le of cornice used is _a_ of Plate XV., or a refined condition of
_b_ of Fig. V., p. 69, above. Now, keeping the same refined profile,
substitute the condition of it, _f_ of Fig. V. (and there accounted
for), above the roll here, and you have 3, Plate XV. This superadded
abacus was instantly felt to be harsh in its projecting angle; but you
know what to do with an angle when it is harsh. Use your simplest
chamfer on it (_a_ or _b_, Fig. LIII., page 287, above), but on the
visible side only, and you have fig. 4, Plate XV. (the top stone being
made deeper that you may have room to chamfer it). Now this fig. 4 is
the profile of Lombardic and Venetian early capitals and cornices, by
tens of thousands; and it continues into the late Venetian Gothic, with
this only difference, that as times advances, the vertical line at the
top of the original cornice begins to slope outwards, and through a
series of years rises like the hazel wand in the hand of a diviner:--but
how slowly! a stone dial which marches but 45 degrees in three
centuries, and through the intermediate condition 5 arrives at 6, and so
stays.

In tracing this chain I have kept all the profiles of the same height in
order to make the comparison more easy; the depth chosen is about
intermediate between that which is customary in cornices on the one
hand, which are often a little shorter, and capitals on the other, which
are often a little deeper.[87] And it is to be noted that the profiles 5
and 6 establish themselves in capitals chiefly, while 4 is retained in
cornices to the latest times.

[Illustration: Fig. LXIV.]

Sec. XXVIII. Second group (c, Fig. LXIII.). If the lower angle, which
was quickly felt to be hard, be rounded off, we have the form _a_, Fig.
LXIV. The front of the curved line is then decorated, as we have seen;
and the termination of the decorated surface marked by an incision, as
in an ordinary chamfer, as at _b_ here. This I believe to have been the
simple origin of most of the Venetian ogee cornices; but they are
farther complicated by the curves given to the leafage which flows over
them. In the ordinary Greek cornices, and in _a_ and _d_ of Plate XVI.,
the decoration is _incised_ from the outside profile, without any
suggestion of an interior surface of a different contour. But in the
leaf cornices which follow, the decoration is represented as _overlaid_
on one of the early profiles, and has another outside contour of its
own; which is, inde