imits the system of shaft grouping we
shall see presently. The reader must remember, that we at present
reason respecting shafts in the abstract only.

[42] The capitals being formed by the flowers, or by a
representation of the bulging out of the reeds at the top, under the
weight of the architrave.

[43] I have not been at the pains to draw the complicated piers in
this plate with absolute exactitude to the scale of each: they are
accurate enough for their purpose: those of them respecting which we
shall have farther question will be given on a much larger scale.

[44] The largest I remember support a monument in St. Zeno of
Verona; they are of red marble, some ten or twelve feet high.

[45] The effect of this last is given in Plate VI. of the folio
series.

[46] The entire development of this cross system in connexion with
the vaulting ribs, has been most clearly explained by Professor
Willis (Architecture of Mid. Ages, Chap. IV.); and I strongly
recommend every reader who is inclined to take pains in the matter,
to read that chapter. I have been contented, in my own text, to
pursue the abstract idea of shaft form.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CAPITAL.

Sec. I. The reader will remember that in Chap. VII. Sec. V. it was said
that the cornice of the wall, being cut to pieces and gathered together,
formed the capital of the column. We have now to follow it in its
transformation.

We must, of course, take our simplest form or root of cornices (_a_, in
Fig. V., above). We will take X and Y there, and we must necessarily
gather them together as we did Xb and Yb in Chap. VII. Look back to the
tenth paragraph of Chap. VII., read or glance it over again, substitute
X and Y for Xb and Yb, read capital for base, and, as we said that the
capital was the hand of the pillar, while the base was its foot, read
also fingers for toes; and as you look to the plate, Fig. XII., turn it
upside down. Then _h_, in Fig. XII., becomes now your best general form
of block capital, as before of block base.

Sec. II. You will thus have a perfect idea of the analogies between base
and capital; our farther inquiry is into their differences. You cannot
but have noticed that when Fig. XII. is turned upside down, the square
stone (Y) looks too heavy for the supporting stone (X); and that in the
profile of cornice (_a_ of Fig. V.) the proportions are altogether
different. You