Let us now consider the Corinthian Order in its general and prominent characteristics, belonging to all varieties of it alike. Although the Order itself is the most delicate and lightest of the three, the capital is the largest, being considerably more than a diameter in height,—upon the average, about a diameter and a quarter. This, however, will cause the reader no surprise, if he bears in mind what has been before said as to the proportion to be observed between the column and its capital. The taller the former is, the taller must be the latter also, and so far bulkier; although, while actually increasing its bulk, its tallness corrects the appearance of heaviness by giving the _proportion_ of slenderness. A capital whose height is only half a diameter is, of course, by no means positively so bulky as one which is upwards of an entire diameter in height, but then it is much bulkier or broader in its proportions, being about twice as broad as it is high,—whereas the other is much higher than it is wide. This explanation makes, we hope, the matter sufficiently clear, and that after it the reader will not feel himself at all puzzled about it. The capital has two rows of leaves, eight in each row, so disposed that of the taller ones composing the upper row, one comes in the middle, beneath each face of the abacus, and the lower leaves _alternate_ with the upper ones, coming between the stems of the latter; so that in the first or lower tier of leaves there is in the middle of each face a space between two leaves occupied by the stem of the central leaf above them. Over these two rows is a third series of four leaves, turned so as to support the small volutes which, in turn, support the angles of the abacus. Besides these outer volutes, which are invariably turned diagonally, as in the four-faced Ionic capital, there are two other smaller ones, termed _caulicoli_, which meet each other beneath a flower on the face of the abacus. The abacus itself is differently shaped from what it is in either of the other two Orders. In the Doric it is, as we have seen, merely a thick square slab, fitting the echinus beneath it, and left perfectly plain. In the Ionic it is square, but its sides are moulded, whether they are carved or not. The Corinthian abacus, on the contrary, is not, properly speaking, a square, although it may be said to be so in its general form, inasmuch as it possesses _squareness_, having four equal sides. Instead of being straight, the sides of the abacus are concave in plan, being curved outwards so as to produce a sharp point at each corner, which is accordingly cut off. Thus we find that the abacus here assumes a very different shape from its original one; yet merely to know this is to know very little. Such form of it is of course a distinction, but it was not for the sake of distinction that it was adopted. It grew out of intention and purpose: it was dictated by necessity—by artistic necessity at least, which