BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 1891 
 
 AUAk3Z^/ ^4Z4//.9...<:?J3. 
 
 5474 
 
arV17702 
 Beauty and art / 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 
 3 1924 031 241 593 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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 ^ij^ 
 
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All rights reserved 
 
I Dedicate this book to my friend 
 
 Henry Cary Shuttleivorth, M.A., 
 
 Rector of St. Nicholas, Cole Abbey, 
 
 sometime Minor Canon of St. Paul's, 
 
 •who has the keenest appreciation of 
 
 Beauty — in Art — in Nature — and 
 
 in Life. 
 
 A. H. 
 
NOTE.— The essay on "Taste" was 
 written many years ago^ but as I have seen 
 no reason for altering -my general views 
 upon that subject, it is now printed alTnost 
 exactly as written. 
 
 The essay on "Beauty in Form and 
 Colour " was prepared at the request of 
 the Architectural Institute of London, 
 and ivas afterwards read to si-milar In- 
 stitutes in Liverpool and Leeds some ten 
 years ago. 
 
 The "Decoration of the House" essay 
 was written three or four years ago at 
 the request of the Liverpool Architectural 
 Association. 
 
 That on ' ' Fairies " is -Htore recent, and 
 met a request from, the Architectural In- 
 stitute of London ; with it is incorporated 
 a paper on the same subject , written for 
 the A rchitectural A ssociation of London. 
 
 The article 07i ^^ Furniture and Deco- 
 ration" &*c., is the preface to a large 
 illustrated work on *^ Furniture and 
 Decoration in the Eighteenth Century^* 
 written for Messrs. J. &> E. Bumpus, by 
 whose kind permission it is included in 
 this volume. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 JMONG the prints engraved after the inimitalle 
 _/^ Hogarth, there is one which represents the 
 inhabitants of the moon; and a rather terrible 
 monstrosity it is. It was intended, no doubt, as a 
 satire to illustrate the horrid catastrophes which may 
 overtake those who propose to be designers on an en- 
 tirely original basis ; that is to say, guided solely by 
 their own untrained imagination. If such a satire 
 was needful in Hogarth's age, there is assuredly 
 twenty-fold the want of if to-day. 
 
 Just when our leading men of science have demon- 
 strated the absolute truth of Evolution, our artists {or 
 would-be artists) are trying tojorce us to ignore it. 
 
 No one who approaches the subject with a becoming 
 humility can question that Evolution is the secret and 
 key-note of Art, no less than of Nature. In the 
 greatest and most difficult of the Arts, where, for- 
 tunately for us, the stages of Evolution are most 
 distinctly exhibited, namely, in Architecture, even 
 the boy-student may perceive the steps by which the 
 Greek Temple grew into the Roman Temple, and 
 that into the Byzantine Church, and that into the 
 Gothic Cathedral; all the stages of evolution are 
 vii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 here preserved to us in imperishalle stone and marble. 
 The very same development has taken place in every 
 other branch of Art; and it has been reserved for the 
 Nineteenth Century to endeavour to ignore this in- 
 evitable process, and show how young m,en and women 
 can originate things as horrible, because as false 
 {to Nature), as are Hogarth's "Inhabitants of the 
 Moon." 
 
 The idiosyncrasies of artists and designers have 
 not unfrequently led them into strange vagaries, but 
 here there is no question of a mere eccentricity . We 
 are confronted by a definite intention to introduce 
 entire novelty, not only ignoring the design of the 
 past, but, as far as may be, in defiance of it. 
 
 It is easy to see how designers might have been 
 irritated ten or twenty years ago by the bad examples 
 of every class of design which they saw around 
 them, and our first impression may be that their atti- 
 tude may have been a mere reaction based on an 
 erroneous supposition that the past had grown so 
 wholly debased that if must be entirely deserted, and 
 fresh beginnings made on fresh lines. However mis- 
 taken such an assumption may be, it is clearly within 
 the range of possibility that to certain minds, in 
 certain conditions, such an argument might seem 
 warrantable. 
 
 Another suggestion is less tenable, namely, that the 
 strong impetus, which evidently leads many people 
 now, merely to be conspicuous, whether from the 
 viii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 mere desire for prominence as in itself an end, or 
 from the commercial idea of attaining to pecuniary 
 success ly a new and shorter road, may have led to 
 the deplorable results of the day. Half-a-dozen 
 leading practitioners in such a movement are enough, 
 at the present time, with our quick intercommunica- 
 tion of ideas, to lead scores of beginners to follow 
 them ; and just now it seems as though it was " in 
 the air " for all young draughtsmen to try to become 
 designers of ornament on absolutely original grounds. 
 If this book should induce a few of these to accept 
 tradition rather than moonstruck fancy as their guide, 
 it may not have been written in vain. 
 
 ALDAM HEATON. 
 
 29 Bloomsbury Square, 
 
 Neiv OTear's Dai/j 1897. 
 
 IX 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Taste ........ I 
 
 Beauty in Form and Colour . . . -35 
 
 Appendix. — High Art for Shallow Purses . 82 
 
 Decoration of the House . . . . .87 
 
 Fabrics ........ 127 
 
 Furniture and Decoration of the Eighteenth Century . 161 
 
 XI 
 
TASTE 
 
TASTE 
 
 • Genius is scarce, but taste is scarcer" 
 
 T may safely be affirmed that there 
 is no subject closely affecting our 
 daily lives and habits, about which 
 we are all so ready to confess our 
 ignorance as that form of Art which should be 
 our guide in the choice of dress and furniture 
 and ornaments of all kinds ; and yet there is 
 none where a general ignorance produces a 
 failure so disastrous in its consequences. 
 
 An absolute lack of acquaintance with astro- 
 nomy or geology, for instance, results only in 
 inability to converse on those subjects, together 
 with a loss of the pleasures to be derived from 
 a study of nature in those directions — nay, even 
 a total ignorance of high art may commonly 
 
 3 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 be met by an avoidance of the subject ; or if a 
 picture or two must be had to decorate the 
 dining-room, a judicious application to Agnew 
 or Dowdswell may completely annihilate the 
 difficulty, and leave the owner safe in the com- 
 pany of knowing dilettanti, and secure of their 
 applause. 
 
 But a personal necessity for the exercise of 
 choice, for the most part unassisted, in matters 
 involving form and colour, is laid upon each 
 of us almost hourly, and all through life. A 
 man cannot buy a scarf for himself, or a dress 
 for his wife, a chimney-piece ornament, a pair 
 of curtains, a workbox, a fan, or any little 
 birthday present, not to mention such important 
 matters as building a house or serving on a 
 committee to build a church, without being 
 perforce obliged to exercise such judgment and 
 choice as he possesses. 
 
 And when discussion happens to arise upon 
 questions of " good taste," nine people out of 
 every ten instantly volunteer the announcement 
 that they " know nothing at all about that sort 
 of thing " (which is probably quite true), and 
 profess to refer matters to the taste of a so- 
 called "authority." Unfortunately, the same 
 people are equally ready to remark, " Of course, 
 I know what pleases me ; " and unless tram- 
 melled by the presence of the " authority," who 
 
 4 
 
TASTE 
 
 is supposed to have " taste," will instantly pro- 
 ceed to exhibit their confessed ignorance in a 
 practical and concrete form, to the last limit of 
 pitiable, recurring, and irrevocable mishap. 
 
 But this readiness to admit complete igno- 
 rance about laws of " taste," coupled with an 
 apparently complete confidence in pronouncing 
 judgment whenever occasion serves, is not quite 
 so paradoxical as it might at first appear, at 
 least in the mind or intention of the actors. 
 For two serious misapprehensions underlie the 
 situation. No one would object to admit in- 
 ability to speak Fiji, or play the banjo ; he might, 
 indeed, entertain a silent conviction that there is 
 little to learn, and nothing to gain by learning 
 that little. And the same conviction holds good 
 with many respecting that form of Art we are 
 discussing. But this is surely a grave blunder. 
 Let me take an analogous case. We all know 
 that the ear may be pleasantly tickled and the 
 emotions excited by music, and that considerable 
 enjoyment may be extracted even from an in- 
 different performance heard for the first time 
 by persons utterly uncultivated in that direc- 
 tion ; yet we know not less surely, firstly, that 
 it is possible, not to say probable, that the ear 
 may be permanently spoiled by listening only 
 to the performance of bad or low-class music ; 
 and, secondly, that it is not from the higher 
 
 5 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 efforts of musical genius alone that the highest 
 order of pleasurable sensations are obtained, but 
 that study, and patience, and. many repetitions 
 of the same composition are requisite to the 
 listener before the full beauties of fine music 
 can be thoroughly appreciated. And yet the 
 ear may well be supposed to be as quick to 
 convey impressions of beauty in sound, as the 
 eye of form or colour. What right have we 
 to take it for granted that the uncultivated 
 eye and brain can at a glance comprehend the 
 beauty of God's works ? I believe they ordi- 
 narily do take in an extremely small propor- 
 tion of the impressions to be obtained after 
 careful study ; and that the infinite paucity and 
 triviality of the sensations of beauty enjoyed 
 by people who have never given any time or 
 study to nature, are responsible for the general 
 satisfaction in a life which takes only passing 
 glances at the shores and boundaries of things 
 — as children gather flowers from a vague and 
 momentary interest, and drop them listlessly 
 at the next gate — and that the great unfathom- 
 able ocean of the beauty of God's creation 
 remains to all such people a sealed book. 
 
 And the other mistake is even of greater 
 importance, in its general result, at all events. 
 The very people who in one breath express 
 themselves as ignorant — ignorant of any laws 
 
 6 
 
TASTE 
 
 of beauty or standards of excellence — are quite 
 as ready with an opinion when occasion de- 
 mands, not from mere conceit or inanity, but 
 from a vague and popular supposition that 
 there is no such thing as an abstract standard 
 of beauty, and that the " taste " (meaning really 
 caprice or fancy) of each individual is a sufficient 
 guide for him or her, though not necessarily 
 for any one else. I don't mean to say that 
 this has been formulated and definitely offered 
 as an axiom for acceptance — far from it. Had 
 any one attempted to do so, an opposite result 
 must have been obtained. But in a matter 
 where general education is extremely deficient, 
 vagueness steps in and endorses ignorance and 
 private whim, relying on the absence of any 
 canons which might trip up the hasty judg- 
 ment. And so one hears constantly the phrase, 
 "It is a matter of taste," implying that in all 
 questions which are not matters of absolute and 
 ascertained fact, one opinion is pretty nearly 
 as good as another, and, at all events for the 
 holder of the opinion, quite as good. In which 
 proposition there are clearly some very loose 
 screws indeed. 
 
 In order to avoid the unpleasant German- 
 Greek phrase " aesthetics," I will use the com- 
 mon and much-abused word " taste " ; but, as it 
 is most frequently used in a loose and slovenly 
 
 7 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 fashion, let me define. To all sons and daughters 
 of man, I imagine there is given by nature some 
 bent or bias of preponderating force,— in exceed- 
 ingly varying degree no doubt, but something 
 to each; and where this innate bias receives 
 from education, or felicitous circumstances, or 
 both, its utmost development, we have the 
 " genius," or the man of talent, or the ready 
 learner, according to the degree in which the 
 bias has been given, or the vigour of the 
 organism in which it has been placed. If a 
 child has the gift of perception of beauty in 
 form and colour developed up to the point we 
 term " genius," and has the gift well cultivated, 
 it becomes an artist ; if it has the same gift in a 
 lesser degree, and the circumstances of life and 
 education are not uncongenial, we get the man 
 or woman of " taste " or " good taste." 
 
 The phrase " bad taste " is misleading, because 
 it seems to allow that taste is a question merely 
 of degree, and that all the degrees are more or 
 less admissible from something short of bad 
 up to something actually good. If we find a 
 mistake in a matter involving the use of deco- 
 rative art, the word " false " will best express the 
 blunder. The word " taste," therefore, should 
 be used to express a natural aptitude and an 
 acquired facility for seeing what is beautiful in 
 form and colour, and promptly separating it 
 
TASTE 
 
 from what is coarse and degrading. "Taste" is 
 the faculty of discriminating, and where no dis- 
 crimination is made, no taste exists. Of course 
 taste may enter into more matters than decora- 
 tive art, but it is not now our purpose to follow 
 it further. 
 
 Unquestionably there is a large number of 
 people originally possessing this innate sense of 
 be&,uty in form and colour ; but among those 
 bom with such a bias, many never have the 
 natural gift cultivated, and it becomes obscured ; 
 while a still larger number, through want of 
 personal force and individuality of character, 
 cease to exercise the gift, and drop helplessly 
 into grooves marked out by the chariot-wheels 
 of the great goddess Fashion. 
 
 And how wide is the list of subjects upon 
 which people, confessedly ignorant, have daily 
 to exercise their judgment — with a corre- 
 spondent widely disastrous result, of course ! 
 Let me enumerate ; and first, on account of the 
 all but daily necessity for the purchase of some 
 article, and its enormous cost if added up for 
 a lifetime, must be placed Women^s dress. 
 
 " They ordered the silks and they ordered the flowers, 
 And the bill it kept rolling up gown upon gown." 
 
 And next, not to be ungallant. Men's dress 
 — for a man may make a terrible fool of him- 
 self by a ridiculous garment, and not know it. 
 
 9 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 3rd. Trifles for ornament, for presents, and 
 little "nothings" generally, in which, through 
 constant, daily, hourly transactions, the annual 
 expenditure must be enormous, and in which 
 false taste very commonly makes its appearance. 
 
 4th. Jewellery for both sexes, and plate, — 
 costing as much as the maintenance of armies. 
 
 5th. Ladies' fancy work, daily before our 
 eyes, generally entirely useless and exceedingly 
 costly. 
 
 6th. Wall papers and carpets, working havoc 
 in the rooms we have to inhabit for most of 
 our waking hours. Draperies, which form an 
 absolutely necessary item in every room where 
 comfort, not to say luxury, is desired. Furni- 
 ture for the house, the ofiice, the public build- 
 ing, the school, the place of worship. 
 
 7th. Glass, china, and table ornaments gene- 
 rally, for domestic use, always being broken, 
 and so requiring constant renewal. Decorative 
 china, clocks, bronzes, staircase " stained-glass " 
 windows, &c., &c. — generally not decorative. 
 Mirrors and chimney-pieces, involving great 
 displays of real and sham marble, carving and 
 gilding. 
 
 8 th. Pictures, engravings, and illustrated 
 books and their bindings, forming a cumbrous 
 and useless incubus on the drawing-room and 
 library tables. 
 
 10 
 
TASTE 
 
 9th. Gardening, including the inevitable 
 summer-house. 
 
 1 0th. Church embroidery, decoration, and 
 stained -glass, where false taste is a public 
 horror. 
 
 And lastly, above and beyond the range of 
 the subjects we are discussing in their relation 
 to good taste, but unfortunately, as a matter of 
 practice, quite within the range of the ordinary 
 transactions of ordinary mortals, and for the 
 most part quite unguarded by any selection of 
 men for their special fitness, comes No. 1 1 , 
 choice of architectural design, including the 
 house, the place of business, the public build- 
 ing, the church, where false taste and blunders 
 are a national disaster. 
 
 Here is an appalling list of eleven tolerably 
 distinct subjects, upon all of which many of 
 us, and upon many of which all ot us, have 
 constantly to exercise our unassisted judgment 
 as well as we can ; involving the spending of 
 a large portion of our time, and a still larger 
 proportion of our annual incomes ; and to fit 
 us for which not one in a hundred has received 
 any education whatever. 
 
 Perhaps some of my readers may reply, 
 " Well, but in nine out of eleven of your 
 subjects a mistake does not necessarily affect 
 any one but the individuals who are parties to 
 
 II 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 it, and perhaps not even them, for they may 
 never find it out." But, setting aside for the 
 moment the fact that no individual mistake can 
 be anything but a common loss — for is not the 
 nation made up of individuals ? — I answer that 
 there are at least three distinct ways in which 
 the exercise of false taste is individually as well 
 as generally harmful : — 
 
 For, first, the error perpetuates itself by 
 encouraging trade in the precise direction of 
 the blunder, and by imprinting itself on the 
 minds of children and others incapable of exer- 
 cising unbiassed judgment. 
 
 2nd. It leaves an heirloom of false rubbish to 
 be dealt with by posterity, which, out of regard 
 for the opinion of the past, is likely to be ham- 
 pered and blinded in exercising a true judgment. 
 
 3rd. It deprives the buyer of a great part 
 of the value of what he purchases. He ought 
 to reap definite pleasure and gratification 
 (" sweetness and light ") from the form, de- 
 sign, colour, or fitness of what he has acquired ; 
 but if he has asked for a fish, and knows so 
 little of the nature of fishes that he can be 
 put off with a stone, he is cheated. 
 
 Moreover, an inability to exercise " taste " 
 robs us of enjoyment in two directions. It 
 hampers and deadens our enjoyment of God's 
 art (Nature), and it bars the road altogether to 
 
 12 
 
TASTE 
 
 the poetic region of man's art — the great world 
 of poetry in architecture, painting, and sculp- 
 ture. Those to whom beauty of form and 
 colour is a dead letter, only see half the love- 
 liness — perhaps not half — of flower and moun- 
 tain, opal and sunset. If we are rightly to read 
 the beautiful page of Nature, we must at least 
 have learned our alphabet, and the primer is 
 a patient, careful, and humble study of leaf 
 and flower, bud and berry, pebble and crag, 
 searching for the beauty of the Maker in each. 
 If we would truly comprehend the beauty of 
 the other Creation " Man added to Nature," 
 we must patiently and reverently study the 
 footprints by which Phidias and Durer, Tin- 
 toret and Turner, approached the Temple of 
 Art to add courses to her masonry. 
 
 And finally, mistakes under the last head are 
 without doubt national disasters. Men, con- 
 fessing their ignorance, but having no just 
 knowledge of the results of such ignorance, 
 fearlessly approach the most difficult work man 
 has to put his hand to — architecture ; advertise 
 for plans, and, to relieve themselves from the 
 intricate work of constant consultations with 
 an architect, " consider " (!) the competing de- 
 signs with redhot haste, or with a foregone 
 conclusion in favour of a cousin or a neigh- 
 bour, and vote huge sums of money for the 
 
 13 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 erection of buildings, which in nineteen cases 
 out of twenty never afford a ray of pleasure or 
 satisfaction to any — not even to the builders ; 
 which people of quick perceptions instantly pro- 
 nounce to be altogether inferior to the mediaeval 
 remains among us, and which cannot fail to be 
 an incubus and an eyesore to our posterity, if 
 not indeed to ourselves also. If the same indi- 
 viduals were asked to sit in judgment upon an 
 oratorio or a chemical analysis, they would in- 
 stantly shrink from the ordeal, feeling their 
 want of exact knowledge ; but in these ques- 
 tions where the use of the eyes alone is un- 
 happily supposed to furnish the judge with all 
 the evidence required, people satisfy themselves 
 with the consideration, "I suppose I know what 
 I like when I see it with my eyes." A most 
 miserable blunder ! As if the eyes are any- 
 thing more than reflectors to convey pictures 
 of facts to the brain. The eyes do their duty 
 for the most part truthfully enough, examine 
 the witnesses and report the evidence exactly 
 enough; but if the brain be an uncultivated and 
 indiscriminating judge, unlearned and careless, 
 what will the judgments be ? 
 
 We have had in times past a living school ot 
 decorative art in Europe, if not in England ; 
 but it is long since dead. With the rashness 
 of boy navigators, we have cut the well-anchored 
 
 14 
 
TASTE 
 
 and safe cable of Tradition. We have not 
 been taught at school even the barest outlines 
 of Art. And as a nation we seem (in com- 
 parison with Orientals, for instance), rather de- 
 ficient than otherwise in artistic instincts and 
 capacities, and have our minds mainly set upon 
 politics, literature, science, railways, and money- 
 making; so that we undoubtedly are — the large 
 majority of us — quite as innocent of " taste " 
 as with commendable candour we generally con- 
 fess ourselves to be. 
 
 Again, there is such a fearful multiplicity of 
 things to mislead — things set before us with 
 glamour and false lights — wares recommended 
 by false titles (and sold by false weights). Not 
 to mention the terrible Berlin wool work patterns 
 from Germany, which haunted us in our child- 
 hood, and prey upon us still, in slippers, in 
 cushions, in smoking-caps, in antimacassars, in 
 bed-pockets — present with us like evil genii by 
 night and by day, sneaking into the sanctum of 
 our affections by aid of the loving fingers and 
 bright eyes of fair workers — not to mention 
 these, are we not fairly overwhelmed with a 
 torrent of rubbish from France, saleable only 
 because it is novel, admired only because it is 
 " fashionable " — apples of Sodom, brilliant and 
 attractive to the eye, dust and poison to the 
 palate. But French dress, jewellery, furniture, 
 
 15 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 and knicknackeries would not be sold if they 
 found no buyers. There is manifestly a great 
 demand for things designed in the French style, 
 and it is now so widely spread in England, 
 Germany, Austria, America, wherever, in fact, 
 Europeans dwell, and forms so common a 
 standard of imitation, that it may be well 
 before going further to stop and inquire how 
 this pre-eminence has been obtained. 
 
 Beautiful as are the Art-remains of ancient 
 France, our own country is quite as rich, and 
 in the later productions of Gothic, probably 
 richer. France certainly has produced tapes- 
 tries of extraordinary beauty and of the highest 
 artistic value ; but she can boast no equiva- 
 lents to Holbein, Gainsborough, Reynolds, and 
 Turner. That the china of Sevres e^er possessed 
 any high artistic merit may well be doubted : 
 it might be exquisite in point of workmanship, 
 wonderful in suggestion of costliness, fit "to 
 set before a king " ; but with its absence of all 
 sense oi fitness in the sort of design employed, 
 it must, in company with our own Chelsea ware, 
 and the productions of Dresden, be relegated 
 to a very inferior place indeed when compared 
 with fine old Oriental ware, or even with 
 mediaeval Italian. France seems to have been 
 before us in the present day in the successful 
 copying of Oriental china ; but we have 
 
 i6 
 
TASTE 
 
 preceded her in the resuscitation of the art 
 of making stained glass, and in reproducing 
 eighteenth century furniture showing how 
 poetical and picturesque were the houses of 
 our forefathers. 
 
 Both nations have had an era of living deco- 
 rative art, and from both, that era has long since 
 departed. In this respect, therefore, they are 
 equal — equal in disadvantage. In the realms 
 of literature we need not fear comparison ; in 
 the complete enjoyment of national freedom, 
 in enterprise, in a growing dislike of war and 
 consequent advance in civilisation, in the dig- 
 nity of the national councils, there is everything 
 to lead to the conviction that England should 
 be at least on a level with her neighbour in 
 the production of anything requiring active 
 brains and nimble fingers. 
 
 Nevertheless, French fashions have obtained 
 an enormously preponderating position ! 
 
 I shall endeavour to show that the French 
 have attained this pre-eminence by means of 
 inordinate and extravagant attention to women's 
 dress, with a constant appeal to the sensuous 
 rather than to the intellectual side of human 
 nature ; and that it is through two eccentricities 
 of the national character, which cannot but be 
 considered as national weaknesses, that this 
 result has been mainly obtained. 
 
 17 B 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 However desirable it was that Gothic art, 
 having become effete and corrupt, should be 
 swept away, there can be no doubt that the Re- 
 naissance, when fully developed, swept away also 
 the love of fine design, and substituted the love 
 of fine workmanship. Instead of a delight in 
 quaint, mysterious, and poetical representations 
 of things natural and supernatural, such as un- 
 doubtedly belonged to the earlier centuries, it 
 substituted niceties of trivial detail and infinite 
 finessing in trifles ; and, above all, it encouraged 
 in courts and nobles an insistent passion for dis- 
 play, resulting in an entire loss of the love of 
 beautiful things y^r their beauty^ and giving in 
 return only a desire to display costly things for 
 their cost ; transferring, moreover, a large pro- 
 portion of the decoration formerly bestowed 
 principally upon the house, to the occupants of 
 the house, and so encouraging that pride of life 
 which ere long became the bane of society and 
 its ruin. And here, I think, was the birth of 
 " Fashion." 
 
 When a court lady wore a splendid robe, — 
 embroidered by her own women perhaps, — and 
 delighted in it because of its wealth of imagery 
 and colour, the natural desire would be to take 
 care of it, and even to transmit it to a succes- 
 sor ; but when she came to wear a dress whose 
 only charm was its excellence of manufacture 
 
 i8 
 
TASTE 
 
 or its suggestion of costliness, the growing love 
 of display and pride of life demanded a relay 
 of such dresses, with proportionate dclat to 
 arise from their recurring variety. But how 
 was variety to be exhibited ? Noble design 
 was no longer sought for their embroideries 
 — scarcely for their brocades ; the cut of the 
 dress, its trimmings, its colour, must become a 
 subject of increased study, and a court lady 
 must each month outdo herself. And the 
 goddess Fashion was upreared to receive the 
 plaudits (or curses) of generations unborn. 
 
 Consider here the absolute and radical differ- 
 ence between a choice made in accordance with 
 a sense of beauty and one made in accord- 
 ance with what is said to be fashionable. It 
 is not a question of degree, it is one of kind. 
 If a man once accepts the fashion of the day 
 as his guide, he cannot possibly accept the laws 
 of beauty, of colour and form, also as a guide. 
 " No man can serve two masters," especially, as 
 in the present case, where the two masters may 
 be, and often are, in direct opposition. 
 
 Twice at least in historic times, in the life 
 of nations we cannot but study and admire — 
 Greece and Rome— a point was reached at which 
 civilisation, wealth, and ease resulted in an 
 intense admiration of the human body, and an 
 overweening care for its gratification — an over- 
 
 19 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 whelming and oversensuous admiration of it 
 and a pampering of its appetites. It is not to 
 the present purpose to stop and inquire to what 
 extent the human body contains all the ele- 
 ments of beauty of form which an artistic 
 people must study, and study with delight ; 
 or how far, mankind being made up of body 
 as well as soul and spirit, the body is entitled 
 to its delights — let much be granted on both 
 heads. It is nevertheless true that coincidently 
 with this inordinate love of the body came a 
 loss of those grander attributes, virtues, hero- 
 isms, which had made those great nations what 
 they were. Their excessive love of the body 
 did not make them greater, it made them 
 feebler. As they became more of sensualists 
 they became less of men. But the trade in 
 dress, and ornaments, and luxuries, and costly 
 furniture throve enormously, and in Pompeii 
 reached an abyss of extravagance unknown before 
 or since. But the luxury had destroyed the Art 
 — costliness and sensuality alone remained. 
 
 History repeats itself. In eighteenth and 
 nineteenth century Europe, civilisation, wealth, 
 and ease have again produced among courtiers, 
 among the aristocracy, among the wealthy-idle, 
 an excessive consideration for the human body 
 — evidently the natural result of these circum- 
 stances ; and those who can the most success- 
 
 20 
 
TASTE 
 
 fully cater for the gratification of this passion 
 are sure of a trade more or less Pompeian. 
 
 Now, the French have two characteristics as 
 a nation, referred to above, which eminently fit 
 them to fill this office : I mean, an infinite 
 possibility of abandon, of giving the rein freely, 
 regardless of consequences, to whatever craving 
 for gratification a fertile imagination may sug- 
 gest ; and, secondly, a strong tendency to drama- 
 tise and to exaggerate for the dramatic effect, 
 colour or form, light and shade, action and 
 expression, even to the point of the grotesque ; 
 resulting in the production of things startling, 
 things sensational, things piquant, things drSle. 
 Deeply imbued with the spirit of the Renaissance, 
 and consequently revelling in all that suggests 
 pomp and princely living, in delicacy of work- 
 manship, in finesse of detail, in the extravagant 
 use of the precious metals (or, what appears to 
 serve as well, their imitations !), it is inevitable 
 that Fashion should be the goddess at whose 
 shrine they worship. And Fashion, followed 
 with abandon and exaggeration, means constant 
 novelty ; for if a dress or a trinket has no 
 other recommendation than that it is fashion- 
 able — that it is in the fashionable style — its 
 value ceases when a fresh panderer to the thirst 
 for ^clat or sensation introduces a new style. 
 Throw it aside and get another, or you will 
 
 21 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 be behind in the race. It means more, how- 
 ever, as we shall see. And, constituted as Eve's 
 daughters are, it does not require either a 
 historian or a magician to tell us that a young 
 and idle woman living " in society," and having 
 the means or the credit, will go in for novelty 
 pretty fiercely, and that there will be plenty of 
 tradesmen to do her bidding. The end she 
 proposes to herself is to elicit the admiration 
 of the coterie among whom she lives, and it 
 must be admitted that either sex generally 
 shows itself quite ready for the occasion. 
 
 It must freely be granted that the French 
 modist (let me use the word in this form for 
 male or female) brings many fitting qualities 
 to the task, at least if present fashions are the 
 best to be desired in dress (though this I by 
 no means grant). The French are clever, 
 ingenious, fertile in invention, dexterous in 
 handiwork, exact in manipulation. And this 
 trade in women's dress is on so important a scale 
 that well-to-do and talented people will engage 
 in it, and can afford to retain the most dexterous 
 and highly skilled artisans in their employ. 
 
 Half the resources of Nature are pressed into 
 the service : wool, silk, linen, cotton are not 
 enough; "effects " must be obtained by the use 
 of straw, of feathers, of fur, of shells, of beads, 
 of gold dust — of anything, in short, that can 
 
 22 
 
TASTE 
 
 add piquancy to the trimmings which fancy 
 dictates, and which desire for novelty demands. 
 But varieties of material, varieties of fabric, 
 varieties of colour — enormous as these latter 
 are in number when we think of them, in light 
 and shade, in contrast and harmony — varieties 
 of this sort are not enough : there must be 
 constant change in the arrangement and re- 
 arrangement of the parts, and in invention of 
 new and startling features of detail. Now the 
 dress must fit the figure tightly, now loosely; 
 now the sleeve must be plain, now baggy as the 
 wind; now the skirt must be single, now double 
 or flounced — not from considerations of beauty 
 or fitness, but because one or two leading 
 modists say it is to be so. The head-dress, 
 meantime, of course receives equal attention ; 
 and it becomes inevitable that all the acces- 
 sories of jewellery, trinkets, furniture, and de- 
 coration of the house should fall into the same 
 or sympathetic hands — indeed, when once we 
 have converted woman into a hook to hang 
 clothes on, it becomes necessary that the sur- 
 roundings should be en suite. A mediaeval lady 
 was dressed in garments that were attractive 
 whether she walked in turret or bower, because 
 they were beautiful ; but if a modern French 
 fashionable beauty is clothed in a silk whose 
 merit is its novelty of colour, it becomes a neces- 
 
 23 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 sity that the new colour should be repeated in 
 the boudoir, or set ofF by contrasts in the furni- 
 ture, till the very walls themselves are covered, 
 not by storied tapestry or fresco, but with 
 quilted silk like the women's dresses ! ! ! The 
 modist has become an upholsterer, the uphol- 
 sterer a modist, and the occupant of the house 
 a dummy to show off their productions. 
 
 But even these resources for the creation of 
 haute nouveautd are insufficient : more dex- 
 terous and telling appeals to the admiration must 
 be addressed to palates satiated with change. 
 Dressing is not enough, there must also be 
 «;«dressing ; and here we may see the true 
 character of much of the race after fashion 
 among the class who " set " or follow fashions. 
 
 The French, of course, did not invent the 
 decolletd dress. It was simply the natural 
 outcome of the first woven dress ever made — 
 a single garment with a large hole in the middle 
 to admit the head. But they showed themselves 
 very ready, after their fashion, to exaggerate it, 
 and one has only to look at the prints of the 
 last century to find out how far the exaggera- 
 tion went. In fact, it is well known that a French 
 actress who visited London lately had thought 
 it best to get rid of the bodice altogether. 
 
 This is not a moral essay, and it is quite im- 
 material to our present purpose to inquire 
 
 24 
 
TASTE 
 
 what amount of indulgence ought to be granted 
 to a healthy and well-reined animalism ; I am 
 seeking to disentangle the popular admiration 
 for " French taste " from the mists of glamour 
 and false sentiment by which it has been sur- 
 rounded, and this can only be done effectually 
 if we carefully examine its springs of action, 
 and test them at the fountain-head,— (for Paris 
 is the fountain-head, beyond all doubt). 
 
 It requires the abandon possessed by the 
 French to dare to originate such fashions, and 
 to be the first to wear them ; and I have gone 
 at some length into a question which can only 
 parenthetically belong to this treatise, because 
 I believe that this insane race after French 
 fashions forms one of the great obstacles in 
 the way of attaining a true " taste " — of having 
 a simple and wholesome judgment in the design 
 and colour of our clothes, our furniture, our 
 trifles of luxury and ease. And if I have shown 
 that the stream is impure from the fountain — 
 that French taste does not flow from a love of 
 beautiful things for beauty's sake, but through a 
 love of fashion and display aroused quite irre- 
 spectively of true taste, and only from a desire 
 of public 'eclat — we may well look askance at 
 all such matters coming from France, and not 
 be surprised if we find that they have trampled 
 upon every law of the beautiful. 
 
 25 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 I cannot, of course, forget that a large pro- 
 portion of women are happily too modest and 
 too sensible to accept extreme French fashions. 
 Some refuse them altogether, and a still larger 
 number tone them down to suit their own 
 sense of what is decorous and becoming ; but 
 in considering the effect of " Fashion " upon 
 society, it is instructive to observe the very 
 wide extent to which the fashion of partial 
 nudity of the arms and bust has been followed 
 among women otherwise perfectly modest, and 
 in coteries only quite moderately fashionable. 
 
