Handwork, small, clever, elaborate, is so costly in this country that it may be called unattainable. Amateur industry, working for love's sake, may provide it; professionals, non credo. Those who cannot afford it, and cannot do it, may be glad to hear that Raphael ornament or Pompeiian ornament, whether in paint, carved oak, or stucco, does not make a room 'becoming.' It is the very worst background to the majority of human faces and costumes. The broad folds of Roman dress near Roman walls might have 'told' against it, but much is tolerable in a sunny clime which is not so without sunshine. In placid England, where we have few shadows because we are so much in the shade, a simpler yet richer and broader treatment of our walls and pieces of furniture is more effective and more consistent than any form of grotesque art, which is quite at variance with modern modes of thought. Pictures cannot be hung upon it, pots do not tell against it; massive bronzes do, but neither books nor flowers. It is sure to be over-exciting or else sepulchral.

A foul dragon or grim mask implies an ugly thought; an ugly thought suggests disease, cruelty, or ill-humour. What originated the ruling principle of Chinese art it is difficult to surmise; for it bristles with hideous objects, from which no place is sacred, like threats of danger at every turn. But, as we cannot omit an allusion to the Chinese in our remarks on grotesque art, however rare now is Chinese decoration on a large scale in this country, we may add that, what with their vivid colouring and their restless, often ungraceful forms, Chinese decorative products form as bad a background for English faces in English rooms as is possible to conceive. We have not the tropical sunlight needed to create broad and massive shadows, which in their native land (as we showed anent Pompeiian decoration) no doubt counterbalance the brilliant colours and intricate designs; and English costume is quite incongruous with the quaintness of the style. Ruskin says, in comparing English grotesque with Chinese grotesque (the intentionallyhorrid),' Our English masks are only stupidly and loathsomely ugly, by ex-acgreration of feature or of defect of feature.

But the Japanese masks (like the frequent monsters of Japanese art) were inventively frightful, like fearful dreams; and whatever power it is that acts on human minds, enabling them to invent such, appears to me not only to deserve the word "demoniacal," as the only word expressive of its character, but to be logically capable of no other definition.' Something, however, must be allowed for the surprisingness of a non-habitual type of face and gesture.

I ought, however, to add, to avoid misconception, that in its place Chinese art is worthy of humble study. As colourists the 'Celestials, when left to their old traditions and unspoilt by modern commerce, are unsurpassed in vigour and quaint harmony, though they seldom arrive at the beauty often found in Japanese art.