256 



ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. 



Part II. 



tolerated ; and they have the injurious effect of accustoming 

 the eye to objectionable forms, and tend to the corruption 

 of taste. 



Heavy rotundity in the upper, and ill-suited narrowness in 

 the lower, part of a vase, are glaring but common faults (27, 

 fig. 2); [but when meretricious ornament is added, and that in 

 bright metal, as gold or or-molu, the deformity is still more 

 glaring; and a vase made of a shell bound in metal, with 

 rampant dragons for handles, is a still worse instance of in- 



(27.) 



Fig. I. 



Fig. 2. 



adaptability and bad taste (27, fig. 1). Sometimes a headless 

 hybrid, between a bottle and a cup, reverses the extravagant 

 breadth from the upper to the lower extremities ; but whether 

 placed on its head or on its foot, it offends equally against all 



(28.) 



Fig. 1. 



Fig. 2. 



beauty of form ; and I have seen one of these which courted 

 additional censure for having its two ill-placed handles in the 

 shape of elephants' heads. Nor will a whimsical character, or 