 But fashions and novelties of dress gain 
 their hold on us unfairly as it were, evade our 
 critical powers, and obtain a hold upon us 
 through our lower senses. 
 
 Women are beyond doubt the decorative 
 and pleasurable side of life, so to speak; the 
 lights and ornaments of our homes ; and it is 
 not only their interest but their duty to pre- 
 sent themselves to us in the most interesting 
 and attractive manner possible, so long as that 
 manner be consistent with a modesty originally 
 supplied by that deep and innate leaning towards 
 chastity, which only the most gross and corrupt 
 eras in society have ever broken down. Now, 
 when a comely and attractive woman, desiring 
 to look her best, and conscious perhaps of per- 
 sonal beauty, of symmetry of figure, of grace of 
 
 26 
 
TASTE 
 
 carriage, presents herself before us, even in an 
 extreme Parisian fashion, in which she feels no 
 immodesty because she knows that " Society " 
 has endorsed her costume, our critical faculties 
 as to the art of her dress are not called into 
 action, nay, are hoodwinked and hustled away 
 — the appeal is to our affections — our judg- 
 ment is taken by storm ; the tout ensemble is 
 pronounced good, and once more up goes the 
 acclaim in favour of " French taste." 
 
 But the very foremost axioms of good taste 
 may have been defied a hundred times in the 
 process, and colours and patterns may have 
 been tolerated for their novelty which even a 
 modist of experience must know to be utterly 
 bad, when judged by any sound standard. 
 
 It may be useful here to notice two very 
 prominent examples exhibiting French design 
 in its true colours, because in each we may fairly 
 argue that the designer is in sober earnest and 
 not merely running after novelty in playful 
 caprice. 
 
 Who that is familiar with the external aspect 
 of an English country-house, inartistic for the 
 most part, but unpretentious, much altered, and 
 rejoicing in its lack of symmetry, quaintly defiant 
 of architectural proprieties, radiant in its jessa- 
 mine and ivy and roses, and half-hidden in ever- 
 greens, can fail to be struck by the appalling 
 
 27 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 spectacle of a modern French house. With the 
 design of a biscuit-box set up on end, with 
 the flattest of roofs, always hipped — the very 
 meanest kind of roof conceivable — rejoicing in 
 sharply defined and conspicuous quoins at all 
 the angles and openings, the intervening spaces 
 being often plastered and whitewashed — inten- 
 tionally kept clear of climbing plants, and hold- 
 ing itself up perkly and conceited, ostentatiously 
 pretentious, it forms an object in the landscape 
 only somewhat more hideous than the lopped and 
 untree-like trees with which it is surrounded ! 
 
 Mr. Ruskin has well said, that if a nation may 
 anywhere be supposed to be entirely serious and 
 in earnest, it is in its graveyards and memorials 
 to its dead. Go to a modern French cemetery, 
 and you find uglinesses which it has surely been 
 reserved for the French alone to invent and find 
 delight in. To mention two only : the most 
 approved form of memorial cross is a sort of 
 cast-iron skeleton, a fanciful open trellis affair, 
 losing sight of the whole idea and nature of the 
 Cross of Calvary ; and this they paint black and 
 white to make it " telling " ! The old " immor- 
 telle " wreath of yellow gnaphallum was at least 
 pleasant and suggestive; but modern French 
 craving for novelty has cast it aside, and sub- 
 stituted a "wreath" of beads set on wire, at 
 once losing the ring-like form, and so the em- 
 
 28 
 
TASTE 
 
 blematical value ; its centre filled with foolish 
 sentimental legends also done in beads and wire, 
 and forming altogether one of the most hideous 
 things on earth. Any one rejoicing in " French 
 taste " should pay a visit to the statuary shops 
 in the street leading to Pere la Chaise : those 
 in our own Euston Road are not exhilarating, 
 but these have the smell of the charnel house 
 and the imbecility of the lunatic asylum mar- 
 vellously combined. 
 
 In so large a range of industries carried on 
 by a nation of fifty millions of very industrious 
 and clever people, it would be wonderful indeed 
 if there were no exceptions to any rule we might 
 prove to prevail ; and, curiously enough, the 
 French are great admirers of Oriental art, and 
 good copiers of it (on account, perhaps, of its 
 piquancy and novelty to them) ; but with this 
 and some other exceptions, French " taste " is 
 utterly and wholly corrupt and bad, both in 
 essence and in end, and it exercises the worst 
 possible influence on the aesthetic perceptions 
 of both Europe and America. 
 
 It will be replied, perhaps, " Ah, but much 
 of the so-called ' French taste ' you see, crude 
 and staring, inharmonious and conspicuous, is 
 not really French, but is an English travesty.. 
 We get French fashions, and, copying them 
 without their dexterity, vulgarise and befool 
 
 29 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 them." This is probably very true about a 
 large proportion of articles of women's dress 
 made in this country after French fashion-books ; 
 but how about the things actually sent from 
 France — the magenta and " night green," and 
 "Aniline" violet silks and ribbons, the chintzes 
 and muslins, the china and bronzes ? It will 
 not be denied that these exhibit French " taste " 
 truly. It is also undeniable that it is from 
 France, principally, that we get the detest- 
 able fashion which has set in of late years for 
 loading our sitting-rooms with all manner of 
 useless, showy, and tricky trifles of no manner 
 of use whatever, and giving them a fussy and 
 fidgety aspect, which is, to a rightly ordered 
 mind, exasperating. Not only must the backs 
 of chairs have fancy towels — knotted and other- 
 wise — but even flower-pots must be draped, the 
 very earth the plant grows in must be hidden by 
 silk ; while the table is crowded with innumer- 
 able objects, worthless, useless, and disturbing. 
 And as if this was not enough, the wall must be 
 bedizened with photographs in fancy frames, 
 accompanied, more or less, by a quantity of 
 ribbon. The top of the dado is increased until 
 it becomes a stand for all sorts of abominations ; 
 and every available space, the tops of cabinets, 
 little side tables, shelves below those tables, &c., 
 must be crowded with fancy rubbish ; not to 
 
 30 
 
TASTE 
 
 mention sham easels, imitation bee-hives, straw 
 hats, and other ridiculous nonsense, which are 
 not only distressing to the general effect, but are 
 exceedingly cumbrous to those who want to 
 move about in the room, and are being con- 
 tinually swept out of their places by the dresses 
 of the occupants. 
 
 The fidgety unrest produced in such rooms, 
 and tolerated, not to say enjoyed, by their 
 owners, indicates strikingly the deterioration of 
 taste which set the rubbish in its place. Nothing 
 but " Fashion " could have made such an ex- 
 hibition possible. No love of the beautiful for 
 beauty's sake could have brought into existence 
 the fussy little table covered over with silver 
 trinkets ; which, it must be confessed, is the 
 least objectionable of all these modern fashions. 
 Indeed, this deterioration having once set in, 
 there is nothing which is impossible: the victims 
 will go to the length of any folly which is sup- 
 posed to be fashionable. 
 
 Truly this is a bad school for the education 
 of our taste ; and improvement is scarcely pos- 
 sible with such surroundings. 
 
 An escape into the garden, the wood, and 
 the field must somehow be secured : for there 
 Nature can be studied. For it is to Nature we 
 must look for relief from such rubbish, and for 
 a standard of beauty besides. Much may be 
 
 31 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 done, no doubt, in the study, the picture.-gallery, 
 the museum, to produce a healthy tone in the 
 imagination so afflicted ; but Nature is the 
 better school ; and those who will patiently 
 study the sky, the hills, the woods, the foliage, 
 the flowers, will find there their best anodyne. 
 It is not necessary for this purpose to go to 
 Scotland, or to Switzerland, or to the Andes. 
 Let the student take the nearest hedgerow out of 
 reach of the modern row of villas, and he will 
 find abundant study before him. Let him learn 
 to understand the beauty of a bank of wild 
 thyme with its apparently violent contrast of 
 bright green and bright red, and how it becomes 
 possible for such contrast to become beautiful, 
 through that infinite power of gradation which 
 Nature alone can show him. To learn from 
 whence arises the beauty and charm of the 
 azalea leaf or the columbine, or even the foliage 
 of the humble carrot after the first autumn 
 frosts, will be a lesson that cannot be taught by 
 books. It may then become possible for him 
 to find delight nearer home, in the foliage of 
 sea-kale, or even of the friendly cabbage. A 
 new door will be open to him for fresh beauties 
 in Nature, always existing, but seen now with 
 another pair of eyes ; and, if the physiologists 
 tell us true, enjoyed with fresh cells of the 
 brain, which have been formed for the pur- 
 
 32 
 
TASTE 
 
 pose. The museum, the picture-gallery, the 
 sculpture-room may follow; and if we must 
 still go to France, let it be to the Louvre. In 
 time there may be a chance for the patient and 
 careful student to learn beauty for its own 
 sake, and to produce, according to the degree 
 of natural aptitude he or she may possess, a 
 delightful " taste," which shall be a joy for 
 ever. 
 
 33 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 HOW TO SEEK— WHERE TO FIND 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 HOW TO SEEK— WHERE TO FIND 
 
 HAT do we mean by beauty? A 
 sensation of delight, resulting from 
 the fitness and completeness of a 
 picture which is offered to the eye, 
 the ear, or the mind ? It may be Nature, or Art, 
 or a poetical idea, music, what not ? The field 
 is wide, and ever widening. Beyond doubt, 
 our forerunners of even sixty years ago regarded 
 mountains, rocky hills, and uncultivated ground 
 as " cruel " and " horrid." We, on the con- 
 trary (thanks, perhaps, to Sir Walter Scott), 
 regard them as beautiful ; so that the remark, 
 "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," con- 
 tains more truth than one at first perceives. 
 Moreover, the power to appreciate beauty truly 
 arises from the education of the faculties, so 
 
 37 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 that in endeavouring to define what we mean by 
 " beauty," we must presuppose some culture. 
 
 But that is no reason for doubting the exist- 
 ence of a real standard of beauty. India is no 
 less our possession because there are outlying 
 fringes which are not definitely under our rule. 
 Nay, the very fact of that doubtful ownership 
 of these outlying parts is of itself a proof of 
 the admitted ownership of the rest. 
 
 Nothing can be a greater mistake than to 
 try and decide a question of beauty by quoting 
 the well-known phrase, " It is a question of 
 taste." This is merely a weak endeavour to 
 shirk the complex and intricate questions at 
 issue, and reveals the fact that most people do 
 not care to face them, and would even like to 
 make it appear that there is no such thing as a 
 standard of beauty at all. 
 
 It is extremely easy, in a matter of this sort, 
 to puzzle each other, and to make hedges of 
 paradox behind which disputants may retreat. 
 " Why is olive green a more serviceable colour 
 than emerald green ? " asks one. " Why is 
 not mauve admissible as a colour for a wall ? " 
 asks another. A third says, " How can you 
 admire Italian decorative art in the face of 
 German .'' " We say, relatively speaking, that 
 Westminster Abbey is beautiful, but that St. 
 Pancras Railway Station is ugly. Whereon some 
 
 38 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 one replies, " But is St. Pancras Station ugly ? 
 And if Westminster Abbey is beautiful, and 
 Gothic architecture most suitable for a reli- 
 gious building, how do you come to admire 
 St. Paul's .? " And there are a thousand other 
 such questions ; to which the average citizen 
 replies, " It is a question of taste, and there is 
 no disputing about taste." 
 
 Nothing can be more untrue and misleading, 
 for it means (if it means anything at all) that 
 there is no standard of right or wrong in 
 such matters ; that many men judging differ- 
 ently on one subject, are all right — clearly a 
 paradox. A bad doctrine truly, and false all 
 through. For it assumes that they are equally 
 competent to judge ; that their tastes have been 
 equally educated ; moreover, that they are edu- 
 cated, having had opportunity to read widely and 
 to study their subject. If they had had these 
 advantages, then their diversity of opinion 
 might be interesting and instructive ; but the 
 adage, as at present used, would not imply that 
 at all. In an ignorant and illogical time it 
 might pass muster for a while ; but we seem to 
 have arrived, in the world's history, at a period 
 when accurate (that is to say, scientific) reasons 
 for most things are not only demanded, but, 
 for the most part, to be had ; and even Art 
 questions must be treated with more scientific 
 
 39 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 exactness. A woman's reason, " I like it be- 
 cause I like it," will no longer suffice. 
 
 Of course Mr. Ruskin, in his "Seven 
 Lamps," " Modern Painters," and " Stones of 
 Venice " has said much, and said it nobly, upon 
 this subject ; but his books alone are quite 
 beyond the average reader, and, besides, are full 
 of an empiricism which ruffles a good many 
 students, and renders short extracts from his 
 books impossible. If you read them all through, 
 you arrive at the conclusion that their author 
 knows eminently well what he is talking about, 
 and that he ultimately gives reasons for all his 
 statements, but it is done in a form which 
 defies the " skipping " reader, and renders 
 quotations all but impossible, unless you are 
 quoting to his scholars and admirers. 
 
 To such apparently puzzling questions as I 
 have alluded, short answers cannot be given, 
 unless they be excessively empirical ; and then, 
 to many minds, they seem no answer at all. 
 " You must like it " — " you ought to like it " — 
 " it is fine colour " — " it is ' noble form ' " — 
 " the verdict of the ages is in its favour," &c. 
 Some one of course will start up, mentally or 
 actually, " How do we know but that the 
 verdict of the ages may be wrong } I don't 
 care to take it merely on your statement." 
 
 Now, it is especially worthy of remark, on the 
 40 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 threshold of the subject, that in these questions, 
 where apparently the eyesight is mainly con- 
 sulted, people are most confident in their own 
 judgment, however uncultivated, and most im- 
 patient of control. 
 
 If a man of average education gets drawn 
 into conversation about literature or music, he 
 will hold his tongue when it comes to pro- 
 nouncing judgment, seeing plainly that precise, 
 or "scientific," knowledge is required before 
 he can speak with credit to himself. But in 
 regard to pictorial art, a very large proportion 
 of people consider that their own eyes are suf- 
 ficient to guide them to admire what is good, 
 and to eschew the contrary. There are numbers 
 of educated people who are as ignorant of Art 
 as they are of Nature, who never open a book 
 upon any such subject, who will yet go to the 
 Royal Academy or the Louvre, and pronounce 
 judgment right and left with an assurance, and 
 apparent familiarity, which should only belong 
 to the most experienced of experts. They 
 think their eyesight is qualification enough. 
 
 Nothing could be a greater mistake ; such 
 seeing is a mere animal instinct, as a rabbit 
 sees a terrier and bolts. 
 
 The reason of this mistake is not very 
 evident. To be sure, literature demands a 
 great deal of hard reading, and a pretender is 
 
 41 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 quickly found out ; while music keeps the 
 ignorant at a respectful distance by the mere 
 difficulty of deciphering it. But it is not clear 
 why people are cautious about confessing that 
 they like dance -music, and find a Monday 
 "Pop," very tedious, and are yet not at all afraid 
 of declaring that they prefer the Royal Academy 
 to the National Gallery ; further than this, that 
 vulgar opinion on the subject holds much study 
 and hard work as necessary for a knowledge of 
 literature or music, but only a pair of eyes for 
 art. Beyond doubt, but for the necessity, widely 
 felt among people, who desire above all things 
 to be in good "form," for speaking with caution, 
 and even with some show of reverence, about 
 things held sacred in museums and picture-gal- 
 leries, which have manifestly received the favour- 
 able verdict of the ages, a large majority would 
 confess their entire indifference, or even active 
 dislike, to old art, so strenuous is its demand 
 upon something more than mere eyesight for 
 its right understanding. From the point of 
 view of mere animal eyesight they can scarcely 
 bear to look at it. 
 
 Beyond doubt, we have to learn to see. No 
 one ever quite sees a landscape until he has 
 learnt to draw one ; no one ever truly sees the 
 beauty of flowers until he has tried to represent 
 them — their exquisite forms and subtle grada- 
 
 42 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 tions ; or, what is not so pleasant, pulled them 
 to pieces, and put them under the microscope. 
 No one knows the everlasting hills till he 
 has learned something of their geology, of the 
 action of water in their ravines, of the action of 
 ice in bygone ages — of their history, in fact. 
 
 All this shows that the information ordi- 
 narily passed to the brain by the eyes of those 
 who have not specially studied the subject we 
 are at present discussing, is quite incomplete 
 and untrustworthy. It may guide us satis- 
 factorily in the choice of a salad or a partridge 
 for dinner, or to distinguish between a genuine 
 Bank of England note and a note of the " Bank 
 of Elegance," but it is wholly inadequate to 
 help us to discriminate between good and bad 
 colour, or base and noble form. 
 
 So that the majority of people, trusting to 
 mere animal eyesight and mother-wit, and not 
 having time or inclination to correct and am- 
 plify these by exact knowledge, acquire early 
 in life bad habits of eyesight, feeble or diseased 
 views of Nature and Art, which stick to them 
 through life, and operate automatically, without 
 special thought or action of the intellect : they 
 only half-see anything, and that half they see 
 badly. Nay, more; the eye, having become 
 accustomed to bad colour and form, insensibly 
 goes down the hill and demands something 
 
 43 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 worse and more stimulating ; or, finding no 
 great interest in such things at all, gives up 
 even troubling itself with their existence, and 
 settles down content with dull commonplace, 
 without thought or desire. 
 
 In the use of the eyes, then, no less than in 
 natters of the appetite, man may be described 
 as a machine apt to go wrong ; and just as we 
 need instruction and guidance with regard to the 
 finer details of conduct, and counsels of watch- 
 fulness and temperance for our appetites, so do 
 we need all these to teach us how to see aright. 
 
 Distrust, therefore, first impressions of all 
 visible objects ; for even in the late summer 
 and autumn of life, when we may have learned 
 a good deal, mature and reconsidered judgment 
 is still the safest. Nor should second or final 
 impressions be considered of value until the 
 subject has been well studied, and the scholar has 
 learned at least how little he knows. 
 
 And not only may we acquire, through im- 
 perfect education, or early association, habits 
 of thought, taste, and eyesight which are mis- 
 leading and mischievous, but we may fall into 
 a mode of life which renders us less and less 
 competent to perceive and assimilate impres- 
 sions of beauty. The man who spends his day 
 in the drudgery of his office, snatches what 
 breathless time he can over his mid-day chop 
 44 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 for the perusal of the daily paper, comes home 
 worn out, and has no inclination for anything 
 after dinner but the billiard-table or the chatter 
 of his club smoking-room, is not very much in 
 the way of acquiring correct notions about the 
 treasures at South Kensington, the Louvre, or 
 the Vatican, especially if on the few days he can 
 snatch from business he devotes his time to un- 
 diluted Epsom or Newmarket, to the cuisine of 
 foreign hotels, or the folly of the " day off," 
 where the " form " of the turn-out, and of the 
 girls, and the dryness of the champagne, are 
 the foremost and all-absorbing topics of con- 
 versation. 
 
 But this is preamble ; only the outlines of so 
 wide a subject can be touched ; and if we have 
 spent too much time on scaffolding, we are no 
 worse off than those excellent French builders 
 who, when they have a house to build, first put 
 up a crane high enough and far-reaching enough 
 to raise the complete edifice. 
 
 First, let us consider Beauty of Colour. 
 Nature must be our text-book, though we must 
 not for one moment suppose that the colouring 
 of Nature, and of Art, can ever be thought of 
 as identical. We will return to this question 
 further on ; meanwhile it may be sufficient to 
 bear in mind how much shorter is the gamut 
 of colour possible in Art (this does not occur 
 
 45 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 to the ordinary reader or student, but the fact 
 can easily be tested. Compare white paper 
 with white clouds in high light, or a board 
 painted black with the shadows cast by the 
 mid-day sun) ; nevertheless, we can only turn 
 to Nature for authority and text. 
 
 What we want above all things is temper- 
 ance. " Temperance," says Mr. Ruskin, " is 
 the power that governs energy, and in respect 
 of things prone to excess it regulates the 
 quantity." Now, Nature is always temperate. 
 I do not forget that she has produced mala- 
 chite, the bell-gentian, the sunflower ; I do not 
 forget the existence of many tropical flowers of 
 great brilliancy — the Speciosissimus cactus, for 
 instance ; but with regard to this and similar 
 plants of great showiness, it should be borne 
 in mind, first, for how short a time this great 
 brilliancy lasts — five or six days at most out 
 of three hundred and sixty-five ; and secondly, 
 what a moderate area there is of this gorgeous 
 colour measured against the greens and greys 
 and browns of the surrounding vegetation. 
 But even in the case of the very gayest flower- 
 ing plant ever seen, a careful examination will 
 reveal the fact that what to the careless observer 
 seemed a blaze of a certain tint, is in reality 
 a mass of subtle gradations — of which more 
 anon. 
 
 46 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 A gorgeous sunset lasts but a few minutes 
 out of the twenty-four hours, and is, even 
 then, generally small in area compared with the 
 whole arc of the heavens ; and it is so full of 
 gradations, that observers argue, after it is gone, 
 whether it was chiefly red, or chiefly yellow, or 
 purple, orange, or grey. 
 
 A field of spring grass, especially after 
 thunder-rain, often seems dazzlingly brilliant ; 
 but sit down and try to draw it. There is 
 one colour — emerald green — in an ordinary 
 paint-box whicb., if you can use it at all, you 
 must use in such small particles as at once to 
 proclaim its unnatural crudity ; and yet this is 
 the colour selected in all its untoned fierceness 
 by our educated gentry for lining their billiard- 
 tables, and by our neighbours, the French, for 
 painting their shutters. But in this grass-field 
 you will find infinite and perplexing gradations, 
 such as you cannot follow with the brush, such 
 as you can only hint at ; the shadow of one 
 blade lying on the next, one glossy in high 
 light, the next half-coloured only, and in shade ; 
 and if it should happen that you have in your 
 pocket some of the blue or green paper bands 
 used round envelopes, or some patterns of silk 
 or merino from a shop, you will be astonished 
 at their crudity and fierceness compared with 
 the softness and gradations of Nature. 
 
 47 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 A student of colour soon finds out that 
 beauty of colour begins with gradation, that 
 the loveliness of graduated colour is so great 
 that, relatively, level colour is not beautiful at 
 all ; but he also finds out that there is no such 
 thing as level colour in Nature — natural colour 
 is always in a state of gradation. 
 
 How many of us, having ideally schemed 
 the colour of the walls or woodwork of a room, 
 and having set the painter to work, have felt 
 utterly chilled and disappointed at the result, 
 have accused the workman of a " bad match," 
 and when he proves that this is not so, we have 
 turned away, puzzled and sick of the matter. 
 It is because the painter has been straining 
 every eifort to give you a perfectly even colour, 
 and we have felt instinctively that it was bad 
 colour. 
 
 Nature teems with gradations. For example, 
 let me take the case of the bell-gentian, which, 
 at first glance, seems about as crude a piece of 
 violent colour as we can think of. This is a 
 good flower to choose, because artists and' deco- 
 rators all know that a crude and violent blue is 
 of all colours the most difficult to deal with. 
 Do not let us say a bad colour, because it is as 
 incorrect to speak of any colour as " bad," as 
 it would be to speak of arsenic, for instance, 
 as a bad drug. Let us say a difficult drug 
 48 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 or colour to deal with, one where a little will 
 go a long way ; for both powder blue and 
 arsenic may, each in turn, be both necessary 
 and desirable. 
 
 Let us try to examine a gentian in detail. 
 
 If a slit be cut a quarter of an inch wide, 
 in a piece of card- 
 board, divided down 
 its centre by a fine 
 thread, and a scale 
 of eighths of inches 
 marked down the 
 sides, so that laying 
 another card across 
 the slit, and moving 
 it downwards an 
 eighth of an inch at 
 a time, small squares 
 of one-eighth of an 
 inch each way are 
 successively exposed, 
 these may then be 
 examined and cata- 
 logued. The slit 
 should pass twice across the brilliant lip of the 
 flower, and across the centre or bell, and then 
 down the outside of the bell to the calyx. It 
 will be observed that we take no notice at 
 present of the green leaves, though these are 
 49 D 
 
 See Title-page% 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 an important factor in the general effect, as 
 one sees a mass of flowers growing. 
 
 The colour of the tiny squares is seldom even 
 approximately the same over its whole area, so 
 that we are driven to give each square the value 
 of four, and catalogue it as, say, 2 brilliant 
 blue, I dark blue, i purple ; and by this sub- 
 division we arrive at a total of 120 units. 
 
 Not to weary the reader with dry detail, let 
 us come at once to the result. Of the gaudy 
 powder blue tint we cannot find so much as one- 
 fourth of the whole; but, of the same colour 
 much deeper, one-eighth, and of purplish blue 
 — no doubt quite as brilliant in its effect on 
 the eye as the other two — one-sixteenth. 
 
 Still, in this startlingly blue flower, not one- 
 half is coloured as a careless observer would 
 suppose the whole to be. We next come to 
 one-sixth of blue, so dark as to be only dis- 
 tinguishable from black in a strong light ; and 
 the remaining colours may be called bluish- 
 grey-black, dirty bluish-green, greyish indigo, 
 dark and light, and actual apple-green, in spots 
 a little way down the bell ; so that, roughly 
 speaking, this brilliantly blue flower is not 
 half blue. 
 
 The exceeding blueness of a gentian arises 
 from the fact that all these greyish and partially 
 blue and green tints lead up to the fierce blue 
 50 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 of the lip ; it is a splendid instance of the force 
 of gradation, the blueness of the blue being all 
 the bluer to our eyes, because of the dulness 
 of the other tints — a dulness, however, which 
 is leading us up to the key-note, blue. 
 
 We thus learn that Nature, even when she 
 plays high, does so with a splendid moderation. 
 But a lady who has made up her mind to a 
 bright blue dress buys the whole quantity of 
 that one tint. 
 
 Let us now take another and quite a different 
 case— the red mullet — perhaps the loveliest 
 piece of colour to be found, after an opal ; — but 
 then the opal will not lend itself to examina- 
 tion as a dead mullet will. We all see mullets 
 as rosy and tempting morsels on the fishmonger's 
 stall, but those who will take the trouble to 
 examine one, will find it a wonderfully com- 
 plex and gorgeous piece of colouring. While 
 it exhibits the power of gradation in Nature as 
 perfectly as a gentian, they will find that it 
 arrives at its splendour in a totally difi^erent 
 way. The rosiest part of the fish is across the 
 middle, a little nearer the tail than the head ; 
 but the loveliest and most brilliant colour is 
 generally nearer the head. 
 
 Adopting the same system of examination as 
 before, we arrive at eighth-inch squares of the 
 value of 4, as before, and total units 260. This 
 
 51 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 excludes 32 units of glistening white, in which 
 no colour at all is discoverable. 
 
 Of very pale pink, full pink, deep pink, rich 
 red, crimson, flame colour, and scarlet, all tell- 
 ing upon the eye as rosy reds, not more than 
 98 out of 260 could be discovered, or somewhat 
 more than one-third ; next, one-tenth of the 
 whole in straw-colour and full gold (enhancing 
 and leading up to the red, no doubt). But 
 this is altogether, observe, less than one-half of 
 the colouring of this red fish. 
 
 Next, about one-thirteenth of primula, or 
 deep purplish red. Primula, of course, is rich 
 red tinged with blue, a colour not leading up 
 to reds, but neutralising their redness. If we 
 hand over half of this to the red part of the 
 catalogue, we arrive at a trifle more than one- 
 half Q^ ths). After this, all the colouring of 
 our bright red fish tells the other way; not 
 detracting from its colour, but very much from 
 its redness — blues, greens, cold purples, olives, 
 and greys (plus 32 white, nil'). 
 
 To be sure, the pinks and golds are, for the 
 most part, rich and powerful, and the other 
 colours are thin and watery ; still, remember 
 we are measuring areas, not depths of efi^ect. 
 
 But while granting this modification, is 
 it not wonderful to find that the remaining 
 
 52 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 tints of this red fish arrange themselves thus : 
 blues, greens, and cold purples, 78 ; olives and 
 greys, 37 ; and adding to these the cold half of 
 
 the primula, we arrive at ^^ ths, or very nearly 
 one-half, of tints which do not go to make red 
 at all, but detract from it ? 
 
 In making studies of many beautiful coloured 
 things — flowers, iridescence on pigeons' necks 
 and shells, peacocks' feathers, fresh mackerel, 
 and many other such things — one never comes 
 upon a piece of brilliant colour which is not be- 
 wildering and puzzling by the complexity with 
 which harmonious and even opposing colours 
 interlace and fade into each other. On the 
 other hand, it is well worthy of notice that 
 some natural objects, manifestly less attractive 
 than others, as, for instance, the foliage of the 
 common laurel, are found, on examination, not 
 to be ungraduated, but feeble and monotonous 
 (comparatively speaking) in their gradations. 
 
 Thus we learn two lessons in colour : — 
 
 First : Natural colour is always in grada- 
 tion. 
 
 Second: Natural colour is always temperate. 
 
 I propose to avoid quasi-scientific details : as 
 to what colours are primary and what secondary, 
 nobody is agreed, and it does not matter. But 
 you will readily understand that when I speak of 
 
 S3 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 crude blue I mean something like washer- 
 women's powder blue. Crude green means what 
 we often see in a German toy or a newly-painted 
 Venetian blind ; peacock blue, magenta, and 
 strong aniline purple, are all crude colours ; 
 and that distinction will serve our purpose 
 better than phrases about which people quarrel. 
 Now, if we want to paint the wall of a room, 
 or buy a dress, and for good reasons desire a 
 red effect, and for sundry reasons, also good, 
 find it impossible to use six or eight graduating 
 tints, we must certainly avoid a brilliant magenta 
 or crimson, because it would be, first, ungradu- 
 ated, and, second, intemperate. Nature would 
 probably have used a little magenta in combina- 
 tion with other and softer tints, but we are 
 debarred by time, expense, and other considera- 
 tions. What are we to do ? Let us go to 
 Nature, and see how she manages. Let us 
 take careful note of the relative proportions of 
 bright red, quiet dirty red, grey, brown, and 
 faded tints, and mix our paint or dye accord- 
 ingly. We shall probably arrive at a colour 
 something between bricks and leather — a good, 
 useful, pleasant colour, nice to live with, and 
 hurting the feelings of nobody ; restful to the 
 eye, and leaving a healthy appetite for red 
 mullets, and other beautiful and brilliant reds, 
 in Nature or fine art. 
 
 54 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 And having thus learned a practical lesson 
 from Nature, we should fearlessly stick to it; 
 and in time we shall come to appreciate the 
 value of quiet, moderate, tertiary tints. 
 
 We should always doubt all amazingly attrac- 
 tive, coloured things of human manufacture ; 
 and when the standard has thus been kept up 
 for some years, we become conscious of a refined 
 taste in colour, and can then revel in the colour 
 of Nature, and in that of fine art also, whether 
 it comes from the hand of Titian or Tintoret, 
 Orchardson or Clara Montalba. And, as our 
 perceptions strengthen, we find ourselves out 
 of love with even pale and moderate colour, if 
 it be level and without gradation ; the lumpy 
 bottom of a green glass bottle becomes at once 
 a source of pleasure, where none is given by the 
 thin even tint of the bottle itself. 
 
 The eye becomes critical, and sees a new 
 charm both in Nature and Art, and appreciates 
 '"'■fine colour;" colour, not only temperate and 
 in gradation, but in intricate and gorgeous in- 
 termingling of splendid tints, such as one sees 
 in the plumage of Oriental birds and butterflies 
 — gold peering through crimson and flame — 
 green and coppery mosses on grey rocks, or a 
 portrait of Titian's, bronzy green velvet with 
 gold braiding, against rosy flesh tints. A bit 
 of fine colour becomes more precious than 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 diamonds ; old, faded Italian silks of more 
 value than new ones ; old Indian rugs, stained 
 and worn, better than any modern carpet. Our 
 tastes become susceptible of offence about 
 things that before seemed indifferent, and 
 though it will always be a comfort to a man's 
 wife that his shirts and table-linen should be 
 snow-white, ivory seems white enough for any- 
 thing, and in decorative work, whitey-brown 
 paper is the best white there is. 
 
 There are not a few people, desirous above 
 all things that their surroundings should be in 
 the highest taste, who are feverishly anxious 
 and uneasy as to whether things will " go 
 with " sundry other things, having mostly in 
 their minds a fearful list of things which will 
 -not " go with " each other. Terra-cotta reds 
 must not come near greeny blues — especially 
 not near crimsony reds ; reds of any sort do 
 not " go with " greens and blues, &c. &c., and 
 so on, and so on, ad lib. 
 
 Now, it is worthy of notice that if one goes 
 into the garden to gather a posy, a piece of 
 house - decoration which some folk perform 
 almost daily, one gathers flowers, as a rule, 
 without any idea of what will " go with " each 
 other, but simply the flowers that happen to 
 be blowing, and of the right dimensions for the 
 proposed posy; and, ninety-nine times out of 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 a hundred, the flowers so gathered " go with " 
 each other delightfully. Why, then, should 
 people be so nervous as to whether the pro- 
 posed carpet will " go with " the proposed 
 curtains ? Clearly because the colour of one, 
 or both, is bad — crude, violent, or without 
 gradation ; and because, while the posy is well 
 mingled with green and grey and neutral tints, 
 the carpet and curtains are wholly or partially 
 deficient in these. 
 
