338 ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. Paet-II. 



[Again, nothing can be more inconsistent than a part of 

 one building mounted on another to make up a new design. 

 The choragic monument of Lysicrates perched on a small 

 temple, to form the steeple of a church, is one of many- 

 instances of this compound ; giving the impression that the 

 architect was too idle to invent a design of his own ; and a 

 spire set round with a small Greek colonnade, looking as if it 

 represented a gigantic extinguisher slipped down into the 

 cella of a round peripteral temple, might have been thought 

 an impossible caprice, if it were not before our eyes on a 

 London steeple. But the climax of bad taste (which holds us 

 up to the ridicule of all Europe) is the Wellington statue on 

 the arch at Hyde Park corner, which it has turned into a 

 pedestal ; while, by its colossal size, it has outraged the pro- 

 portions of the arch it spoils, as well as of every surrounding 

 object. The horse too stands across the arch in defiance of 

 reason, and all received custom of design.] Nor is it 

 sanctioned by having been found on a coin in that position ; 

 as this last is a conventional representation. 



103. Vases in lieu of pinnacles, in a would-be Gfothic 

 building, are an unpardonable substitution of one object for 

 another. They show an utter misapprehension of a really 

 useful feature in architecture, which (according to a true 

 principle) necessity suggested and taste made ornamental. 

 Even the pinnacles themselves, if no longer useful, should not 

 be there ; and it is this introduction of details, in places where 

 they have no duty to perform, which has been the parent of 

 the meretricious ornament so often seen in modern buildings ; 

 instances of which occur in the crockets and finials introduced 

 into rooms, on doors and furniture, and in the fretwork of 

 confectionery-Grothic spread over a wall. 



I do not, however, comprehend, under the head even of 

 supposed ornaments, the monstrous tubes which protrude 

 above the tops of London houses, on the plea of enabling 



