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I do not suppose that the fitness of this arrangement will be questioned; but if the reader will take the pains to glance over any series of engravings of church towers or other four-square buildings in which great refinement of form has been attained, he will at once observe how their effect depends on some modification of the sharpness of the angle, either by groups of buttresses, or by turrets and niches rich in sculpture.

Below this niche is a very large basin supported by two great Capricorns, which are one of the devices of the Duke; from which Capricorns hang some festoons and masks of great beauty, and from their lips issues the water from that basin, which is convex in the middle, and has outlets at the sides; and all the water that overflows pours away from the sides through the mouths of the Capricorns, and then, after falling into the hollow base of the vase, flows through the herb-beds that are round the walls of the garden of the labyrinth, where there are fountains between the niches, and between the fountains espaliers of oranges and pomegranates.

The proscenium is a Greek façade, in three stories, such as never was seen in Greece; and the architecture of the three streets running back from the proscenium, and forming the one unchangeable scene of all the dramas, is like the statues in the niches and on the gallery inclosing the auditorium Greek in the most fashionable Vicentine taste.

Again, he scaled some rocky cliff, clinging with his fingers to jutting points of rock, finding niches and projections for his feet; or, with the help of vine and root and bush, found a way down some seemingly impossible precipice. Now and then, from some higher point, he sighted Granite Peak. Often, he saw, far below, on one hand the great canyon, and on the other the wide Galena Valley.

On the west side was the edge of a stone-faced terrace. Below it was a partly enclosed fountain or bathhouse, with a stone spout and a stone-lined basin. The shapes of the houses, their general arrangement, the niches, stone roof-pegs and lintels, all point to Inca builders. In the buildings we picked up several fragments of Inca pottery.

The grass and creepers fill up the corners or climb over the walls and niches to cover and beautify the naked ugliness and in places even penetrate into the fissures made by the earthquakes, so as to hide from sight the revered hollowness of the sepulcher.

The architects carved the first figure, that of S. John the Evangelist, in 1482, at a cost of twenty-five ducats. Between the heads of the niches little children stand on the capitals, and above the cornice is a space pierced by oculi between pilasters.

The chapel is entirely built of marble, and belongs to the Roman Catholics; but the Greeks have the right of celebrating mass alternately with them. At the farther end of the chapel the Copts have a little mean- looking altar of wood, surrounded by walls of lath. All round the chapel are niches belonging to the different religious sects.

Then in a passage that is pleasanter to think about than to read for Balzac when he spoke about art was something of a sciolist, and I am not sure that the passage is altogether grammatical he tells how the ideas of all the great artists, painters, and sculptors the ideas they have wrought on panels and in stone escaped from their niches and their frames all these disembodied maidens gathered round Massimilla's bed and wept.

Everything seems to have been planned by the architect to produce the most pleasing effect, and careful note must have been taken of surroundings and location in fitting many of the public buildings into their niches. We saw few more imposing structures in Britain than the new postoffice at Aberdeen, and it was typical of the solidity and architectural magnificence of the Queen City of the North.