the perfection of their pictorial art. Perhaps in the later dynasties art declined. We have nothing to guide our judgment save this one piece of tapestry, and that of uncertain date, though surely comparatively recent. There is only its design and coloring to fix the locality of its production, save what is also determined from the resemblance existing between it and the decorations of the interiors of temples, tombs, sarcophagi and Whatever excuses may be offered for its scanty artistic merit, we are inclined to believe that nearly all of the ancient textile manufactures to which history and tradition apply the possibly extravagant term of "magnificent," were sadly deficient in beauty and grace, although such productions may have been wonderful enough for their time; and we are the more apt to hold this opinion when we recall the abortive efforts of early Christian art, which are perhaps most insupportable of all when we view them as mere works of art, without any saving clause for the age and period that produced them. The progress of tapestry-weaving has been slow and labored. Only by long and insensible gradations have we arrived at the present admirable degree of perfection to be seen in the manufactures of England and France. Of the Roman embroideries we are told that they were woven without the aid of the loom; that they were richly ornamented with threads of gold; that they were used to decorate the bier and catafalque at the apotheosis of an emperor; that they were given at a later date to the combatants of the circensian games; but no word is said of the subjects that they illustrated, except in a general way, and less of their composition. Of the periods that intervened between this age and the medieval times, we have no critical art analysis at all. Scarcely could the art be supported. India did more than any other country to sustain it till it could be revived and brought to Europe by the Saracens. Among the people of the East, even at the earliest date, there existed a nice discrimination in the designs which they selected. It would seem that they recognized how difficult a task it would be with their yet mechanical skill to produce objects from animate creation; and they were content to cover their tapestries with grotesque figures, geometric lines and arabesques, traces of which were wisely preserved in the borders long after the introduction of pictorial art. Floral de lineation was also a feature of Saracenic designs, but only in extravagant, conventional forms. India at length produced ornamentations of birds and imaginary scenes; but she has always continued to cling with tenacious fondness to her early principles, as can be seen in the character of the embroideries constantly used in the manufacture of cashmere shawls. While Europeans were projecting themselves into a thousand extravagant Scriptural conceptions and symbols, the people of the Orient contentedly employed their simple yet intricate designs, while they devoted all their attention to the mastery of the secrets of such qualities as smoothness, softness, fineness, lightness, color, and harmony, in which they attained the highest pitch of excellence. Their tapestries thus came to be the wonder of the world, as those of Turkey continue to be at the present day. At Santa Barbara, one of the principal manufactories of Spain, during the last century, there was something of a reversion to these Saracenic principles, and tapestries were produced in the Turkish style. Of genuine Persian manufacture, one of the finest tapestried carpets ever produced is now in the possession of the Marquis de Saint-Seine. It is executed in silk, and introduces twenty different colors, the dominant one being a brilliant and magnificent yellow. In the weaving of tapestry the proportions of the materials used have been much varied. The name itself is comprehensive, and can be applied to any ornamental figured cloth made by interweaving on a warp of hemp or flax, colored threads of worsted silk, or sometimes gold and silver, or linen and cotton. The Egyptian tapestries were composed of woolen and cotton, while those of Saracenic make were covered with gold and silver threads, and to the richest were added even precious stones, such as rubies, pearls, emeralds, and diamonds; so that the furniture of Aladdin's palace was not altogether of fabulous magnificence. In modern times, the Ricamaton, Italian embroiderers, used gold and silk almost entirely, which they wove into sacerdotal garments and altar-cloths. The Flemish tapestry made at Arras in the middle ages-so celebrated that arras became a general name for tapestries of that period, and, translated into Arazzi, was used by the Italians to designate any tapestry with a a historical subject-contained more wool than anything else, while the manufactory of the Gobe lins almost from the first abolished the use of gold threads, which fell into general disfavor during the eighteenth century. The celebrated Bayeux tapestry is worked in wool upon linen; while the Spanish tapestry preserved in the Cathedral of Gerona is done in crewels; and here are two striking instances of the crudeness of composition in the middle ages, spoken of before. The Bayeux tapestry was the work of Queen Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, and her maidens. It commemorates the Norman Conquest, and was presented by the Queen to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, in recognition of the services rendered by him at the battle of Hastings. It is the chef d'œuvre of mediæval art, of which it gives a proper conception. In many respects it is wholly unique. It is the very oldest remnant of the art of tapestry-weaving in England or all Europe, having been executed about 1100. It measures twenty inches in width by two hundred and fourteen in length, and was a departure from the purposes of tapestry at that period, in that it was designed to be hung up. The effect it pro duces is something like that experienced at the sight of the Egyptian friezes with their