§ XII. Finally the recess decoration by the ball flower is very definite and characteristic, found, I believe, chiefly in English work. It consists merely in leaving a small boss or sphere, fixed, as it were, at intervals in the hollows; such bosses being afterwards carved into roses, or other ornamental forms, and sometimes lifted quite up out of the hollow, on projecting processes, like vertebræ, so as to make them more conspicuous, as throughout the decoration of the cathedral of Bourges. The value of this ornament is chiefly in the _spotted_ character which it gives to the lines of mouldings seen from a distance. It is very rich and delightful when not used in excess; but it would satiate and weary the eye if it were ever used in general architecture. The spire of Salisbury, and of St. Mary's at Oxford, are agreeable as isolated masses; but if an entire street were built with this spotty decoration at every casement, we could not traverse it to the end without disgust. It is only another example of the constant aim at piquancy of effect which characterised the northern builders; an ingenious but somewhat vulgar effort to give interest to their grey masses of coarse stone, without overtaking their powers either of invention or execution. We will thank them for it without blame or praise, and pass on. CHAPTER XXV. THE BASE. § I. We know now as much as is needful respecting the methods of minor and universal decorations, which were distinguished in Chapter XXII., § III., from the ornament which has special relation to particular parts. This local ornament, which, it will be remembered, we arranged in § II. of the same chapter under five heads, we have next, under those heads, to consider. And, first, the ornament of the bases, both of walls and shafts. It was noticed in our account of the divisions of a wall, that there are something in those divisions like the beginning, the several courses, and the close of a human life. And as, in all well-conducted lives, the hard work, and roughing, and gaining of strength come first, the honor or decoration in certain intervals during their course, but most of all in their close, so, in general, the base of the wall, which is its beginning of labor, will bear least decoration, its body more, especially those epochs of rest called its string courses; but its crown or cornice most of all. Still, in some buildings, all these are decorated richly, though the last most; and in others, when the base is well protected and yet conspicuous, it may probably receive even more decoration than other parts.