with the green
pattern inlaid. Another remarkable instance is in a piece of not
altogether unworthy architecture at Paris (Rue Rivoli), where the
columns are supposed to be decorated with images of handkerchiefs tied
in a stout knot round the middle of them. This shrewd invention bids
fair to become a new order. Multitudes of massy curtains and various
upholstery, more or less in imitation of that of the drawing-room, are
carved and gilt, in wood or stone, about the altars and other theatrical
portions of Romanist churches; but from these coarse and senseless
vulgarities we may well turn, in all haste, to note, with respect as
well as regret, one of the errors of the great school of Niccolo
Pisano,--an error so full of feeling as to be sometimes all but
redeemed, and altogether forgiven,--the sculpture, namely, of curtains
around the recumbent statues upon tombs, curtains which angels are
represented as withdrawing, to gaze upon the faces of those who are at
rest. For some time the idea was simply and slightly expressed, and
though there was always a painfulness in finding the shafts of stone,
which were felt to be the real supporters of the canopy, represented as
of yielding drapery, yet the beauty of the angelic figures, and the
tenderness of the thought, disarmed all animadversion. But the scholars
of the Pisani, as usual, caricatured when they were unable to invent;
and the quiet curtained canopy became a huge marble tent, with a pole in
the centre of it. Thus vulgarised, the idea itself soon disappeared, to
make room for urns, torches, and weepers, and the other modern
paraphernalia of the churchyard.

Sec. VIII. 3. Shipping. I have allowed this kind of subject to form a
separate head, owing to the importance of rostra in Roman decoration,
and to the continual occurrence of naval subjects in modern monumental
bas-relief. Mr. Fergusson says, somewhat doubtfully, that he perceives a
"_kind_ of beauty" in a ship: I say, without any manner of doubt, that a
ship is one of the loveliest things man ever made, and one of the
noblest; nor do I know any lines, out of divine work, so lovely as those
of the head of a ship, or even as the sweep of the timbers of a small
boat, not a race boat, a mere floating chisel, but a broad, strong, sea
boat, able to breast a wave and break it: and yet, with all this beauty,
ships cannot be made subjects of sculpture. No one pauses in particular
delight beneath the pediments of the Admiral