 If any one wants to try whether this is a prac- 
 tical fact, let him buy or borrow a really fine 
 old Persian carpet, which will probably contain 
 blues and greens, reds and yellows, orange, quiet 
 purples, and whites of various degrees, in fact, 
 almost as many colours as the garden posy, and 
 he will find that the chances are enormously in 
 favour of its looking well in any room in which 
 he may throw it down, with an entire disregard 
 for what may be already there. 
 
 And, upon examination, it will be found 
 that sudh a carpet, however gay it may look, 
 will contain no crude or ungraduated colour 
 whatever. Not only will its blue ground, for 
 instance, prove to be made up, intentionally, of 
 four or five blues, but each thread will be found 
 to be similarly composed, perhaps without in- 
 tention — a circumstance probably due to the 
 Oriental habit of mixing various sorts of wool 
 
 57 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 and hair, or at least all the qualities of each ; 
 while our spinners and dyers strain every 
 nerve to make each fibre exactly match its 
 fellows. 
 
 Take care that each colour, in each article 
 you buy, be soft, and graduated, and free from 
 crudity, and then you may set them all together 
 and be happy. 
 
 To turn for a moment to Form. As grada- 
 tion is the condition of beauty in colour, so 
 curvature is the ground of all loveliness in 
 form. I do not suppose any one will question 
 this, because no one pretends to find beauty in 
 an office ruler or a dahlia stick ; and if we see a 
 very straight and unbending young woman, we 
 say " she has swallowed a poker." 
 
 Curvature is the groundwork of beauty, but 
 temperance again is the ruling power. It would 
 of course take far too long to analyse ever so 
 slightly that touchstone of all beautiful curva- 
 ture, the human form ; but if any one wishes 
 to see how severely temperate nature is, let 
 him get a drawing of the human arm, and see 
 how strenuously slight are the deviations from 
 straight lines, and he will find also that the rest 
 of the body of a young and healthy person is 
 throughout of this character. 
 
 One may find a hundred examples from 
 Nature of this strenuously restrained curva- 
 
 58 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 ture. One thinks of the leaves of holly and 
 herberis as a multitude of exceedingly sharp 
 and quickly rounded curves ; but a careful 
 examination shows them to be practically 
 squares, with quite little points added for 
 prickles, and the space between prickle and 
 prickle is very nearly a straight line — very 
 nearly, but not quite. 
 
 The alder leaf is practically a pentagon with 
 the angles pared off a little, and only a little. 
 A willow leaf is a collection of nearly straight 
 lines, with delicate little curves at each end. 
 An oleander leaf is still more severe, and many 
 aspects of it are all but straight lines. And the 
 more one examines forms of this sort, the more 
 one sees that vigorously restrained curvature is, 
 in its restraint, the groundwork of beauty in 
 form. 
 
 To consider then the bearing of these facts 
 on the choice of pictures, stained glass, wall 
 decorations, furniture, cabinet ornaments, car- 
 pets, and curtains, all the hundred odds and 
 ends of our house; and last, but by no 
 means least, dress. But this is a wide field, 
 and, for practical purposes, may be narrowed 
 down to the questions of wall decoration and 
 patterned objects generally; for these are, as 
 it were, central in the group, and likely to 
 throw light upon the others. 
 
 59 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 To dear the ground before we begin to 
 build, let it be taken as an axiom with the 
 utmost distinctness, that we must never look 
 upon copies of Nature, however accurate they 
 be, as anything more than the alphabet and 
 primer for the artist and decorator — an alphabet 
 very necessary, in fact the only alphabet for the 
 purpose, and absolutely indispensable, but only 
 an alphabet or primer after all ; the building 
 materials, but never, under any circumstances, 
 the building ; the means, but not the end. 
 
 To take a practical instance, let us suppose 
 that a gardener produces a new red rose, and 
 that horticulturists agree to call it the Acme 
 rose. The grower is naturally proud of it, and 
 he employs Mrs. Allingham, for instance, to 
 make a drawing of it. If she does it well, 
 the matter is passing into the realms of art. 
 But the grower is not content ; he calls on 
 Shannon, for instance, to take a portrait of his 
 wife holding the rose in her hand, or a spray 
 of these roses across her bosom. We have 
 now got into fine art. This is such a success 
 that he wants these roses all over his drawing- 
 room wall, and he goes, or would a few weeks 
 ago have gone, to that master of art decoration, 
 now, alas ! at rest from his helpful labours, — 
 William Morris, and said, " Decorate me these 
 walls with my Acme rose." " Well, but," 
 
 60 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 Morris would have replied, " this won't do ; 
 your walls would be all over red dots. Besides, 
 I can't give you all these lovely details at any 
 price that a sensible man would pay. I must 
 simplify it, and moderate your reds and greens. 
 I must also get rid of a quantity of light and 
 shade, and flatten it, so to speak." 
 
 Supposing it well done, we have passed 
 downwards from fine art to decorative art. 
 But the rose-grower wants to carry the thing 
 a step further — he wants his rose as a decora- 
 tion for a dinner-service, and he goes to Wedg- 
 wood. " Well," says Wedgwood, " but we 
 must get this rose pattern into a condition 
 which ordinary draughtsmen and printers and 
 potters can deal with ; we must reduce it to 
 one or two tints, and simplify it further even 
 than Morris did." 
 
 So we arrive, by an inevitable process, at flat, 
 conventional patterning. In the earlier part of 
 our argument, we arrived at the sheer necessity 
 of using quiet, tertiary tints where gradation of 
 colour was unattainable " at the money." Thus 
 the Acme rose pattern has arrived, inevitably, 
 at flat formality of outline and greys, or only 
 suggestions of green and red in colour, while 
 sense of projection has disappeared entirely. 
 
 Broadly, \nfine art, there are no limits to the 
 legitimate representation of form, projection, 
 
 6i 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 colour, but those necessarily incidental to all the 
 works of man viewed in relation to Nature. But 
 as you come down in the scale, stained glass, 
 painted frieze, brocaded silk, wall paper, striped 
 cotton print, the limitations become many and 
 severe, by sheer necessity, and apart from ques- 
 tions of taste, and to refuse to bow to them 
 indicates stupidity and blindness. Temperance 
 steps in, and enjoins moderation and simplicity 
 in curvature, gradation and sobriety in colour : 
 you have admitted the axioms, accept the 
 result. 
 
 Moreover, the limitations in fine art, which 
 we have called incidental to all the works of 
 man, are in reality very considerable ; for, firstly, 
 the most skilful eye and hand the world has 
 known could never reproduce the intricate and 
 overwhelming detail of the colours of Nature, 
 not to mention subtleties of minute form. And 
 even if we were not thus limited (which under 
 favourable circumstances might conceivably be 
 the case), there remains, secondly, the fact 
 already alluded to, viz., that the gamut or 
 scale of art is far shorter, both in light and 
 shade and in colour, than that of Nature. 
 
 No white paint or paper can approach the 
 whiteness of a cloud illumined by sunshine, and 
 no black paint is as dark as the shadow, say, of 
 a tree thrown by strong sunlight against a pale- 
 
 62 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 grey limestone wall. The bluest paint is a 
 feeble thing compared with the azure of the 
 heavens ; and though some pigments are too 
 fierce for our imperfect handling, seeing that 
 we cannot follow the delicacy of Nature's 
 gradations, yet at every turn the student of 
 Nature finds tints in nature too dazzling for 
 reproduction. He has only, therefore, humbly 
 to follow his guide at a respectful distance ; 
 and, just as we say one had better not bark if 
 he cannot bite, so the accomplished artist finds 
 out what he can do and what he had better 
 avoid. He begins to understand what is pos- 
 sible in paint on canvas ; and partly by the 
 experience of the past, and partly by the light 
 of his own perceptions, he recognises the limits 
 of his art, and arranges his scale of colour 
 and light and shade in accordance with those 
 limits. And so, gradually but inevitably, 
 colouring in art has arrived at a condition 
 which, originally framed on that of Nature, 
 has come to the average observer to appear 
 wholly distinct. 
 
 To put the matter into the most practical 
 form. We all know the beautiful metallic- 
 blue butterfly from South America, Cypro- 
 morpho by name. Let us suppose that a 
 lover of realism desires to have this most 
 lovely creature well copied, and that a copyist 
 
 63 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 with a good eye for colour, and the touch of 
 an Oriental, takes the utmost pains to accom- 
 plish it — that he works on a ground of silver, 
 in the purest Prussian blue — it is conceivable 
 that a very admirable, realistic representation 
 might be produced. 
 
 It is now desired, let us suppose, to intro- 
 duce it as a detail into a picture. But it 
 is quickly discovered that this is impossible : 
 materials and pigments do not exist with which 
 we can copy other brilliant objects in an equi- 
 valent manner, and it is perceived that if they 
 did nobody could bear the result ; for the blue 
 butterfly already painted stands out as a flaring 
 spot, like an electric light at a railway station ; 
 and thus two insurmountable barriers declare 
 that the attempt must be given up. It is not 
 a question of degree, it is one of kind. Where 
 is the loose screw } In the mistake made by 
 a large number of people in supposing that art 
 is a copy of Nature. A copy of Nature (as 
 much of a copy, that is, as the human eye and 
 hand are capable of) may be a stepping-stone 
 or handmaid to Art, a scaffolding on which to 
 stand while building ; but never, as we have 
 mentioned before, the building — Art itself. 
 
 True Art is a representation of Nature ; and 
 a representation, to be true and good, must be 
 such as to produce in the mind of the spectator 
 64 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 sensations fairly equivalent to those produced 
 by Nature herself. 
 
 And here steps in the creative faculty of the 
 artist. He perceives the enormous difference 
 in the conditions. The blue butterfly, dancing 
 with his fellows in the light of a southern sun, 
 surrounded by leagues of soft atmosphere, by 
 greys and blues of distance, and greens and 
 browns of forest and fell, is one thing ; the 
 blue butterfly pinned on a cork in a studio, 
 with a background of drapery or canvas, is 
 quite another, and to confound them is unpar- 
 donable muddling. There is no southern sun- 
 shine or any other sunshine in the studio ; the 
 scale of possible colour falls far short of the 
 top, and finishes far above the bottom ; the 
 whole thing must be altered and arranged to 
 suit the altered conditions, and, with the re- 
 arrangement, the silver ground and most of the 
 Prussian blue disappears. 
 
 And all this applies as truly, in degree, to 
 good decorative work as to high art, and as 
 much to form as to colour. 
 
 Those who have gone through the course of 
 study from Nature indicated by these remarks, 
 may continue their education at museums and 
 picture-galleries. Here are the treasures of the 
 past which will form the best of all schools, 
 Nature excepted, and there they can study a 
 
 65 E 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 fresh chapter of their subject, the difFerence, 
 namely, between noble and ignoble form — 
 between what is elevating in motive, and what 
 is base and degrading ; and we shall constantly 
 find that the painters who oiFend in this respect 
 are precisely those whose colour is violent, and 
 whose form is wanting in restraint. South 
 Kensington is an infinite treasure-house to 
 learn in, and to think about in after years. 
 We should go there continually. Our own 
 National Gallery, the Louvre, and Florence, it 
 need not be said, may complete the studies, 
 and even help us to understand and appreciate 
 such painters as Giotto, Cimabue, Andrea del 
 Sarto, and Botticelli. 
 
 But in daily life let us avoid all ugly and 
 crude colours, and base and ignoble subjects, as 
 we avoid bad smells; and when we go to a 
 fresh place let us make at once for the Parish 
 Church, if it be an old one. For the tight grip 
 in which the earning of our daily bread holds 
 most of us, so commonly prevents our visiting 
 museums and picture-galleries as often as we 
 ought, that we may find ourselves shut up 
 among the base and dull and ignoble things, 
 like offices, and railway stations, and hotels, 
 for months together. So, whenever there is a 
 chance target, even for a quarter of an hour, 
 among objects of noble intention, or possible 
 
 66 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 beauty of form and colour, we should eagerly 
 seize it. Now, old architecture will always be 
 found to have some element of beauty in it : 
 shaft or arch or bit of carving, stained glass, 
 old woodwork, or sculptured tomb ; and we may 
 get more real pleasure and profit out of a habit 
 of making for the " old church," than out of 
 all the theatres, drapers' and jewellers' shops, 
 hotel dinners, and picnic parties which we have 
 ever seen or ever can see. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that in stained glass 
 — quite the most beautiful form of decorative 
 art — we have all agreed, for generations past, 
 not to be hindered by the very severe limita- 
 tions and conditions under which the artist has 
 to work; and I suppose no one ever thought 
 of ordering a stained-glass window to be done 
 to " Nature." We recognise the propriety of 
 strong lines round many forms which we know 
 do not exist in Nature ; we are satisfied that a 
 distinguished person should have a glory, like 
 a dinner-plate, round the head, and that the 
 whole work should be permeated by broad 
 (lead) lines of black — lines which no one of 
 experience ever dreams of trying to dispense 
 with. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the Chapel of King's, 
 Cambridge, endeavoured to get rid of these 
 lines, and his failure is a warning to us all to 
 
 67 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 keep clear of such realistic experiments in 
 decorative work. 
 
 With trifling exceptions, old art must always 
 be preferable to modern art, at least for this 
 generation and the next. 
 
 And if we are asked to assign a reason for 
 so formidable a statement, we should reply that 
 no one who has seen, with his eyes open, such 
 a collection of fine and decorative art as that 
 at South Kensington, can be unaware of the 
 marvellous superiority of the work handed down 
 to us from the fourteenth to the seventeenth 
 centuries (putting Greek art out of the question 
 for the moment), in pictures, in sculpture, in 
 wall decorations, in embroidery, in ironwork, in 
 pottery — in all departments indeed of fine and 
 decorative art that the men of those centuries 
 put their hands to. No painter of this day 
 pretends for one moment that any man alive 
 can paint as well as Michael Angelo, Raphael, 
 Titian, and many other Italians; no Staffbrdshire 
 potter, or any other potter elsewhere, pretends 
 or maintains that he can produce anything equal 
 to the best lustre-ware of mediaeval Italy — and 
 so it is through all these arts. 
 
 We ask why ? The answer is, that art was 
 then traditional ; that is to say, a painter or 
 handicraftsman was brought up to the craft 
 of his father and grandfather, and simply and 
 
 68 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 naturally produced the article he had been 
 taught to produce from boyhood. And so 
 it came to pass that, in the centuries I have 
 alluded to, Europe was full of young men 
 trained from boyhood to their respective crafts ; 
 it was their pride to carry on the family tradi- 
 tion, and it was the delight of the wealthy 
 soldier, statesman, ecclesiastic, or burgher to 
 vie with each other in buying their wares. 
 History and its record in the museums amply 
 testify to the truth of this. 
 
 Now all is changed. Traditional art has 
 utterly died out ; each man is a free-lance, 
 and launches out at manhood into what he has 
 then to learn how to do; and the temptation 
 commonest to most of us is to go into those 
 classes of business which require little appren- 
 ticeship and mainly " sharpness," leading more 
 quickly to wealth, than any sort of art or craft. 
 And even in the realms of art itself, there seems 
 an extraordinary desire — fever, may it not be 
 called ? — to rush into untrodden paths. 
 
 A very large number of youthful designers 
 and artists seem only anxious to design what 
 they call novelty, even at the expense of stamp- 
 ing out tradition entirely — a sort of desire to 
 fly in the face of tradition and get their fame 
 or money simply through the quality of strange- 
 ness which they are able to put into their work. 
 
 69 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 And if, in the practice of more legitimate art or 
 decoration, any man rise out of the ruck of the 
 commonplace, it is to be accounted for in one 
 of two ways — either that he is a kind of genius, 
 and so naturally out-tops his fellows, or that 
 he possesses, in a high degree, the faculty of 
 assimilating and reproducing the treasures of 
 the past, which, after all, is perhaps only 
 another form of genius. 
 
 So that, violent as it may sound, we should, 
 I fear, look with grave doubt and incredulity 
 upon all modern productions in fine or deco- 
 rative art. I do not, of course, say that we 
 should look upon them with scorn or with 
 contempt, but with incredulity, until, after a 
 rigid application of our axioms, we see here 
 and there a form start out from the all but 
 universal slough of degradation into which we 
 have fallen ; and then, whether it be a picture 
 by Millais or Burne-Jones, a church of Butter- 
 field's, a house of Norman Shaw's, a stained- 
 glass window by Morris, such names should be 
 held in memory, and their work looked for 
 with anxiety and interest. Considering, how- 
 ever, the scarcity of such men, our daily food 
 in art, in good colour and form, must be sought 
 for at the British Museum, at the National 
 Gallery, at South Kensington, the Louvre, and 
 such-like places. 
 
 70 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 There is a further reason for this, not so 
 obvious, but possibly even more important. 
 
 It seems to have been clearly perceived in 
 the best days of mediaeval art, that the true 
 function of art consists in the embodiment 
 and representation of the ideal — the poetical. 
 It may be an open question whether this was 
 largely a result of the great demand, from 
 ecclesiastics and others, for pictures of religious 
 subjects, or whether it was a mediaeval condi- 
 tion of mind which passed away with the arrival 
 of advanced forms of " progress." But nothing 
 is more certain than that all the finest art that 
 has come down to us from Giotto to Raphael 
 (and a great deal that was earlier and later) is 
 ideal in the highest degree, and almost with- 
 out exception poetical.. As to the question 
 of ideality, let us take a single example, as a 
 specimen of the spirit which permeates their art. 
 
 No subject is more common, in the finest 
 period of art, than the Nativity, or the Adora- 
 tion of the Kings. In either case, the infant 
 Christ must have been of extremely tender age ^ 
 yet nowhere is He represented as a new-born 
 infant — always as a plump, well-developed child 
 of six to twelve months old — an ideal baby, in 
 fact — in direct disregard of the text of the 
 history it was to illustrate. 
 
 The question of poetical treatment as apart — 
 71 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 if it can be apart — from ideality, is less easy to 
 exhibit in a moderate compass ; but no reflec- 
 tive person can visit the National Gallery, and 
 then the Royal Academy, without perceiving 
 the strong contrast in feeling between the two 
 in style, in frame of mind, in effect on us. It 
 is again not a difference in degree, it is a differ- 
 ence in kind. One ranks with Holy Scripture, 
 with Chaucer, with Spenser, with Shakespeare ; 
 the other with Darwin, with Herbert Spencer, 
 with the magazines, with the Times. This 
 divergence is exactly the divergence between 
 poetry and prose. 
 
 Poetry and mediaeval art come upon us as 
 somewhat strange, somewhat weird and myste- 
 rious, rather difficult, requiring all our patience, 
 and often more than all our wits, to compre- 
 hend and to assimilate. But once compre- 
 hended and taken to heart, they become the 
 constant companions of our better selves ; they 
 cherish and amplify our highest aspirations ; 
 they lift us up for a while into a finer and 
 purer atmosphere, and, whether we know it or 
 not, they elevate us above the dust and rubbish 
 of our daily lives. 
 
 But modern realistic art, magazines and news- 
 papers, are friendly and easy, chatty and jocose 
 as boon companions ; they appeal instantly to 
 the meanest capacity; make us happy, maybe, 
 
 72 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 as a meal does ; make us laugh ; help us to 
 pass the time. But they leave us just where 
 we were, in the City or in Bond Street, in the 
 office or the stable. 
 
 We have lately heard a good deal about the 
 general improvement in taste which is supposed 
 to have taken place during the last few years. 
 There has been a great deal of change, but has 
 there been any improvement ? 
 
 To be sure, there are many people of culti- 
 vated taste to be found — people who instinc- 
 tively avoid loud and vulgar things — there 
 always were ; though, of course, when " society " 
 was smaller, they were much fewer in number. 
 These people find it now-a-days easier to obtain 
 unobjectionable dress, furniture, and household 
 stufiv, than it used to be ; and, beyond doubt, a 
 trade of a limited extent has been created by 
 such people, so that they now know where they 
 can find what they want, often ready in stock. 
 But when we consider the enormous increase 
 during the last thirty years in the number of 
 families who can spend £600 a year and up- 
 wards, it is evident that the trade in moderate 
 and well-designed articles is relatively small and 
 exceptional ; and any one who will take the 
 trouble to go through some of the huge fur- 
 nishing warehouses in Tottenham Court Road 
 and Finsbury, to go no further, may readily 
 
 73 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 discover that every vile and violent shade that 
 dyers can dye (and they are infinitely viler than 
 they were or could be forty years ago, before 
 the general introduction of aniline), every pre- 
 posterous form of chair, cabinet, or sofa origi- 
 nated in the most degraded times of George IV., 
 is still completely in vogue with a large propor- 
 tion of buyers, and is ten times oftener asked 
 for than anything quiet or moderate. 
 
 Moreover, everything must now be both low 
 priced and highly ornamented ; and among the 
 exigencies so created, there arise terrific visions 
 of all kinds and sizes — lamps, coal-boxes, cheap 
 jewellery, pictures, and chimney-piece orna- 
 ments, easy-chairs, curtains — a thousand and 
 one terrors which percolate into our houses. For 
 our friends give them to us, even if we carefully 
 abstain from buying them (who does not know 
 of the young bride who hardly dares to show 
 some of her wedding presents !). They are not 
 only devoid of any one sign of education, or 
 cultivation in their designer, but are manifestly 
 the production of grossly vulgar and illiterate 
 people, and determinedly trample on every 
 canon of decent taste or propriety. 
 
 Possibly those who think they can see an 
 improvement are misled, partly by the exist- 
 ence of such a shop as Mr. Morris's, and partly 
 by the recent fashion of wearing quiet and 
 
 74 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 tertiary shades in dress. But this is only a 
 fashion, and if fashion dictates magenta as 
 the colour for dress next year, magenta will be 
 worn triumphantly ; * while as for the trade in 
 goods of the character of Mr. Morris's pro- 
 ductions, it is as a drop in the ocean. 
 
 There are two articles usually to be found in 
 the houses of people who can afford to spend 
 twelve hundred a year and more (who may 
 roughly be taken to represent our upper and 
 educated class), a grand piano, and a billiard- 
 table. 
 
 They are about the very ugliest things on 
 the earth ; and partly from there being only the 
 very feeblest desire to see them improved, and 
 partly from a fear of what Mrs. Grundy will 
 say if they are altered, they have remained a 
 hideous eyesore for fifty years and more. There 
 is absolutely no reason worth the name why 
 both of them should not at least have good 
 mouldings and well-designed legs, and there 
 is every reason why a billiard-table should be 
 lined with a temperate green, restful to the eye, 
 instead of the very crudest and fiercest colour 
 that can be dyed ; yet there they stand, two 
 ugly blots in almost every large house in the 
 land. Look again at the houses recently erected 
 
 * This, though only written a few years ago, has become 
 a fulfilled prophecy : witness the hat-trimming of 1 896. 
 
 75 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 and those in course of erection by the specu- 
 lating builder — say in South Kensington or 
 Chelsea — houses of ;^200 to ;^500 a year 
 rental, and see to what ornament he treats ladies 
 and gentlemen : his cornices, his grates and 
 chimney-pieces, his balusters, his terrible stained 
 glass ! But the speculating builder is generally 
 a very clever and acute fellow, feels the pulse 
 of the times, knows " what people like," and 
 gives it, and in consequence he lets his houses 
 in good situations fast, no matter how vile and 
 vulgar be his ornamentations. 
 
 When such houses do not let because they 
 are done in bad taste, and ladies and gentle- 
 men have reformed their pianos and billiard- 
 tables, we may begin to believe in the general 
 taste having improved — but not sooner. 
 
 Meanwhile, we should try and keep a clean 
 palate. Do not ever be persuaded, however 
 gorgeous the doorway, to visit catch-penny 
 exhibitions of doubtful pictures — no matter 
 whether they be surrounded by maroon velvet 
 or hot-house plants. Avoid all things that are 
 much advertised and puffed, even if the premises 
 be in Bond Street. Never be entrapped into 
 admiring new hotels, even if there be luncheon 
 for nothing ; and as for our homes (where we 
 can to some extent regulate our surroundings), 
 we cannot possibly be too exacting or careful 
 
 76 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 to keep out showy rubbish. We should never 
 buy foolish or ignoble photographs on any 
 consideration whatever, and if we have them 
 given to us, we should wait till the donor 
 is out of sight, and then promptly burn 
 them. 
 
 When we see vulgar advertisements we should 
 turn our heads the other way ; similarly, with 
 representations of French priests grinning, or 
 gobbling oysters, or being shaved (if we all of 
 us avoided buying the soap of people who so 
 offend, we might at least abate that nuisance), 
 or coarse pictures of impossibly fat monks 
 drinking beer, or vulgar caricatures of public 
 men. Photographs from life are also to be 
 avoided, or accepted in homoeopathic quantities 
 — a worthless and generally ignoble form of 
 so-called art, which fills up our rooms, unduly 
 engages our attention, and stands to a good 
 many people in the place of art — a vile im- 
 posture. If we must have third-rate portraits 
 of our friends, let them be kept in drawers. 
 And let us rid ourselves of all crude and 
 strongly coloured wall-papers, carpets, or cur- 
 tains — things with feeble and prominent and 
 meaningless designs ; emerald green or magenta 
 crochet mats for plants to stand on. All this 
 supposed-to-be-harmless but conspicuous rub- 
 bish, even if it comes from Regent Street, should 
 
 77 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 be consigned to the kitchen fire. And our 
 axioms, if well and rigidly applied, are quite 
 sufficient to guide us safely to the purchase of 
 fresh curtains, carpets, wall-papers, and chintzes. 
 But perhaps some one will say, "You have burnt 
 or banished most of our pictures and ornamental 
 objects, — how are we to replace them? We 
 can't do without some semblance of fine art 
 on our walls, or bits of good ornament here and 
 there ; you destroy, please replace." Without 
 in the least admitting that these axioms would 
 not suffice here also, one cannot deny the reason- 
 ableness of the demand ; so there is added to 
 this chapter a little appendix, giving ten items 
 of fine art, at prices to meet the exigencies of 
 all pockets, for the walls. 
 
 Of course if we can go to Bond Street dealers, 
 and commission them to buy things which would 
 be welcome at South Kensington Museum, the 
 affair is easy enough ; but to buy really good 
 art at prices between twenty shillings and twenty 
 pounds is not so easy, no doubt. 
 
 There is another aspect of the matter apply- 
 ing strictly to art students and artists, but 
 .eventually, through them, to all of us. 
 
 Artists are, in a great measure, our teachers. 
 We learn more quickly through the eye than 
 through the ear; and if we see frivolous and 
 ignoble pictures, we think in those respects 
 
 78 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 frivolously and ignobly. If, on the contrary, 
 the artists take the highest view of their sub- 
 ject, and lead us into a higher atmosphere, we 
 follow them there ; so it is of the utmost im- 
 portance to us as a nation to regulate what 
 frame of mind, what temper, what environment 
 the artist shall have in his daily life. 
 
 Take what may be supposed to be the popular 
 art of the day, the art one finds in shop windows 
 in Piccadilly and the Strand, a,nd see what sort 
 of subjects people rejoice in. I purposely 
 avoid cultured art lovers, who admire Velas- 
 quez, Gainsborough, and Turner, their number 
 being inconsiderable, and the Art they admire 
 is not " popular." Now, it will be found upon 
 examination, that probably half of the popular 
 art exhibited in our shop windows is of a sport- 
 ing character, if not actually representing horses 
 with jockeys on them, at least horses, dogs, 
 gamekeepers, and that type. A fair proportion 
 may be fancy pictures of the portrait type, 
 mostly women — a good subject, no doubt, but 
 frivolously treated. The rest are largely kittens, 
 puppies, and commonplace scenes of country 
 life, more or less ignoble subjects, rather grossly 
 treated. From Germany we seem to get mainly 
 a feeble sort of religious picture — noble ideas 
 originally, no doubt, but dragged by artists of 
 the level of Overbeck through the mud of a 
 
 79 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 commonplace imagination, till they lose their 
 charm and become no art at all. 
 
 If we turn to France, things are still worse. 
 Their art consists so largely in drawings of 
 over-dressed and fast-looking girls, bent on 
 making the best market of their charms, that 
 the remainder do not seem worth mentioning. 
 Frivolity and sensuality seem to be their lode- 
 stars, and their art, such as it is, follows their 
 attraction admirably. 
 
 Now turn to the Italian popular art of 
 mediasval times. 
 
 The comparison does not go on all fours, 
 because the state of society and its consequent 
 demands, and the appliances for satisfying these 
 demands, did not then exist. But the popular 
 art of that day may undoubtedly be seen at the 
 British Museum, and the print shop where 
 they sell the works of Tintoret, Titian, and 
 the rest. 
 
 The contrast is dispiriting. 
 
 Are we to go forward in the race after frivo- 
 lity and sensuality? It depends much upon 
 artists and architects and the cultured class. 
 If they will be true to the cultivation of real 
 art instead of rubbish, much may be hoped. 
 Unfortunately, as we advance in civilisation, 
 it seems that Romance, the poetic side of us, 
 which is to the human heart what the flower 
 
 80 
 
BEAUTY IN FORM AND COLOUR 
 
 is to the plant, dies out and disappears; and 
 instead of following in the track of our great 
 artists of the past, instead of cultivating in our 
 students the art of dramatic intention, of deep 
 and poetic thought and meaning, romantic situa- 
 tion, suggestive poetry, high aspiration, we go 
 in for teaching them mechanical exactness, end- 
 less anatomy, extreme niceties in drawing and 
 detail. This, for our students : for ourselves, 
 cast iron, railways, telegraphs, electric lighting, 
 huge hotels, and — dividends. 
 
 8i 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 HIGH ART FOR SHALLOW PURSES 
 
 Chromo-lithographs after Turner's Vignettes, at as. 6d. 
 each, exceedingly well copied, may be purchased from 
 Messrs. Rowney & Co., Oxford Street, London. Four 
 in one frame, with a gold mount, make a reasonably 
 sized and interesting wall ornament. 
 
 Photographs of the Terra- Cottas of Lucca delta Robbia, 
 and other similar decorative Italian work, are sold by 
 G. Cole, Via Tornabuoni, Florence, at two to three 
 francs each. 
 
 The Chromo-lithographs published by the Arundel 
 Society, after mediaeval Italian art, are many of them 
 excellent and interesting. It is not necessary to be a 
 subscriber in order to obtain them, and an old sub- 
 scriber, whether he has ceased to subscribe or not, may 
 always obtain them for himself or his friends at sub- 
 scriber's prices. Office in St. James's Street, London. 
 
 Turner's " Liber Studiorum " prints in sepia (a great 
 part of the work by the artist himself). At a Bond 
 Street shop ten guineas and upwards is asked, but I 
 have bought many at the small, insignificant shops lying 
 between the Strand and Oxford Street, at one and 
 a half to four guineas. 
 
 Small Eighteenth Century Engravings, mostly printed 
 82 
 
ART FOR SHALLOW PURSES 
 
 in brown, and generally circular or oval in shape, after 
 Angelica Kauffman, Cipriani, and others ; imaginative 
 and poetical subjects, illustrating Spenser's "Faery 
 Queen," &c. Sold by old print collectors in Soho, &c. 
 (must be bought with care, there being plenty of rub- 
 bishy imitations). Some of the best are printed on 
 cream-coloured satin. 
 
 F. Hollyer, Pembroke Square, EarFs Court Road, 
 Kensington, prints and sells a very fine collection of 
 most interesting photographs, after Burne-Jones and 
 D. G. Rossetti. These photographs are quite of a 
 superior style to the ordinary article. 
 
 Bartolozzi's Engravings, after Holbein, some of them 
 on tinted paper, may often be met with in old book and 
 print shops in London, at 5 s. to los., and the three or 
 four best of them at £,2, 2s. or £,1, 3s. They were 
 published by Chamberlain in a.d. 1793, and the whole 
 book (which contains at least twenty-five worth framing) 
 may occasionally be met with at prices varying from 
 25 to 35 guineas, according to the condition of the 
 plates. They are most excellent and interesting. 
 
 Albert Buret's Woodcuts, reproduced of late years in 
 France, very vigorous and picturesque, at a few francs ; 
 and for those who have patience to hunt further, original 
 woodcuts and etchings by Durer and his best imitators 
 are often to be picked up at small prices, los. and 
 upwards, especially if rather foxed, or if they have lost 
 their margins. 
 
 Mezzotint Engravings, published about 1790, many of 
 them in a beautiful deep soft brown, after Gainsborough, 
 Reynolds, Romney, and Hoppner, may often be found 
 at old print shops at £t„ ss. and upwards, according to 
 condition. They are printed on exceedingly soft paper, 
 and so are often out of condition, and proportionately 
 
 83 * 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 cheap. They are easy to mount when wetted thoroughly 
 all over, and may then be touched up with a very fine 
 sable and Indian ink. Nothing has of late years been 
 so much looked up by lovers of art, and fine proof 
 copies have frequently been sold at upwards of loo 
 guineas each by auction. The most beautiful are gene- 
 rally full-length portraits of ladies. 
 
 Copies of the most valuable and interesting works in 
 the National Gallery, or of parts of them, may be pur- 
 chased during the process of copying, at such prices as 
 ten to thirty guineas. There are "hacks," no doubt, 
 who produce bad copies all through a lifetime, but there 
 are also many excellent copyists, who like the work, 
 and are glad of the httle pocket-money so earned ; and 
 to sensible people, who don't want to brag of the value 
 of their possessions, such copies are quite as interesting 
 as the originals. 
 
 Of course, it is not pretended for one moment that 
 this is a complete list of all the bits of really high art 
 that may be obtained at such prices. 
 
