tectural decoration was the direct offspring of man's imagination, but 

 that imagination was originally a desert which nature must people with 

 her forms and hues, until it became 



" A mansion for all lovely forms, 

 A dwelling place 

 For all sweet sounds and harmonies." 



And not only with regard to form did the architect learn of nature, 

 but respecting the right use of colour he might search with advantage 

 into the volume of her wisdom, which was ever, and on all subjects, an 

 unerring guide to the designer and decorator. 



After tracing the evidence of a natural origin in the different styles 

 that have prevailed, he observed that though the cornice, freize, or archi- 

 trave of the Greeks might not remind us of any natural object, they were 

 nevertheless formed and arranged with strict reference to nature's aesthetic 

 and constructive principles. Their hand curves were from nature, 

 though indirectly, for the mind that guided the hand was educated by 

 the contemplation and study of her forms, and had drunk from her wells 

 of beauty. After tracing the manner in which various lines would be 

 originated in art, he said man had further and more refined powers of 

 production : when he had obtained from nature a line, he could com- 

 bine it into a superficies ; of this he would generate a solid, and thus, 

 he doubted not, w^ere originated many of the grandest and most beauti- 

 ful forms and features of architecture, as the ogee dome, for example, by 

 the revolution of the ogee arch on its axis. But architecture, some 

 would say, and fancy they had made sufficient reply, was based on geo- 

 metry. That architecture was so founded was a position that could not 

 be denied ; but nature was also based on geometry. Nature was a living 

 and breathing geometry, in its highest refinement and perfection. Geo- 

 metry was involved in the infinite wisdom of the supreme Architect, and 

 was, if he might so speak, essential to the work of creation. We might 

 arrive at a system of ornamentation without imitating the productions of 

 nature ; but, in thus going to geometry, we should only be going so 

 much farther back — to an ideal nature, and should arrive at much the 

 same result as imitating nature with a high abstraction would have led 

 to. He entered into the characteristics and capabilities of the various 

 styles. The Greek style was the most abstract and intellectual, the 

 most broad and comprehensive. The Greek architecture was based on 

 general nature ; all other styles he considered on nature more or less 

 partial and limited. Though Gothic architecture arose out of the deca- 

 dency of the classic Roman, and was composed of its elements, yet it was 

 formed under the influence of a new view of nature : it was more scenic, 



