Next came a love of unity and regularity. “That he had an artist’s eye for the picturesque was certain from the happy choice he was sure to make of the best points of view for sketching. But actually to plan irregularity, because it was picturesque, he thought unworthy of the dignity of art.” Every feature, especially every ornamental feature, he would rigidly subordinate to the preservation of the main outline and the main principle of the design, sometimes even at the cost of boldness and variety. Unity rather than multiplicity of effect he thought the object of human art--a lower beauty indeed than that which results from the unstudied harmony of Nature, but the only one which seemed to him really attainable. This view he continued to maintain, and, though he saw much beauty in works designed on the opposite principle, yet the observation of their general effect tended to confirm him in his theory. Connected with this was his great love of the effect of spaciousness. The church “degli Angeli,” in the Baths of Diocletian at Rome, made a lasting impression upon him. “Its noble proportions and simplicity of design satisfied this instinctive desire of space, for the loss of which no variety of plan and no picturesque effect could compensate. No sooner did he enter a building than he measured with a glance its utmost capacity; and all that stood in his way,--piers, columns, and sometimes even the vault itself,--became obstructions which he longed to clear away.” In the grand nave above referred to the same feeling led him to dislike the position of the entrance at the side. In all great oblong halls he would have the door at the end, that the whole might be seen at first entrance. Except by necessity, he never gave up this principle. Probably the next point most evident in his criticism was the love of perfection and completeness in detail. Nothing disturbed him so much as incongruity or want of keeping in the various parts of a design; the mingling of grandeur with pettiness, and of rich decoration with bare and unadorned features,[25] seemed an offence against harmony; and he held that the hand of a master of his art was almost as much shown in the study and adaptation of every detail, as in the conception of a great general design. With this was connected his keen sense of symmetry and proportion. “The least offence against either--a single feature out of scale, an opening too narrow, or even a moulding too heavy--jarred upon him like a discord.” This sensitiveness was in fact carried to excess; “a single fault in a composition would blind him to its beauties; it needed to be overcome by an effort on his part or even the promptings of others; and it necessarily made him hypercritical, for, no building being perfect, he was rarely heard to praise any.” It is but fair to add that in this same hypercriticism he never spared his own designs, whether past or present, and often incurred by it almost endless labour.