294 On the Modern Ornaments of Architecture, S^c. 



It may be granted, that it is as ridiculous to form stone or 

 plaster flowers, as those geometrical frets and fanciful nothings 

 which are usually pourtrayed in architectural decoration : 

 but it may be answered that if any ornament be necessar}'', 

 that of a nondescript character is not more appropriate, as 

 such, than natural forms would be ; and these latter having 

 a name, and many of them an emblematical character, may 

 be often applied with a propriety which cannot belong to the 

 other. 



The old fashioned tapestry, notwithstanding its sombre 

 appearance, was in its plan much more rational than the 

 multifigurations of our modern paper hangings. The first 

 represented some historical event or legendary tale, yielding 

 some mental information, or it taught perhaps a moral lesson — 

 the eye was amused while tracing the ideas of the ingenious 

 sempstress ; but in our ephemeral and gaudy ten-thousand- 

 times repeated paper nothings, there is no design to interest, 

 nor combination to amuse the eye longer than a transient 

 glance. Even the Chinese, who, in all their decorative finish- 

 ings shew rigidity itself, have escaped from tame mannerism 

 in paper hangings, by imitating, from the edge of the carpet 

 to th6 ceiling, all the gradations of turf, herbs, shrubs, and 

 trees, upon a sky ground, enriched with figures or rather 

 portraits of flowers and fruit, as well as beasts, birds and in- 

 sects. This though it cannot deceive the spectator for one 

 moment in mistaking a fictitious for a real scene, yet is 

 certainly far superior to European paper-upholstery, as it at 

 least may introduce a knowledge of natural history, which the 

 latter has no pretension to, indeed seems studiously to discard, 

 as beneath imitation. 



All this vitiated taste, or fashion rather, is to be regretted ; 

 especially as it appears that those 



Fancied forms which on the ceilings sprawl, 

 And shapeless frets which decorate the wall, 

 are just as expensive, and difficult of execution, as the most 

 elegant imitation of vegetable or animal configuration would 

 be ; and surely when such variety of forms are presented to the 

 artist, they deserve to be copied as transcendently superior to 

 the capricious fancies of the most celebrated decorator, or of 



