its head, to show that it is always clear weather
when that wind blows, raising the sun out of the sea: Hotro, the south
wind; crowned, holding the sun in its right hand; Ponente, the west
wind; plunging the sun into the sea: and Tramontana, the north wind;
looking up at the north star. This capital should be carefully examined,
if for no other reason than to attach greater distinctness of idea to
the magnificent verbiage of Milton:

"Thwart of these, as fierce,
Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds,
Eurus, and Zephyr; with their lateral noise,
Sirocco and Libecchio."

I may also especially point out the bird feeding its three young ones on
the seventh pillar on the Piazzetta side; but there is no end to the
fantasy of these sculptures; and the traveller ought to observe them all
carefully, until he comes to the great Pilaster or complicated pier
which sustains the party wall of the Sala del Consiglio; that is to say,
the forty-seventh capital of the whole series, counting from the
pilaster of the Vine angle inclusive, as in the series of the lower
arcade. The forty-eighth, forty-ninth, and fiftieth are bad work, but
they are old; the fifty-first is the first Renaissance capital of the
upper arcade: the first new lion's head with smooth ears, cut in the
time of Foscari, is over the fiftieth capital; and that capital, with
its shaft, stands on the apex of the eighth arch from the Sea, on the
Piazzetta side, of which one spandril is masonry of the fourteenth and
the other of the fifteenth century.

Sec. CXXX. The reader who is not able to examine the building on the spot
may be surprised at the definiteness with which the point of junction is
ascertainable; but a glance at the lowest range of leaves in the
opposite Plate (XX.) will enable him to judge of the grounds on which
the above statement is made. Fig. 12 is a cluster of leaves from the
capital of the Four Winds; early work of the finest time. Fig. 13 is a
leaf from the great Renaissance capital at the Judgment angle, worked in
imitation of the older leafage. Fig. 14 is a leaf from one of the
Renaissance capitals of the upper arcade, which are all worked in the
natural manner of the period. It will be seen that it requires no great
ingenuity to distinguish between such design as that of fig. 12 and that
of fig. 14.

[Illustration: Plate XX.
LEAFAGE OF THE VENETIAN CAPITALS.]

Sec. CXXXI. It is very possible that the r