out Italy.

Sec. XV. The one beside it is one of those of the lately built college at
Edinburgh. I have not taken it as worse than many others (just as I have
not taken the St. Mark's tower as better than many others); but it
happens to compress our British system of tower building into small
space. The Venetian tower rises 350 feet,[62] and has no buttresses,
though built of brick; the British tower rises 121 feet, and is built
of stone, but is supposed to be incapable of standing without two huge
buttresses on each angle. The St. Mark's tower has a high sloping roof,
but carries it simply, requiring no pinnacles at its angles; the British
tower has no visible roof, but has four pinnacles for mere ornament. The
Venetian tower has its lightest part at the top, and is massy at the
base; the British tower has its lightest part at the base, and shuts up
its windows into a mere arrowslit at the top. What the tower was built
for at all must therefore, it seems to me, remain a mystery to every
beholder; for surely no studious inhabitant of its upper chambers will
be conceived to be pursuing his employments by the light of the single
chink on each side; and, had it been intended for a belfry, the sound of
its bells would have been as effectually prevented from getting out as
the light from getting in.

Sec. XVI. In connexion with the subject of towers and of superimposition,
one other feature, not conveniently to be omitted from our
house-building, requires a moment's notice,--the staircase.

In modern houses it can hardly be considered an architectural feature,
and is nearly always an ugly one, from its being apparently without
support. And here I may not unfitly note the important distinction,
which perhaps ought to have been dwelt upon in some places before now,
between the _marvellous_ and the _perilous_ in apparent construction.
There are many edifices which are awful or admirable in their height,
and lightness, and boldness of form, respecting which, nevertheless, we
have no fear that they should fall. Many a mighty dome and aerial aisle
and arch may seem to stand, as I said, by miracle, but by steadfast
miracle notwithstanding; there is no fear that the miracle should cease.
We have a sense of inherent power in them, or, at all events, of
concealed and mysterious provision for their safety. But in leaning
towers, as of Pisa or Bologna, and in much minor architecture, passive
architecture, of modern times, we feel that