luster do so often; but at the
very instant that it does this, in order that it may not lose any of its
expression of strength, a fruit-stalk is thrown up above the languid
leaves, absolutely vertical, as much stiffer and stronger than the rest
of the plant as the falling leaves are weaker. Cover this with your
finger, and the cornice falls to pieces, like a bouquet which has been
untied.

Sec. XVI. There are some instances in which, though the real arrangement
is that of a running stem, throwing off leaves up and down, the positions
of the leaves give nearly as much elasticity and organisation to the
cornice, as if they had been rightly rooted; and others, like _b_, where
the reversed portion of the ornament is lost in the shade, and the
general expression of strength is got by the lower member. This cornice
will, nevertheless, be felt at once to be inferior to the rest; and
though we may often be called upon to admire designs of these kinds,
which would have been exquisite if not thus misplaced, the reader will
find that they are both of rare occurrence, and significative of
declining style; while the greater mass of the banded capitals are heavy
and valueless, mere aggregations of confused sculpture, swathed round
the extremity of the shaft, as if she had dipped it into a mass of
melted ornament, as the glass-blower does his blow-pipe into the metal,
and brought up a quantity adhering glutinously to its extremity. We have
many capitals of this kind in England: some of the worst and heaviest in
the choir of York. The later capitals of the Italian Gothic have the
same kind of effect, but owing to another cause: for their structure is
quite pure, and based on the Corinthian type: and it is the branching
form of the heads of the leaves which destroys the effect of their
organisation. On the other hand, some of the Italian cornices which are
actually composed by running tendrils, throwing off leaves into oval
interstices, are so massive in their treatment, and so marked and firm
in their vertical and arched lines, that they are nearly as suggestive
of support as if they had been arranged on the rooted system. A cornice
of this kind is used in St. Michele of Lucca (Plate VI. in the "Seven
Lamps," and XXI. here), and with exquisite propriety; for that cornice
is at once a crown to the story beneath it and a foundation to that
which is above it, and therefore unites the strength and elasticity of
the lines proper to the corn