n it,
and that the said sculpture generally did represent something
intelligible. For instance, we find Mr. Huggins, of Liverpool, lately
lecturing upon architecture "in its relations to nature and the
intellect,"[25] and gravely informing his hearers, that "in the Middle
Ages angels were human figures;" that "some of the richest ornaments of
Solomon's temple were imitated from the palm and pomegranate," and that
"the Greeks followed the example of the Egyptians in selecting their
ornaments from the _plants_ of their own country." It is to be presumed
that the lecturer has never been in the Elgin or Egyptian room of the
British Museum, or it might have occurred to him that the Egyptians and
Greeks sometimes also selected their ornaments from the _men_ of their
own country. But we must not expect too much illumination at once; and
as we are told that, in conclusion, Mr. Huggins glanced at "the error of
architects in neglecting the fountain of wisdom thus open to them in
nature," we may expect in due time large results from the discovery of a
source of wisdom so unimagined.

[Footnote 25: See "The Builder," for January 12, 1854.]

72. Proposition 5th.--_Ornamentation should be thoughtful._ That is to
say, whenever you put a chisel or a pencil into a man's hand for the
purpose of enabling him to produce beauty, you are to expect of him that
he will think about what he is doing, and feel something about it, and
that the expression of this thought or feeling will be the most noble
quality in what he produces with his chisel or brush, inasmuch as the
power of thinking and feeling is the most noble thing in the man. It
will hence follow that as men do not commonly think the same thoughts
twice, you are not to require of them that they shall do the same thing
twice. You are to expect another and a different thought of them, as
soon as one thought has been well expressed.

73. Hence, therefore, it follows also that all noble ornamentation is
perpetually varied ornamentation, and that the moment you find
ornamentation unchanging, you may know that it is of a degraded kind or
degraded school. To this law, the only exceptions arise out of the uses
of monotony, as a contrast to change. Many subordinate architectural
moldings are severely alike in their various parts (though never unless
they are thoroughly subordinate, for monotony is always deathful
according to the degree of it), in order to set off change in others;
and a cert