omniumgatherum of hawk-headed Isises, Osirises and Serapises. The idea of its composition must have been quite original with Queen Matilda. The AngloSaxons, although they could embroider skillfully, would hardly have been likely to have suggested such a subject, or even helped her out with the design. Most of the pieces of Christian art had thus far been distinctive in their portrayal of Scriptural incidents, myths and allegories with pointed morals. The ingenious wife of William the Conqueror produced anomalous birds, impossible fishes and monsters of the deep, animals of imaginary species, square-sailed ships, with banks of oars and crooked prows, men in the costumes of Roman gladiators, a peaky-nosed Harold in the rôle of conquering hero, altogether figures to the number of 1512 (!) disposed in ridiculous attitudes, and making a remarkable procession, which the seventy-two divisions of the work with their old Latin superscriptions serve in no wise to interrupt. There is no pretence to perspective, light or shade, and the colors have all turned brown from age. The work is supposed to preserve a correct representation of the architecture, armor, ships, furniture, etc., of the Norman invasion. On the other hand is the tapestry of Gerona, which was probably made somewhere in the vicinity of the cathedral in which it is now preserved, as is judged by the resemblance between it and many mural paintings, illuminations, and mosaic ornamentations thereabouts, by which its date has also been approximately fixed at the beginning of the twelfth century. It is four and one-half yards wide by four high, and represents Genesis. The centre contains two concentric circles, in the smaller of which is a figure of Christ holding a book bearing the words "Sanctus Deus," and in the larger are eight unequal divisions, ornamented with the progress of the creation. These comprise the representations of sun, moon and stars, the separation of land and water, the creation of phenomenal birds, beasts and fishes, an atrocious Adam and Eve, a Mystic Dove with wings flapping like a gander, and other odd sketches. All this is supported on a background formed by a rectangu lar figure, which has in each corner one of the four winds, typified by nude male figures blowing trumpets and astride of nondescript objects, whose nature it is not easy to define. The border is an elaboration of themes from the Creation, symbolic designs, accompanied by crooked Latin texts, which cannot readily be made out. Eventually England attained to eminence in the art of tapestry-weaving; but Spain has always been an imitator, now of the Oriental, now of the Flemish, and now of the French school. Perfection in imitating she indeed achieved, but nothing higher. The best feature of Spanish art at any period lay in the production of reposteros, a kind of tapestry designed to be hung in the balconies on state occasions, and fabricated under the protection of Queen Doña Ana in 1578, subsequently of Philip II. Some fine specimens of these hangings are yet preserved in the houses of Spanish grandees. Spain received the art of tapestry. weaving from the Arabs at the beginning of the twelfth century, it is supposed, but she contributed herself very little to further its advancement. ment. Flanders on the contrary conducted it with distinction from the time of its introduction, in the reign of Henry IV., till the beginning of the eighteenth century, when it began to decline in favor of France and England. The meridian of the fame of Flemish tapestry was in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; then Flanders produced the finest work in all Europe. Prominent manufactories were then established at Bruges, silken curtains adorned with gold; but this was unparalleled luxury. In the "King's Quair," by James I. of Scotland, so late as 1418 the modest drapery then in vogue is spoken of in the lines, "Right over thwert the chamber there was drawn A trevesse thin and white, all of pleasance." But by this time the tapestries of Arras had begun to take the place of mural painting previously in general use. The heavy curtains were found to be an expedient against the dampness of the stone walls, over which they were hung on tenter-hooks some distance out, so that a person could be admitted behind them. They were very highly prized by those who possessed them. It was everywhere the custom to carry them about from place to place wherever their owner travelled. Antwerp, Arras, Brussels, Lille, Tournay and Va- cloth. William the Conqueror possessed fine lenciennes. The cartoons supplied these establishments were copied everywhere, and even in the last century magnificent reproductions were made of certain old pieces of this date now preserved in royal collections. The Flemish school did not take kindly to the obscure symbols in Scriptural designs or to religious allegories, but inclined rather to the execution of historical subjects of a ¦ high order, scenes from mythology and old traditions, for all of which cartoons were provided by the most eminent artists of the day, among whom Raphael did not scorn to figure, and Van Eyck, and Teniers. At this time the short lived glory of Italian tapestries was also at its height. Venetian and Florentine pieces then ranked near those of Flanders, and in the seventeenth century began even to encroach upon them; but a hundred years later France had outshone them all. In Italy the art never became really established. The impetus it received in its earlier and best years was due to the influences of the school of the immortal Raphael, whose wonderful cartoons, the "Acts of the Apostles," together with the tapestries for which they were designed, are now in the Sistine Chapel. These tapestries are valued at $105,000. In Venice, Rosalba Carriera and her sisters reached especial distinction in embroidery. There were indeed isolated instances of extraordinary skill, but these could not suffice to make the art national or prevent it from degenerating, like Spain, into an humble imitator of the rising