If colour is admitted any where in the library, it might be in subjects on the ceiling, allowable here, if at all, in the region of easy chairs and occasional meditation; perhaps too, to a certain extent, in the windows. The introduction of subjects on ceilings has not been recommended generally, but in the system of arabesque painting the universal decoration of the walls requires to be carried into the ceiling. Sculpture, from the reasons already given, or rather in accordance with the same taste, is quite admissible in the library. Cicero frequently writes to his friend at Athens, to send him any good works in sculpture, fit to adorn the library and residence of a man of letters.[12] [12] Epist. ad Attic. 1. i. c. 3, 8, 9, 10, &c. It is remarkable that a bas-relief, in the finest Greek style, representing a philosopher reading, was found in the ruins of Cicero's Tusculan villa. Some English sculptors and myself, during an excursion from Rome, first, I may almost say, discovered this marble, walled into the staircase of the Episcopal palace at Grotta Ferrata. A mould was afterwards taken from it, through the exertions of Mr. Gibson, and the cast is now common in Rome. The marble was, I think, afterwards removed to the Vatican. But the choicest works of taste should unquestionably be in the room most occupied in hours of calm seclusion and leisure; and in order to find wall enough for the pictures, this may be assumed to be the principal drawing room. Here, therefore, may be the best specimens of painting, and even of sculpture, if the space permits: here, the chimney-piece may be by Flaxman, and the doors of the print-case by Stothard. The pictures cannot be very large, on account of their number and the size of the room. This, the objection which in a great measure excludes the grandest works from our dwelling houses, was met by the Italians, and by Nicolo Poussin, by reducing the grand to domestic conditions. If you have only small pictures, however, you cannot cover the upper part of the walls, for you are not supposed to have any work of art _here_ which can be sacrificed.