During the last half of the century, where ornament was applied to ceilings at all, it partook of the extreme delicacy and refinement associated with the name of the brothers Adam. The modelling was in low relief, but was done with great care and minuteness, and the flow of the thin lines of ornament was studied with close attention. This type is exemplified in the ceiling from a house in Wimpole Street (Fig. 314), and there are many such ceilings left in that neighbourhood, especially in Harley Street, which in its early days was inhabited by many distinguished people; William Pitt, Viscount Bridport, and Admiral Lord Keith did much to shape the history of their time; Allan Ramsay, portrait painter to George III., may stand for Art, and James Stuart, author of the “Antiquities of Athens,” may represent architecture and archæology. At present these streets are more particularly associated with the pursuit of medicine; their inhabitants are no less celebrated than those of old, but their fame is of a special kind, and those who go to consult them on matters of life and death may well be excused if they spare no thought for the decoration which covers the ceilings above their heads. [Illustration: FIG. 313.--Part of Ceiling, Cottesbrooke Hall, Northants.] [Illustration: FIG. 314.--CEILING FROM WIMPOLE STREET, LONDON.] The work of the latter part of the eighteenth century was so dominated by the influence of the Adams that a few further examples of their designs may be of interest. In the staircase from a house in Mansfield Street (Fig. 315) all superfluous ornament has been eliminated, so much so that one almost longs for something less chaste and cold. In some moods and to some temperaments Venus is more attractive than Diana. But restraint is ever commendable, and restraint marks most of Adam’s work. It is present in the doorway at Harewood House (Fig. 316) and in the two chimney-pieces, one from Belcombe and one from Bedford Square, figured in the illustrations 317, 318. In these it will be noticed that overmantels are replaced by designs worked on the wall itself. Their interest depends almost entirely upon grace of composition and skill in execution, and derives nothing from aptness of association with the houses or their occupants. In this respect the ornament differs from that of earlier days, when it was usually adapted from the family coat of arms; but the time had now come when houses were more often built to let to unknown tenants than as homes for particular families. In the drawing-room at Kedleston (Fig. 319) the treatment again strikes a note of simplicity and severity--a note which is seldom so well maintained in the disposition of the pictures and the choice of furniture as it is in this case. The ceiling and the great cove beneath it are filled with that flowing and delicate ornament which demands great accuracy of line and equal care in modelling its low relief.