ts nine or ten feet in height. Secondly: the quantity of
stones which pass through a jeweller's hands, and the facility of
exchange of such small objects, enable the tradesman to select any
number of stones of approximate size; a selection, however, often
requiring so much time, that perfect symmetry in a group of very fine
stones adds enormously to their value. But the architect has neither the
time nor the facilities of exchange. He cannot lay aside one column in a
corner of his church till, in the course of traffic, he obtain another
that will match it; he has not hundreds of shafts fastened up in
bundles, out of which he can match sizes at his ease; he cannot send to
a brother-tradesman and exchange the useless stones for available ones,
to the convenience of both. His blocks of stone, or his ready hewn
shafts, have been brought to him in limited number, from immense
distances; no others are to be had; and for those which he does not
bring into use, there is no demand elsewhere. His only means of
obtaining symmetry will therefore be, in cutting down the finer masses
to equality with the inferior ones; and this we ought not to desire him
often to do. And therefore, while sometimes in a Baldacchino, or an
important chapel or shrine, this costly symmetry may be necessary, and
admirable in proportion to its probable cost, in the general fabric we
must expect to see shafts introduced of size and proportion continually
varying, and such symmetry as may be obtained among them never
altogether perfect, and dependent for its charm frequently on strange
complexities and unexpected rising and falling of weight and accent in
its marble syllables; bearing the same relation to a rigidly chiselled
and proportioned architecture that the wild lyric rhythm of Aeschylus
or Pindar bears to the finished measures of Pope.

Sec. XXXVI. The application of the principles of jewellery to the smaller
as well as the larger blocks, will suggest to us another reason for the
method of incrustation adopted in the walls. It often happens that the
beauty of the veining in some varieties of alabaster is so great, that
it becomes desirable to exhibit it by dividing the stone, not merely to
economize its substance, but to display the changes in the disposition
of its fantastic lines. By reversing one of two thin plates successively
taken from the stone, and placing their corresponding edges in contact,
a perfectly symmetrical figure may be obtained, whi