 ORNAMENT 
 
 I need not say that much pleasure, much cultivation 
 of taste, and great improvement to the aspect of the 
 house may be obtained by buying for chimney-piece 
 and cabinet ornaments, in place of the trash annually 
 poured out by Birmingham and the Potteries, Paris and 
 Munich, such things as the following : — 
 
 Old Blue and White Oriental China. — Good vases 
 and beakers are costly, but plates are often as good 
 in design, and remain moderate in price. 
 
 Rhodian Ware, often called Persian, generally plates. 
 84 
 
ART FOR SHALLOW PURSES 
 
 Greyish-cream ground, with variously coloured flowers. 
 Very conventional. 
 
 Modern Venetian Glass. — The simpler and more 
 severely shaped pieces, genera;lly in the form of tall 
 wine-glasses and beakers. 
 
 Modern Lustre Ware. — Dishes by Cantagalli, of 
 Florence, and by De Morgan of Great Marlborough 
 Street, London. 
 
 Old Brass Dishes. — By no means very rare. Are 
 stiU in use in Italy in the fried-fish shops. 
 
 Scraps of Old Embroidery, ItaUan or English. These 
 may be arranged as panels in an over-mantel, or for 
 screens. 
 
 "Chippendale" Mirrors, so called, though never 
 figured by Chippendale. Small, mahogany - framed, 
 usually with a carved and gilt bird at the top, and 
 pierced thin woodwork above and below. Also broad, 
 black Venetian mirror-frames {cornice a sbalzo), with 
 Uttle waved patterns on their mouldings. 
 
 Old Flemish Leather, stamped and lacquered, making 
 an excellent frieze or backing to a sideboard. 
 
 Old French or Flemish Tapestry, of the kind known 
 as "Verdure" — trees, shrubs, and landscape only. 
 Unimportant pieces, of moderate dimensions, often 
 change hands at 40s. per square yard. 
 
 And by the use of Oriental carpets, rugs, and mattings, 
 wherever practicable, in lieu of those of English manu- 
 facture. (It is quite possible, however, to buy very bad 
 ones — the "axioms" should be kept well in mind.) 
 
 85 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 {^Addressed to the Liverpool Architectural Association) 
 
 ^EFORE dealing with a subject which 
 must of necessity consist largely of 
 almost querulous fault-finding, I 
 wish to say, quite plainly and dis- 
 tinctly, how highly I hold in esteem the calling of 
 an architect — not merely regarded as an ideal of 
 what an architect may and ought to be — but 
 practically, as I have found architects I have 
 known, and under whom I have worked for years, 
 and from a knowledge of what they have done 
 and what they are doing. The most beautiful 
 and enduring things the world possesses we owe 
 to their education and their patience, their inge- 
 nuity and love ; and if a man wants to be trans- 
 formed and elevated — the beast in him to be 
 subdued and the Godlike developed — let him 
 trace the history of architecture and visit her 
 creations, from the Parthenon and the French 
 89 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 and English cathedrals to the Houses of Par- 
 liament, and your own St. George's Hall 
 (Liverpool). 
 
 If I have any fault to find with architects, it 
 is that they do not go far enough ; that they 
 should not stop at wall and cornice and wood- 
 work, but that they should also design the 
 ceiling, the frieze, the dado, the chimney-piece, 
 the grate, the electric fittings, and not leave all 
 these things to dribble into the hands of a set 
 of uneducated shopkeepers, whose only interest 
 is ;C s. d. 
 
 In an age of low and sordid ambitions, when 
 every man is greedy to rob his neighbour if he 
 can, it seems a matter of inestimable value to 
 the public weal that there should exist a body 
 of men who are, for the most part, educated 
 gentlemen ; who are seldom commercially am- 
 bitious ; who can take delight in beauty of form 
 and colour for beauty's sake, and not because 
 it pays ; who are singularly tenacious of each 
 other's rights, rather than of their own ; whose 
 value to the community is never adequately 
 acknowledged ; who constantly do as good or 
 better work than the painters, but who are not 
 one-tenth part so much flattered and petted; 
 and who habitually work hard for their living, 
 and very seldom have the chance of a plum. 
 
 It is to these qualities we must look for our 
 90 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 bulwarks against the tide of vulgar, common- 
 place, and utilitarian rubbish, which threatens 
 at present to absorb every calling. The world 
 seems to have entered upon a new phase, dis- 
 tinguished principally by a desire to make 
 money, irrespective of the way it is made; 
 and we are following our neighbours across 
 the Atlantic in falling down to worship the 
 Golden Dollar. There is no apparent break- 
 water to stem the tide but that of architects and 
 artists, if they will, who have something to set 
 up as a goal better worth winning than com- 
 mercial success. 
 
 Decoration. — No one will surely attempt to 
 deny that we live in an age conspicuous for 
 its commonplace. Whether it be the average 
 builder's house, or civil engineer's railway- 
 station, or a scientific man's electric fittings, 
 we recognise modern work by its complete 
 absence of character. Now, commonplace is 
 dull and uninteresting. No one would know- 
 ingly seek it or desire it, or, unless he were 
 desperately dull and commonplace himself, 
 would pay good money to get it ; and yet 
 most people do get it. They rent or buy 
 commonplace houses with commonplace decora- 
 tion, and complete the thing with common- 
 place furniture; and it, becomes an inquiry of 
 some interest to try and see how this arises, and 
 91 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 what are the chief inducing causes, A decorator 
 becomes so wearied and worried by the moun- 
 tains of commonplace stuff around, that the 
 subject has become an interesting study, and 
 we seem to trace its origin in a sort of mis- 
 directed utilitarianism. Now, that brings us 
 upon tangible ground. 
 
 As an example : I suppose I am only one 
 among many who have been rash enough to 
 attempt to improve the mouldings and details of 
 a billiard-table and a piano, but always with this 
 result, that it has been proved to me by the fore- 
 man or masters of such an establishment, that 
 in several cases the new details supplied would 
 have cost a little more money. This one cut into 
 more wood ; another wanted cutting at twice ; 
 in a third they had been accustomed to cut two 
 out of a square, and the new drawing was not 
 so accommodating — and so on through the list. 
 
 Now, this spirit is to be found in every branch 
 of trade, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hun- 
 dred it is just the little interesting and artistic 
 touch that is found to be more costly or less con- 
 venient. Something must be pinched to meet 
 competition. Wages cannot be altered; mate- 
 rial and labour must, therefore, be economised. 
 A cabriole leg to a chair requires a carver : a 
 turned leg can be done by the thousand in a 
 steam lathe. A large design goes over three 
 92 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 or four printing-blocks : cut it down in dimen- 
 sions and put it in on one. A sheep-skin for 
 embossing costs 3s. 6d., but paper as stout can 
 be had for 4Jd. A door handle with a ray- 
 like set of flutings must be cast and chased : 
 leave out the flutings, and you can " spin " it. 
 And so in every department of work, except, 
 perhaps, those details of a building upon 
 which a good architect rests his reputation, we 
 drop down to utilitarian commonplace. 
 
 And the motive force which brings this about 
 is that terrible commercial desire to do the largest 
 business possible, rather than to be content to 
 do a smaller business, and to do it as well as it 
 possibly can be done. Your spirited and enter- 
 prising tradesman, with the mercantile instinct 
 very strongly developed, advertises freely and 
 lies freely, and assures all who will read or 
 listen to him that they can live as well, own 
 as pretty houses, and dress as well, as far as 
 appearances go, as their richer neighbours. 
 His competitors of the same street advertise 
 and lie even more freely than he does ; and 
 down goes the price of every commodity, the 
 value going down still more quickly — for, are 
 not the savings all made out of material ? And 
 as if this was not bad enough, it seems that, to 
 spice the dish, it is necessary to offer the bait 
 of continual novelty — novelty in the spring, 
 93 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 further novelty in the autumn ; and to produce 
 this, huge establishments are required, divided 
 into sections, over each of which presides a 
 manager, trained only in the art of dividend- 
 making ; the whole being quite beyond the 
 reach of the taste, or influence, or even of the 
 personal scrutiny of the real master — utilitari- 
 anism being the only god they all worship. 
 
 You will ask, perhaps, how this is to be 
 stopped. That, I fear, would lead us beyond the 
 limits of an inquiry like this ; but at least we 
 may each do much by fostering the opposite 
 spirit, by carefully avoiding tradesmen who are 
 prominent advertisers, and by influencing our 
 families and friends to do so too. 
 
 In comparing, to our constant chagrin and 
 vexation, the beautiful productions of the 
 Middle Ages— tapestry, leather, armour, pot- 
 tery, figured velvets, embroidery, and the like, 
 with the cheap rubbish of to-day, one cannot 
 but ask how it was that they, with fewer facili- 
 ties than we, produced this wealth and abund- 
 ance of beautiful things, while we, with all the 
 results of their experience to help us, seem 
 comparatively impotent. I confidently ascribe 
 it to the loss of tradition — that whereas the 
 mediaeval armourer was generally the son and 
 grandson of an armourer, and brought up his 
 son and his grandson to be armourers too, the 
 94 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 painter was the son and possibly the grandson 
 of a painter, the tapestry-weaver also being 
 descended from a family of tapestry-makers : 
 and so on through every trade, the country 
 being filled with young men who from boyhood 
 understood their business, and had no thought 
 but of practising the same. Nowadays, we go 
 off into the opposite direction, and our success- 
 ful upholsterer is the son of a city clerk, and 
 brings up his son to be a country gentleman 
 and a breeder of race-horses. 
 
 William Morris used to say that the sixteenth 
 century craftsman lived so happily and joy- 
 ously, was so well dressed, and housed, and fed 
 (his master being jovial and liberal too), that 
 out of the sheer delight he found in his life 
 and surroundings, he thought beautiful things, 
 hammered beautiful iron, embossed beautiful 
 leather, wove beautiful tapestry, and sang jovial 
 songs. I hope it is all true. 
 
 But I think it has been proved beyond dis- 
 pute that the workman was never nearly so well 
 off in the history of the world as he is to-day. 
 An examination of old workmen's quarters in 
 France and Italy, the Rue de Jerzuel in Dinan, 
 for instance, which has scarcely been touched 
 for two or three hundred years, the dark and 
 narrow calles of Venice, slum quarters in Paris 
 and Rome, seem to show that the mediasval 
 95 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 workman was very badly housed in what we 
 should call dark and dirty quarters. No doubt 
 such details are matters of comparison, and 
 probably their quarters were as good as they 
 desired, their needs not having been increased 
 by the sight of anything better — for their class, 
 at least. The workman gained, of course, im- 
 mensely by the comparative smallness of the 
 towns and thinness of the population as com- 
 pared with our own. The power of joining 
 in the field sports of the nobles, if only as 
 lookers-on, must have been a great relief, and 
 even, with some natures, it is conceivable that 
 war might have been an agreeable change. 
 Hours of work, we can well understand, must 
 have been less arbitrary, and more according to 
 the workman's own choice ; and the power of 
 carrying on his work at his own house must 
 have been an enormous gain when we think of 
 the crowded factory of the present day; so 
 that his life, when compared with that of to- 
 day, may have been tolerable. 
 
 In each age, no doubt, the ruling class gets 
 what it wants and has the money to pay for. 
 In the sixteenth century money was in the 
 hands of the few. The mediaeval prince, or 
 baron, or squire, the bishop or canon of the 
 Church, knew how to rule the roost, and, 
 in a rough way, they did it well; and these 
 96 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 beautiful things we are talking about were 
 what they liked and wanted, and had the 
 money to pay for ; and it was just that tradi- 
 tional craftsmanship we have spoken about 
 which rendered it, in difficult and troublesome 
 times, still possible for certain trades to live — 
 though, judging by history, the workmen could 
 not have worked more than half their time — 
 war filling up the other half 
 
 But how different is the social condition now. 
 Where there were one or two of the ruling class 
 in a town or neighbourhood, there are now a 
 thousand burghers, all fairly well-to-do, whose 
 wants are of an entirely different kind. They 
 desire and enjoy better houses, more warmth 
 and protection from cold, gas, improved lamps, 
 electric light, better and more varied food, 
 books, magazines, newspapers, and postal ser- 
 vices — a much better minage, extending, too, 
 all over the house; music, and occasionally 
 foreign travel ; while the richer ones desire 
 and obtain costlier equipage, good art, a great 
 deal too much sport, and two or three houses 
 each, instead of one, not to mention long so- 
 journs in foreign hotels. 
 
 Collectively, this modern society demands, 
 and gets, good means of transport by land and 
 by sea, rapid transmission of messages or news, 
 and comfortable hotels at all centres of interest, 
 
 97 G 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 whether in the streets of a metropolis or on a 
 Swiss mountain. These are the demands of 
 the burgher of the latter half of the present 
 century — for a great many of us no longer desire 
 to lord it, baronially, with fire and sword, but 
 are learning to live and let live; and a vast 
 section of society now prefers to live honourably 
 by the sweat of the brow, rather than screw 
 rack-rents out of pauper peasants. The pluck, 
 ingenuity, and industry of the designing and 
 working class of our time has produced the 
 article demanded, and has been liberally paid 
 for it. True, the details of the articles so pro- 
 duced are in most cases as hideous as utilitari- 
 anism can make them ; but remember that it 
 was not beautiful detail that was ordered, but 
 material comfort and convenience ; and, beyond 
 doubt, if beautiful leather for wall coverings, 
 for instance, had been steadily asked for twenty 
 years ago, some of us would have produced 
 leather equal to the best the Spaniards made, 
 and by now better still. But the well-to-do 
 burgher replies, " I do not care to pay a guinea 
 a skin : I would rather have an imitation at 5s., 
 and spend the remainder in dogs, horses, yachts, 
 Scotch shooting, a trip to the Riviera." We 
 may be sorry for his choice and think it a mis- 
 take, but we have to deal with facts, and change 
 our ideas with the changing times. 
 98 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 Perhaps you will say to me, " Well, but if 
 the production of beautiful sixteenth century 
 work were to be demanded again, say by an 
 aristocracy who had ceased to think killing 
 God's creatures the greatest pleasure to be 
 enjoyed, you would merely copy old work : 
 you would go to South Kensington and trace 
 and copy and reproduce." Believe me, this 
 has always been so. No architect, no painter, 
 no craftsman in this world ever sprung by a 
 stride into what was at once novel and good. 
 And just as the beautiful Gothic of Beauvais 
 and Bourges is merely developed through a thou- 
 sand delicate gradations from a Greek temple, 
 so whatever work of mans is thoroughly fine 
 and noble in the world, must always have 
 been only a trifling advance upon a previous 
 success. There is absolutely no exception 
 whatever to this rule. The more one looks 
 into the history of the past, the more one feels 
 that each art or craft must follow its own tra- 
 dition. I know we live in an age when this 
 is constantly forgotten, and numbers of young 
 designers and architects are constantly springing 
 up to show how they can make mighty leaps 
 and astonish the ages. There were three or 
 four specimens in a recent "Arts and Crafts 
 Exhibition," where the modern gesso work was 
 cracked and going to pieces within a few months 
 99 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 of its production. The saving clause is that 
 these crazes are of short duration ; and we are 
 constantly learning that tradition is the only 
 safe foundation. 
 
 In the first half of the last century the in- 
 creasing wealth of the nation, the constant 
 visits to France and Belgium of soldiers and 
 statesmen, and the ideas so communicated to 
 men at home, brought about a great ferment 
 amongst the well-to-do classes as regards the 
 houses they lived in and their fittings, and made 
 us very conscious that our manner of living was 
 barbarous in comparison with that of our Con- 
 tinental neighbours. 
 
 Where a genuine demand exists, there seem 
 always the men produced to supply it, and 
 Robert and John Adam, who published their 
 magnificent work in 1773, appear to have 
 drawn in careful detail, not only the houses 
 they built, but all the furniture for them, in- 
 cluding even the draping of the curtains. Wit- 
 ness the superb collection of their drawings 
 now to be seen at the Soane Museum. And 
 other architects of that time, if they do not go 
 quite so far as the Adams, at all events pub- 
 lished excellent books of engravings, often with 
 full-sized details, of chimney-pieces and ceilings, 
 100 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 which are not only the best for our modern wants 
 that have ever been designed, but continue to 
 form the best models for our work of to-day. 
 George Richardson, who published his work in 
 1776, stands, perhaps, in the van (for the Adams' 
 work was exceptional, and for the very rich). 
 
 The Chimney-piece. — The chimney-piece is 
 a great feature in determining the character of a 
 room, and though I cannot think of placing these 
 men in front of the great Renaissance designers 
 of Italy, yet for the average burgher's house, the 
 designs of W. Jones, Inigo Jones, N, Wallis, 
 and Matthias Darley, besides the two already 
 mentioned, form a most valuable heirloom. 
 
 But the whole series of illustrated books, 
 commencing with W. Jones in 1739, and 
 terminating with Sheraton at the end of the 
 century, forms a most wonderful chapter in 
 the history of English architecture and decora- 
 tion. It embraced, besides the architects men- 
 tioned, and several not mentioned, Chippendale, 
 Shearer, Heppelwhite, and Sheraton, cabinet- 
 makers ; Lock, Copeland, and Johnson, wood- 
 carvers ; the delightful Pergolesi, Cipriani, 
 and Columbani, designers of ornament; and 
 many others of more or less merit. And 
 though there was a dangerous disposition to be 
 wild and flamboyant, and even to try and out- 
 Frank the French, yet underneath it all there 
 
 lOI 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 is a solid residuum of good grain well worth the 
 necessary sifting. The architects, of course, 
 followed Greece and Rome. The cabinet- 
 makers and carvers drew their inspiration 
 beyond doubt from France (buying the illus- 
 trated books of Berain, Le Pautre, and others). 
 The ornamenters were Italians pure and simple, 
 imported adults. Nevertheless, it was these 
 men, apparently, that rescued us from a state 
 of rude barbarism in all these arts, and they 
 were on the highroad to place us abreast of 
 our neighbours, when the French Revolution, 
 at one blow, cut us off from most of the sources 
 of our inspiration, and we dropped at once to 
 commonplace and humdrum. Any one who 
 wUl take the trouble to wade through the 
 shelves of illustrated books at South Kensington 
 cannot but be struck by the astonishingly rapid 
 collapse of all that was valuable or useful in 
 those published after Sheraton. Up to his 
 time (1791) every book contained something 
 of merit, but even his own latest book (1804), 
 Taylor (1805), Wood (1806), G.Smith (1808), 
 are tissues of impotent vulgarity, and form the 
 origin of all that bad work of the early part of 
 the century which makes one alternately laugh 
 and shudder. 
 
 And just as the Chippendale period, 1740 
 to 1795, has left us a fine legacy, in chimney- 
 102 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 pieces, ceilings, furniture and decoration, so 
 the dull and humdrum period, 1800 to 1850, 
 has left us a dreadful residuum of hideous 
 ceiling rosettes, huge and imbecile cornices, 
 generally with a large cavetto ; white marble 
 chimney-pieces with an arch and trusses, large 
 mirrors, always with a half-oval head, and cut 
 glass chandeliers. And these again (it is like 
 the sowing of dragon's teeth) have produced 
 the immense skirting, vulgar mouldings every- 
 where ; the terrible gasalier ; the builder's 
 " sham," carrying bad tiles fixed in a frame ; 
 cornices, still huger and more full of frivolous 
 and foolish enrichments ; the window with only 
 two panes of glass, and other enormities. We 
 must all do our best utterly to forget and 
 ignore the terrible period between 1793 and 
 1870 — the seventy-seven years following the 
 French Revolution. 
 
 The Ceiling. — We have been for long, and 
 still are, though there are signs of improve- 
 ment, quite stupid as regards the ceiling. No 
 doubt, ever since good Queen Bess's time at 
 least, architects have generally contrived to put 
 one moulded plaster ceiling, if not more, into 
 the houses of the rich — but there things have 
 stopped until quite lately; and the average 
 citizen's ceilings consist of from thirty to sixty 
 square yards of plain, whitewashed plaster. 
 103 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 We decorate our walls with patterns and pic- 
 tures and cabinets and mirrors, and then pre- 
 tend that we "rather prefer a plain ceiling." 
 
 The modelled ceiling of the last century, if 
 it gained in refinement on the Stuart work, lost 
 heavily in want of breadth and mass, and was 
 constantly spotty and liny. But the illustrated 
 works of Matthias Darley, Robert and John 
 Adam, and Richardson, to go no further, afford 
 some charming ideas of ceiling arrangements, 
 and when executed mainly in colour, they must 
 have been most lovely, and are fine examples 
 for our use. 
 
 Not enough use is made of flock paper. 
 Ten or twelve flocks give a much bolder relief 
 than "Anaglypta," and nearly as much relief 
 as the well-known " Tynecastle," and cost less. 
 But it is to be hoped that as architects come to 
 design more and more of the interior fittings 
 of their houses, they will give sketches in 
 colour for the ceilings, and call on us decora- 
 tors to carry them out. For, with our cloudy 
 skies, it is colour above all things that we want 
 in our houses. There is absolutely no reason 
 why our ceilings should not be as well and 
 carefully coloured as our walls, if only huge 
 cornices and dreadful rosettes could be kept 
 out of them. No doubt, the ceiling wants 
 more delicate colouring than the wall — a piece 
 104 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 of experience that quickly comes to any 
 designer ; but to lay down a rule that nothing 
 but a white ceiling is admissible is about as 
 sensible as to say that nothing but a green wall 
 is admissible. Rooms should be coloured in 
 accordance with their aspect ; and no relief, 
 however interesting, can be so beautiful for a 
 room to be used at night, as a painted and 
 delicately coloured ceiling. 
 
 There is plenty of paper painted in water- 
 colour, by artists of the sixteenth century, in 
 good condition now ; and a paper ceiling with 
 printed borders and hand-painted foliages and 
 plaques can be executed at half the cost of a 
 Tynecastle or moulded ceiling, and comes 
 within the price that the average house-build- 
 ing John Bull can pay. Pergolesi alone, 
 brought to this country by the Adams, has left 
 us in his book a perfect mine of wealth as to 
 the treatment of ceilings. 
 
 The Cornice. — There is no more mischiev- 
 ous feature than the, huge cornice which the 
 builder always puts into his house. He thinks, 
 I suppose, to make his room look " handsome." 
 Never, under any circumstances, can it be other- 
 wise than an eyesore. The cornice should be 
 large enough to take the eye off the bare- 
 ness of a right angle, and no larger. Almost 
 every old house in London (at least of a hun- 
 105 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 dred years old) shows us specimens of beautiful 
 cornices of not more than eight or nine inches 
 in girth, even less. The decoration of the 
 ceiling and the wall is much facilitated by this, 
 and such a cornice, if painted a subdued white, 
 retires, as it should, into its proper place, and 
 tempts nobody to the dreadful process of pick- 
 ing out ; a tiny leaf or scroll in the lower 
 part, and a bold, square member in the middle, 
 finished by a simple moulding above and below, 
 being all that is wanted. It is wonderful how 
 well one can manage to do without cornices 
 altogether in the less important rooms, if some 
 modest sum be allowed for paper borders. In- 
 deed, if everything is to cost nearly nothing, 
 as seems the fashion nowadays, why not give 
 up the bedroom cornice at once ; and even in 
 reception rooms, where the builder, for some 
 cause or other, has omitted the cornice, it will 
 be found that a wooden moulding of two or 
 threq inches in girth looks well. 
 
 The Frieze. — The frieze is to the construc- 
 tional part of the room what the flower or 
 fruit is to the plant, and can scarcely receive 
 too much careful attention. 
 
 Being well above the line where pictures 
 
 and ornaments and cabinets come, a dull region 
 
 remains there if you have no frieze ; and the 
 
 absence of one nearly always results in the 
 
 1 06 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 undue enlargement of the cornice, which gets 
 filled with " enrichments," and becomes a 
 slough of despond. The frieze is too often 
 entirely forgotten, or left to the imagination of 
 the local decorator. Architects ought always 
 to provide one, except in the exceedingly low 
 rooms of a cottage ; and there are so many 
 ways of treating this most ornamental feature. 
 Let me enumerate : — 
 
 (a.) There is cast plaster ornament, of which 
 (even if you have a mould to make) the cost is 
 reasonable. 
 
 ((5.) For those who want something original, 
 a young artist can paint on gilded canvas, and 
 give the room a character which nothing else 
 will give so well. 
 
 (c.) Stencilled paper also makes a charming 
 frieze, with delicacies of colour and design 
 which I think no other plan can equal. 
 
 (</.) For the least important rooms there 
 are printed friezes which, carefully chosen, 
 may be adequate and agreeable. 
 
 But an architect who has any originality 
 should take this opportunity of giving dis- 
 tinguishing character to his room, by a pictur- 
 esque and original frieze of his own design ; 
 and the owner of the house, or his wife, if 
 they can paint, should paint their own. 
 
 T/ie Body of the Wall. — The great advan- 
 107 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 tage of large designs is evident, but a very 
 great deal too much fuss is made about wall 
 papers. People seem to think that if they 
 have bought a Morris wall paper, that they 
 have gone three-fourths of the way to a beauti- 
 fully decorated room ; whereas it is quite pos- 
 sible that a plain, or nearly plain wall, with a 
 dado and frieze more or less ornamental, might 
 have been far better than any sort of pattern. 
 Our rooms often get terribly over-patterned — 
 patterned wall and ceiling, patterned floor, 
 patterned curtains, patterned furniture-covers ; 
 where are we to get a little rest for the eye, if 
 not occasionally by a plain wall ? But sup- 
 posing that, for sufficient reasons, the wall is 
 to be patterned, the design should be the 
 largest possible. I am not at all forgetting 
 the charm and constant advantage of diaper 
 patterns, sometimes even on a minute scale ; 
 but I am now speaking of the large wall spaces 
 between the dado and the frieze, which roughly 
 may be considered as spaces of ten square 
 yards and upwards on the average. Of course, 
 the "local" decorator is sure to recommend 
 " a neat small pattern," partly because small, 
 characterless patterns are cheap, easy, and safe, 
 and involve no responsibility, and partly be- 
 cause the constant desire for novelty (new 
 patterns each spring, and more new patterns 
 io8 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 each autumn) almost necessitate the adoption 
 of small designs on the part of the printer, 
 in order to be reasonably economical in the 
 expense of block-cutting. Here again utili- 
 tarianism steps in. We may not have an old 
 pattern, because it is old, and novelty is neces- 
 sary. ("Let us be in the fashion or die.") 
 And we cannot have large patterns, because 
 the blocks would be costly. Out upon such 
 twaddle ! Let us have adequate, fine designs, 
 even if we have to stick to them for twenty 
 years. 
 
 Any one who has given attention to the 
 beautiful designs often to be found on the 
 dresses and draperies in fine . old paintings, 
 must have noticed that in nine cases out of 
 ten the painter never allows a "repeat" to 
 appear. Damask designs behind a Blessed 
 Virgin, or on her dress, are always large 
 patterns with no repeat shown, the repeat 
 being manifestly understood to be the weak 
 point of the ornament, and likely to be tiresome 
 and limiting. Yet Mr. Voysey has discovered 
 in this fin de siecle that this is not so, and 
 even draws patterns in express contradiction 
 of this theory, of which more anon. 
 
 Any of us having a wall to decorate, say lo 
 feet X I o feet, and expense being no great object, 
 would at once feel that the ideal way would be 
 109 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 to commence the pattern with some root or 
 basal feature on the skirting, and finish with 
 lighter and finial features against the frieze or 
 cornice, filling the space right and left with a 
 pleasantly varied arrangement of harmonious 
 forms. We should never bother ourselves with 
 a repeat, except on utilitarian grounds. When 
 you come to bring this into practical working, 
 the cost of a huge set of blocks becomes at 
 once a prohibition, for even a set of blocks 8 
 feet X 2 1 inches is somewhat of a difficulty to 
 the printer. 
 
 But there is a way — and an old way too — 
 of getting over the difiiculty — namely, by sten- 
 cilling. There is no practical difficulty about 
 making stencil plates in varnished cartridge- 
 paper the height of the wall you have to 
 decorate, and the expense is not unreasonable. 
 Moreover, stencilling produces much finer 
 colouring than printing, and gives the effect 
 of handwork, as indeed it mainly is, taking at 
 once a higher position than the much more 
 mechanical block-printing. 
 
 Stencilling is one of the most beautiful of 
 decorative arts. The stencil-plate, costing little, 
 can be thrown aside, when one room has been 
 decorated, without undue expense, thereby 
 getting rid of the terrible mechanical appear- 
 ance of our rooms, which become exactly like 
 no 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 other people's rooms, or remind us of them. 
 The accomplished stenciller finds no bounds 
 to the gradation of colouring which he can 
 produce — gradation, not only between flower 
 and flower, thereby entirely hiding the repeat ; 
 but, if he pleases, gradation between the lower 
 part next the skirting and the higher part next 
 the cornice. 
 
 It is a class of work that has been relegated 
 to mean little borders and mechanical detail 
 in churches, and so used, it generally produces 
 a very bad effect. But it is capable of all sorts 
 of beautiful variations, and should at once 
 regain its proper position in these crafts. On 
 the mere question of gradation alone, it is 
 worthy of the highest consideration, for, as 
 Mr. Ruskin has well said, " Colour begins 
 where gradation begins," 
 
 There is a supposition amongst a large 
 number of people that a small room requires 
 a small pattern on the wall. This is a dis- 
 tinct mistake. There is no sort of relation 
 between the size of the room and the size of 
 the wall pattern. The smallest of boudoirs will 
 bear the largest of designs, if the pattern be 
 only not aggressive. The real relation between 
 these things is between the size of the room 
 and the energy or force of the design ; a little 
 room requiring a modest arrangement of chiaro- 
 III 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 scuro and colour, while a large hall or ball- 
 room may be best treated with a pattern full 
 of force and light" and shade, and telling 
 colouring. 
 
 It may be well at this point to consider the 
 much belauded Japanese ornament. It is a 
 little difficult to discuss it with patience and 
 reasonableness : its perfervid admirers are so 
 unreasonable in their frantic adulation. Ordi- 
 narily, in Europe at all events, we do not say 
 of any man that he can draw until he has 
 accurately delineated things which of their 
 nature demand complete exactness, such as the 
 human form, or a fine cathedral interior, with 
 arcades and vaultings in many planes. Now a 
 Japanese artist never, under any circumstances, 
 draws such things as these, and from what one 
 sees of his work, one may say with confidence 
 that he is unable to do so. If his work, there- 
 fore, be art, it is art under exceedingly narrow 
 limitations, and cannot be thought of as high 
 art at all. When " artists " cannot " draw," 
 one wants to know what they are there for. 
 We all know that a man may go on copying 
 leaves and flowers for fifty years, and yet be 
 unable to " draw " the hand that drew them ; 
 and we call him a designer or a decorator, not 
 an artist. You may search in vain from the 
 time that Sir Rutherford Alcock first brought 
 
 112 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 Japanese work to this country, and never find 
 a Japanese design which could be called well- 
 balanced, and which readily arrived at a good 
 " repeat," as an Italian's almost always does. 
 
 Some one has said that one quality of art is 
 that it should elicit surprise in the beholder ; 
 and we must certainly grant the existence of 
 this very minor quality in much of their work. 
 But viewed in due relation to Greek art, or 
 sixteenth century Renaissance art, or the work 
 of Botticelli, Durer, Van Eyck, Rembrandt, 
 Millais, and Burne-Jones, Japanese work can 
 have no definite position whatever, and must 
 be marked " nowhere " ; and no one who has 
 any wide and well-considered views on art and 
 artists could ever make the mistake of extolling 
 it as art. The strange furore which has raged 
 around it these last twelve years has arisen from 
 a certain movement or development among 
 ourselves, and not from any merit existing in 
 the Japanese work. 
 
 As facilities for intercourse and reading have 
 multiplied, and handbooks on decoration and 
 furnishing have been printed by the score, a 
 great awakening has ensued, principally among 
 women, with regard to our home surroundings, 
 and an excitement and thirst for novelty, if 
 it can be had cheap, has raged like a pestilence, 
 Japanese fans, coloured prints, umbrellas, toys. 
 113 H 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 china, knick-knacks, &c. ("all this lot for gd."), 
 here come in and appeal to a number of people, 
 who suddenly discover that they are born deco- 
 rators, and go utterly crazy about it, and insist 
 that it is a living art — '■'■ the only living art," 
 &c. — and the press, only too glad of something 
 fresh at any cost, echoes the cry ; till a well- 
 known Regent Street establishment, some half- 
 dozen years ago, had already furnished some two 
 hundred and fifty " Japanese rooms " in London 
 alone. 
 
 A protest, too, should be made against Eng- 
 lishmen's rooms being " fitted up " as Turkish 
 divans, which are just as false and foolish under 
 the altered circumstances as the two hundred 
 and fifty Japanese rooms. Why cannot we 
 enjoy a queer, strange sixpenny fan, or a blue 
 china jar from the East, and possess it in peace 
 and in due relation to other pretty and beau- 
 tiful things, without wanting to see the room 
 made to match, which it can never possibly do ? 
 It is right enough that the South Kensington 
 Museum should show us a Turkish divan as 
 a historic curiosity, with possible traces of old 
 Persian art in it ; but to carry the fashion into 
 our houses is preposterous and idiotic. 
 
 Among our modern " cranks," we have a 
 number of designers who think it is necessary to 
 be strange in order to be successful. Consciously 
 114 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 or unconsciously, these men say to each other, 
 " Go to, let us be queer," whether because their 
 idiosyncrasies lead them that way, or because 
 they think that commercial success is best 
 attained by cultivating notoriety. 
 
