up steps into pyramids: I need hardly
instance Canova's works,[63] and the Dutch pulpit groups, with
fishermen, boats, and nets, in the midst of church naves.

If the figures be in bas-relief, though as large as life, the scene may
be explained by lightly traced outlines: this is admirably done in the
Ninevite marbles.

If the figures be in bas-relief, or even alto-relievo, but less than
life, and if their purpose is rather to enrich a space and produce
picturesque shadows, than to draw the thoughts entirely to themselves,
the scenery in which they act may become prominent. The most exquisite
examples of this treatment are the gates of Ghiberti. What would that
Madonna of the Annunciation be, without the little shrine into which she
shrinks back? But all mediaeval work is full of delightful examples of
the same kind of treatment: the gates of hell and of paradise are
important pieces, both of explanation and effect, in all early
representations of the last judgment, or of the descent into Hades. The
keys of St. Peter, and the crushing flat of the devil under his own
door, when it is beaten in, would hardly be understood without the
respective gate-ways above. The best of all the later capitals of the
Ducal Palace of Venice depends for great part of its value on the
richness of a small campanile, which is pointed to proudly by a small
emperor in a turned-up hat, who, the legend informs us, is "Numa
Pompilio, imperador, edifichador di tempi e chiese."

Sec. XII. Shipping may be introduced, or rich fancy of vestments, crowns,
and ornaments, exactly on the same conditions as architecture; and if
the reader will look back to my definition of the picturesque in the
"Seven Lamps," he will see why I said, above, that they might only be
prominent when the purpose of the subject was partly picturesque; that
is to say, when the mind is intended to derive part of its enjoyment
from the parasitical qualities and accidents of the thing, not from the
heart of the thing itself.

And thus, while we must regret the flapping sails in the death of Nelson
in Trafalgar Square, we may yet most heartily enjoy the sculpture of a
storm in one of the bas-reliefs of the tomb of St. Pietro Martire in the
church of St. Eustorgio at Milan, where the grouping of the figures is
most fancifully complicated by the undercut cordage of the vessel.

Sec. XIII. In all these instances, however, observe that the permission
to represent the human work as