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Minutije of Nature is not less a proof of inexperience and bad taste, 
since both are equally inimitable. 
■ Si la Nature est grande dans les grandes choses 
f Elle est tres grande dans les petites.’ 
The model furnishes hints, not portraits; yet such is the love of exact 
imitation in common minds, that copies are made from copies without 
end. 
For this reason, houses are built to resemble Castles, and Abbeys, 
and Grecian or Roman Temples, forgetting their uses, and overlooking 
the general forms of each, while their minutest detail of enrichment is 
copied and misapplied. In works of art we can only use the forms of 
nature, not the exactness. Thus in Furniture, if we introduce the 
head, or the foot of an animal, it may be graceful; but if we cover it 
with hair or feathers, it becomes ridiculous. And in the parts taken 
from the vegetable kingdom, to enrich the ornaments of Architecture, 
imitation goes no farther than the general forms, since we scarcely know 
the individual plant; although some writers have mentioned the Reed, 
the Acanthus, and the Lotus. 
It is a curious circumstance, that the general forms of Enrichments 
may be thus classed: The GOTHIC are derived from the Bud or Germ, 
the GRECIAN from the Leaf, and the INDIAN from the Flower; a 
singular coincidence, which seems to mark, that these three styles are, 
and ought to be, kept perfectly distinct. 
