without system, and without
preference of the nobler members, the ornament alternates between sickly
luxuriance and sudden blankness. In many of our Scotch and English
abbeys, especially Melrose, this is painfully felt; but the worst
instance I have ever seen is the window in the side of the arch under
the Wellington statue, next St. George's Hospital. In the first place, a
window has no business there at all; in the second, the bars of the
window are not the proper place for decoration, especially _wavy_
decoration, which one instantly fancies of cast iron; in the third, the
richness of the ornament is a mere patch and eruption upon the wall, and
one hardly knows whether to be most irritated at the affectation of
severity in the rest, or at the vain luxuriance of the dissolute
parallelogram.

Sec. XXXV. Finally, as regards quantity of ornament I have already said,
again and again, you cannot have too much if it be good; that is, if it
be thoroughly united and harmonised by the laws hitherto insisted upon.
But you may easily have too much if you have more than you have sense to
manage. For with every added order of ornament increases the difficulty
of discipline. It is exactly the same as in war: you cannot, as an
abstract law, have too many soldiers, but you may easily have more than
the country is able to sustain, or than your generalship is competent
to command. And every regiment which you cannot manage will, on the day
of battle, be in your way, and encumber the movements it is not in
disposition to sustain.

Sec. XXXVI. As an architect, therefore, you are modestly to measure
your capacity of governing ornament. Remember, its essence,--its being
ornament at all, consists in its being governed. Lose your authority
over it, let it command you, or lead you, or dictate to you in any wise,
and it is an offence, an incumbrance, and a dishonor. And it is always
ready to do this; wild to get the bit in its teeth, and rush forth on
its own devices. Measure, therefore, your strength; and as long as there
is no chance of mutiny, add soldier to soldier, battalion to battalion;
but be assured that all are heartily in the cause, and that there is not
one of whose position you are ignorant, or whose service you could
spare.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] Vide "Seven Lamps," Chap. IV. Sec. 34.

[71] Shakspeare and Wordsworth (I think they only) have noticed this,
Shakspeare, in Richard II.:--

"But when, from under thi