OF ORNAMENTS, &C. THE English language does not admit of a distinction between those ornaments which comprehend utility, and those which are merely ornamental, or, rather, enrichments; thus, columns may be called architectural ornaments, but the sculptured foliage of the capitals are decorations and enrichments. In the progress of sculpture, we may trace it as an imitative art; from its origin, in the rude mis-shapen blocks of granite in Egypt, to its perfection, in the works of Greece, which are selected or combined forms of beauty, IDEAL FORMS, surpassing those of nature. We may, afterwards, trace its decline, in the laboured exactness of imi- tation, as in Chinese figures, where individual nature is so closely copied, that even COLOUR and MOTION are added to complete the resemblance.
