eral human instinct to hack at an edge,
demonstrated by all school-boys and all idle possessors of penknives or
other cutting instruments on both sides of the Atlantic;--in that rude
Venetian gunwale, I say, is the germ of all the ornament which has
touched, with its rich successions of angular shadow, the portals and
archivolts of nearly every early building of importance, from the North
Cape to the Straits of Messina. Nor are the modifications of the first
suggestion intricate. All that is generic in their character may be seen
on Plate IX. at a glance.

[Illustration: Plate IX.
EDGE DECORATION.]

Sec. IV. Taking a piece of stone instead of timber, and enlarging the
notches, until they meet each other, we have the condition 2, which is a
moulding from the tomb of the Doge Andrea Dandolo, in St. Mark's. Now,
considering this moulding as composed of two decorated edges, each edge
will be reduced, by the meeting of the notches, to a series of
four-sided pyramids (as marked off by the dotted lines), which, the
notches here being shallow, will be shallow pyramids; but by deepening
the notches, we get them as at 3, with a profile _a_, more or less
steep. This moulding I shall always call "the plain dogtooth;" it is
used in profusion in the Venetian and Veronese Gothic, generally set
with its front to the spectator, as here at 3; but its effect may be
much varied by placing it obliquely (4, and profile as at _b_); or with
one side horizontal (5, and profile _c_). Of these three conditions, 3
and 5 are exactly the same in reality, only differently placed; but in 4
the pyramid is obtuse, and the inclination of its base variable, the
upper side of it being always kept vertical. It is comparatively rare.
Of the three, the last, 5, is far the most brilliant in effect, giving
in the distance a zigzag form to the high light on it, and a full sharp
shadow below. The use of this shadow is sufficiently seen by fig. 7 in
this plate (the arch on the left, the number beneath it), in which these
levelled dogteeth, with a small interval between each, are employed to
set off by their vigor the delicacy of floral ornament above. This arch
is the side of a niche from the tomb of Can Signorio della Scala, at
Verona; and the value, as well as the distant expression of its
dogtooth, may be seen by referring to Prout's beautiful drawing of this
tomb in his "Sketches in France and Italy." I have before observed
that this artist ne