be
described as a kind of rude panorama of some district of Upper Egypt, a
bird's-eye view, half man, half picture, in which the details are
neither adjusted to a scale, nor drawn according to perspective, but
crowded together, as they would be in an ancient bas-relief.

22. ARABIAN ORNAMENTATION.

I do not mean what I have here said of the Inventive power of the Arab
to be understood as in the least applying to the detestable
ornamentation of the Alhambra.[105] The Alhambra is no more
characteristic of Arab work, than Milan Cathedral is of Gothic: it is a
late building, a work of the Spanish dynasty in its last decline, and
its ornamentation is fit for nothing but to be transferred to patterns
of carpets or bindings of books, together with their marbling, and
mottling, and other mechanical recommendations. The Alhambra ornament
has of late been largely used in shop-fronts, to the no small detriment
of Regent Street and Oxford Street.

23. VARIETIES OF CHAMFER.

Let B A C, Fig. LXXII., be the original angle of the wall. Inscribe
within it a circle, _p_ Q N _p_, of the size of the bead required,
touching A B, A C, in _p_, _p_; join _p_, _p_, and draw B C parallel to
it, touching the circle.

Then the lines B C, _p p_ are the limits of the possible chamfers
constructed with curves struck either from centre A, as the line Q _q_,
N _d_, _r u_, _g c_, &c., or from any other point chosen as a centre in
the direction Q A produced: and also of all chamfers in straight lines,
as _a b_, _e f_. There are, of course, an infinite number of chamfers to
be struck between B C and _p p_, from every point in Q A produced to
infinity; thus we have infinity multiplied into infinity to express the
number of possible chamfers of this species, which are peculiarly
Italian chamfers; together with another singly infinite group of the
straight chamfers, _a b_, _e f_, &c., of which the one formed by the
line _a b_, passing through the centre of the circle, is the universal
early Gothic chamfer of Venice.

Again. Either on the line A C, or on any other lines A _l_ or A _m_,
radiating from A, any number of centres may be taken, from which, with
any radii not greater than the distance between such points and Q, an
infinite number of curves may be struck, such as _t u_, _r s_, N _n_
(all which are here struck from centres on the line A C). These lines
represent the great class of the northern chamfers, of which the number
is infinity