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The whole facade of the palace, from the base of the lowest pillars up to the very turrets of the pavilions, comprising the entablatures, &c. was decorated with thousands of lampions, whence issued a steady, glaring light.
When arches are superposed, the upward movement proceeds in stages, beginning anew at each horizontal division of the wall space. The use of entablatures applied to the wall and of engaged columns, common in Roman work, seems to involve an attempt at a fusion of two contradictory styles, and is usually condemned as such.
What the Austrians especially admired in the palace of Schoenbrunn was a grove, containing what they called the Ruins, and a lake with a fountain springing from the midst, and several small cascades flowing from it; by this lake were the ruins of an aqueduct and a temple, fallen vases, tombs, broken bas-reliefs, statues without heads, arms, or limbs, while limbs, arms, and heads lay thickly scattered around; columns mutilated and half-buried, others standing and supporting the remains of pediments and entablatures; all combining to form a scene of beautiful disorder, and representing a genuine ancient ruin when viewed from a short distance.
Thence through other porticoes and labyrinths of walls and columns, some broken, some entire, their entablatures strewed under them. The temple of Jupiter, of Venus, and another temple, the Tribunal, and the hall of public justice with the forests of lofty columns, surround the Forum. At the upper end, supported on an elevated platform, stands the temple of Jupiter.
I shall speak first of the proper arrangement of the forum, for in it the course of both public and private affairs is directed by the magistrates. The Greeks lay out their forums in the form of a square surrounded by very spacious double colonnades, adorn them with columns set rather closely together, and with entablatures of stone or marble, and construct walks above in the upper story.
The pseudo-classic colonnades, entablatures, all the thin bastard Ionic and Corinthian of Aberti and Bramante, did not require sculpture, or had their own little supply of unfleshed ox-skulls, greengrocer's garlands, scallopings and wave-linings, which, with a stray siren and one or two bloated emperors' heads, amply sufficed.
They make bunches of flowers, from flakes and wires of silver, that counterfeit the delicate creations the frost weaves upon a windowpane; and we were shown a miniature silver temple whose fluted columns, whose Corinthian capitals and rich entablatures, whose spire, statues, bells, and ornate lavishness of sculpture were wrought in polished silver, and with such matchless art that every detail was a fascinating study and the finished edifice a wonder of beauty.
Intervals of sky, full of stars, marked out clearly the outline of the palace. An enormous roof could be seen, with the gable ends vaulted; garret windows, roofed over like visors; chimneys like towers; and entablatures covered with motionless gods and goddesses.
The crowd grew more dense every moment, and, like water, which rises above its normal level, began to mount along the walls, to swell around the pillars, to spread out on the entablatures, on the cornices, on the window-sills, on all the salient points of the architecture, on all the reliefs of the sculpture.
Mouldings were discovered of incomparable elegance; the figures on entablatures were found to be chiselled accurately from nature; the pillars were of matchless proportions, the capitals of graceful curvatures. He saw beauty in the horizontal lines of the Parthenon, as much as in the vertical lines of Cologne.
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