, and includes
the cornices of all the best buildings in the world. It has derived its
best form from mediaeval military architecture, which imperatively
required two things; first, a parapet which should permit sight and
offence, and afford defence at the same time; and secondly, a projection
bold enough to enable the defenders to rake the bottom of the wall with
falling bodies; projection which, if the wall happened to slope inwards,
required not to be small. The thoroughly magnificent forms of cornice
thus developed by necessity in military buildings, were adopted, with
more or less of boldness or distinctness, in domestic architecture,
according to the temper of the times and the circumstances of the
individual--decisively in the baron's house, imperfectly in the
burgher's: gradually they found their way into ecclesiastical
architecture, under wise modifications in the early cathedrals, with
infinite absurdity in the imitations of them; diminishing in size as
their original purpose sank into a decorative one, until we find
battlements, two-and-a-quarter inches square, decorating the gates of
the Philanthropic Society.

Sec. IX. There are, therefore, two distinct features in all cornices of
this kind; first, the bracket, now become of enormous importance and of
most serious practical service; the second, the parapet: and these two
features we shall consider in succession, and in so doing, shall learn