 It is amazing to see designs drawn, apparently 
 in sober earnest, of which the main intention is 
 the insistence laid on mere lateral repeat, which 
 of all things one would have expected a designer 
 to conceal. Another gives a terrible travesty 
 of humanity — women that make you shudder, 
 men that give you a nightmare. A third draws 
 landscapes of which you do not know the 
 meaning until you are told. It is not possible 
 that many of these designs can be drawn with 
 any other idea than that of astonishing the 
 spectator ; though what comfort or advantage 
 there can be in that process it is difficult to 
 understand. 
 
 If it were possible to say or do anything 
 which would conclusively prove that the only 
 safe foundation of design is tradition, these 
 abortions would seem to hit the mark, and 
 be a warning to younger men to avoid such 
 quicksands. 
 
 We naturally and properly place the Italians 
 
 far before all other nations as designers of 
 
 ornament. Lovely work comes to us from old 
 
 Spain and the Low Countries ; and Germany 
 
 IIS 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 and France have also contributed to our store ; 
 but it will be found upon examination that all 
 the best of these productions have an Italian 
 origin. In the early centuries the Italians were 
 wonderfully in touch with Greece, bringing 
 over Greeks to work for them ; and with such 
 a beginning, who can wonder that, surrounded 
 on all sides by men who could " draw," the 
 Italian craftsman should have risen as he did by 
 the fifteenth century to the top of the ladder, 
 freely distancing all competitors, and leaving 
 us a treasure-house of design which may well 
 be called inexhaustible ? One hears much from 
 literary art-seekers of the wonders of Persian 
 art, and no doubt the art of the East, such 
 as it is, or was, has a Persian origin ; but no 
 Persian designer can for one moment stand 
 beside men of the calibre of Botticelli and 
 Michael Angelo. 
 
 The Dado. — The Dado has clearly its use. 
 It represents, as Mr. Ruskin has pointed out, 
 the plinth or base of the wall ; it keeps furni- 
 ture from damaging the decorations, and it 
 enables one to have a plain and delicate tone 
 above, which may stop before you descend to 
 those parts where traffic would soon spoil it. 
 
 An imitation panelling, formed by moulded 
 laths, glued and bradded on, has manifest ad- 
 vantages; the whole surface being painted a 
 ii6 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 uniform tone, along with the woodwork of 
 the room. 
 
 The more picturesque classes of India mat- 
 ting make an excellent dado covering for 
 passages and other places where the traffic of 
 the house deals hardly with the lower part of 
 the wall, or where people want to lean against 
 the wall, as in a billiard-room. 
 
 Besides this, flock paper, going even to the 
 extent of ten flocks in thickness, forms a sur- 
 face when sized and varnished, or sized and 
 painted, almost as hard and enduring as wood. 
 And possibly the poker work, much in vogue 
 among young ladies, might be utilised here in 
 diaper patterns. And worsted velvet, hung 
 loose in little folds, gives a remarkable sense 
 of finish and cosiness. 
 
 The Floor. — With the old-fashioned nine-inch 
 simple skirting, which is far the best, the very 
 plainest of patterns should be chosen for the 
 floor, if parquetry is to be used. Good as is the 
 plain herring-bone all in one wood, three-inch 
 boards, like the deck of a ship, are better still. 
 
 As to deal floors, the stain and varnish plan 
 is thoroughly unsatisfactory, the thresholds 
 becoming quite shabby in six months. Deal 
 floors should be entirely covered up, either 
 with India matting or felt (the worst of felt 
 being that it often wears badly and fades 
 117 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 quickly). One cannot use that useful but 
 ugly linoleum in the bulk of rooms, though it 
 may serve occasionally for the surrounding of 
 a dining-room. Perhaps, on the whole, a nearly 
 plain Brussels carpet is the best, with an Ax- 
 minster or Oriental carpet in the centre. 
 
 The inconvenience of the old Oriental carpet 
 for our modern life is that it is always of the 
 wrong shape — never square, or nearly square, — 
 always long and narrow, while the modern 
 Oriental carpet is generally hideous, and fre- 
 quently not good in material. The patent Ax- 
 minster carpet comes, however, to the rescue, for 
 it forms an admirable medium for obtaining an 
 exact copy of the old Persian, with all its queer 
 irregularities and freaks of colouring, and is, 
 moreover, a most excellent and useful fabric. 
 
 Painting. — The average painter's work, 
 even when smooth and mechanically good 
 (country work is generally the reverse), is un- 
 satisfactory in the extreme. Except white, and 
 the very darkest shades of all, paint is open to 
 the accusation of being fat, clayey, and chalky, 
 and, under the condition known to painters 
 as " flat," friable, and useless. And there is 
 no doubt that the old grained oak, of which 
 we are all sick, on account of its wriggles and 
 affectations and knots, was better, and far more 
 enduring work. The curious thing is that, 
 ii8 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 when we began to see the folly of the affected 
 imitation of the rays and knots of wood, no 
 one seems to have thought of telling the grainer 
 to use his comb alone, and to use it straight, 
 retaining the useful work and getting rid of 
 the folly. At worst it was transparent work, 
 and the fat and clayey aspect was not there. 
 Practically there is not the shadow of a reason 
 why we should not have all colours, even 
 ivory white, painted transparent, and with very 
 great aesthetic advantage all round ; the colours 
 are much more beautiful, less positive, less 
 mechanical. There is no difficulty but the 
 temporary one of the lack of painters who 
 will consent to do it, for no doubt it involves 
 a little more care, and in the quirks and angles 
 of mouldings much more care. 
 
 Flatting should be positively forbidden. A 
 housemaid can wash it off, as if it were water 
 colour. 
 
 Staining. — The staining of wood must not 
 be forgotten. All the light-coloured woods, 
 even oak, if they are good in quality, can be 
 stained quite advantageously; but so much 
 depends on the grain, its regularity and even- 
 ness of absorption (varying from one log to 
 another), that it is necessary to watch carefully 
 how the wood behaves under the application of 
 the stain, before you can instruct the workmen 
 119 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 what to do. The best colouring matters to use 
 are the most transparent, such as Prussian blue, 
 deep yellow madder, burnt sienna, Vandyke 
 brown, ground in oil or spirit as the workman 
 may prefer ; but it is a process in which the 
 amateur is more likely to succeed than the 
 professional painter. 
 
 Effect of Colour. — As regards the general 
 effect of the colouring of a house, the greatest 
 difficulty is in the use of blue. No room, no 
 matter what aspect it has, should ever have the 
 whole of its walls painted or papered blue; 
 and yet many blues are so attractive, and make 
 so good a background for pictures, that there 
 will be always people who prefer it. A safe 
 way is to take care that the cornice and ceiling 
 are white, and the frieze mainly white, that the 
 dado and woodwork are quite white, and then 
 the remainder of the wall may be safely blue. 
 
 Green, having many more elements of variety 
 in it, and admitting of a copious admixture of 
 yellow, is safer ; but immoderately used, it is 
 very apt to make a house tristei and that, above 
 all things, in this climate, is to be dreaded. 
 
 Reds are good, exactly in proportion as they 
 contain an ample supply of yellow, getting 
 thereby a quality which readily illumines under 
 artificial light. The old crimson wall-paper of 
 fifty years ago lighted up no better than a green 
 1 20 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 or blue. Burnt sienna, stippled or glazed trans- 
 parent on white, is the most beautiful red in 
 the world. 
 
 Yellow, however, is the useful colour for 
 the decorator. It represents sunshine to the 
 mind ; and we are creatures of emotion. It is 
 a colour at once beautiful, safe, and satisfactory ; 
 capable of more gradation and variety than any 
 other, and nearly impossible to go wrong in, 
 if once you get your workman off the use of 
 chromes, or allow them only in infinitesimal 
 doses. There is one yellow — raw sienna — 
 which of itself is capable of more beautiful 
 gradations than any other pigment, if painters 
 and printers would only use it alone. The 
 ordinary manner of mixing colours in a body 
 of white lead is the worst that can be ima- 
 gined, and in easel work is well known to be 
 productive of all mischief. The white should 
 be laid on first, so as to get a permanent body 
 of lead, and the colours — or stainings, as they 
 are well called — should be glazed or stippled 
 upon it, one at a time, afterwards. 
 
 But many good pigments are constantly 
 ruined by being carelessly and cheaply pre- 
 pared, and good work should always be done 
 with tube colour. 
 
 A difficult question, and one often asked, is 
 this : — Why such and such a colour (mauve, for 
 
 121 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 instance) is a bad or useless colour for decora- 
 tion. And here is a suggestion for consideration, 
 viz., that colours are good, safe, and available in 
 proportion as they bear the admixture of yellow : 
 just as sunshine illumines, and thereby yellows 
 the fields and woods. Now, mauve and the 
 purples disappear and become grey when yellow 
 is added, and emerald-green and Prussian-blue 
 alter their character entirely, and become 
 reasonable colours. It will be found that this 
 is a good, safe, all-round test. 
 
 Blinds. — Surely never was anything uglier 
 brought into our houses than the ordinary 
 roller-blinds. Whether they are up or down, 
 they are entirely hideous, even with cheap lace 
 at the lower edge. They are particularly apt 
 to go wrong, either in the way they roll up, 
 or in their cords or other tackle. The last lap 
 dirties far sooner than the rest, and, as they 
 come down from above, they inevitably exclude 
 the best light that comes into the room, when 
 they are pulled down. No doubt they have 
 been adhered to as being rather less cumber- 
 some, and because their cords hurt the fingers 
 less, than the terrible Venetian-blind ; but in a 
 well-furnished house they are to-day inexcusable. 
 
 I hope to live long enough to see roller- 
 blinds entirely done away with, or relegated 
 only to the kitchen and office. A little curtain, 
 
 122 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 pulling right and left on a small rod close to 
 the glass, answers the purpose better, and is 
 agreeable and picturesque where the roller is 
 hideous. The best material for sitting-rooms 
 is the natural silk of the East — tussore or 
 shantung ; and for bedrooms, the Yorkshire 
 materials known as taiFeta or glac6. 
 
 Curtains. — It has somehow come to be an 
 article of faith with the ordinary upholsterer that 
 curtains, under whatever circumstances, should 
 be made of figured materials. There are many 
 reasons, however, in favour of plain materials. 
 There are good reasons for decorating the 
 ceiling and the frieze with designs, and beyond 
 doubt a pattern on a wall is constantly advan- 
 tageous, and helps, for example, to furnish the 
 rpom of the young couple who start in life 
 without pictures. To have a plain carpet, the 
 housewife says, is most trying : every footfall 
 shows. We are, therefore, fast arriving at 
 a fashion of " patterning " everything — a most 
 undesirable condition of things. Now, a plain 
 curtain, falling into good folds, offers itself as 
 an agreeable rest to the eye. Moreover, the 
 best materials, and those which fall into the 
 best folds, are the plain ones. Their severity 
 may be mitigated by borders, and by varied trim- 
 ming, and pleasant gradation of colouring can 
 be so introduced much more easily when you 
 123 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 are not hampered by a figured material. Cloth 
 is, perhaps, the best material possible, but there 
 are many which afford abundant variety. 
 
 Wall Ornaments. — I have lately endea- 
 voured, on the wall of the Walker Art Gallery 
 (in Liverpool), to show how many things may 
 be used decoratively upon a wall besides pictures. 
 I trust it may not be too severe to say that the 
 bulk of householders know little about good 
 art, and could not pay for it if they did ; and 
 we are purposely talking about the average 
 Briton. It would, therefore, be greatly to 
 his advantage if he could be induced not to 
 buy second-rate pictures, but to wait until his 
 purse and knowledge justify his buying good 
 ones, and meanwhile to ornament his walls 
 with such things as small Chippendale mirrors, 
 hammered brass sconces, plaster casts after the 
 antique and Donatello, blue china on shelves 
 or brackets, little eighteenth-century engravings 
 by Bartolozzi, feather fans, little objects of 
 natural history, such as a fine Peruvian butter- 
 fly, &c. &c., all of which add interest and 
 gaiety to a room in a greater degree than any 
 pictures, and are a thousand times better than 
 second-rate or bad ones. Nothing can com- 
 pensate for having indifferent art presented 
 to us day by day, and it is certain that the 
 very feeble admiration generally exhibited for 
 124 
 
DECORATION OF THE HOUSE 
 
 engravings after Gainsborough, Reynolds, and 
 Turner, &c., is largely due to the demoralising 
 influence of the prosaic, humdrum landscapes 
 from Academies and Water-Colour Societies 
 — Royal and otherwise — and the excessive 
 prominence given in our sitting-rooms to 
 photographs of modern life and photographic 
 portraits of our friends. Compared with such 
 pictures, the lid of an old brass warming-pan 
 is a fine ornament, and a " long-lady " blue jar 
 becomes absolutely classic. 
 
 Furniture. — It is pleasing to turn to the 
 illustrated books of furniture of the last cen- 
 tury, commencing with Copeland in 1 746 ; 
 Chippendale, 1754; Ince and Mayhew, about 
 1760; Matthias Darley, 1763; Heppelwhite, 
 1789 ; Sheraton, 1791, and see how excellent a 
 school they initiated. Up to that time, furni- 
 ture was architectonic and clumsy, the chair, 
 table, and bureau of the Stuart period being 
 as ponderous, immovable, and unhandy as it is 
 possible to imagine ; picturesque, occasionally, 
 as a " property " for an artist, but as furniture 
 to live amongst and to use, quite outrageous. 
 No doubt the men I have mentioned copied 
 their designs from the French, for Chippendale 
 has been tracked, and we know the source of 
 almost all his designs ; but in practice, how- 
 ever absurd some of their illustrations, a char- 
 125 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 acteristic English sobriety comes in and modifies 
 the excess of the volatile Frenchman with 
 admirable results. How far we might have 
 developed, no one can say ; but towards the end 
 of the century the French Revolution stopped 
 the supply of illustrated books from France, 
 and after that — the deluge. 
 
 We feel the weakness of these cabinetmakers 
 and carvers, as we read the prefaces of their 
 books, and the titles of some of their plates. 
 For vulgar and pretentious bombast, it is diffi- 
 cult to find their parallel ; and much as we 
 extol and copy Chippendale, there can be no 
 doubt that he was as ignorant and pretentious 
 a fellow as ever hawked his wares, and Sheraton 
 was very nearly as bad. They could get along 
 while they had good copies ; but, like all mere 
 copyists, when left to themselves, they were 
 impotent, and produced the characterless rub- 
 bish of our grandfathers' time, from which we 
 have only lately escaped ; indeed, we are not 
 fully free of it yet. Their furniture, however, 
 under French influence, has come to be highly 
 yalued, and is being largely restored and copied, 
 greatly to the general advantage ; for the best of 
 the work of that period — say in France, 1650 
 to the Revolution, and in England, 1730 to 
 the Revolution — is beyond dispute the finest 
 furniture the world has ever produced. 
 126 
 
FABRICS 
 
FABRICS 
 
 OME years ago, I read a paper to 
 the Architectural Institute upon 
 " Hangings," which contained a 
 most elementary description of a 
 variety of useful fabrics, and the yarns from 
 which they were made ; and it was amusing to 
 read in one of the daily papers that " it would 
 be well if Peter Robinson's young men could 
 read Mr. Heaton's address." No doubt the re- 
 mark was intended to be complimentary to me, 
 but it mainly showed that others had noticed 
 what I had long been aware of: that the shop- 
 keeper's assistant is profoundly ignorant of 
 the nature and constituents of ordinary fabrics. 
 If you go into a Yorkshire mill, and produce 
 specimens of fabrics which are interesting or 
 uncommon, there are two or three simple tests 
 at once resorted to, in order to explain their 
 nature. The first is commonly the tongue : 
 • 129 I 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 wool and cotton reveal their nature much more 
 plainly when wet than when dry. The next is 
 fire : upon application of a lighted match you 
 at once distinguish between animal substances 
 and vegetable ; the former burn to a cinder, 
 the latter to an ash, like paper. The fingers, 
 also, reveal much when a person is experienced 
 in fabrics. The nose tells a little more : linen, 
 for instance, rarely loses its distinctive smell, 
 even after many years. In a London shop, none 
 of these tests are resorted to ; and your ordinary 
 shopkeeper's assistant is generally entirely in the 
 dark as to the nature of the fabrics he is selling. 
 And, as it is the study of a great many manu- 
 facturers to hide the cheap materials of a fabric 
 behind the costlier ones, to pretend, in fact, that 
 the cheap materials do not exist, it is little 
 wonder that the amateur is completely deceived. 
 
 It will therefore be well to ascertain care- 
 fully the nature of the most useful fibres, and 
 by that means to arrive at the characteristics of 
 the fabrics produced from them. 
 
 There is no use talking of " good fabrics " 
 and " bad fabrics "; the only profitable question 
 is their suitability to the uses we make of them. 
 Perhaps there is no more rubbishy-looking 
 fabric produced than what is called "scrim"; 
 but the man who has to line a rough wall 
 knows perfectly well that scrim is a really good 
 130 
 
FABRICS 
 
 article when so used. In the same way, the 
 poor miserable fabric called " butter-cloth " is 
 well suited for the wrapping up of butter, and 
 is as good for the purpose as paper is bad. The 
 mischief steps in when people attempt to make 
 curtains of scrim, or dresses of butter-cloth. A 
 few years ago, some of the ladies who com- 
 menced the School of Needlework in Kensing- 
 ton, set the fashion of using Bolton sheeting 
 for dresses — and even for embroidered dresses. 
 No doubt there is a proper use for Bolton sheet- 
 ing, though it may not yet have been found 
 out — unless it be to make sheets for paupers ; 
 but a viler misuse of a fabric than to make it 
 carry embroidery for dresses was surely never 
 conceived. 
 
 As it is impossible to go through all known 
 fabrics, and to inquire into all their uses, we 
 can only attempt to examine the more common 
 and the more useful, especially in regard to the 
 substance from which they are made. 
 
 The exasperating fashion which has set in of 
 late years, to have everything at an almost 
 impossible price, has further muddled us in 
 a question of which most of us were sufficiently 
 ignorant ; for now it has become necessary 
 for the manufacturer who has looms to keep 
 going, to make linen appear like silk, cotton 
 like wool, jute like linen ; to hide threads 
 131 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 which form the substance of the fabric, behind 
 others and costlier ones which form its surface 
 — and so, if possible, to deceive even the very 
 elect. 
 
 Cotton. — Cotton is no doubt the fibre which 
 mankind first made use of for woven fabrics. 
 The history of the early stages is buried in 
 obscurity, and certainly it is quite antecedent 
 to any known literature. ' Specimens are to be 
 seen of cotton fabric produced at least four 
 thousand years before the Christian era — such 
 as pieces of mummy cloth. Indeed, though a 
 great many ancient manufactures are made of 
 linen, considering that parts of India and Egypt 
 were settled, and, so to speak, civilised countries 
 long before these Western lands, there can be no 
 doubt that cotton fabrics are the earliest pro- 
 ductions. But whichever it be, cotton or linen, 
 is little to our present purpose. Both of them 
 are very long in the fibre compared with wool, 
 and entirely without spring and elasticity. Crush 
 or pinch either of them, and it assumes and 
 retains the bent and crushed form so obtained, 
 in contrast to the behaviour of an animal 
 fibre, which springs back into its original form. 
 Now this is an exceedingly important element 
 in these vegetable fibres. If the use to which 
 you apply them demands that they should hang 
 in good folds, and have natural spring in them 
 132 
 
FABRICS 
 
 to retain these folds when crushed or crumpled, 
 clearly they are inadequate. They are, for the 
 most part, cheap fibres, and their length of 
 " staple " (as it is termed, alluding to the 
 natural length of the growth) adds greatly to 
 the strength of the yarn produced from them ; 
 and in this respect they have always an advan- 
 tage over short-staple fibres. 
 
 The fibre of cotton, in its manner of growth, 
 is quite straight, has none of the wriggle or 
 wave of wool, and is kept straight in spinning. 
 Its chief utility for better and more valuable 
 fabrics is that of forming a cheap and useful 
 warp (the lengthway threads of a fabric) ; and as 
 it makes an exceedingly strong thread, owing 
 to its evenness and length of staple, it must 
 always form a most useful and desirable fibre 
 for that purpose. Unfortunately its cheapness 
 tempts the competing manufacturer to use it 
 for weft also (the cross-way threads), and so 
 used, its inferiority to animal fibres becomes 
 apparent, for it is entirely free from lustre, and 
 absolutely flaccid and without spring. Conse- 
 quently, however useful it may be in its place, 
 it is certain greatly to depreciate those fabrics 
 where lustre and spring are essential. 
 
 You will see from these remarks that cotton, 
 apart from the question of warmth, must always 
 be amongst the inferior and less valuable of 
 ^33 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 fibres ; and when one considers how largely 
 the question of warmth for dress and hangings, 
 in the northern countries, affects our view of 
 the value of a woven fabric, its undesirability 
 compared with the majority of our better mate- 
 rials will be seen at once ; and when compe- 
 tition assists in making it used when it ought 
 not to be used, its cheapness is a snare of the 
 greatest magnitude. 
 
 The question of utility must not be for- 
 gotten. Short-sighted people will go about 
 saying (when warned that a fabric will not 
 wear), " Oh, it will last long enough for me." 
 But there inevitably comes a day of retribu- 
 tion ; and it is not to the credit of any of us, 
 still less to the credit of decent housewifery, 
 that we should encourage the use of a fabric 
 which will not wear a reasonable time. There 
 is sure to be a day of recrimination and repent- 
 ance, when one has allowed a bad article to be 
 used. People are well aware of this when they 
 come to the constructional questions of a build- 
 ing. Architects do not build with a brick or 
 a slate which is only to last two or three years 
 — or even with a plaster which will crumble 
 within the same time : the weakness is too evi- 
 dent, and the consequent regret and ill-repute 
 too immediate. But people will constantly use 
 woven fabrics which their own sense tells them, 
 134 
 
FABRICS 
 
 let alone the warning of a conscientious sales- 
 man, will be shabby in a twelvemonth. 
 
 And any dyer, and any shopkeeper even, 
 knows quite well that a fibre of cotton will not 
 take dye at all well. There are one or two 
 exceptions to this rule, as in the case of Turkey 
 red and indigo — and possibly the dyes obtain- 
 able from " cachou." But for all that, the 
 rule holds good that cotton receives dye badly ; 
 therefore salesmen should advise people that a 
 fabric which has its main surface of cotton 
 should be used only sparingly when dyed. In 
 printed work this remark does not apply equally, 
 because the mordants used in printing are so 
 much more reliable and serviceable than any 
 dyeing. Its true serviceableness is in its natural 
 white, or creamy white state. 
 
 Even two or three years ago, French com- 
 mercial travellers, who came over selling fabrics 
 in this country, used to say as a recommenda- 
 tion " It is all wool," or, " All wool and silk." 
 Lately this remark has been entirely dropped, 
 because the fabrics they now bring are half, 
 or nine-tenths, or entirely, cotton. Ask them 
 about the permanence of these, and they have 
 not a word to say. They shrug their shoulders 
 and say, " Monsieur, it is what is wanted." 
 And these remarks apply to all the vegetable 
 fibres. 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 Linen. — Linen is a fibre of a still longer 
 staple than cotton ; but it is relatively clumsy, 
 and never loses, however much it is handled, a 
 certain stiffness. Now, this quality makes it 
 valuable for sheets and towels, and the napery 
 of the table ; but in price it cannot compete 
 with cotton, and its uses are much more limited. 
 It is exceedingly strong and enduring, and it is 
 only when manufacturers use it to supersede 
 wool, wishing the unwary to mistake its stiiF- 
 ness for the spring and firmness of wool, that 
 its undesirability is discovered. If people, in 
 buying fabrics in shops, would take the simple 
 precaution to light a lucifer-match and test the 
 nature of the fibre (animal or vegetable) where 
 there is any doubt, they would hold manufac- 
 turers in check about this false use of linen. 
 
 Perhaps, in linen, the undesirability of using 
 things out of their proper sphere is most ap- 
 parent. For warm or temperate climates its 
 smooth and almost lustre-like surface, forming 
 the very best of conductors, makes it feel, as 
 we see in sheets and table-linen, agreeably cool 
 to the touch. And here is its greatest value ; 
 but its stiffness and comparative coarseness will 
 always render it one of the least used of our 
 fibres. 
 
 Silk. — Silk must have been used in very 
 early times ; and, being an article of Oriental 
 136 
 
FABRICS 
 
 production, it may have been used as early as 
 cotton. As an animal production, it at once 
 attains a value, which is increased by a lustre 
 such as never belongs to vegetable fibres. 
 But its principal characteristic is the smallness 
 of the fibre, which can be best understood by 
 stating that about seventy-five miles of it 
 only weighs one ounce. 
 
 " Net " Silk. — As a first process in the 
 manipulation, the cocoon is thrown into hot 
 water, and is then fingered and rolled round, 
 and otherwise slightly rubbed, until the outside 
 end frees itself from the rest ; and the manipu- 
 lators then pass it over a wheel or spindle, and 
 in this way the original filament of the silk- 
 worm is obtained free. But, owing to its 
 exceeding smallness, four of these threads are 
 usually wound together ; and the thread gene- 
 rally used by the embroiderer is formed of at 
 least twenty of the silk-worm's threads. This 
 gives some idea of its exceeding smallness. 
 It is flaccid, and, for the most part, springless, 
 except when used in considerable bulk ; but, as 
 we all know, it has a beautiful lustre, and may 
 be called the prince of fibres, from an orna- 
 mental point of view. 
 
 '■'■Spun'''' Silk. — A broad distinction must 
 be drawn between silk, called in trade " net " 
 silk (the thread of the silk-worm), and "spun" 
 137 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 silk, which is composed of the spoilt cocoons, 
 either where the worm has died inside, or has 
 eaten its way out, in which cases the cocoon 
 could not be wound ofF. It is entirely a 
 modern idea to utilise these dead or spoilt 
 cocoons ; and the result must never be con- 
 founded with the silk-worm's filament. The 
 manufacturing process is as follows : — The whole 
 of these inferior or spoilt cocoons are softened 
 by boiling, and then pulled out anyhow into a 
 factitious thread, including even the very body of 
 the worm itself; so that if you come across a 
 silk fabric which seems unusually heavy at a 
 moderate price, you may know at once that it 
 is this inferior silk. Naturally, it is always 
 irregular and full of lumps and rubbish, the 
 silk fibres not lying all one way, as they ought 
 to do, but in "a tangle and mess. Its price may 
 be considered, for our present purpose, as not 
 more than one-fourth of "net" silk. No doubt 
 it has its uses, but they are comparatively few 
 compared with those of the real article; and 
 it should always be borne in mind that from 
 the nature of the yarns so made, dirt is rapidly 
 accumulated. Witness the modern question- 
 able use of it in the form of plush to illustrate 
 this. It is always a source of regret to find 
 how far embroiderers consent to use it, in the 
 form of filoselle. Hence comes a great deal 
 138 
 
FABRICS 
 
 of the thoroughly inferior embroidery of the 
 present day, inferior as compared with old 
 Italian or Spanish work, which was always 
 made from the silk-worm's filament. 
 
 The manufacture of this filament is expressed 
 in the trade by the word " throwing " ; the 
 factitious thread I have been discussing is 
 known as "spun"; and the throwster and 
 spinner are, in manufacturing districts, en- 
 gaged in entirely different trades. 
 
 "Thrown" silk is occasionally required as fine 
 as four of the silk-worm's filaments. " Spun " 
 silk is more the thickness of eighty to a 
 hundred. Think of the superiority of an 
 old Lyons velvet to modern plush, and you 
 have the difference between the two well 
 accentuated. 
 
 Wool. — It is difficult for the inhabitants of 
 a cold or temperate climate to assume on these 
 questions the feelings of an Oriental, but as 
 Europeans, we think naturally of wool as of 
 far the most valuable fibre we have. It came 
 into use later than cotton, but there is no profit 
 in endeavouring to ascertain how much later. 
 
 There is a broad distinction to be made 
 between wools, or, to use the trade phrase, 
 between " worsted " and woollen." It is a 
 distinction that has arisen from our manner of 
 manipulating it, and from the length of the 
 139 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 growth, but it is still a very broad, useful 
 distinction ; and it is necessary to understand it, 
 because there is the utmost confusion here in 
 the south of England with regard to it. In 
 the manufacturing parts of Yorkshire, the seat 
 of the trade in both, every apprentice boy knows 
 the meaning of that distinction. 
 
 Fine wool, grown in the hotter climates of 
 the world, has a natural wriggle or wave in it ; 
 while hair, like our own, is, for the most part, 
 straight, so that the nigger song which speaks 
 of " the wool on the top of his head " has more 
 truth than might appear at first. 
 
 All the wools of the colder climates are 
 straight, and of the nature of our own hair. 
 Goat's hair, the wools of Iceland and Russian 
 sheep, the north of England wool, and many 
 other sorts, are all straight, or if they have a 
 wave, have very little — certainly nothing which 
 can be called a wriggle. Many of these fibres 
 are at least six inches in length, some longer; 
 while the wool of the more southern countries, 
 Southdowns of England, Saxony, and especially 
 Australia, are full of wriggle, and they are 
 seldom more than one-third of the length of 
 the hairy wools which we have been speak- 
 ing of, and are often only one inch in 
 length. 
 
 Now, when these northern wools come to be 
 140 
 
FABRICS 
 
 manipulated, they are kept straight during all 
 the processes of spinning, and, somehow or 
 other, have come to be called " worsted." It 
 is said that this word is derived from the name 
 of a little town in Norfolk, to which Flemish 
 spinners and weavers emigrated, and used these 
 very wools ; but the accuracy of this explana- 
 tion may be doubted. 
 
 The short and fine wools have too much 
 wriggle in them, and are too short in staple to 
 be so treated, and they are spun without any 
 attention to the position of the fibres, which 
 curl round each other, and "felt" together in 
 the manipulation, and are popularly called 
 " woollen." The difference between these 
 two processes will be found, on consideration, 
 to be immense. The " woollen " is used for 
 most of our clothing, and blankets, and things 
 we require for warmth. The " worsted " is a 
 much better conductor, and so is not suitable 
 for this purpose. 
 
 As regards value, however, the worsted is 
 considerably in advance of the other. Goat's 
 hair fetches ordinarily two shillings per pound 
 — partly, no doubt, from its beautiful gloss and 
 spring — while wool has been sent into Liver- 
 pool for sale, of which the staple was so ex- 
 ceedingly short, although beautifully fine, that 
 having been knocked down at auction at two- 
 141 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 pence per pound, the buyer found it would not 
 pay to expend the railway fare for removing it, 
 and it was left in the docks for years. That, 
 no doubt, is an extreme case ; but it will serve 
 to show how these fibres sell according to the 
 length of staple. Not that we wish to depre- 
 ciate the value of woollen yarns for a moment ; 
 all men's clothing, and cloth generally, and 
 flannel, and blankets, and things necessary to 
 our comfort, are woollen. 
 
 Alpaca. — On the other hand, the fibre called 
 Alpaca or Llama forms a fabric which is gene- 
 rally pronounced the »«<7j/ beautiful. The alpaca 
 is the South American form of the camel, — 
 which shows how animals, separated by one of 
 our primeval changes of the earth, may develop 
 in two different directions, the hair of the 
 Oriental camel being vastly inferior. 
 
 Mohair. — Next to this in beauty and utility 
 comes the hair of the Syrian goat, which Mr. 
 Holman Hunt has delineated in "The Scape- 
 goat." We usually speak of it under the name 
 of " mohair " ; but it is quite distinct from 
 alpaca, though often confused by name in the 
 shops. These hairs (they are called " hair " in 
 the market) and the long wool of the north of 
 England, Scotland, and to some extent Iceland 
 and Russia, possess the valuable quality called 
 "lustre" or gloss, a character much valued; 
 142 
 
FABRICS 
 
 but which, of course, is absent in the short 
 wools of which clothing is made. 
 
 Adulteration. — Now it will be evident here 
 that these fibres which, on the average, may be 
 priced, when worked up into yarn, at at least two 
 shillings per pound, are readily adulterated with 
 cotton, which is about sixpence per pound, to 
 the great deterioration of a large number of 
 fabrics, and to the deception of the public 
 generally. For wool contains springiness, and 
 gloss, and warmth-bearing qualities, while 
 cotton is entirely without these ; and we ought 
 all to learn to detect the presence of cotton in 
 these fabrics, since the temptation to use it as an 
 adulteration is evident. To such an extent is this 
 done, even with silk, that cotton is used, mingled 
 with silk, in order to lower the price ; and 
 many a lady who thinks she buys a silk dress, 
 gets one that is one-third cotton. The burning 
 test at once reveals this. In buying a silk dress, 
 light a lucifer match and see how it burns — 
 whether like paper or like wool. It is worthy 
 of observation here, that silk, owing to its great 
 value, has been adulterated in another way, 
 namely, by the addition of sugar of lead, in the 
 trade called " weighted " ; but, fortunately for 
 the general public, the sugar of lead burns like 
 paper ; and where a great deal of it has been 
 introduced, the whole fabric burns like paper, 
 
 143 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 giving one the impression that there is no silk 
 in it whatever ; and even now preparations are 
 being made to manufacture a so-called silk 
 yarn out of wood fibre. Verily " all men are 
 liars." 
 
 Jute. — Jute is a fibre derived from a plant 
 analogous to linen. It is perhaps best described 
 as a very coarse, strong linen, with all the 
 strength, and even more length of staple than 
 linen. It is only worthy of mention because of 
 the tendency to cheapen material, which has 
 made it a sort of coarse substitute for the other 
 vegetable fibres. It seems to have no beauty 
 whatever ; but may be useful enough in the 
 form of packing canvas, and, at any rate, it 
 employs many Dundee spinners and weavers. 
 
