Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

STRATHAIRD. 429
the use of rustic work, with advantage. The vermicula-
tions, and some other ornaments used for this purpose,
seem originally to have come from the same source
though artists do not novi^ remember whence they were
at first derived ; copying what is before them, without
concerning themselves about its origin, and, very often,
caring as little about its congruity. In the natural waste
of many sandstones, these ornaments are produced by the
unequal hardness of the substance; and, in many ancient
castles built of this rock, it is scarcely possible to avoid
thinking that the mason has actually carved those forms
which are merely the result of time and weather. The
variety which they afford is far more considerable than
could be expected. Roslin castle, among many others,
presents some singular specimens. I do not, however,
mean to justify or recommend this kind of ornament;
since, when it goes beyond the simplest hatching, and
that, in the basement story only, it seems to me abso-
lutely abominable. That kind which resembles piles of
dead men's bones, such as they may be seen in charnel
houses, is most particularly detestable : I know not if it
be not even worse than the stalactitic ornament; unless,
indeed, where this is displayed as it was formerly at Bur-
lington House; where the columns appeared dressed up
in wigs, very much like those which Neptune manufac-
tures out of spun-yarn when he is to cross the Line.
Artists have been at a loss to know whence the earliest
of our ecclesiastical masons borrowed some of their orna-
ments. It is not impossible that one of the most conspi-
cuous of the whole, the chevron so general in the soffits
of the early Norman arches, may be traced to the same
rock, sandstone, though under different circumstances.
I have seen the face of a cliff ornamented in this manner,
so as to have every appearance of a work of art. Eda,
in Orkney, affords one of the most remarkable specimens
;