ncy of sculpture in their own designs; if very small, they may
become more frequent, and describe lines by a chain of points; but their
whole value is lost if they are gathered into bunches or clustered into
tassels and knots; and an over-indulgence in them always marks lowness
of school. In Venice, the addition of the finial to the arch-head is the
first sign of degradation; all her best architecture is entirely without
either crockets or finials; and her ecclesiastical architecture may be
classed, with fearless accuracy, as better or worse, in proportion to
the diminution or expansion of the crocket. The absolutely perfect use
of the crocket is found, I think, in the tower of Giotto, and in some
other buildings of the Pisan school. In the North they generally err on
one side or other, and are either florid and huge, or mean in outline,
looking as if they had been pinched out of the stonework, as throughout
the entire cathedral of Amiens; and are besides connected with the
generally spotty system which has been spoken of under the head of
archivolt decoration.

Sec. X. Employed, however, in moderation, they are among the most
delightful means of delicate expression; and the architect has more
liberty in their individual treatment than in any other feature of the
building. Separated entirely from the structural system, they are
subjected to no shadow of any other laws than those of grace and
chastity; and the fancy may range without rebuke, for materials of their
design, through the whole field of the visible or imaginable creation.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE VESTIBULE.

Sec. I. I have hardly kept my promise. The reader has decorated but little
for himself as yet; but I have not, at least, attempted to bias his
judgment. Of the simple forms of decoration which have been set before
him, he has always been left free to choose; and the stated restrictions
in the methods of applying them have been only those which followed on
the necessities of construction previously determined. These having been
now defined, I do indeed leave my reader free to build; and with what a
freedom! All the lovely forms of the universe set before him, whence to
choose, and all the lovely lines that bound their substance or guide
their motion; and of all these lines,--and there are myriads of myriads
in every bank of grass and every tuft of forest; and groups of them
divinely harmonized, in the bell of every flower, and in every several
memb