It may be granted, that it is as ridiculous to form stone or plaster flowers, as those geometrical frets and fanciful nothings which are usually pourtrayed in architectural decoration: but it may be answered that if any ornament be necessary, that of a nondescript character is not more appropriate, as such, than natural forms would be; and these latter having a name, and many of them an emblematical character, may be often applied with a propriety which cannot belong to the other. The old fashioned tapestry, notwithstanding its sombre appearance, was in its plan much more rational than the multifigurations of our modern paper hangings. The first represented some historical event or legendary tale, yielding some mental information, or it taught perhaps a moral lesson—the eye was amused while tracing the ideas of the ingenious sempstress; but in our ephemeral and gaudy ten-thousand-times repeated _paper_ nothings, there is no design to interest, nor combination to amuse the eye longer than a transient glance. Even the Chinese, who, in all their decorative finishings shew _rigidity_ itself, have escaped from tame mannerism in paper hangings, by imitating, from the edge of the carpet to the ceiling, all the gradations of turf, herbs, shrubs, and trees, upon a sky ground, enriched with figures or rather portraits of flowers and fruit, as well as beasts, birds and insects. This though it cannot deceive the spectator for one moment in mistaking a fictitious for a real scene, yet is certainly far superior to European paper-upholstery, as it at least may introduce a knowledge of natural history, which the latter has no pretension to, indeed seems studiously to discard, as beneath imitation. All this vitiated taste, or fashion rather, is to be regretted; especially as it appears that those Fancied forms which on the ceilings sprawl, And shapeless frets which decorate the wall, are just as expensive, and difficult of execution, as the most elegant imitation of vegetable or animal configuration would be; and surely when such variety of forms are presented to the artist, they deserve to be copied as transcendently superior to the capricious fancies of the most celebrated decorator, or of [p295] the most splendid fashionable designs; either in the works of the sculptor, scagliolist, &c. or the more insignificant designers of figured paper or drapery. Indeed there can be no good reason why ox-heads and garlands (now the days of sacrifices are past) should not be banished from the frieze and entablature, to admit the far more appropriate figures of foliage, fruit, and flowers, aquatic as well as terrestrial, which every garden yields;—and for interior enrichments of cornices, mouldings, &c., the curious and elegant forms of the testacea, would afford beautiful copies for imitation.