uestion, however, relating more nearly
to Gothic architecture and therefore we shall not enter into it at
present.[41]

[Footnote 41: [See _Stones of Venice_, vol. III. chap. iii.]]

207. Thirdly. The gables must on no account be jagged into a succession
of right angles, as if people were to be perpetually engaged in trotting
up one side and down the other. This custom, though sanctioned by
authority, has very little apology to offer for itself, based on any
principle of composition. In street effect indeed it is occasionally
useful; and where the verticals below are unbroken by ornament, may be
used even in the detached Elizabethan, but not when decoration has been
permitted below. They should then be carried up in curved lines,
alternating with two angles, or three at the most, without pinnacles or
hipknobs. A hollow parapet is far better than a battlement, in the
intermediate spaces; the latter indeed is never allowable, except when
the building has some appearance of being intended for defense, and
therefore is generally barbarous in the villa; while the parapet admits
of great variety of effect.

208. Lastly. Though the grotesque of Elizabethan architecture is
adapted for wood country, the grotesque of the clipped garden, which
frequently accompanies it, is not. The custom of clipping trees into
fantastic forms is always to be reprehended: first, because it never can
produce the true grotesque, for the material is not passive, and,
therefore, a perpetual sense of restraint is induced, while the great
principle of the grotesque is action; again, because we have a distinct
perception of two natures, the one neutralizing the other; for the
vegetable organization is too palpable to let the animal form suggest
its true idea; again, because the great beauty of all foliage is the
energy of life and action, of which it loses the appearance by formal
clipping; and again, because the hands of the gardener will never
produce anything really spirited or graceful. Much, however, need not be
said on this subject; for the taste of the public does not now prompt
them to such fettering of fair freedom, and we should be as sorry to see
the characteristic vestiges of it, which still remain in a few gardens,
lost altogether, as to see the thing again becoming common.

209. The garden of the Elizabethan villa, then, should be laid out with
a few simple terraces near the house, so as to unite it well with the
ground; lines of balust