riety
have been misunderstood and misstated, by those writers upon taste,
who have been guided by no experience of art; most singularly
perhaps by Mr. Alison, who, confounding unity with uniformity, and
leading his readers through thirty pages of discussion respecting
uniformity and variety, the intelligibility of which is not by any
means increased by his supposing uniformity to be capable of
existence in single things; at last substitutes for these two terms,
sufficiently contradictory already, those of similarity and
dissimilarity, the reconciliation of which opposites in one thing we
must, I believe, leave Mr. Alison to accomplish.

[17] [Greek: Kai to tauta prattein pollakis hedy;--to gar synethes
hedy en; kai to metaballein hedy; eis physin gar gignetai
metaballein.]--Arist. Rhet. I. II. 20.

[18] Fra Angelico's fresco, in a cell of the upper cloister. He
treated the subject frequently. Another characteristic example
occurs in the Vita di Christo of the Academy, a series now
unfortunately destroyed by the picture cleaners. Simon Memmi in
Santa Maria Novella (Chapelle des Espagnols) has given another very
beautiful instance. In Giotto the principle is universal, though his
multitudes are somewhat more dramatically and powerfully varied in
gesture than Angelico's. In Mino da Fiesole's altar-piece in the
church of St. Ambrogiot at Florence, close by Cosimo Rosselli's
fresco, there is a beautiful example in marble.

[19] The Predella of the picture behind the altar.

[20] It seems never to have been rightly understood, even by the
more intelligent among our architects, that proportion is in any way
connected with positive size; it seems to be held among them that a
small building may be expanded to a large one merely by
proportionally expanding all its parts: and that the harmony will be
equally agreeable on whatever scale it be rendered. Now this is true
of apparent proportion, but utterly false of constructive; and, as
much of the value of architectural proportion is constructive, the
error is often productive of the most painful results. It may be
best illustrated by observing the conditions of proportion in
animals. Many persons have thoughtlessly claimed admiration for the
strength--supposed gigantic--of insects and smaller animals; because
capable of lifting weights, lea