 WOVEN FABRICS 
 
 Tapestry. — ^To turn to the woven material. 
 We must never lose sight of the splendid fabric 
 of tapestry, at all events in these countries, 
 Belgium, England, Spain, France, where we 
 have learnt to know the beauty of it. It is, 
 beyond all others, a fabric which Mr. Ruskin 
 would call " noble " ; but it is unnecessary to 
 dilate upon it here, because of its costliness. 
 It is scarcely a " practical question of the hour." 
 More essential is it to consider the fabrics made 
 
 144 
 
FABRICS 
 
 in looms, which we all buy, and which are in 
 daily use. Old tapestries had generally a warp 
 of cotton or linen, well embedded in cross 
 threads, which were invariably worsted. 
 
 Velvets. — Next after tapestry we must place 
 velvet, not for its general utility, but for the 
 beauty of the production. When one reflects 
 on the velvets of Genoa and Venice, often 
 figured, and containing threads of gold and 
 silver, it is impossible not to be conscious of 
 the beauty of the manufacture, although here 
 again the warp was usually cotton. To-day 
 nobody seems willing to buy anything but 
 cheap imitations of them. 
 
 The velvet woven from mohair, or mohair 
 and wool (on a cotton warp again), and gene- 
 rally known as Utrecht velvet, produced both in 
 Germany and in the north of France, and now 
 by Lister of Bradford, must not be forgotten ; 
 and though it can scarcely be called beautiful, 
 it is undoubtedly a most useful and excellent 
 , fabric. So much is this article in request, that 
 the utmost ingenuity has been brought to bear 
 upon the production of it; and some clever fellow 
 has found that the right way is to weave two 
 pieces together, face to face, where the threads 
 forming the pile are automatically cut, and the 
 one piece in the loom comes out as two pieces 
 in the hand. There is a shockingly bad edition 
 
 145 K 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 of this article, which bears the suspicious name 
 of " plushette," and may be best described as 
 an admirably designed dust-trap ; and by way 
 of keeping up the modern fashion for adultera- 
 tion, velvet has also been made from jute, of 
 which the best that can be said is that it is not 
 so nasty as one might expect. And for those 
 who like cheap and showy rubbish, there is 
 velveteen, used as a groundwork for printed 
 curtains. Though showy and fine in texture, 
 it seems to have resulted in a fabric which is 
 at once entirely flaccid, a quick fader, and an 
 eff^ectual catcher of dirt. It is a prominent 
 instance of unconscientiousness in modern trade. 
 Plain velveteen for dresses, which are probably 
 only wanted for ephemeral use, is admissible, 
 and probably a useful article. 
 
 After these come damasks ; and (velvet alone 
 possibly excepted) silk damask is the most 
 beautiful fabric made, especially when the warp 
 and weft are both alike of " net " silk. The 
 resource shown in the patterning of this fabric 
 is beyond all praise for artistic ability. Probably 
 the most beautiful fabrics in the world come 
 under this head ; but the cost will always keep 
 the production of them comparatively small. 
 
 Satin Laine et Soie. — Now, if the surface 
 be kept entirely silk, there is no objection to a 
 backing of worsted ; and in the north of France 
 
 146 
 
FABRICS 
 
 large quantities are made of a fabric entirely 
 silk on the face, and entirely worsted behind. 
 The silk in this article is only spun silk, but 
 there must be cheap fabrics produced for shallow 
 purses ; and this article was undeniably good 
 until some one, in an excessive zeal for low 
 prices, did his best to spoil it by changing the 
 worsted at the back to cotton (without saving 
 a sixth of the whole price), and thereby pro- 
 ducing an article which could only be called 
 rubbish. Fortunately the public may be warned 
 by the almost satirical name given to it — 
 " silk sheeting." 
 
 Modern competition here again continues to 
 spoil a good article. The silk damask which 
 covered the walls of an Italian palace was 
 entirely "net" or "thrown" silk. The silk 
 damask made for to-day's trade is nearly all 
 cotton — cotton in the warp, and partly cotton 
 in the weft. The lucifer match (and which of 
 us does not carry lucifer matches nowadays .'') 
 will detect the cotton at once. 
 
 Lustrous Yorkshire Goods. — Next in value 
 to these come a number of Yorkshire fabrics 
 (woven from long-haired, springy worsted), 
 whether for beauty or utility — utility both for 
 dress, for curtains, for wall coverings, for 
 summer clothing, and numberless other neces- 
 sities of life. We speak of them as worsted 
 
 147 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 satins, camlets, moreens, diagonals, &c., all 
 made from long wool, and occasionally goat's 
 hair. If to hang in fine folds is a merit in such 
 articles (and who can doubt it ?), these fabrics 
 unquestionably carry the day over everything 
 else. No fabric made of yarn with the flac- 
 cidity of cotton or linen can be compared with 
 them. The only thing remotely equal to them 
 in this respect is woollen cloth, and there you 
 at once start without the lustre. 
 
 Utility. — We cannot here include questions 
 of the loom, but mention must be made of 
 another result of competition — the destruction 
 of the usefulness of fabrics. Ordinary weav- 
 ing is, of course, over one, under one ; and all 
 pattern weaving is a series of varieties from 
 this, whether it be a simple twill, which is over 
 two, under one, of the weft, or other small 
 variations which are quite consistent with the 
 production of a good fabric. When, however, 
 we come to the use of the Jacquard machine, 
 the temptation is to take great liberties with 
 this arrangement, and, roughly speaking, to go 
 under one, over ten, and the result is a poor 
 fabric. This should never be forgotten, be- 
 cause, once let a fabric become loose in the 
 construction, and its life, in reasonable con- 
 dition, becomes exceedingly short. This applies 
 particularly to figured fabrics with a good deal 
 
 148 
 
FABRICS 
 
 of cotton in them and very little silk. They 
 may be filled with gum or size to make them 
 passably saleable, while fresh from the loom ; 
 but hang such a material up as curtains, or 
 make it into ladies' dresses, or hang it as wall 
 drapery, and you have a fabric which soon 
 begins to lose its integrity, and becomes shabby 
 and worthless in an incredibly short time. 
 
 Carpets. — It is undoubtedly difficult to dis- 
 cuss carpets in the limited space of an essay. 
 Every one knows the beauty of an Oriental 
 carpet, not alone the costly carpets made, 
 probably, at the order of a potentate whose 
 palace was gilded, or the exquisite work done, 
 five centuries ago, with silk pile (the best of 
 which were made by refugees in Poland), but 
 the ordinary carpet, common throughout Asia, 
 and down to the shores of the Bosphorus, 
 distinguished, not alone for beauty of design, 
 but almost equally for beauty of colour, and 
 for technical skill in the manufacture. The 
 clever and skilful way in which these carpets 
 have their pile arranged slightly on the slant 
 (which is preserved continuously throughout 
 the life of the carpet), places them at once, 
 irrespective of their beautiful colouring and 
 design, ahead of our modern productions ; for 
 the modern pile carpet has the exceedingly bad 
 fault of its pile becoming crushed in this direc- 
 
 149 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 tion or the other, and so producing ugly places, 
 which look as if they had been damaged. The 
 Oriental pile, on the other hand, always slopes 
 — however much worn it may become — in the 
 way in which the weaver gave it its original 
 cast. Perhaps, for the present, we shall have 
 to content ourselves with picking the old ones 
 up now and again for the well-to-do, a restora- 
 tion of this work being impracticable. But the 
 drop is terrible when one comes to consider the 
 modern carpet — for instance, that of Kidder- 
 minster — which, indeed, does not merit any con- 
 sideration at all. 
 
 The Brussels carpet may have been a good 
 fabric twenty years ago, when its thick threads 
 were made of good, long-haired Yorkshire wool, 
 but modern competition has reduced the thick- 
 ness of the thread and the staple of wool to 
 such an extent that a Brussels carpet will not 
 last one season in a London club. And the 
 article is so well known, ahd buyers are so 
 accustomed to it at a low price, that it is use- 
 less to endeavour to return to the old quality. 
 
 Eatent Axminster. — It seems that the imi- 
 tation Axminster carpet of Templeton and 
 other makers is by far the best fabric in the 
 market. It is made of worsted chenille, the 
 chenille being prepared beforehand, and all the 
 colours being woven in their proper places by 
 
 150 
 
FABRICS 
 
 the Jacquard, or an equivalent machine. The 
 chenille is woven on a cotton warp, and the 
 backing-threads, which form the body of the 
 carpet, are either jute or coarse worsted. Now, 
 the chenille makes a complete surface, and 
 unless some fool gets at the backing-threads 
 with a penknife, the foot never touches any- 
 thing but the pile, and nothing else is exposed 
 to wear. So long as this condition of things 
 holds, it is difficult to see what is to wear them 
 out. They may get dirty, of course ; but de- 
 struction, in the ordinary sense of the phrase, 
 — " wear and tear," is impossible. It has the 
 very serious defect just now mentioned : — that 
 of the pile lying in varying directions instead 
 of all one way ; but no doubt some clever head 
 will some day remedy this defect. 
 
 The carpet known as Wilton has, in a 
 measure, the same qualities, though not woven 
 of chenille, the top of the pile alone being 
 exposed to wear. But it shows every seam 
 plainly, and is entirely lacking in that sense of 
 breadth and compactness of surface which we 
 expect in a carpet. 
 
 Cloth. — There remain last, but not least, 
 the multitude of very useful fabrics made of 
 woollen weft, as distinguished from worsted, 
 and more or less associated under the name of 
 " cloth." Some of them, under the head of 
 
 151 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 serge, are thoroughly good, hanging in good 
 folds, and wearing for years. The pity of it 
 is that they have been cheapened by the intro- 
 duction of a cotton warp; and little by little the 
 deterioration of this fabric has gone on, until the 
 lower qualities are valueless; but on worsted 
 warps they are thoroughly good. 
 
 Of cloth proper there is an enormous variety. 
 The article (in the processess to which it is 
 subjected) becomes very much felted, and is 
 then a most impervious fabric. The felting 
 may be done to a great extent, or a smaller 
 one, as desired. For certain purposes, as, for 
 instance, the overcoat of a driver who wants 
 it to turn rain, it can scarcely be overdone. 
 For draperies, curtains, grounds for embroidery, 
 &c., it should be done comparatively slightly, 
 so as still to exhibit its construction quite 
 plainly. It gains, however, sufficient firmness 
 by a very moderate amount of felting to fall 
 into most excellent folds. 
 
 Character. — And this brings us to the ques- 
 tion of what may be called " character " in 
 woven fibres. A proportion of people, among 
 whom architects are prominent, like to see the 
 threads of a fabric. They feel, which is no 
 doubt true, that there is an element of decep- 
 tion and humbug about a fabric whose threads 
 are invisible, where the whole construction is 
 
 152 
 
FABRICS 
 
 hidden beneath an artificially raised nap (as in 
 the cloth which men wear in the evening), or 
 in a mere fuzzle like a felt ; and they would 
 like to see the construction of the thing. But 
 the difficulty is that a still larger number of 
 people (among whom the fair sex is prominent) 
 like to see everything as fine as possible; and 
 this also suits the book of the shopkeeper, for 
 a fine-looking article at the money is like good 
 wine, it " needs no bush." But these two 
 demands are inconsistent with each other. If 
 the demand for a visible construction only went 
 the length of excluding felts and fine satins of 
 cotton or worsted, there would be no harm 
 done ; but we have always to bear in mind that 
 cloth, which is an excellent article, has been for 
 centuries made with a raised or dressed surface, 
 hiding the construction, and still, in spite of it, 
 remains a most excellent fabric. The Orientals 
 have been most successful in the production of 
 fabrics which, while showing the construction 
 plainly enough, still look good and handsome. 
 And no doubt, if we all set the example of 
 demanding such fabrics, Leeds would soon pro- 
 vide home-made things with that character — 
 a cloth which they say in the market " shows 
 its bones." In Italy, the usual covering of a 
 horse which brings a light cart to market is a 
 cloth almost entirely without nap, generally 
 
 ^53 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 of a pale scarlet ; and as facilities for inter- 
 communication improve, no doubt the Italians 
 will bring this material to our market. The 
 French red army-cloth seems a happy medium ; 
 the raising, if there be any, being exceedingly 
 moderate. 
 
 Muslin. — It is difficult to speak of the 
 question of muslins, their uses are so various 
 and their prices so moderate ; but they have 
 furnished us of late years with the Swiss Leno 
 curtain, which seems to me entirely abominable, 
 and the figured muslin called "Madras," of which 
 the principal characteristic is that it gathers 
 dirt at an unprecedented pace. If people want 
 summer curtains of a thin material, they should 
 be content with the muslin plain. 
 
 Chintz. — We now come to an important 
 article of modern industry — Chintz. The 
 Indian prints of a century ago, going more 
 or less under the name of " Palampore," 
 though on thin white cotton ground (entirely 
 cotton), are so exceedingly beautiful (or were) 
 that they must not be *forgotten. The trade 
 still continues at Cawnpore and elsewhere up 
 to the present day, in a cheap and less desirable 
 form, but still with much merit. They are 
 now printed, at a low price, on rough native 
 cotton, and gain by the use of that ground, the 
 whites being more ivory-like, something be- 
 
 154 
 
FABRICS 
 
 tween the shade of dark ivory and salmon. 
 We have no English or French production to 
 compare with them, and if the designs were 
 better adapted to our modern wants, we should 
 see this article in great demand. But the 
 patterns are immensely large, and, as a matter 
 of workmanship, very badly printed. The old 
 goods of this character, produced a hundred 
 years ago, were far better in workmanship, and 
 on an absolutely white ground, which, with its 
 accompaniment of fineness and mechanical regu- 
 larity, makes us suspect that the cloth was sent 
 out in the days of John Company to be printed 
 in India. A specimen was sent some years ago 
 to be examined at the school of design at Lahore, 
 and it came back ticketed with the remark, 
 " Lahore work ; one hundred or one hundred 
 and twenty years old ; partly hand-painted." 
 In the centre, at the lower part of this cur- 
 tain, was a sort of ornamental hill, which was 
 filled with birds and lions and other small fry ; 
 and from this there grew a tree with fine foliage, 
 which filled up the rest of the curtain as far as 
 the borders — a most beautiful production, at 
 once bright in colour and not in the least 
 gaudy. Of course they must have had a 
 costly and complete set of blocks (probably 
 one hundred and fifty) to produce a single 
 curtain. 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 After seeing such a fabric, one looks with 
 contempt and pity upon our modern chintzes. 
 Notwithstanding these beautiful productions 
 spoken of, there is no doubt that chintz print- 
 ing suffers greatly from being relegated to a 
 cheap cotton ground. Of course there are uses 
 for a chintz on a cheap cotton ground ; but it is 
 to be hoped that there will arise a demand for 
 chintz (especially for use in large towns) on a 
 worsted ground. The writer has seen chintz 
 taken oiF the foot of an old wooden bed, 
 which had been there ninety years, a Yorkshire 
 worsted fabric (moreen), and printed at Swais- 
 lands in Kent, at the end of the last century, 
 and still in good condition. We only want 
 some spirited person to put fine designs into 
 chintz-printing, and print them on a worsted 
 ground — some William Morris of his day — to 
 find out how much we lose by relegating chintz 
 to a shilling a yard for bedrooms. 
 
 We have very much to learn in fabrics from 
 the Oriental nations. Apart from the question 
 of fineness (which they can manage when they 
 wish), they have several fabrics more or less 
 known under the name of "Kelim," which 
 have a distinctly handsome coarseness, and 
 which, even in the eyes of the European, are 
 not looked down upon as being necessarily of 
 low value. Our modern European manufac- 
 
 156 
 
FABRICS 
 
 tures are certainly entirely deficient in this class 
 of fabric. 
 
 It is to be hoped that the modern demand 
 for adulterated fabrics may wear itself out ; 
 (for dress fabrics it does not matter so much, 
 because their use is ephemeral ; and ladies 
 may always be trusted, I think, not to buy a 
 thoroughly bad fabric twice), and that ere 
 long the fashion may change in favour of more 
 genuine materials, and especially in favour of 
 printing beautiful designs on worsted grounds, 
 — a method calculated to produce, at a most 
 moderate price, an article of great beauty and 
 great durability. And there is no difficulty in 
 colouring such a ground by the aid of a stencil 
 plate, adding varied and beautiful colour to a 
 fine design. 
 
 Use. — As to the fitting use of these fabrics, 
 there is no need to recommend people to buy 
 curtains — that is a foregone conclusion ; but a 
 word may be said respecting what is termed a 
 " valance," which, in the hands of most people, 
 is simply a snare. No doubt two curtains to 
 a window, when drawn back during the day, 
 without any connecting feature, do often look 
 excessively severe and bare; but good taste 
 will always come to the rescue in making this 
 otherwise useless and solely aesthetic feature, a 
 valance, moderate, both in style and dimen- 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 sions. But curtains, however ornamental in 
 adding to the pleasing form and colour of a 
 room, too often all come at one end or one 
 side ; and if they are in contrast of colour to 
 the wall, care should be taken to carry their 
 form and colour to the other sides if possible. 
 And here the portiere, which has also the 
 advantage of appearing to be a shield from 
 draughts, comes in most usefully. A drapery 
 to an overmantel might be equally comely and 
 advantageous. But the housewife's horror of 
 dust seems generally a complete bar to the use 
 of wall draperies hanging in folds. When so 
 used they are always picturesque and comfort- 
 able-looking ; and such draperies do not gather 
 dust in anything approaching the degree in 
 which window-curtains do. Draughts come 
 through window-sashes, bringing dust with 
 them, but no draught comes through a wall. 
 In rooms where bareness and a mechanical 
 hardness have been a prominent feature, a 
 dado of mohair velvet, about three feet high, 
 has been used with the most excellent result. 
 This hung loose in folds, by rings and studs, 
 from a moulded dado rail, and divided up into 
 shortish lengths, answering to the breaks in 
 the wall, is easy to remove and shake ; and the 
 housewife's care for dust has been cajoled for 
 the moment. 
 
 158 
 
FABRICS 
 
 But it is for the sanctuaries of churches that 
 more hangings are principally wanted. The 
 objection generally taken is that such work is 
 not permanent, would be a care, would require 
 replacement, &c., all of which, it may be re- 
 marked, applies in even a still greater degree to 
 altar-cloths and vestments, which are not thereby 
 prohibited. The cloth sanctuary-hangings of 
 St. Alban's Church, Holborn, after twenty-five 
 years of use, were still in good condition ; and 
 if architects would specify such hangings with 
 as much care for the quality and material to 
 be employed, as they expend upon the brick, 
 stone, or slate of the fabric, there is no 
 reason why they should not last fifty years, by 
 which time even wooden benches, hot-water 
 pipes, and lead lattices usually want a good 
 overhauling. 
 
 A large proportion of the lower part of a 
 sanctuary is nearly always hard, bare, and feature- 
 less; and not only will hangings introduce colour 
 and softness and variety of form, which are, 
 beyond all things, desirable, but they will also 
 add a sense that the Presence Chamber is 
 furnished and cared for, a sense which no 
 carving and painting at ten times the cost can 
 half so well achieve. 
 
 159 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION OF 
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 FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
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 |ARLYLE has said that the eight- 
 eenth century produced nothing 
 of value but the French Revolu- 
 tion ; he might, also, have excepted 
 English furniture. 
 
 It appears to require about a century for 
 the wheel of fashion to make one complete re- 
 volution. What our great-grandfathers bought 
 and valued (1750 to 1790); what our grand- 
 fathers despised and neglected (1790 to 1820) ; 
 what our fathers utterly forgot (1820 to 1850), 
 we value, restore, and copy ! 
 
 The furniture of the latter half of the last 
 century— at any rate, the best specimens of it 
 — has, of late, so commonly come to be re- 
 garded as the best the world has yet produced, 
 that no apology seems needed for an inquiry 
 
 163 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 into the circumstances of its origin and de- 
 velopment. 
 
 We are not here concerned with remarkable, 
 historical, and priceless pieces of furniture 
 made for princes and millionaires. These 
 have been well illustrated by the works of 
 Jacquemart, VioUet - le - Due, Havard, and 
 others ; and museums not only abound in such 
 specimens, but seem for the most part to ex- 
 hibit no others — reminding one strongly of 
 the ordinary history of the past, which begins 
 and ends with accounts of kings, councillors, 
 and generals ; while in these democratic days 
 we rather prefer to hear about the people and 
 their doings. So here I propose to discuss 
 and illustrate the ordinary chair, table, and 
 cabinet, designed for, and especially adapted 
 to, the daily use of the average Anglo-Saxon ; 
 and, so considered, there is nothing to com- 
 pete with the best of what we call " Chippen- 
 dale " furniture. And we may see reasons for 
 it not far to seek. Men of genius and educa- 
 tion in art did not consider it beneath them to 
 design and ornament furniture for the average 
 citizen — witness such names as Vanbrugh, 
 Chambers, Adam, Cipriani, Pergolesi, Angelica 
 Kauffman ; and even Sheraton, with all his 
 vulgar pomposity, was a far superior man to 
 our modern furniture designers. In France, 
 
 164 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 Louis XIV. and his minister Colbert had 
 established (1664) a Royal Academy of 
 Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture; and 
 Lebrun the painter was attached to it, to 
 provide fine designs for furniture ; whilst in 
 England (following France, as usual, a century 
 later) the rapid spread of comparative wealth 
 to a greatly enlarged class of the community 
 had opened the door at once to good design 
 and good workmanship for common articles 
 of daily use. 
 
 The desire to possess fine chairs, sideboards, 
 and cabinets, of the style we know as " Chippen- 
 dale," "Adams,"* or "Sheraton," has spread 
 to such a large proportion of educated and 
 well-to-do people, that it may safely be said 
 that the best of those productions are sold 
 daily at quite three times their original cost ; 
 and though this, and far more than this, may 
 be said of many things which come to the 
 hammer at " Christie's," yet, in the case of 
 this eighteenth century furniture, it is not 
 merely rare and historical pieces that fetch 
 good prices, but the rank and file of all the 
 best work of the two Chippendales, Sheraton, 
 Heppelwhite, or Shearer, or even articles sup- 
 posed to have been designed by the brothers 
 
 * The brothers Adam were architects, and although they 
 designed furniture, they certainly never made any. 
 
 165 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 Adam, Richardson, and the small army of their 
 imitators. And this is not on special occasions 
 and at favourite auction rooms alone, but every- 
 where, all over the land — wherever good things 
 are appreciated. 
 
 We feel the bulk of this furniture to be at 
 once good to look at, useful for daily life, 
 constructively excellent, and within the reach 
 of the average purse ; and we have come to 
 understand, very certainly, the clumsiness and 
 impracticability of the Stuart furniture of the 
 seventeenth century, the grossly false taste and 
 ugliness of the productions of the last two 
 reigns, and the weakness and want of character 
 of a so-called " Early English " fad of our own 
 times ; and, by contrast, good " Chippendale " 
 furniture, even when badly notched and some- 
 what worm-eaten, appears most excellent and 
 desirable. Beyond doubt, a considerable number 
 of London cabinetmakers have been employed, 
 for some years past, in restoring and reproduc- 
 ing it. 
 
 It is pleasant to think of it as a distinctly 
 English style, for it became so as its develop- 
 ment proceeded ; but its origin is beyond doubt 
 French — French of the period of Louis Qua- 
 torze, and not in any sense a development from 
 the English furniture of Queen Elizabeth and 
 the Stuarts. We borrowed it from France 
 
 i66 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 during that most remarkable period when 
 France, under Louis XIV., was engaged in 
 inaugurating a new era in the development 
 of art — a movement which placed her in the 
 van of civilised nations, in all matters relating 
 to the housing of the wealthy — in advance of 
 Italy, the source of all these arts ; and in a 
 position which she has maintained, at least up 
 to the Revolution, if not indeed to the present 
 time. 
 
 But, having borrowed it, the natural sobriety 
 of the English turn of mind toned down its 
 eccentricities, stiffened its curves, and added 
 an air of severity ; while the French went on 
 developing it in the other direction, until the 
 French parentage of the English branch has 
 become all but invisible, and we regard it as 
 a style of our own. 
 
 Any one, however, who will take the trouble 
 to study the historical development of furniture 
 at a good museum, may soon see the marked 
 contrast between the forms of English furniture 
 of the seventeenth century, nearly always archi- 
 tectural — pilaster, shaft, arcade — and the grace- 
 ful and flowing lines of the work produced in 
 1730 and onwards. Wherever the architectural 
 forms were deserted, sweeps and curves were 
 introduced, the originals of which may invari- 
 ably be found in work of a century or more 
 
 167 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 earlier from Italy, Germany, Flanders, and 
 France, but mostly from France. 
 
 Chippendale was, in the first place, and prin- 
 cipally, a carver — a maker of extravagant and 
 flamboyant frames to mirrors and girandoles; 
 and so eagerly did he copy the original, that 
 he actually seems to have outdone the French 
 upon their own ground. 
 
 But when one looks at the all-but-unbridged 
 gulf which seemed, thirty years ago, to separate 
 us from the daily life, from the furniture- 
 designers and cabinetmakers of Germany, Italy, 
 and France, it seems at first sight puzzling that 
 W. Jones in 1739, Copeland in 1746, Thomas 
 Chippendale in 1754, and Ince and Mayhew 
 probably* only a year or two later, should 
 suddenly have appeared with . large folio and 
 quarto books of costly copper and steel en- 
 gravings, with all the signs of a full-blown 
 " style " about them, and that in contrast, 
 rather than otherwise, to the existing style of 
 this country. 
 
 Later on, we had good designers, men of 
 superior cultivation and opportunities, who 
 spoke French, travelled to Rome and Greece, 
 and published books of design, two or three 
 of them in French as well as English — Sir 
 William Chambers (by no means always good), 
 
 * Their book is undated. 
 168 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 1760; the brothers Adam/^ i773. ^^ s^S-'> 
 George Richardson, 1781; Pergolesi, 1777,^^ 
 seq.; Cipriani, 1786. But previous to 1739, 
 judging by such books as exist, no English 
 designer seems to have published anything 
 worth notice. 
 
 How, then, did Chippendale, and his fel- 
 low cabinetmakers, or perhaps, to speak more, 
 correctly, their predecessors, arrive at their 
 Louis-Quatorze style ? 
 
 In these days of easy communication, by 
 railway, steamer, and telegraph, we are apt to 
 think of our forefathers, without these advan- 
 tages, as almost necessarily chained to their 
 homes ; and imagine the difficulties of travelling 
 so great for them, that we infer that they did 
 not travel at all. But this is a great mistake. 
 The campaigns of Marlborough alone t must 
 
 * To be sure the Adams, Chippendale, and Sheraton all 
 pose before us as founding themselves entirely on Greek and 
 Roman originals, and give minute drawings and descriptions 
 of each of the so-called " five orders " ; and so long as they 
 can keep to doors and windows, arcades and friezes, all is 
 tolerably Greek and Roman ; but the moment they have to 
 design something for which they can find no Greek or Roman 
 model, at once they descend without hesitation or apology to 
 out-and-out French Renaissance. 
 
 t Commenced in 1704. Peace of Utrecht, 1713. As 
 dates are handy in such a question, here are three leading 
 ones — Louis XIV., 1643-1715; Louis XV., 1715-1774; 
 Louis XVI., 1744 to Revolution. 
 
 169 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 have taken a multitude of our countrymen 
 abroad, and no doubt the bric-a-brac dealer 
 of the period would follow at a safe distance, 
 to pick up what he could in the track of the 
 armies. Paris, Florence, and Rome, have always 
 been a source of attraction to architects, men of 
 letters, men of leisure ; and when men travelled 
 less often and more deliberately, bfeyond doubt 
 they travelled to more purpose. The inter- 
 course between our Stuart kings and the French 
 court was close and intimate ; and we con- 
 stantly find in history accounts of men of wealth 
 and influence bringing highly skilled workmen 
 to England, from Flanders, from Italy, and 
 from France, to produce articles of luxury of 
 which our manufacturers were ignorant. More- 
 over, there was an infinitely stronger bond of 
 social intercourse between the French and 
 English* peoples than ever has existed since 
 the Revolution. And last, but not least, a 
 craze, which lasted a long time, and has not 
 even yet quite departed, in favour of France 
 
 * A curious instance of this is to be seen in a book of 
 engravings for silversmiths, evidently for French trade with 
 England ; many of the articles depicted being entitled in 
 English — thus, " a T pot," &c., and yet the whole is mani- 
 festly French work. The South Kensington copy has no 
 title or date, and is assigned to 1780 — but looks earlier. 
 There are 141 carefully executed steel plates, the designs 
 being, for the most part, excellent, simple, and severe. 
 
 170 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 and French taste, had set in with extraordinary 
 ardour during the reigns of our first two 
 Georges (George I., 1714-1727; George II., 
 1727-1760). 
 
 The attention of men like Chippendale being 
 thus turned to French taste, let us see what 
 means would be readily within their reach for 
 obtaining the Louis-Quatorze style in all its 
 details. 
 
 Jacques Androuet, called " du Cerceau," a 
 Frenchman, had published a book in 1550 
 (twice afterwards reprinted), whi^, besides a 
 good deal purely Pompeian in design, con- 
 tained quite enough of what we now call 
 "Louis Quatorze" to instruct a man with 
 Chippendale's adaptability. The leg of a table 
 or a chair, ending in an eagle's or dog's 
 claw, and ornamented at the top with a low- 
 relief acanthus leaf, is there exactly ; and what 
 Chippendale calls his " terms " (bases for busts, 
 &c.) seem to have been copied straight oiffrom 
 Androuet. The carver's foliage for mirrors in 
 Androuet's second book is so exactly what 
 Chippendale produced that one feels he must 
 have had a copy of this charming little book, 
 just such as a carver would buy. If you add 
 to all this the curved " cabriole " leg, a form of 
 terminal, whether of chair, table, or cabinet, 
 which at once distinguishes the feeling of the 
 
 171 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 design from its architectural predecessors, you 
 have a distinctive characteristic of our " Chip- 
 pendale " furniture. I have not found any 
 illustrated book, so early as Androuet's, with 
 this form distinctly given, but historical pieces 
 of furniture of German or Flemish work, as 
 early as 1620, are in existence, showing it in 
 full development ; and it is more than probable 
 that some such pieces of furniture would find 
 their way to London during Marlborough's 
 campaigns. 
 
 A Frenc^ cabinetmaker, Jean le Pautre, 
 published several books, illustrating chimney- 
 pieces and overmantels, — extravagant truly, 
 but scarcely more so than some of Chippen- 
 dale's designs. His principal work is entitled 
 CEuvres d' Architecture, &c. (3 vols, folio, 
 Paris, 175 1 ). 
 
 These books, together, would be sufficient 
 to instruct all our cabinetmakers in the de- 
 tails of the French Renaissance. They are full 
 of power, but altogether deficient in restraint 
 — the very weakness of Chippendale himself 
 
 An important book by Charles le Brun 
 (Paris, 1672, et seq.) was not likely to have been 
 overlooked by such men as Adam and Darly, 
 and was in all respects useful, both for the 
 architect and the cabinetmaker. 
 
 A still more important book, wider in its 
 172 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 range of subject, by J. Berain (Paris, 1663, et 
 seg.) — and another, where Berain worked in 
 company with Chauveau and Le Moine, 17 10, 
 were sure to be known to men who could write 
 in French on furniture and decoration ; and 
 here are the models for Chippendale's fluttering 
 ribands for chair-backs. 
 
 D. Marot (Amsterdam, 17 12) published a 
 beautiful book of design, in which one at once 
 sees the source of Chippendale's tall clock- 
 cases. The English productions are plainer, 
 but all the leading lines figure in this book. 
 
 G. C. Erassmus (Nurnberg, 1659, ei seq.) 
 gives the exact prototype of the highly orna- 
 mental mirror-frame of Lock, Johnson, and 
 Chippendale, and plates of "swags" of flowers, 
 and other ornaments, all in full light and shade: 
 a treasure-house for a carver and gilder, when 
 such books were scarce. 
 
 A book by Boucher, Ranson, and Lalonde 
 (Paris, undated), would give Chippendale pat- 
 terns of extravagant beds and sofas to his heart's 
 content. 
 
 And though it is somewhat diflScult to 
 determine whether the furniture part of Dic- 
 tionnaire des Sciences, des Arts et des Metiers, 
 small folio (Paris, no date), was published 
 before or after Chippendale's book, yet here is 
 his vulgar rococo sofa ; and if he did not copy 
 
 173 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 it from that book, both were copied from a 
 common source of a little earlier date. 
 
 Grinling Gibbons, who died in 1721, and 
 left many pupils behind him, would do much 
 to make some advances towards causing French 
 taste to be more easily appreciated ; and between 
 1 64 1 and 1737 several French cabinetmakers, 
 less known to fame,* published illustrated 
 books of furniture. And still more to the 
 point, mirrors, with highly ornamental frames, 
 began to be a much-admired and coveted article 
 in France in 1650 ; and so greatly was the im- 
 portance of this article esteemed as a decoration 
 for the houses of the rich, that the Duke of 
 Buckingham brought glassworkers from Venice, 
 in order to establish this manufacture, and 
 settled them at Lambeth — a trade which still 
 lingers there. 
 
