The artists repository and drawing magazine: exhibiting the principles of the polite arts in their various branches (3.1789)

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tin61: and I doubt not, that if Sir Christo-
pher Wren had designed to eredt, as a monu-
ment of the fire of London, a pillar whose
shaft was to have been historically ornamented,
he would have preferred sor that reason the
Tuscan order to the Doric.
As to the variety of minor ornaments which
may be introduced in architecture, it is too
extensive (I might say it is almost infinite) to
be now repeated : character and appropriation
is all I shall insill upon as necessary to be ob-
served in this article. For who would approve
of ornamenting the residence of a general osfi-
cer with lyres and myrtle foliage ; or a lady’s
bedchamber with trophies of the slern God os
War ? But when Blenheim is built to comme-
morate a vidlory, let not trophies be absent
there; or, when a senate-house is eredted, for-
get not the symbol os eloquence (a Caduceus),
or the Civic crown.
There has been debate among architedls,
whether human figures were, or were not, pro-
per to be introduced as external terminations
of the upper parts of strudlures. It is said on
one side, that figures are the most elegant ter-
minations, that they may be symbolical also,
and that all the world knows they are stone :
which reason s are urged in answer to those who
remark.