What is called Roman ornament, so dear to the sixteenth century architects, is far nobler, broader in conception than Pompeiian, because the acanthus leaf is in itself so splendid a subject, whether suggested as in Greece, or copied closely as in Rome. The free use of the acanthus (though sprouting impossible Loves and birds and beasts) and adherence to natural forms give the curves and folds new and remarkable interest. The frieze of the Roman Temple at Brescia almost converts us by its naturalistic grace, just enough conventionalised. But Roman ornament is almost always over-elaborate; and when the faults of the style are magnified and stereotyped by machine carving and exact measurements, we find that the acanthus is a very cheap way of producing an effect.

Perhaps the vile stone capitals seen in every cheap new church, and the viler attempts at vegetation in plaster which are turned out by the thousand and fixed on our ceilings by the mile, have made many of us unjust to the fathers of the school. Still, the best of it is tiring, through its perpetual suggestions of broken ideas which elude us as we try to grasp them; and in certain states of health or brain excitement the branching stems would curl and uncurl, the boys nod and gesticulate, the nameless beasts snap and jut their tongues with a horrible monotony of movement.