"There is scarce a room, in any house whatever," says Hogarth, "where one does not see the waving line employed in some way or other. How inelegant would the shapes of all our moveables be without it? how very plain and unornamental the mouldings of cornices and chimney-pieces, without the variety introduced by the ogee member, which is entirely composed of waving lines." The distinctions I have here made, are farther illustrated by the remarks of Alison, who says: "These ornaments being executed in a very hard and durable substance, are in fact only beautiful when they appear but as minute parts of the whole. The great constituent parts of every building require direct and angular lines, because in such parts we require the expression of stability and strength. It is only in the minute and delicate parts of the work, that any kind of ornament is attempted with propriety; and whenever ornaments exceed in size, in their quantity of matter, or in the prominence of their relief, that proportion which, in point of lightness or delicacy, we expect them to hold with respect to the whole of the building, the imitation of the most beautiful vegetable forms does not preserve them from the censure of clumsiness and deformity." In dress, considered as an ornamental art, and, as practised by the sex which chiefly studies it, the chief beauty depends on the adoption of winding forms in drapery, and of wreaths of flowers for the head, &c. These are essential to the variety and contrast, as well as to the gayety which that sex desires. "Uniformity," says Hogarth, "is chiefly complied with in dress, on account of fitness, and seems to be extended not much farther than dressing both arms alike, and having the shoes of the same color. For when any part of dress has not the excuse of fitness or propriety for its uniformity of parts, the ladies always call it formal." These irregular, varying, and somewhat complicated draperies excite that active curiosity, and those movements of imagination, to which skilful women never neglect to address themselves in modern costume. It is with the same feeling and intention, whether these be defined or not, that, in the head-dress, they seek for bending lines and circumvolutions, and that they combine variously the waves and the tresses of the hair. For the same reason, a feather or a flower is never placed precisely over the middle of the forehead; and if two are employed, great care is taken that their positions are dissimilar. It has sometimes struck me as remarkable, that precious stones are almost always arranged differently from flowers. While the latter are placed irregularly, and in waving lines, not only on the head, but the bosom, and the skirt of the dress, the former are in general regularly placed, either on the median line of the person, as the middle of the forehead and, in Eastern countries, of the nose, or symmetrically in similar pendants from each ear, and bracelets on the arms and wrists.