The Doric _Cornice_.—The third and last division of the entablature which remains to be considered is, although exceedingly simple, strongly characteristic, and boldly marked. With regard to its proportions, it is about a third or even more than a third less than the other two, and may itself be divided into three principal parts or members, viz. the _corona_, with the _mutules_ and other _bed-mouldings_, as they are termed, beneath it and the _epitithedas_ above it. The mutules are thin plates or shallow blocks attached to the under side or soffit of the corona, over each triglyph and each metope, with the former of which they correspond in breadth, and their soffits or under-surfaces are wrought into three rows of _guttæ_ or drops, conical or otherwise shaped, each row consisting of six guttæ, or the same number as those beneath each triglyph. Nothing can be more artistically disposed: in like manner, as an intermediate triglyph is placed over every two columns, so is an intermediate mutule over every two triglyphs. The smaller members increase in number as they decrease in size; and in the upper and finishing part of the Order, the eye is led on horizontally, instead of being confined vertically to the lines indicated by the columns below. The corona is merely a boldly projecting flat member, not greatly exceeding in its depth the abacus of the capital; in some examples it is even less. The epitithedas, or uppermost member of the cornice, is sometimes a cymatium, or _wavy_ moulding, convex below and concave above; sometimes an echinus moulding, similar in profile to the echinus of the capital. The cornice may be said to be to the entablature, and indeed to the whole Order, what the capital is to the column,—completing and concluding it in a very artistic manner. By its projection and the shadow which it casts, the cornice gives great spirit and relief to the entablature, which would else appear both heavy and unfinished. In the horizontal cornice beneath a pediment, the epitithedas is omitted, and shows itself only in the sloping or _raking_ cornices, as they are called, along the sides of the pediment. [Illustration]