The very dissimilar varieties to be met with, all belonging to one and the same Order, show plainly enough that the Architects of antiquity considered themselves at liberty to design their own detail, and to treat an Order as a composition marked out for them in its leading forms and general proportions, but which they might fashion nearly _ad libitum_ in other respects. Modern Architects adopt a contrary course, which, if not particularly artistic, or even rational, is certainly convenient; although in spite of all precaution to secure conformity and maintain architectural orthodoxy, grievous licentiousness will creep in. It is something to get what is only a faithful copy of an ancient example, but it is only very rarely we get even that. For instance, fluting is omitted for the columns where such decoration may be required, in order to make them correspond with the degree of richness given to the entablature; or else it is the latter with which wholesale liberty is taken,—mouldings which in the cornice of the original are more or less enriched, being left plain, or a bare frieze substituted for a sculptured one, and other little liberties of that kind, which are considered perfectly allowable, and to make hardly any real difference, although they in fact alter the character of the whole composition. Either the original is itself faulty, or it must suffer by _piecemeal_ alteration. It will, perhaps, bear to be somewhat reduced in richness, or, _vice versâ_, to have a greater degree of decoration given it; but in whichever way such kind of alteration takes place, it should be conducted uniformly for the whole composition. No excellence of proportions can atone for _disproportion_ in regard to consistency of embellishment, and for the general disharmony of the whole composition. Italian Architects not unfrequently either overload their compositions with ornament, or leave them quite bare, and make no scruple of putting a cornice of the most meagre description, without either dentels or modillions, to an Order whose capitals denote it to be intended for Ionic or Corinthian.