 Now the Chippendales, father and son, were, 
 as I have said, principally carvers ; and carving 
 of high merit was manifestly a characteristic of 
 English decorative art of the period. Cope- 
 land, who, in point of time, seems the first of 
 the publishers of these illustrations, was also 
 a carver. Chippendale, to be sure, became a 
 
 * E.g., J. Barbet, 1641 ; H. Goltzius, about 1641 ; P. 
 Mignard, 1650 and 1700; Juste AurMe Meissonier, about 
 1670; P. Bourdon, 1703; Nicholas Pineau, 1710; Le- 
 blond, 17 16; G. Brunetti, 1736; E. Bouchardon, 1737. 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 maker of all sorts of furniture, but quite a 
 large proportion of the men whose illustrated 
 books we possess, dated 1746 and onwards, 
 were carvers only ; * and I cannot help think- 
 ing, that the demand for ornamentally framed 
 mirrors (a most attractive novelty to those who 
 could pay for them, and had fine reception rooms) 
 was largely the origin of the whole movement, 
 so far as the cabinetmakers were concerned. 
 The glass mirror itself had had a comparatively 
 late origin in Venice ; from Italy it had passed 
 to France ; and it was inevitable that an English- 
 man should receive it framed in Renaissance 
 taste, and that the Renaissance of France. 
 
 It is somewhat difficult to see what was 
 the aim of these architects, cabinetmakers, and 
 decorators. Did they not know that the " Re- 
 naissance" of classical form and feeling had 
 been going on, for at least three centuries, in 
 Italy, in Belgium, in France } Had they only 
 just awakened to the fact ? Or, did they con- 
 template the creation of a little renaissance for 
 themselves } That this latter must have been 
 the idea of such men as Adam and Richardson 
 is evident; but it is most comical to consider 
 the mental condition of Chippendale, Sheraton, 
 and other cabinetmakers, posing before their 
 
 * E.g., Matthias Lock, 1765; Thomas Johnson, 1761 ; 
 G. Lairesse, about 1750. 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 beloved five orders as " the very soul and basis 
 of art," " the true and only fount of real art," 
 &c., and calling all men to assist them in a 
 return to those forms and principles ; and then 
 accepting, with avidity, the most ultra-French 
 development of a Renaissance now grown old, 
 and not a little the worse for wear ! 
 
 One cannot but see that, for them at least, 
 the whole pretended desire for a neo-classicism 
 was a mere pandering to the dilettanteism of 
 the day ; that they felt that to appear as high- 
 class designers, it was desirable to follow as 
 closely as possible in the footsteps of Wren, 
 Inigo Jones, and the rest ; and then, having 
 appeased their consciences by an extravagant 
 preface, and opening chapters, about the " fount 
 of pure art," &c., they could, with a better 
 grace, give illustrations of what would sell; 
 that being, in the main, French Renaissance ; no 
 matter that it was as far in spirit from "the 
 only fount " as Gothic itself! 
 
 But French Renaissance was a style eminently 
 well calculated, in furniture at least, to meet 
 the wants of well-to-do people ; and the banks 
 of prejudice having once been broken down, 
 the flood came, and swept the devoted five 
 orders into the sea. 
 
 It was impossible that Chippendale and 
 Darly's style — applied, as it was, to every 
 
 176 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 furniture requirement in a well-to-do house- 
 should have sprung into existence in a decade, 
 or even in two ; for no good art work ever 
 grew up of a sudden, like a mushroom, but 
 always has been a development of a previous 
 success. Still, it is interesting to note the evi- 
 dences which Chippendale himself affords us 
 of an earlier parentage of the style. First, he 
 gives us — an early plate of the first edition 
 (1754) — two chairs, with perspective lines 
 about them : one of them perfectly plain, such 
 as one sees in an old farmhouse ; and again a 
 plate of six chair-backs, also relatively plain 
 and severe. These two plates are in contrast 
 to the rest of the book, and he passes them 
 by as of no moment, as if to suggest, " These 
 are the ordinary things of ordinary people; 
 my mission is to make grander things for the 
 nobility and gentry ! " Then, also early in his 
 first edition, he gives the same chair over-loaded 
 with ornament to a degree which, to our eyes, 
 ruins it ; and one cannot escape the conviction 
 that he found the chair in the plainer condi- 
 tion, and that the ornamentation was his part 
 of the business. The chair, of course, must 
 have been invented plain, and the ornament 
 must have come afterwards. 
 
 So that I think we cannot assign a later date 
 for the infancy of the style than about the be- 
 
 177 M 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 ginning of the eighteenth century. • Many cir- 
 cumstances seem to have conspired about this 
 time to produce a great start forward in adapt- 
 ing all the surroundings of the well-to-do to a 
 vastly improved condition of material comfort 
 and dignity of life; while, at the same time, 
 the class so environed was increasing rapidly 
 in numbers. English society was awakening 
 from a past of comparative rudeness and bar- 
 barism ; the burgher, merchant, and yeoman 
 were beginning to enjoy a share of the position, 
 distinction, and wealth, hitherto the monopoly 
 of the soldier, the aristocrat, and the courtier ; 
 the arts of peace were beginning to be re- 
 spected and admired ; and, simultaneously with 
 the energy of the movement, or perhaps actually 
 proceeding from it, there rose, as it were, a 
 fine wave of vigorous designing power with a 
 corresponding power of practical application. 
 Chippendale was in a position to feel these new 
 conditions quickly (having, through his father, 
 I imagine, already a connection among wealthy 
 people, for highly ornamental mirrors and the 
 like), and was able to take the tide "at the 
 flood " ; so that, notwithstanding his constant 
 tendency to foolish and vulgar ornamentation, 
 there is some justice in our having called the 
 style by his name. 
 
 It is greatly to be regretted, however, that, 
 178 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 instead of giving us plates, nine-tenths of 
 which are mere " show-pieces," intended to 
 tempt wealthy people, he did not give a volume 
 of drawings of the average daily produce of 
 his workshop. For nowhere, throughout his 
 book, do we find drawings of the very best 
 furniture then made : to almost every design 
 he adds a coating of over-ornamentation, now 
 Flamboyant — now Gothic — now " Chinese ! " 
 and to see the cream of the productions of his 
 period, one has to go to the well-appointed 
 house of a rich man — to the occasional auctions 
 — or, to the bric-a-brac shop.* 
 
 Nevertheless, his plates, in the aggregate, 
 with useless ornament omitted (he frequently 
 calls attention to the possibility of this), do 
 give us the main elements of the style, and 
 are consequently valuable. Heppelwhite and 
 Sheraton were both more practical, and so, in 
 a sense, their designs are individually of more 
 interest. But, as we approach Sheraton's time, 
 
 * Curiously, not one of these men gives us a drawing, or 
 even an approach to one, of the favourite little mahogany- 
 framed mirror, carved or pierced above and below, with 
 a gilt bird coming through a hole at the top — an ornamental 
 object of interest to be found in half the well-furnished 
 houses of the land, and undoubtedly an heirloom from 
 Chippendale's time : indeed, London bric-a-brac shops have 
 usually some on sale quite a century old, as well as 
 copies. 
 
 179 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 the vigour and originality of the movement 
 were fast beginning to disappear; and with a 
 rapidity which is quite remarkable, all that was 
 potent and virile in it completely vanished ; 
 so that it is difficult to find a design dated 1 800 
 and onwards which is worth attention. The 
 wave that had transformed our home sur- 
 roundings had ebbed, and left us stranded ; 
 stranded, too, in the times of the fourth 
 George and his successor — a period devoid 
 of interest or of power — flat, stale, and un- 
 profitable — from which we have but lately 
 emerged. 
 
 Let me enumerate some of the leading men 
 who contributed to the movement, and, as far 
 as the dates of their books go, in chronological 
 order. 
 
 W. JONES 
 (410, London, 1739) 
 
 has apparently the honour of being about the 
 first of those who have left us an illustrated 
 book bearing upon our subject. He calls him- 
 self an architect, and gives many illustrations 
 of a sort of neoclassicism (far better done, a 
 little later, by the brothers Adam). His mir- 
 rors and chimney-pieces, however, have merit, 
 and his book is modest and unassuming. 
 
 180 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 INIGO JONES AND KENT 
 (Folio, London, 1744.) 
 
 Some of Inigo Jones's chimney-pieces are 
 good, though ponderous. There is the air of 
 the competent architect about them, as one 
 rnight expect, and for halls of large houses or 
 public buildings they might well be useful. 
 How he came to ally himself with Kent it is 
 not easy to understand, Kent's part of the 
 work being weak and worthless. 
 
 H. COPELAND 
 
 (1746.) 
 
 Plates are occasionally obtainable, signed H. 
 Copeland, and dated 1746. They may have 
 been his first attempts in this direction, and 
 never put together in book-form. They con- 
 sist of mirror-frames only, and point, as men- 
 tioned elsewhere, to the mirror as having 
 possibly originated the illustrated furniture 
 books. 
 
 THOMAS CHIPPENDALE 
 
 (First Edition, folio, London, 1754; Second Edition, 
 folio, 1759; Third Edition, folio, 1762.) 
 
 It is rather disconcerting to find this man, 
 to whom, in common parlance, we agree to 
 
 181 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 attribute our style (and who certainly has left 
 us an abundance of copperplate engravings), 
 not only not a man of education and modesty, 
 but a very commonplace and vulgar hawker of 
 his wares, prepared to make anything that will 
 please his customers and fill his purse. 
 
 He calls his book " The Gentleman and 
 Cabinetmaker's Director," " being a large col- 
 lection of the most elegant and useful designs 
 of household furniture, in the Gothic, Chinese, 
 and modern taste " ! " To which is prefixed 
 a short explanation of the five orders of archi- 
 tecture, and rules of perspective, with proper 
 directions, for executing the most difficult 
 pieces," &c. " Calculated to improve and 
 refine the present taste," &c. ; then follows a 
 quotation from Ovid, and another from 
 Horace ! He dedicates it to the Earl of 
 Northumberland, in the usual inflated style of 
 the period : " My lord, your intimate acquaint- 
 ance with all those arts and sciences that tend 
 to perfect and adorn life," &c. Then, under 
 a very pretty headpiece (probably Italian), he 
 commences his preface in this bombastic style : 
 " Of all the arts which are either improved or 
 ornamented by architecture, that of cabinet- 
 making is the most useful and ornamental." 
 (He does not see that at this precise time 
 English cabinetmakers had begun to desert 
 
 182 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 architectural lines and guidance !) "I have 
 therefore prefixed to the following designs a 
 short explanation of the five orders. Without 
 an acquaintance with this science, and some 
 knowledge of the rules of perspective, the 
 cabinetmaker cannot make the rules of his 
 work intelligible : . . . they are the very soul 
 and basis of his art." (It is worthy of remark 
 that his perspective generally spoils his draw- 
 ings of chairs, where the back legs seem mis- 
 placed and ridiculous, and elsewhere it always 
 seems pedantic and out of place.) Then he 
 talks about "the Venus of Apelles, and the 
 Jove of Phidias " ! He expects adverse criti- 
 cism, but says, " I shall repay their censures 
 with contempt — they have neither good nature 
 to commend, judgment to correct, nor skill 
 to execute what they find fault with." He 
 appears to have been conscious that many of 
 his designs could hardly be put into practical 
 shape (an accusation which Sheraton, in 1791, 
 •does not hesitate to make in the plainest terms), 
 for he says, " I will not scruple to attribute 
 this to malice, ignorance, and inability; and 
 I am confident I can convince all noblemen, 
 gentlemen, and others who will honour me 
 with their commands," &c. Granting that this 
 smacks mainly of the false literary style of the 
 eighteenth century, let us see what indications 
 
 183 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 we can find of his personal taste and discrimi- 
 nation. He says, " Plate XVI. is three riband 
 back chairs, which . . . ^re the best I have ever 
 seen (or perhaps have ever been made)," &c. 
 But the riband is almost the worst type of 
 ornament which the Chippendale chair ever 
 carried. " Plates XXI. and XXII. are six new 
 designs of Gothic (!) chairs; and Plates XXIII. , 
 XXIV., and XXV. are nine chairs in the pre- 
 sent Chinese manner (!), which I hope will 
 improve that taste. ... I think it the most 
 useful of any other" (the italics are mine). 
 We talk of the " Chippendale style " nowadays, 
 as if Chippendale had been mainly the inventor, 
 certainly the chief expositor of it, yet here he 
 is giving equal prominence to Gothic (the very 
 worst of what we now recognise as " Church- 
 warden's Gothic "), and greater prominence still 
 to would-be " Chinese " ! " Plate XXXI. is a 
 domed bed ; . . . there are four dragons going 
 up from each corner. The head-board has a 
 small temple with a joss or Chinese god; on 
 each side is a Chinese man at worship," &c. 
 His designs for beds are miracles of false and 
 foolish taste, and one cannot believe that he 
 ever anticipated that the bulk of them would 
 be carried into execution. Further on he refers 
 to a " Gothic " bookcase as " one of the best of 
 its kind, and would give me great pleasure to 
 
 184 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 see it executed, as I doubt not of its making 
 an exceeding genteel and grand appearance ; " 
 while the next plate but one " is a desk and 
 bookcase in the Chinese taste, and will look 
 extremely well." He is evidently delighted 
 with his " Chinese " designs — " nine designs of 
 chairs after the Chinese manner ; . . . they will 
 suit Chinese temples " ! 
 
 After reading a few pages written in this 
 style, one stares in amazement at his glorifica- 
 tion of the five orders, 'and the pedantically 
 exact drawings of each of them in careful detail 
 (probably done for him by his friend and 
 helper, Matthew Darly, an architect — see 
 further on). Was this, and the magniloquent 
 talk about perspective, genuine ? or was it 
 merely intended to give his book an architec- 
 tural and scientific air .? One cannot resist the 
 suspicion, for he never seemed to try for a 
 moment to bring his five, orders into practical 
 use for his cabinets. We can afford to smile 
 now at this cabinetmaker vapouring about his 
 neo-Greek, but no doubt it was then thought 
 by the " noblemen, gentlemen, and others " to 
 whom he addressed himself, that all good art 
 must flow from Greece as a fountain-head, and 
 it would sound and look well to begin directly 
 from Greek temples. Nevertheless, the eager 
 tradesman could not but peep out, and in spite 
 
 185 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 of "the true fount of art," he found that 
 "Gothic" and "Chinese" chairs and cabinets 
 would sell, and he puffed them accordingly, 
 and that rather more than his French Renais- 
 sance designs. To work even as near the neo- 
 Greek as the Adams, he makes not the feeblest 
 attempt. 
 
 His most ambitious designs are, I imagine, 
 merely advertising suggestions of what he is 
 prepared to make, if he can get orders — witness 
 Plate CXI., " a China case, not only the richest 
 and most magnificent in the whole, but perhaps 
 in all Europe. ... I should have much plea- 
 sure in the execution of it," &c. 
 
 There is a plate alluded to above (No. XVI. 
 in the third edition), consisting of six backs of 
 chairs — simple and severe, quite the best of 
 his chair designs, and appearing to belong to 
 the early stage of the developments of the 
 " Chip " chair, though not in the first edition. 
 He passes this plate by without a word of com- 
 ment, although almost every other plate has 
 a few words, and often several sentences of 
 praise. 
 
 So that, with every desire to accord the 
 utmost value to Chippendale's book, and valu- 
 able it certainly is, as the earliest and most 
 comprehensive exponent of the style, one can- 
 not for a moment rank its author as a man of 
 
 i86 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 " taste." His desire to pander to any sort 
 of trumpery fancy of the hour, now so-called 
 " Chinese," now extravagant Louis Quatorze, 
 now " Churchwarden's Gothic," led him into 
 continual trouble ; for, going carefully through 
 the third edition (which does not differ mate- 
 rially from the first), and, with every desire to 
 be fair and broadminded, dividing the designs 
 into four groups, one comes to some such 
 result as this — Good, 60 ; Passable {i.e.^ designs 
 with merit in them, but partially spoiled by 
 false detail), 103 ; Fantastic and foolish, 146 ; 
 with a remainder of 107 which can only be 
 called preposterous, impossible, or outrageous. 
 That is to say, the good and passable are 
 scarcely as two to three of the others. 
 
 Later, he published a 4to book of designs 
 (undated) for " Sconces, Chimney and Looking- 
 glass frames in the old French style " (the 
 only place in which I can find any acknow- 
 ledgment of his indebtedness to the French), 
 which is at once commonplace, vulgar, and 
 largely impracticable. 
 
 EDWARDS AND DARLEY 
 (410, London, 1754. Darley, spelt also Darly.) 
 
 " A new book of Chinese designs," &c. 
 The Chinese mania appears to have been raging 
 
 187 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 rather fiercely just then, probably owing to the 
 influence of Sir William Chambers, who, how- 
 ever, did not appear in print till rather later. 
 There are some drawings of flowers and birds 
 in this book, in the Chinese manner, worth 
 passing attention, but otherwise it is a mere 
 tissue of folly and weakness. 
 
 THOMAS JOHNSON 
 
 (Small folio, Westminster, 1758, and small 4to, 
 London, 1761.) 
 
 Johnson was a carver, and his book mainly 
 consists of designs for girandoles, picture- 
 frames, mirror-frames, and candlesticks — no 
 chairs, tables, or cabinets. Curiously, this book 
 is dedicated, on a florid and pedantic title-page, 
 to Lord Blakeney, " Grand President of the 
 Anti-Gallican Association^'' the designs being, 
 however, extremely French. Probably he feels 
 that he may defend himself somewhat by adding, 
 " 'Tis a duty incumbent on an author to en- 
 deavour at pleasing every taste ! " His designs 
 are quite as foolish and impossible as the worst 
 of Chippendale's, though not quite so pre- 
 tentious. In 1 76 1 he published a smaller 
 rdchauffd of the book, very stupid and vulgar ; 
 some of the girandoles are incredibly false and 
 foolish. 
 
 188 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 INCE AND MAYHEW 
 
 (Folio, London, undated, but probably earlier than 
 1760.) 
 
 The title-page, both English and French, 
 describes the book to be " in the most elegant 
 taste " ; " the whole made convenient to the 
 nobility and gentry." There is a flowery in- 
 scription to the Duke of Marlborough ; and 
 we are informed — " and with same regard any 
 gentleman may furnish as neat at a small ex- 
 pense as he can elegant and superb at a great 
 one " ! {sic). Matthias Darly, the assistant of 
 Chippendale, appears to have been engaged as 
 engraver, and the book purports to be partly 
 " a drawing-book adapted to young beginners," 
 who are to copy excessively rococo and florid 
 ornament, like the most extreme French work. 
 They give plates of excessively over - orna- 
 mented " Chip " chairs, and beds quite as 
 absurd and vulgar as Chippendale's — indeed, 
 all these men seemed to lose their heads the 
 moment they designed a bed. Some of the 
 dressing-tables and chests of drawers are fairly 
 good, though none seem quite worth repro- 
 ducing. There is the absurd disposition to 
 be " Chinese " which we have seen in others 
 of this period, and "un grand sofa" rather 
 
 189 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 out - Chippendales Chippendale in its gross 
 vulgarity. Altogether it might be described 
 as a foolish and worthless book, unworthy of 
 notice, were it not for its important size, costly 
 plates, and presumably early date. 
 
 A SOCIETY OF UPHOLSTERERS 
 
 (410, London, no date, which I presume to be about 1760. 
 Entitled "Genteel Household Furniture.") 
 
 There is no preface, and the names of designers 
 and engravers are mostly omitted. The plates 
 consist largely of chairs — Gothic chairs, Chinese 
 chairs, and very florid " Chip " chairs, these last 
 beiijg a sort of false and clumsy travesty of 
 Louis-Quatorze work. But suddenly, in the 
 middle of the book comes a plate of altogether 
 diiFerent style — no designer's name given, but 
 inscribed " Couse sculpt." — a cabinet, not im- 
 portant, but severe, simple, and pretty. It is 
 repeated, with slight alterations, several times, 
 and like Chippendale's six chair-backs, alluded 
 to above, seems to point back to an earlier and 
 purer condition of the style. The compilers give 
 an illustration of a nice wrought-iron balcony, 
 two or three bits of pretty iron-work for the 
 brackets of inn signboards, such as one still 
 sees in Barnet and elsewhere, and a good orna- 
 
 190 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 mental chain for a candelabrum ; but otherwise 
 the book is devoid of interest, and may be con- 
 sidered a copy of Chippendale, and not of 
 Chippendale's best. They also published a 
 second edition, and two appendices, of no 
 special value. 
 
 MATTHIAS LOCK 
 
 (4to, London, 1765-68; also post 410, no date; also 
 oblong 4to, 1769.) 
 
 Lock was a carver, and his works are mainly 
 interesting as helping to show that this series 
 of books on furniture, rapidly following each 
 other, was originated, as elsewhere observed, by 
 the carvers. Lock is ultra-French and fantastic 
 in his designs, and, in his higher flights, often 
 very vulgar. His books may be considered 
 useless. The South Kensington Museum con- 
 tains a folio of original sketches, with a few 
 prints from steel or copper plates interspersed, 
 ascribed to Lock and H. Copeland (mentioned 
 above), and containing, amid numerous scrappy 
 details of the carver, some lovely drawings of 
 a plant of the acanthus tribe, presumably for 
 carving from. The chairs are not good, and 
 there is nothing else worth notice. 
 
 191 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 ROBERT MANWARING AND OTHERS 
 
 (8vo, London, 1766. "The Chairmaker's Guide; 200 
 New and Genteel Designs.") 
 
 Manwaring was evidently the moving spirit 
 of the " Society of Upholsterers " mentioned 
 above; for they published a second edition, 
 undated, to many of the designs in which 
 Manwaring now added his name ; and the book, 
 published in 1766, where his name appears on 
 the title-page, contains a great many of the 
 very plates previously used for the Society's 
 book. He gives a large number of illustra- 
 tions of " Chip " chairs, but never manages 
 to draw a really good one. The " Gothic " 
 chairs are rather worse than one had thought 
 possible. The " Hall " chairs are quite pre- 
 posterous. 
 
 N. WALLIS, ARCHITECT 
 
 (Oblong 4to, London, 1771. Entitled "A Book of Orna- 
 ments." Also, oblong 4to, 1772, "The Complete 
 Modern Joiner.") 
 
 Wallis has a simple and modest title-page 
 and preface; and though he is beset by the 
 fear of departing by one jot or tittle from his 
 supposed Greek models, yet his book is well 
 worth examination, being free from rubbish, 
 and full of most excellent chimney-pieces. 
 
 192 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 R. AND J. ADAM 
 (First Edition, 3 vols, folio, London, 1773, et seq.) 
 
 Their book is entitled "The Works in 
 Architecture of Robert and James Adam, 
 Esquires," and is printed in parallel columns 
 of French and English, in large folio, on 
 splendid paper, ddition de iTixe. Robert ap- 
 pears to have been mainly the designer. The 
 work was published in numbers and parts, and 
 was continued from 1773 to 1779. After 
 their death in 1822, a further part was pub- 
 lished, but it is of quite inferior interest. 
 
 This noble work, splendid alike in design, 
 in draughtsmanship, in execution, and in taste, 
 must surely have had a share in forming the 
 national style, probably greater than all the 
 other books we are considering put together. 
 For though it is called an architectural work, 
 and is entirely passed in silence by Sheraton when 
 he discusses his competitors' works, it contains 
 far more plates of articles of furniture than 
 many of the so-called furniture books ; and 
 besides thirty-two designs for chimney-pieces, 
 ceilings, cornices, &c., which may rightly be 
 considered as entirely architectural, it gives us 
 no less than sixty-four designs for mirrors, 
 sconces, draped cornices, side-tables, bookcases, 
 193 N 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 clocks, lamps, &c., all well worth reproducing. 
 For the brothers Adam justly considered all 
 the fittings of a house as coming within the 
 scope of their art ; and if we could only be 
 sure that our architects possessed the Adams' 
 taste and discretion, nothing could be more 
 desirable than that they should undertake them 
 now. 
 
 To be sure, they were religiously devoted 
 to those worshipful five orders, and they tied 
 themselves, as tightly as ever they knew how, 
 to that arbitrary standard ; and, in consequence, 
 their designs are often wanting in freedom, and 
 at times in adaptability to the end in view; 
 and one cannot help continually stopping to 
 wonder, if they could do so much, restrained by 
 such inelastic leading strings, what might they 
 not have done if their sympathies had had a 
 wider base ? But we must take the past as we 
 find it ; and, considering the vile taste which sur- 
 rounded them on all sides — the false standards 
 set up by a pretended admiration of classic 
 work on the one hand, and an extravagant 
 desire to follow all the excesses of the French 
 Renaissance on the other, we cannot be too 
 thankful for this splendid work. 
 
 The frontispiece and preface, one must con- 
 fess, are not a little trying. "A student 
 conducted to Minerva, who points to Greece 
 194 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 and Italy as the countries from whence he must 
 derive the most perfect knowledge of taste," 
 &c., forms the title of a large and ultra-showy 
 frontispiece ; and in the preface they claim to 
 have themselves " in some measure brought 
 about a kind of revolution in the whole system 
 of this beautiful and elegant art " (architec- 
 ture), " and in the decoration of the inside, 
 an almost total change." " It seems to have 
 been reserved for the present time to see com- 
 partment ceilings carried to a degree of per- 
 fection in Great Britain that far surpasses any of 
 the former attempts of other modern nations." 
 " Whether our works have not contributed to 
 diffuse these improvements through this country, 
 we shall leave to the impartial public ; ... we 
 flatter ourselves we have been able to seize, with 
 some degree of success, the beautiful spirit of 
 antiquity, and to transfuse it with novelty and 
 variety through all our numerous works ! " 
 They go on to claim that they have designed 
 " every kind of ornamental furniture." " The 
 style of the ornament and the colouring of the 
 Countess of Derby's dressing-room (imitated 
 from vases of the Etruscans) show the first idea 
 of applying this taste to the decoration of apart- 
 ments ! " " In architecture, Inigo Jones rescued 
 us from Gothicism ; Wren was enabled to ex- 
 hibit his genius in St. Paul's ; Vanbrugh under- 
 195 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 stood the art of living among the great ; " and 
 the brothers Adam " claim to have carried on 
 and completed the diffusion of better taste ! " 
 Clearly, they were not free from the charge of 
 false taste in preface-writing, but we must allow 
 a good deal for the bombastic literary style of 
 the period, and we forgive the high-sounding 
 talk, when we open the book. Its weakness, for 
 the purposes of this inquiry, is that the Adams 
 seem to have designed entirely for rich people, 
 who, one would think, never considered the cost 
 of anything ; and this to some extent lands the 
 work among specialities and museum collections, 
 and deprives it of that all-round adaptability, 
 which must be the characteristic of a really vital 
 style, which is to become traditional. Still,- 
 a large proportion of their ornament is capable 
 of being executed cheaply in carton-pierre and 
 plaster, and often forms the chaste and delicate 
 ornamental touch of many a burgher's house, 
 of somewhat later date. If our speculating 
 builders would only take their plaster cornices, 
 to go no further, from this admirable book, 
 what a stride would be made at once towards 
 the better decoration of our rooms ! And 
 architects and decorators of public buildings 
 might here find a quarry from "which they 
 might dig nearly all their material, greatly to 
 the advantage of the whole nation. 
 196 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 MATTHIAS DARLY 
 
 (Small folio, London, 1773. Entitled "A Compleat Body 
 of Architecture, embellished with a great variety of 
 ornaments," compiled, drawn, and engraved by Matthias 
 Darly, Professor of Ornament. ) 
 
 Darly, I think, must have been brought up 
 as an architect, but preferred the ornamental 
 side of his art. He says — " Ornamental draw- 
 ing " (? drawing of ornament) " has been too 
 long neglected in this trading country, and 
 great losses have been sustained in many of our 
 manufactures for want of it. On the know- 
 ledge of true embellishment depends the im- 
 provement of every article, and I do aver that 
 this kingdom is more indebted to a Richd. 
 Langcake (who is now teaching the art of 
 design in France *) than to a Sir Godfrey 
 Kneller." He claims his book to be " the 
 first and only publication of the kind"(!). 
 " Many authors " (on architecture) " content 
 themselves with giving only the proportion, 
 and almost totally neglect the graceful addi- 
 tion of ornament ; to supply which defect 
 this work is principally intended." Besides 
 matters more strictly architectural, he gives 
 plates of ceilings, panels, chimney-pieces, vases, 
 spandrils, brackets, frames, friezes, &c. He 
 
 * Because he could not get employment in England. 
 197 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 appears to have worked for Chippendale, both as 
 a designer and as an engraver. His "frames" 
 and " panels " are frequently most elegant and 
 graceful pieces of composition, far in advance 
 of his contemporaries, if we except Adam and 
 Pergolesi. In ceiling designs he seems to be 
 the equal of Robert Adam. If he sins, it is 
 by omission. He never attempts a table, chair, 
 or cabinet. But his designs have, almost 
 without exception, some merit, and are never 
 foolish or pretentious. In 1767, before his 
 principal work, he published a book, oblong 
 4to, entitled " Sixty Vases by English, French, 
 and Italian Masters " — one of the very few 
 hints that we get that these men knew, or 
 were willing to admit, that they were borrow- 
 ing from the French. 
 
 A. Rosis, small folio, 1753, "A New Book of Orna- 
 ment;" Manwaring, London, 1765, "The Carpenter's 
 Complete Guide; " "The Cabinet and Chairmaker's Real 
 Friend and Companion," by the same, also 1765; "The 
 Carpenter's Companion for Chinese Railings and Gates " (H. 
 Morris and J. Crunden, 1770) ; and "TheJoyner and Cabinet- 
 maker's Darling" (John Crunden, 1770) ; Gaetano Brun- 
 etti, "Sixty Different Sorts of Ornament," 4to, 1736; J. 
 Gibbs, 4to, 173 1, "Thirty-three Shields and Compart- 
 ments," &c. ; Wm. Halfpenny, 8vo, 1750, "New Designs 
 for Chinese Temples, &c.," may all be bracketed as inferior 
 productions of no merit, and quite useless. 
 
 198 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 p. COLUMBANI 
 
 (410, London, 1775, "A New Book of Ornaments." Also 
 4to, 1776, "A Variety of Capitals.") 
 
 Two modest and business-like performances, 
 containing panel ornament and excellent chim- 
 ney-pieces, almost equal to the designs of 
 Adam and Richardson. The scope and extent 
 of the books, however, hardly entitle them to 
 an important place. 
 
 GEORGE RICHARDSON 
 
 (Folio, 1776. Entitled "A Book of Ceilings." Also 
 folio, 1 78 1, "A New Collection of Chimney-pieces." ) 
 
 Richardson was a gentleman and a scholar. 
 After disclaiming with a charming honesty any 
 real classic authority for his designs (which are 
 very much on the lines of Robert Adam), he 
 says — " The following designs are composed in 
 the style of the present improved taste." This 
 nice feeling pervades the book ; and as he is 
 certainly less in awe of the five orders than his 
 predecessors, and gives more variety of style 
 and ornament than the others (though always 
 strictly within limited boundaries), it is not 
 too much to say that he is facile princeps in 
 chimney-piece drawing. There is not a foolish 
 or impracticable design in the book, and most 
 199 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 of them address themselves to a middle-class 
 public rather than to the millionaire. He 
 published several other books, mostly more 
 strictly architectural, and one, consisting of 
 ceilings only (folio, 1776), on thick paper, got 
 up very much after the style of the Adams' 
 book, inevitably suggesting a sense of rivalry 
 with that splendid work, published three years 
 previously. It is free from ostentation or 
 vulgarity, but is deficient in freedom, as if 
 he were chained fast again to the inevitable 
 " orders." 
 
 There were several other architects who assisted in the 
 movement, such as James Gibbs, "A Book of Architecture," 
 fol. 1739 ; Abm. Swan, "A Collection of Designs in Archi- 
 tecture," fol. 1757; Swan again, "The British Architect," 
 fol. 1758; Swan again, "Designs in Carpentry," 4to, 1759; 
 W. Thomas, "Original Designs in Architecture," fol. 1783; 
 W. and J. Pain, fol. 1786, "Pains' British Palladio;" the 
 Pains again, fol. 1793; B. and T. Longley, "The Builder's 
 Jewel/' i6mo, 1787; R. Morris, royal 8vo, "The Archi- 
 tect's Remembrancer ; " J. Wyatt, " Original Coloured Draw- 
 ings of Ornaments to Scale," no date, about 17 70; Thos. 
 Milton, John Crunden, Placid o Columbani (mentioned 
 above), and T. C. Overton, four, working together, and 
 producing "The Chimney-Piece- Maker's Daily Assistant," 
 imp. 8vo, 1766; but I pass them by on account of the very 
 inferior interest of their productions when weighed against 
 Adam, Richardson, Darly, and Pergolesi. The first four 
 have been well reproduced by R. Charles, " The Compiler," 
 London, 1879. 
 
 200 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 M. A. PERGOLESI 
 (Folio, London, 1777, et seq.) 
 
 A valuable and charming book of ornament, 
 without preface, and merely entitled, " Designs." 
 It is somewhat restricted in its scope, and follows, 
 like the Adams' work, a too severe adhesion to the 
 supposed hard and fast limits imposed by those 
 tyrannous "five orders." Nevertheless he breaks 
 away inevitably, (further perhaps than he knew,) 
 from his jailors, and leaves us a very interesting 
 and useful book, which forms a good hunting- 
 ground for designers to-day, though not old 
 enough to belong to the great days of art. 
 
