THE STEM. 97 



* sceptre ' is first a supporting thing, and it is in its nobleness, 

 itself made of the stem of a young tree. You may just as 

 well learn also this : 



*' Nal p.a r6Sf ffKrfifTpoV) T& jj&v o&irore <f>v\\a Kal vovs 

 ^V v 6peaffi 

 i yap pa e 



ol re 

 TIpbs Aibs flpvarai' " 



u Now, by this sacred sceptre hear me swear 

 Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear, 

 Which, severed from the trunk, (as I from thee,) 

 On the bare mountains left its parent tree ; 

 This sceptre, formed by tempered steel to prove 

 An ensign of the delegates of Jove, 

 From whom the power of laws and justice springs 

 (Tremendous oath, inviolate to Kings)." 



13. The supporting power in the tree itself is, I doubt not, 

 greatly increased by this spiral action ; and the fine instinct 

 of its being so, caused the twisted pillar to be used in the 

 Lombardic Gothic, at first, merely as a pleasant variety of 

 form, but at last constructively and universally, by Giotto 

 and all the architects of his school. Not that the spiral form 

 actually adds to the strength of a Lombardic pillar, by imitat- 

 ing contortions of wood, any more than the fluting of a 

 Doric shaft adds to its strength by imitating the canalicula- 

 tion of a reed ; but the perfect action of the imagination, 

 which had adopted the encircling acanthus for the capital, 

 adopted the twining stemma for the shaft ; the pure delight 

 of the eye being the first condition in either case : and it is 

 inconceivable how much of the pleasure taken both in orna- 

 ment and in natural form is founded elementarily on groups 

 of spiral line. The study in our fifth plate, of the involucre 

 of the waste- thistle,* is as good an example as I can give of 

 the more subtle and concealed conditions of this structure. 



* Carduus Arvensis. ' Creeping Thistle,' in Sowerby ; why, I cannot 

 conceive, for there is no more creeping in it than in a furzebush. But 

 it especially haunts foul and neglected ground ; so I keep the Latin 



