is, in very truth, an evidence of life in the school of builders, and of
their making a due distinction between work which is to be used for
architectural effect, and work which is to possess an abstract
perfection; and it commonly shows also that the exertion of design is so
easy to them, and their fertility so inexhaustible, that they feel no
remorse in using somewhat injuriously what they can replace with so
slight an effort.

SECTION VII. It appears however questionable in the present instance,
whether, if the marbles had not been carved to his hand, the architect
would have taken the trouble to enrich them. For the execution of the
rest of the pulpit is studiously simple, and it is in this respect that
its design possesses, it seems to me, an interest to the religious
spectator greater than he will take in any other portion of the
building. It is supported, as I said, on a group of four slender shafts;
itself of a slightly oval form, extending nearly from one pillar of the
nave to the next, so as to give the preacher free room for the action of
the entire person, which always gives an unaffected impressiveness to
the eloquence of the southern nations. In the centre of its curved
front, a small bracket and detached shaft sustain the projection of a
narrow marble desk (occupying the place of a cushion in a modern
pulpit), which is hollowed out into a shallow curve on the upper
surface, leaving a ledge at the bottom of the slab, so that a book laid
upon it, or rather into it, settles itself there, opening as if by
instinct, but without the least chance of slipping to the side, or in
any way moving beneath the preacher's hands. Six balls, or rather
almonds, of purple marble veined with white are set round the edge of
the pulpit, and form its only decoration. Perfectly graceful, but severe
and almost cold in its simplicity, built for permanence and service, so
that no single member, no stone of it, could be spared, and yet all are