no special
notice, the recess in such cases being used merely to give value to the
leafage by its gloom, and the difference between such conditions and
those of the south being merely that in the one the leaves are laid
across a hollow, and in the other over a solid surface; but in neither
of the schools exclusively so, each in some degree intermingling the
method of the other.

Sec. XII. Finally the recess decoration by the ball flower is very
definite and characteristic, found, I believe, chiefly in English work. It
consists merely in leaving a small boss or sphere, fixed, as it were, at
intervals in the hollows; such bosses being afterwards carved into
roses, or other ornamental forms, and sometimes lifted quite up out of
the hollow, on projecting processes, like vertebrae, so as to make them
more conspicuous, as throughout the decoration of the cathedral of
Bourges.

The value of this ornament is chiefly in the _spotted_ character which
it gives to the lines of mouldings seen from a distance. It is very rich
and delightful when not used in excess; but it would satiate and weary
the eye if it were ever used in general architecture. The spire of
Salisbury, and of St. Mary's at Oxford, are agreeable as isolated
masses; but if an entire street were built with this spotty decoration
at every casement, we could not traverse it to the end without disgust.
It is only another example of the constant aim at piquancy of effect
which characterised the northern builders; an ingenious but somewhat
vulgar effort to give interest to their grey masses of coarse stone,
without overtaking their powers either of invention or execution. We
will thank them for it without blame or praise, and pass on.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE BASE.

Sec. I. We know now as much as is needful respecting the methods of minor
and universal decorations, which were distinguished in Chapter XXII., Sec.
III., from the ornament which has special relation to particular parts.
This local ornament, which, it will be remembered, we arranged in Sec. II.
of the same chapter under five heads, we have next, under those heads,
to consider. And, first, the ornament of the bases, both of walls and
shafts.

It was noticed in our account of the divisions of a wall, that there are
something in those divisions like the beginning, the several courses,
and the close of a human life. And as, in all well-conducted lives, the
hard work, and roughing, and gaining of streng