 It appears to have been published in num- 
 bers extending over some years, and existing 
 copies are seldom complete. In the later num- 
 bers there are " centres " to panelled ornaments, 
 engraved by Bartolozzi (amorini, and the like), 
 which are most lovely. Indeed, to lovers of 
 ornament, it is a delightful book, and perfect 
 copies are worth probably ten times the original 
 cost. Pergolesi was brought from Italy by 
 Robert Adam, and, beyond doubt, was the un- 
 acknowledged author of most of the beautiful 
 details of the Adams' book. 
 
 201 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 G. B. CIPRIANI 
 (Folio, London, 1786.) 
 
 A book of ornament — figure-work only — 
 engraved by Bartolozzi, and not important to 
 the present inquiry, is the only one of Cipriani's 
 books published in England, in 1786 — the rest 
 (for he published several) date from Rome, and 
 are much later. Nevertheless, he cannot be 
 overlooked as a factor in the movement, for, 
 like Angelica KauiFmann, he constantly pro- 
 vided elegant little designs for the panels and 
 backs of Sheraton and Heppelwhite's sofas and 
 chairs, and what he did in this way he did well. 
 
 THE CABINETMAKER'S LONDON BOOK 
 
 OF PRICES 
 (Small 4to, London, 1788. Second Edition, 1793.) 
 
 The best designs are signed "Shearer." 
 Shearer is excellent and practical, never osten- 
 tatious or pretentious. He certainly does not 
 rise to the highest flights possible to the style, 
 but he is always sound and moderate, and never 
 descends to showy rubbish. One wishes that 
 his 29 plates had been 92. 
 
 202 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 A. HEPPELWHITE & CO. 
 
 (Foolscap folio, London, 1789. " The Cabinetmaker 
 and Upholsterer's Guide.") 
 
 The authors commence in the stilted style of 
 the time — " To unite elegance with utility, and 
 blend the useful with the agreeable, has ever 
 been considered a difficult but an honourable 
 task." It is " in the newest and most approved 
 taste." " English taste and workmanship have, 
 of late years, been much sought for by sur- 
 rounding nations " (?) ..." and the mutability 
 of all things, but more especially of fashion, 
 has rendered the labours of our predecessors in 
 this line of little use " ! Their book is " useful 
 to the mechanic, serviceable to the gentleman," 
 and " we designedly followed the latest fashion 
 only." This last statement is certainly true 
 enough, in the sense that the style, since Chip- 
 pendale's time, had already made a considerable 
 development, partly in the direction of Louis 
 Quinze work — chairs with their straight -fluted 
 and beaded legs, for instance — and partly in 
 the direction of an English sobriety of taste, 
 alluded to- above. 
 
 But beyond this high-sounding preface, 
 Heppelwhite appears merely as the plain un- 
 varnished tradesman with an illustrated list of 
 203 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 wares to sell ; and a very practical and excellent 
 list it is. His tea-caddies, tea-trays, tops of 
 card-tables and dressing-tables, are most charm- 
 ing examples of beautiful design and arrange- 
 ment. He seems to have benefited considerably 
 by the labours of Pergolesi : his beds are, as 
 usual, too ambitious, and he loses his head 
 somewhat about draped cornices ; but the book, 
 taken as a whole, is useful and modest, and 
 nearly always quite practicable, so that among 
 his 300 designs there are scarcely twenty which 
 might not, with advantage, be reproduced. 
 
 THOMAS SHERATON 
 
 (410, London, 1791-93. Entitled "The Cabinet Maker 
 and Upholsterer's Drawing Book." An "appendix" 
 to the above, 4to, 1793; "an accompaniment," 4to, 
 1794 ; a " Cabinet Dictionary," 8vo,- 1803 ; " Designs 
 for Household Furniture," folio, 1 804 ; " The Cabinet 
 Maker, Upholsterer, and General Artist's Encyclopasdia. 
 Coloured Plates," folio, 1804.) 
 
 Sheraton, though more modest than Chip- 
 pendale, cannot commence his book without 
 recourse to those never-to-be-forgotten five 
 orders, and "geometrical instructions for find- 
 ing lines for Hip and Elliptic domes for State 
 beds"! Part II. he titles "on practical per- 
 spective . . . together with a little of the 
 204 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 theory for such as would know some of the 
 reasons on which their useful art is founded." 
 And he cannot resist a frontispiece, repre- 
 senting "Geometry standing on a rock with 
 Perspective by his side," &c., " while on the 
 background is the Temple of Fame, to which 
 a knowledge of these arts directly leads " ! He 
 says it will not be " requisite to use an osten- 
 tatious preface," and immediately proceeds to 
 write one ! 
 
 He gives a little account of his predecessors : 
 " I have seen (a book) which seems to have 
 been published before Chippendale " — he men- 
 tions no date — " but it is of no value, because 
 it gives no instructions in drawing " ! " Chip- 
 pendale's book seems to be next in order to 
 this, but the designs themselves are now wholly 
 antiquated and laid aside" (Chip., third edi- 
 tion, 1762; Sheraton, 1791-93)! He mentions 
 Manwaring's book (1766), and says — "There 
 is nothing in his directions but what an appren- 
 tice boy may be taught in seven hours; . . . 
 the geometrical views of the five orders are 
 useful, and the only thing in his book which at 
 this day is worth notice, as his chairs are nearly 
 all as old as Chippendale's, and seem to be 
 copied from them." Of Ince and Mayhew's 
 book he says — "The designs are of such kind 
 as are wholly laid aside in the cabinet branch." 
 205 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 Of Heppelwhite's book, published in 1789, he 
 says — " Some of these designs are not without 
 merit, but if we compare the chairs with the 
 newest date, we shall find that this work has 
 already caught the decline {i.e., in two years!). 
 He thinks his own book " will be found greatly 
 to supply the defects of those now mentioned " 
 (he entirely ignores R. and J. Adam), for "it 
 is pretty evident that the materials for proper 
 ornament are now brought to such perfection 
 as will not in future admit of much, if any, 
 improvement " ! He occupies 311 pages out 
 of 446 in his first book with elaborate instruc- 
 tions as to geometrical, architectural, and per- 
 spective drawing^some of which might possibly 
 be useful to an architect who had a town-hall to 
 design, but are totally useless and cumbersome 
 for cabinetmakers, to whom alone he addresses 
 himself; and one cannot avoid the suspicion 
 that he felt jealous of the brothers Adam, and 
 wished to show that he could do their own 
 work better. 
 
 He could occasionally be preposterous, as some 
 elaborate plates of beds witness ; but he is, in 
 general, far more reasonable, severe, and prac- 
 tical than Chippendale, though it must be 
 admitted that he does not cover so much 
 ground. I think there can be little doubt 
 that he had had some architectural education, 
 206 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 and had drifted into cabinetmaking. There is 
 a plate introduced after No. LV. which differs 
 considerably from all the others in th(p book 
 (though marked as Sheraton's drawing, and 
 engraved by the same hand as the rest), which 
 must have been inspired by a sense of rivalry 
 with Robert Adam ; and, in a most pedantic 
 way, he goes at length into a question, whether 
 or no Solomon's temple was Doric architecture ! 
 — or possibly Tuscan ! — arguing the matter with 
 dates, dimensions, proportions, &c. — in fact, he 
 is (or pretends to be) wrapped up in his be- 
 loved five orders, and the transition from Greek 
 temples to chair backs is as amusing as it is 
 sudden. 
 
 There is good wheat, beyond doubt, in the 
 "appendix," and the "accompaniment," al- 
 though there is an immense proportion of 
 chaff; but his books do not improve as the 
 series goes on, and the last, the "Encyclo- 
 paedia," in which the " Designs for Household 
 Furniture" were included, is pretentious and 
 rambling in scope, and the illustrations, in the 
 fashion of the day (1804), coloured, are in- 
 credibly false and vulgar, exhibiting a dete- 
 rioration, in the eleven years from his first 
 book, which is quite remarkable. 
 
 In the three earlier books, however (and it is 
 through these that his memory will survive), 
 207 
 
BEAUTY AND ART 
 
 notwithstanding all his bombast in letterpress, 
 he is never so pretentious as Chippendale, and 
 his proportion of good work is considerably 
 greater. Intellectually, he seems to have been 
 a man nearer the calibre of the Adams, and he 
 had evidently caught the improvement in severity 
 of line which was taking place in good French 
 work (Louis Quinze, 17 15-1774), and' had 
 added a sobriety to it which he had not caught 
 from France. The best of his chairs are still in 
 high repute, and have probably fetched higher 
 prices (relatively to their importance and cost) 
 than any of the furniture we are discussing. 
 
 But here we come, rather suddenly, to an 
 end of the men whose works are of value. 
 J. Taylor, about 1805, published a book entitled 
 " Decorative Household Furniture " ; but the 
 entire absence of any merit whatever makes one 
 see how completely the designing power which 
 produced the style had passed away. G. Smith, 
 again, in 1808, published a 4to book entitled 
 " Collection of Designs for Household Furni- 
 ture," curiously stupid and vulgar. Two or 
 more by H. Wood, 4to, undated, probably 1 806, 
 are entirely devoid of merit ; and complete im- 
 practicability had its day in 1 807, when Thomas 
 Hope published his " Household Furniture and 
 Interior Decoration," which might have been 
 written to show how a very close and faithful 
 208 
 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
 
 adherence to Egyptian, Greek, and Roman form 
 is utterly incompatible with any practical attempt 
 to meet the needs of modern home life. 
 
 I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to 
 Mr. J. H. Pollen's excellent book on furniture : 
 a comprehensive history of furniture-making, 
 and its gradual development, from the very 
 earliest times. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. 
 Edinburgh and London 
 
 o 
 
Furniture <£^ Decoration 
 in England 
 
 During the Eighteenth Century. 
 
 200 PLATES. 
 
 FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONS OF THE CHOICEST 
 EXAMPLES FROM THE WORKS OF 
 
 Chippendale, Adam, Richardson, Heppelwhite, 
 Sheraton, Pergolesi, and others. 
 
 SELECTED BY JOHN ALDAM HEATON. 
 
 In 4 Portfolios, cloth, lettered . . . £6 12 o 
 In 4 Volumes, cloth extra . . . .700 
 In 2 Volumes, half morocco, gilt tops, and 
 
 Contents lettered 10 o 
 
 REVIEWS. 
 
 XEbC 'CfmCB.— " In the presence of a book like this it is no longer possible to 
 say that we do not take our old furniture seriously. . . . That it should be 
 worth while to produce volumes so elaborate and costly is a proof, if proof were 
 needed, that questions of Furniture and Decoration arouse a real interest in a 
 very large number of people. . , . Every one who knows or cares about these 
 things is acquainted with Mr. Heaton's name as that of a real authority on the 
 subject." 
 
 journal of iproceeMngs of tbe IRoval institute of ffivitfsb Brcbitecte. 
 
 — "This book is worthy of careful study. ' 
 
 Commerce* — "It is altogether a most princely work. . . . Likely to remain 
 a standard reference for many a year to come." 
 
 litCbfleR'S Ibiator? of JFurnitUte.— "The reader who would make a care- 
 ful study of English Furniture of the period, is referred to the exhaustive work 
 edited by Mr. John Aldam Heaton." 
 
 LONDON : JOHN & EDW^ARD BUMPUS, Ltd., 
 
 3SO OXFORD STREET, W. ; 
 5 AND 6 HOLBORN BARS, E.G. 
 
21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 SunZockSf IdOndon 
 
 A List ot 
 
 Mr. William Heinemann's 
 
 Publications and 
 
 Announcements 
 
 The Books mentioned m this List can 
 he obtained to order by any Book- 
 seller if not in stock, or will be sent 
 by the Publisher on receipt of the 
 A u^ust l8g6. fuhlished i>rice and postage. 
 
Jn^es Of Hutbots. 
 
 Buchanan 
 
 Burgess 
 
 Butler 
 
 Byron 
 
 Cahn . 
 
 PAGE 
 • 3° 
 
 ■ 27 
 
 Alexander 
 
 Allen . 
 
 Anstey 
 
 Arbuthnot 
 
 Aston 
 
 Atherton 
 
 Baddeley 
 
 Balestier 
 
 Barrett 
 
 Battershall 
 
 Behrs . 
 
 Bendall 
 
 Benedetti 
 
 Benham 
 
 Benson 
 
 Beringer 
 
 Bjomson 
 
 Bowen 
 
 Boyesen 
 
 Brandes 
 
 Briscoe 
 
 Brooke 
 
 Brown 
 
 Brown & Griffiths 21 
 
 . 6 
 
 • 31 
 13, 20 
 
 24, 26, 32 
 
 • 31 
 
 • 23 
 
 • 15 
 
 ■ 27 
 28, 29 
 
 , 22 
 
 • 17 
 
 .6,7 
 
 ■ 32 
 23. 24 
 
 16 
 
 16, 19; 
 31. 32 
 
 • 14 
 
 . 22 
 
 • 3 
 23 
 
 PAGE 
 . 18 
 ■ 17 
 
 EUwan^er 
 Ely . 
 Evans 
 
 Farrar 
 Ferruggia 
 Fitch . 
 Fitzmaurice-Kelly 6 
 Forbes . . 16 
 Fotliergill . .31 
 Franzos . . 29 
 Frederic 17, 24, 30 
 Furtwangler . 10 
 
 Garmo . . 22 
 Gamer . 21 
 
 Garnett . 6 
 
 Gaulot . . 12 
 Gontcharoff 
 Gore . 
 Gounod . .11 
 Gosse . 6, 8, 12, 
 
 15, 19, 20, 26 
 Grand . 23, 25 
 
 Gray (Maxwell) . 25 
 Gras . 
 
 29 
 
 Caine (Hall) 15,23,25, 
 30 
 Caine (R." 
 
 Cambridge 
 
 Challice 
 
 Chester 
 
 Clarke 
 
 Coleridge 
 
 Colmore 
 
 Colomb 
 
 Compayre 
 
 Compton 
 
 Coppee 
 
 Couperus 
 
 • 30 
 . 8 
 . 18 
 . 26 
 
 13. IS 
 
 • 31 
 . 16 
 . 22 
 
 • 27 
 32 
 29 
 
 Crackanthorpe 25, 32 
 Crackanthorpe 
 
 (Mrs.) . . 27 
 Crane . . 9, 23, 27 
 
 Davidson . 
 
 . 22 
 
 Dawson . 
 
 . 20 
 
 De Broglie 
 
 , II 
 
 De Goncourt 
 
 . 13 
 
 De Joinville 
 
 . 12 
 
 De Quincey 
 
 • 14 
 
 Dixon 
 
 • 25 
 
 Dowden . 
 
 • 6 
 
 Dowson . 
 
 • 31 
 
 
 18 
 
 Griffiths 
 
 Guyau 
 
 Hall . 
 
 Hamilton 
 
 Hanus 
 
 Harland . 
 
 Harris 
 
 Hauptmann 
 
 Heine 
 
 Henderson , 
 
 Henley 
 
 Hertwig . 
 
 Heussey . 
 
 Hichens 
 
 Hirsch 
 
 Holdsworth 
 
 Howard . 
 
 Hughes 
 
 Hungerford 
 
 Hyne . 
 
 Ibsen 
 
 IngersoU . 
 
 Irving 
 
 Jacobsen . 
 
 Jaeger 
 
 James 
 
 Johnstone . 
 
 Keary (E. M.) 
 Keary (C. F.) 
 Keelmg 
 Kennedy . 
 Kimball . 
 Kipling . 
 Knight 
 
 30 
 
 23, 24, 27 
 
 • 22 
 
 • 32 
 
 • 25 
 
 • 19 
 12, 14 
 
 • 32 
 
 • 19 
 . 21 
 
 • 13 
 24, 27 
 
 • 9 
 24,27 
 
 . 26 
 
 • 3° 
 . 26 
 
 • 19 
 . 16 
 
 • 19 
 
 • 29 
 
 • 13 
 23.25 
 
 • 5 
 . 10 
 
 ■ 24 
 
 • 31 
 
 ■ 31 
 
 . 2t 
 
 . 26 
 
 . 18 
 
 Kraszewski 
 
 Kroeker 
 
 Landor 
 
 Lawson 
 
 Le Caron 
 
 Lee (Vernon) 
 
 Leland 
 
 Le Querdec 
 
 Leroy-Bealieu 
 
 Lie 
 
 Linton 
 
 Locke 
 
 Lowe . 
 
 Lowry 
 
 Lynch 
 
 Maartens 
 
 McFall 
 
 Mackenzie 
 
 Macnab 
 
 Maeterlinck 
 
 Malot. 
 
 Marey 
 
 Marsh 
 
 Masson 
 
 Maude 
 
 Maupassant 
 
 Maurice 
 
 Merriman 
 
 Michel 
 
 Mitford 
 
 Monk 
 
 Moore 
 
 Murray fD 
 
 Murray (G. 
 
 Nordau 
 
 Norris 
 
 Nugent 
 
 Ogilvie 
 
 Oliphant 
 
 Osbourne 
 
 Ouida . 
 
 Paget . 
 
 Palacio-Vald^s 
 
 Patmore 
 
 Pearce 
 
 Pendered 
 
 Pennell 
 
 Phelps 
 
 Philips 
 
 Pinero 
 
 Pritchard 
 
 Pugh . 
 
 Quine 
 
 Raimond 
 Rawnsley 
 Raynor 
 Rees . 
 Rembrandt 
 
 PAGE 
 ■ 29 
 
 • 13 
 
 . 26 
 
 • 14 
 
 • 9 
 
 • 17 
 . 29 
 
 • 24 
 25, 27 
 13. 16 
 
 32 
 30 
 
 31 
 15 
 4 
 25 
 19 
 30 
 
 PAGE 
 ;i, 17 
 
 Renan 
 Ricci . 
 Richter . . 17 
 Riddell . .31 
 Rives . . . 31 
 Roberts (A. von) 29 
 Roberts (C. G. D.) 16 
 Robinson . . 24 
 
 Saintsbury . 
 Salaman (J. S.) . 
 Salaman (M. C.) 
 Sarcey 
 Scidmore . 
 Scudamore 
 Serao . 
 Sergeant 
 Somerset 
 Southey 
 Steel . 
 Stevenson 
 Sutcliffe 
 
 15 
 17 
 18 
 13 
 . 16 
 . 16 
 
 • 29 
 25, 30 
 
 . IS 
 ■ S 
 23, 25 
 19. 23. 25 
 . 24 
 
 . 10 
 
 • 31 
 
 • 27 
 
 • 31 
 C). 16 
 G. A.) 6 
 
 14,24 
 . 26 
 
 • 7 
 
 19 
 . 18 
 
 • 25 
 
 • 31 
 
 23, 27 
 
 ■ 23 
 23,27 
 
 • IS 
 . 18 
 
 ■ 23 
 
 Tadema 
 Tallentyre . 
 Xasma 
 Thompson . 
 Thomson . 
 Thomson (Basil) 
 Thurston . 
 Tirebuck . 
 Tolstoy 
 Tree . 
 Turgenev 
 
 Upward 
 
 27 
 18 
 3° 
 16 
 15 
 23 
 
 . 24 
 
 17, 19, 29 
 
 . 19 
 
 . 28 
 
 ■ 27 
 
 Valera 
 
 • 29 
 
 Vandam . 
 
 8,13 
 
 Vazoff' 
 
 . 29 
 
 Vincent 
 
 • IS 
 
 Voynich . 
 
 ■ 23 
 
 Wagner 
 
 • 17 
 
 Waliszewski 
 
 . 12 
 
 Walker . 
 
 ■ 14 
 
 Ward. 
 
 • 31 
 
 Warden . 
 
 ■ 32 
 
 Waugh . 
 
 . 12 
 
 Weitemeyer 
 
 • 15 
 
 Wells . . 
 
 24, 26 
 
 West . 
 
 . 22 
 
 Whibley . 
 
 7 
 
 Whistler . 
 
 . 18 
 
 White 
 
 23. 24 
 
 Whitman . 
 
 . 16 
 
 Williams, E. 
 
 E. . 8 
 
 Williams . 
 
 . 10 
 
 Wood 
 
 • 31 
 
 Zangwill . 
 
 18,26 
 
 Zola . 24, 26, 32 
 
 Z. Z. . . 
 
 . 24 
 
MR. HEINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 3 
 
 THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON. 
 
 Edited by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY. 
 
 IN TWELVE VOLUMES. 
 Volume I. LETTERS, 1804-18 13. 
 
 To be followed by 
 Volumes II.-IV. LETTERS AND SPEECHES. 
 
 Volume V. HOURS OF IDLENESS, ENGLISH 
 BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 
 
 Volume VI. CHILDE HAROLD. 
 
 Small cr. 8vo, price 5s. net each. 
 
 Also an Edition limited to 150 sets for sale in Great 
 Britain, printed on Van Gelder's handmade paper, price 
 Six Guineas the set net. 
 
 It is agreed that Byron's Letters, public and private, 
 with their abounding ease and spirit and charm, are 
 among the best in Enghsh. It is thought that Bjnron's 
 poetry has been long, and long enough, neglected, so that 
 we are on the eve of, if not face to face with, a steady 
 reaction in its favour : that, in fact, the true public has had 
 enough of fluent minor lyrists and hide-bound (if superior) 
 sonnetteers, and is disposed, in the natural course of 
 things, to renew its contact with a great Enghsh poet, who 
 was also a principal element in the aesthetic evolution 
 of that Modern Europe which we know. 
 
 Hence this new Byron, which will present — for the first 
 time since the Seventeen Volumes Edition (1833), long 
 since out of print — a master-writer and a master-influence 
 in decent and f)ersu^sive terms. 
 
 It is barely necesfeary to dwell on Mr- Henley's special 
 quahfications for the task of editing and annotating the 
 works of our poet. 
 
MR. HEWEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 
 
 THE CASTLES OF ENGLAND: 
 
 THEIR STORY AND STRUCTURE. 
 By SIR JAMES D. MACKENZIE, Bart. 
 
 Dedicated by gracious permission to H,M, the Queen, 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 Fully Illustrated and with many Plates. 
 
 Price £3 ss. net, on Subscription* 
 
 It is the object of this work to record all that is known at the end of the 
 nineteenth century with regard to every ancient castle in the kingdom, and it 
 is believed that such a record must be welcome to all in whom the contemplation 
 of these great historic monuments awakens not only admiration for their 
 picturesque beauty, but also romantic speculation as to the stirring events 
 which have happened there, and to the life once led within their walls. 
 
 There were in all about six hundred such castles of stone in England, 
 Those tbat have vanished are frequently not the least interesting, and Fother- 
 ingay and Northampton conjure up memories as precious and heroic as if they 
 were still standing. It has been the object of the author of this work to pro- 
 duce a Book of Reference in which will be found a trustworthy account of every 
 fortress, defensible and castellated dwelling built from the Conquest to the 
 reign of Henry VIII., including the forts or blockhouses built on the southern 
 coast by that monarch. 
 
 Views of many of the castles are included in the work, and as much infor- 
 mation as can be learned is given of their past history and condition, Plaiih 
 are added to illustrate the position and defencesof many of them, whereby their 
 history and their structure may be the better understood. 
 
 The book will be divided into two volumes, the first containing twenty- 
 seven Home, Southern and Midland Counties : 
 
 1. Kent. 
 
 2. Sussex. 
 
 3. Surrey. 
 
 4. Middlesex. 
 
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 g. Berks. 
 
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 1 6. Cambridge. 
 
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 23. Leicester. 
 
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 25. Lincoln. 
 
 26. Notts. 
 
 27. Derby. 
 
 The second containing thirteen Western and Northern Counties : 
 
 37. Westmoreland. 
 
 38. Cumberland, 
 
 39. Durham. 
 
 40. Northumberland. 
 
 foUo' 
 
 28. Cornwall. 32- Hereford. 
 
 29. Devon. 33- Shropshire. 
 
 30. Somerset. 34- Cheshire. 
 
 31. Monmouth, 35- Lancashire, 
 
 36. Yorkshire. 
 
 The price to subscribers for the two volumes will be £2 S-J- net. 
 If the present publication meets with popular approval, it is proposed to 
 low it up with the Castles of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, 
 
MR. HEINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. S 
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 By ROBERT SOUTHEY. 
 
 A NEW EDITION 
 
 Edited by DAVID HANNAY. 
 
 Crown 8vo, Gilt, with Portraits, price 6s. 
 
 SouTHEY s Life of Nelson is an acltnowledged masterpiece of litera- 
 ture. It can never cease to have value, even if it is at any future time 
 surpassed in its own qualities. Up to the present it has never been 
 equalled. While we are waiting for the appearance of a better Southey, 
 the old may well be published with a much-needed apparatus criiicus. 
 The object of the new edition is to put forth the text, supported by 
 notes, which will make good the few oversights committed by Southey, 
 the passages in Nelson's life of which he had not heard, or which he, 
 influenced by highly honourable scruples, did not think fit to speak of 
 so soon after the hero's death, and wnile some of the persons concerned 
 were still living. A brief account will also be given of the naval officers, 
 and less famous soldiers or civilians mentioned, though it will not be 
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 said only the little which was necessary to preserve his book from 
 downright falsity, will have her history told at what is now adequate 
 length. The much debated story of Nelson's actions at Naples will be 
 told from a point of view other than Southey 's. It is not proposed 
 to write a new life of Nelson, but only to set forth the best of existing 
 biographies with necessary additions and con-ections, as well as with 
 some comment on his qualities as a commander in naval warfare. 
 
 THE LIFE OF THE LATE 
 SIR JOSEPH BARNBY. 
 
 By W. H. SONLEY JOHNSTONE. 
 
 In One Volume, with Portraits, 8vo, 
 
 Sir Joseph Barney was a personality and an influence ; music was 
 only a part of him. He was an arduous worker, a brilliant talker, a 
 raconteur of merit, a good speaker, and a popular favourite in society. 
 The period through which he lived was one of the most important and 
 fruitful in the annals of English music, and Mr. Johnstone will receive 
 the assistance of composers and others in making this work as compre- 
 hensive as possible. 
 
 The main divisions will be : Music in England Half-a-Century Ago — 
 Early Life of Bamby — His Eton Career — His Albert Hall Career— As 
 Composer and Conductor — His Social and General Life — The Academy 
 and Guildhall. 
 
6 MR. HEINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 
 
 Xiteraturee of tbe Morlb. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 EDMUND GOSSE. 
 
 AyTR. HEINEMANN begs to announce a' Series of 
 Short Histories of Ancient and Modern Literatures 
 of the World, Edited by Edmund Gosse. 
 
 The following volumes are projected, and it is probable that 
 they will be the first to appear: — 
 
 FRENCH LITERATURE. 
 
 By EDWARD DOWDEN, D.C.L., LL.D., Professor of English 
 Literature at the University of Dublin. 
 
 ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE. 
 
 By gilbert G. a. MURRAY, M.A., Professor of Greek in the 
 University of Glasgow. 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 By the editor. 
 
 ITALIAN LITERATURE. 
 
 By RICHARD GARNETT, C.B., LL.D., Keeper of Printed Books 
 in the British Museum. 
 
 MODERN SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE 
 
 By Dr. GEORG BRANDES, of Copenhagen. 
 
 JAPANESE LITERATURE. 
 
 By WILLIAM GEORGE ASTON, M.A., C.M.G., late Acting 
 Secretary at the British Legation at Tokio. 
 
 SPANISH LITERATURE. 
 
 By J. FITZ MAURICE-KELLY, Member of the Spanish Academy. 
 
MR. HEINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 7 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE; 
 
 A CRITICAL STUDY. 
 
 By GEORG BRANDES. 
 
 Translated from the Danish by William Archer. 
 
 In Two Volumes, demy 8vo. 
 
 Dr. Georg Brandes's " William Shakespeare " may best be called, perhaps, 
 an exhaustive critical biography. Keepiag fully abreast of the latest English 
 and German researches and criticism. Dr. Brandes preserves that breadth 
 and sanity of view which is apt to be sacrificed by the mere Shakespearologist. 
 He places the poet in his political and literary environment, and studies each 
 play not as an isolated phenomenon, but as the record of a stage in Shakespeare s 
 spiritual history. Dr. Brandes has achieved German thoroughness without 
 German heaviness, and has produced what must be regarded as a standard 
 work. 
 
 ROBERT, EARL NUGENT: 
 
 A MEMOIR. 
 
 By CLAUD NUGENT. 
 
 In One Volume, demy 8vo, with a number of Portraits and other 
 
 Illustrations. 
 
 A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS 
 
 By CHARLES WHIBLEY. 
 
 In One Volume, crown 8vo, with Frontispiece, price 7.?. 6d. 
 
 In "A Book of Scoundrels" are described the careers and achievements of 
 certain notorious malefactors who have been chosen for their presentment On 
 account of their style and picturesqueness. They are of all ages and several 
 countries, and that variety may not be lacking. Cartouche and Peace, Moll 
 Cutpurse and the Abb^ Bruneau, come within the same covers. Where it has 
 seemed convenient, the method of Plutarch is followed, and the style and method 
 of two similar scoundrels are contrasted in a "parallel." Jack Shepherd in the 
 tone-room of Newgate, reproduced from an old print, serves as a frontispiece. 
 
 IN CAP AND GOWN. 
 
 THREE CENTURIES OF CAMBRIDGE WIT. 
 
 Edited bt CHARLES WHIBLEY. 
 
 Third Edition, with a New Introduction, crown 8vo. 
 
8 MR. HBINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 
 
 SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY 
 STUDIES. 
 
 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF 
 ENGLISH POETRY. 
 
 By EDMUND GOSSE, 
 
 Clark Lecturer on English Literature at the University of Cambridge. 
 A New Edition. Crown 8vo. 
 
 SPANISH PROTESTANTS IN THE 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 COMPILED FROM DR. WILKEN'S GERMAN WORK 
 
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 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 The Most Rev. LORD PLUNKET, Archbishop of Dublin, D,D„ 
 
 And a Preface by The Rev. CANON FLEMING, B.D. 
 
 In One Volume. 
 
 UNDERCURRENTS OF THE 
 SECOND EMPIRE. 
 
 By albert D. VANDAM, 
 
 Author of "An Englishman in Paris" and "My Paris Note-book." 
 Demy 8vo, 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 "MADE IN GERMANY." 
 
 REPRINTED WITH ADDITIONS FROM THE NEW REVIEW. 
 
 By ERNEST E. WILLIAMS. 
 
 In One Volume. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2S. 6d. 
 
 The Industrial Supremacy of Great Britain has been long an axiomatic 
 commonplace ; it is fast turning into a myth. 
 
 These papers are not prompted by the Bimetallic League, nor by devotion to 
 fair trade, nor by any of the economic schemes and doctrines which reformers 
 are propounding for the cure of our commercial dry-rot. It is the Author's 
 object to proceed on scientific lines, to collect and arrange the facts so that they 
 may clearly show forth the causes, and point with inevitableness to the remedies, 
 if and where there be any. 
 
MR. HEINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 
 
 GENIUS AND DEGENERATION: 
 
 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 
 By Dr. WILLIAM HIRSCH. 
 With an Introduction by Professor E, Mendel. 
 
 Translated from the Second German Edition. 
 In One Volume, demy 8vo, 17J. net. 
 
 LETTERS OF 
 A COUNTRY VICAR. 
 
 Translated from the French of Yves le Querdec. 
 By M. GORDON-HOLMES. 
 
 In One Volume, crown 8vo, 5^. 
 
 This translation of a work which, in the original, has evoked a quite exceptional 
 measure of attention, will be welcomed for its vivid pictures of country life in 
 France, and of the relations subsisting between Church and laity. 
 
 THE AGNOSTICISM OF THE 
 FUTURE. 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF 
 
 M. GUYAU. 
 
 In One Volume, 8vo. 
 
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 VERSES. 
 
 ''■'' ^ - By STEPHEN CRANE, 
 
 Author of "The Red Badge of Courage." 
 
 A3 
 
MR. HEINEM ANN'S LIST. 
 
 ANTONIO ALLEGRI DA CORREGIO: His Life, his 
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 REMBRANDT : His Life, his Work, and his Time. By Emile 
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MR. HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
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 BROTHER AND SISTER. A Memoir and the Letters of 
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 The Illustrated London News. — "One of the most exquisite memorials in 
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 The Daily News — "Interwoven with many touching domestic details, it 
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 AN AMBASSADOR OF THE VANQUISHED. 
 
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 ARCHITECTURE. By E. P. Evans. With a Bibliography and 
 Seventy-eight Illustrations, crown Svo, 9^. 
 
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 not often read a book that contains more quaint and unusual information, or is 
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MR. HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 ©teat Xtves an& Events, 
 
 Uniformly bound in cloth, 6s. each volume. 
 
 A FRIEND OF THE QUEEN. Marie Antoinette and 
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 romantic story of Count Fersen's devotion to Marie Antoinette, of his share in 
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 the unhappy Queen's life," 
 
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 Russia. From the French of K, Waliszewski. With a Portrait. 
 
 Tke Times. — " This book is based on the confessions of the Empress her- 
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 mysterious incidents and thrilling episodes ; few characters present more curious 
 problems." 
 
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 From the French of K. Waliszewski. "VV^jth a Portrait. 
 
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 MEMOIRS OF THE PRINCE DE JOINVILLE. 
 
 Translated from the French by Lady Mary Loyd. With 78 Illustrations 
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 THE NATURALIST OF THE SEA-SHORE. The Life 
 
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 RECOLLECTIONS OF COUNT LEO TOLSTOY. 
 
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MR. HEW EM A NN*S LIST. 1 3 
 
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MR. HEINEMANN'S LIST. 31 
 
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