e nominal or apparent extemporization of all addresses
delivered from the pulpit. Whether they do right in giving those among
their ministers who _cannot_ preach extempore, the additional and
useless labor of committing their sermons to memory, may be a disputed
question; but it can hardly be so, that the now not unfrequent habit of
making a desk of the Bible, and reading the sermon stealthily, by
slipping the sheets of it between the sacred leaves, so that the
preacher consults his own notes _on pretence_ of consulting the
Scriptures, is a very unseemly consequence of their over-strictness.

6. APSE OF MURANO.

The following passage succeeded in the original text to Sec. XV. of Chap.
III. Finding it not likely to interest the general reader, I have placed
it here, as it contains matter of some interest to architects.

"On this plinth, thus carefully studied in relations of magnitude,
the shafts are set at the angles, as close to each other as possible,
as seen in the ground-plan. These shafts are founded on pure Roman
tradition; their bases have no spurs, and the shaft itself is tapered
in a bold curve, according to the classical model. But, in the
adjustment of the bases to each other, we have a most curious
instance of the first beginning of the Gothic principle of
aggregation of shafts. They have a singularly archaic and simple
profile, composed of a single cavetto and roll, which are circular,
on a square plinth. Now when these bases are brought close to each
other at the angles of the apse, their natural position would be as
in fig. 3, Plate I., leaving an awkward fissure between the two
square plinths. This offended the architect's eye; so he cut part of
each of the bases away, and fitted them close to each other, as in
fig. 5, Plate I., which is their actual position. As before this
piece of rough harmonization the circular mouldings reached the sides
of the squares, they were necessarily cut partly away in the course
of the adjustment, and run into each other as in the figure, so as to
give us one of the first Venetian instances of the continuous Gothic
base.

"The shafts measure on the average 2 ft. 8-1/2 in. in circumference,
at the base, tapering so much that under the lowest fillet of their
necks they measure only 2 feet round, though their height is only 5
ft. 6 in., losing thus eight inches of girth in five feet and a half
of