Iboracc TKIlalpole 231 



are frequently heavy ; and his constant intro- 

 duction of pediments and the members of archi- 

 tecture over doors and within rooms, was 

 disproportioned and cumbrous. Indeed, I 

 much question whether the Romans admitted 

 regular architecture within their houses. At 

 least the discoveries at Herculaneum testify 

 that a light and fantastic architecture, of a very 

 Indian air, made a common decoration of private 

 apartments. Kent's style, however, predomi- 

 nated authoritatively during his life ; and his 

 oracle was so much consulted by all who affected 

 taste, that nothing was thought complete with- 

 out his assistance. He was not only consulted 

 for furniture, as frames of pictures, glasses, 

 tables, chairs, etc., but for plate, for a barge, 

 for a cradle. And so impetuous was fashion, 

 that two great ladies prevailed on him to make 

 designs for their birthday gowns. The one he 

 dressed in a petticoat decorated with columns 

 of the five orders ; the other like a bronze, in a 

 copper-colored satin, with ornaments of gold. 

 He was not more happy in other works in 

 which he misapplied his genius. The gilt rails 

 to the hermitage at Richmond were in truth 

 but a trifling impropriety ; but his celebrated 

 monument of Shakespeare in the abbey was 

 preposterous. What an absurdity to place busts 

 at the angles of a pedestal, and at the bottom 



