appliance.[33]

In perfect architecture, however, the walls are generally kept of
moderate thickness, and strengthened by piers or buttresses; and the
part of the wall between these, being generally intended only to secure
privacy, or keep out the slighter forces of weather, may be properly
called a Wall Veil. I shall always use this word "Veil" to signify the
even portion of a wall, it being more expressive than the term Body.

Sec. V. When the materials with which this veil is built are very loose,
or of shapes which do not fit well together, it sometimes becomes
necessary, or at least adds to security, to introduce courses of more
solid material. Thus, bricks alternate with rolled pebbles in the old
walls of Verona, and hewn stones with brick in its Lombard churches. A
banded structure, almost a stratification of the wall, is thus produced;
and the courses of more solid material are sometimes decorated with
carving. Even when the wall is not thus banded through its whole height,
it frequently becomes expedient to lay a course of stone, or at least of
more carefully chosen materials, at regular heights; and such belts or
bands we may call String courses. These are a kind of epochs in the
wall's existence; something like periods of rest and reflection in human
life, before entering on a new career. Or else, in the building, they
correspond to the divisions of its stories within, express its internal
structure, and mark off some portion of the ends of its existence
already attained.

Sec. VI. Finally, on the top of the wall some protection from the weather
is necessary, or some preparation for the reception of superincumbent
weight, called a coping, or Cornice. I shall use the word Cornice for
both; for, in fact, a coping is a roof to the wall itself, and is
carried by a small cornice as the roof of the building by a large one.
In either case, the cornice, small or large, is the termination of the
wall's existence, the accomplishment of its work. When it is meant to
carry some superincumbent weight, the cornice may be considered as its
hand, opened to carry something above its head; as the base was
considered its foot: and the three parts should grow out of each other
and form one whole, like the root, stalk, and bell of a flower.

These three parts we shall examine in succession; and, first, the Base.

Sec. VII. It may be sometimes in our power, and it is always expedient,
to prepare for the whole building some s