DECORATION XXV. THE BASE 335

which express, in their perfect parallelism, the absolute levelness of the foundation.

§ 4. I need hardly give any perspective drawing of an arrangement which must be perfectly familiar to the reader, as occurring under nearly every column of the too numerous classical buildings all over Europe. But I may name the base of the Bank of England¹ as furnishing a very simple instance of the group, with a square instead of a rounded hollow, both forming the base of the wall, and gathering into that of the shafts as they occur; while the bases of the pillars of the facade of the British Museum are as good examples as the reader can study on a larger scale.

§ 5. I believe this group of mouldings was first invented by the Greeks, and it has never been materially improved, as far as its peculiar purpose is concerned;* the classical attempts at its variation being the ugliest; one, the using a single roll of larger size, as may be seen in the Duke of York’s column,² which therefore looks as if it stood on a large sausage (the Monument has the same base, but more concealed by pedestal decoration): another, the using two rolls without the intermediate cavetto,-a condition hardly less awkward, and which may be studied to advantage in the wall and shaft bases of the Athenæum Club-house: and another, the introduction of what are called fillets between the rolls, as may be seen in the pillars of Hanover Chapel, Regent Street,³ which look, in consequence, as if they were standing upon a pile of pewter collection-plates. But the

* Another most important reason for the peculiar sufficiency and value of this base, especially as opposed to the bulging forms of the single or double roll, without the cavetto, has been suggested by the writer of the Essay on the Æsthetics of Gothic Architecture, in the British Quarterly for August, 1849:⁴-“The Attic base recedes at the point where, if it suffered from superincumbent weight, it would bulge out.”

¹ [Mainly the work of Sir John Soane, who was architect to the Bank from 1788 to 1827. For the building of the British Museum, see Vol. VIII. p. 76 n.]

² [Designed by Wyatt; erected in 1833. For the Monument, see p. 111; and for the Athenæum, p. 193.]

³ [This chapel, formerly a conspicuous object on the west side of Regent Street, towards its northern end, was pulled down a few years ago and replaced by shops.]

⁴ [See above, p. 304 n., and below, p. 355.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]