Notwithstanding the fact that the Moors, in their marvellous system of decoration, worked on fixed rules, the effect of their infinite variety leaves the observer under the impression that they arrived at their amazing achievements by instinct, to which centuries of refinement had brought them. One person may naturally sing in tune as another does by acquired knowledge. The happier state, however, is where knowledge ministers to instinct, and this must have been the case with the Moors. Their poet exhorts us to attentively contemplate the adornments of the Palace, and so reap the benefit of a commentary on decoration; this invitation seems to imply that there was in their works something to be learned as well as much that might be felt. Mr. Owen Jones admits that there is no authority for the gilding of the columns: wherever the columns are of marble, the shafts are always free from traces of colour of any kind. Gold, blue, and red are still seen on most of the capitals, and, in some cases, the plaster half-columns against the walls are covered by mosaic of a small pattern in glazed earthenware. Nevertheless, the eminent authority on decoration is strongly of opinion that the marble shafts could never have been, originally, left entirely white; and, furthermore, he thinks that the general harmony of the colouring above forbids such a supposition; but the conclusion seems to be erroneous, when it is remembered that the shafts of the columns are compared, in the graceful hyperbole of the Inscriptions, to “transparent crystal;” and, again, “when struck by the earliest beams of the rising sun, maybe likened to many blocks of pearl.” Therefore, in view of the poetic reference by Moorish versifiers, and the utter absence of any trace of colour on the marble, it has been thought befitting to omit the gilding of the shafts in the many reproductions in this volume from the beautiful coloured plates in the work of Owen Jones. It should be recorded here that the book alluded to is dedicated “To the Memory of Jules Goury, Architect, who died of Cholera, at Granada, August 28th, 1834, whilst engaged in preparing the original drawings for this work.” Amongst the illustrations appearing on p. xlix. _supra_, which principally consist of cornices, capitals, and columns in the Alhambra, is a motto in Roman characters: TĀTO·MŌTA--Tanto Monta--pertaining to Ferdinand and Isabella, and which is somewhat out of place in a page otherwise devoted to Moorish ornament. The motto, of course, signifies _tantamount_, and is meant to express an equality in power between the two Sovereigns; Isabella zealously maintaining that her right of exercising the royal authority was equivalent to that of her royal consort: “_Tanto monta Isabella que Hernando, Hernando que Isabella_”--of equal worth are Isabella and Ferdinand. The motto appears in relief in the Court of the Lions.