I. ARCHITECTURE 17

do you suppose there are in the New Town of Edinburgh? I have not counted them all through the town, but I counted them this morning along this very Queen Street, in which your Hall is;¹ and on the one side of that street, there are of these windows, absolutely similar to this example, and altogether devoid of any relief by decoration, six hundred and seventy-eight.* And your decorations are just as monotonous as your simplicities. How many Corinthian

and Doric columns do you think there are in your banks, and post-offices, institutions, and I know not what else, one exactly like another?-and yet you expect to be interested! Nay, but, you will answer me again, we see sunrises and sunsets, and violets and roses, over and over again, and we do not tire of them.² What! did you ever see one sunrise like another? does not God vary His clouds for you every morning and every night? though, indeed, there is enough

* Including York Place, and Picardy Place, but not counting any window which has mouldings.

¹ [Queen Street Hall, where the lectures of the Philosophical Institution were delivered.]

² [Compare here Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. vi. § 29 (Vol. X. p. 207); and for references to passages dealing with variety in nature, see General Index.]

XII. B

[Version 0.04: March 2008]