§115. ARCHITECTURAL TASTE. 353 



flat surfaces with the worst rococo ornaments. Such kind 

 of architecture gives an impression of being a compound 

 of mediaeval love of variety, and of an attempted copy of the 

 antique ; each antagonistic to the other, and striving to make 

 dominant its own particular features, — a compromise between 

 two incompatible ideas. It therefore failed to revive the old 

 as a good copy, or to form a really new style. But still there 

 is no denying that much was worthy of admiration in Ee- 

 naissance buildings; and everyone who appreciates and enjoys 

 the beautiful can find much to commend in them. If they 

 have their faults, they have their merits also ; and many, like 

 the palaces in various cities of Italy, are noble monuments of 

 architecture. There is doubtless too much of the pilaster 

 and engaged column, in many of those buildings ; but here, 

 as on other occasions, it depended on the architect, rather 

 than on the style, to what extent the custom might be 

 modified or increased ; and some have all the grand simplicity 

 that marks the Palazzo Farnese, while others display the 

 exuberance of ornament of the Biblioteca at Venice. 



It is by watching the mode of adopting and modifying 

 certain features they borrowed from others, that we under- 

 stand the process by which the Greeks (as I have before 

 shown), improved on the productions of other people less 

 gifted than themselves, and how their quick perception of the 

 beautiful taught them to choose what was worthy of adop- 

 tion. In tracing the rise and progress of different styles of 

 architecture, as well as of different arts, we are speedily con- 

 vinced that more is the result of adaptation than of invention ; 

 and we also perceive how each style, from the Greek, Roman, 

 Byzantine, and Arab, to the Mediaeval architecture of Europe, 

 reappeared in a new character. Thus changed they command 

 admiration, and we willingly acknowledge the talent displayed 

 in remodelling them. We should, on the contrary, dislike 

 them, were they merely corrupted, or debased imitations: as 



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