excellencies of France and England, the secret of whose supremacy lay not so much in the fact that other countries deteriorated, but rather that they stood still while these were indefatigable in their efforts to attain to still higher degrees of perfection. The Bayeux tapestry, twelfth century, shows what was then the condition of the art in England, where it had been introduced in the reign of Henry VIII. The subjects then employed were mostly of the Flemish school; originality of design did not manifest itself as early. At that period, tapestries were used only in churches and monasteries; not till a later date were they adopted in the adornment of the houses of royalty and nobility, a fashion which was introduced from the East by the Crusaders. Hangings were certainly used in the twelfth century as a provision against flies and spiders; yet these were generally composed of some simple unornamented Chaucer, in the prologue to the "Canterbury Tales," mentions “a Webber, a Dyer and a Tapissier;" and we read that in the middle of the fourteenth century the Princess Joan presented to Sir John de Bermyngham a hanging worked with popinjays, and one with roses; also that the Black Prince-whose tapestried jupon, like the embroidered ecclesiastical garments of Thomas à Becket which are now at Sens, was religiously preserved left to his son, afterward Richard II., a hanging wrought with swans having women's heads decked out in ostrich plumes; and to his wife one with griffins and eagles. With the multiplication of its uses, the demand for tapestry increased, and early in the fifteenth century a manufactory was established at Mortlake, destined to produce some of the masterpieces of modern times. At first it was only attempted to reproduce old pieces of acknowledged excellence, but subsequently new designs were furnished in great perfection; the best by Francis Cleyn. Every variety of subject was employed; but the Scriptural cartoons were usually taken from the Old Testament, while the symbolic representations of the tenets of the Church were studiously avoided, which may have been the foreshadowing of the advent of the Elizabethan period. One of the most celebrated pieces from the looms of Mortlake is the "History of Vulcan." At Hampton Court are now preserved “Abraham and Melchisedek," and "Rebecca;" also a remarkable composition representing "Elymas, the Sorcerer, Struck Blind," besides a series of eight in the style of Raphael, which are adorned with much gold thread. In this collection there are certain fine pieces of an allegorical and mythological character; but their French mottoes, in letters unmistakably Gothic, assign them to an earlier period than that of Mortlake. In the House of Lords formerly there were displayed tapestries commemorating the destruction of the Spanish armada, and executed in the time of Elizabeth; but these were lost by fire in 1834. A description of the tapestry of the Elizabethan period occurs in the "Fairie Queen." England improved steadily in the practice of the art as well as its theories. Germany followed in the footsteps of Spain and Italy, although her artists repeatedly supplied excellent cartoons for the works of other nations. But France was inspired. To be sure France had considerably the start of other European nations. The art was in troduced there much earlier than in any of the other countries. The records show that when Clovis, the king of the Salian Franks, embraced the Christian religion in 496, not only were the houses, but also the streets, festooned with tapestries. I have not found mention of any of these early pieces having been preserved, although frequent reference is made to them and the style of their execution. In the ninth century French tapestries continued to appear, and in 1025 a manufactory was established at Portiers; but the especial prominence of the art in France did not begin till the sixteenth century, when elaborate ornamental work was produced at Fontainebleau, where it continued to be fabricated even after the establishment of the famous Gobelins, in the middle of the seventeenth century. The ateliers of this manufactory are the glory of France. They received their name from the house in which they were located, a quaint, unsightly building, known as "Gobelin's Folly," and erected by one Jehan Gobeelen, a Flemish dyer, who at one time almost monopolized the dyeing business of Paris. The weaving of tapestry was there first carried on by the Carmaye brothers, then by a Dutchman named Gluck, who was assisted by an efficient workman named Jean Liondson. At the instigation of Colvert, the minister of Louis XIV., and through the efforts of M. de Louvois, the king was led to give his support to the organization of a distinct department for the manufacture of tapestry. A corps of competent artists was employed to furnish cartoons, and the tapestries of the Gobelins began to exhibit the peculiar excellence with which the works of but few other manufactories have been able to compete. Sebastian Leclerc worked for the Gobelins for forty years. Inducements were offered to prominent Flemish artists to remove to Paris, and no exertion was spared to advance the interests of the art. Numerous designs were furnished by Lebrun, and the elder Lefevre distinguished himself by his copies of the cartoons of Raphael and Giulio Romano. Every conceivable subject was introduced in the works. One of the most famous pieces is the "Battle of Alexander." Collections have been preserved in the Elysée, the Louvre, Luxembourg, and elsewhere, which include works of the excellent manufactories of Versailles, Valenciennes, Fontainebleau, and less prominent points. Among these is a copy of Raphael's "Judgment of Paris," in which as a true art-cosmopolitan, he gratified the taste of the period by creating goddesses arrayed in the style of Mademoiselle de Montespin, and a Paris capped with a wig á la Louis XIV. This piece is in the Elysée, and is accompanied by the "Four Quarters of the Globe," the finest in the collection, which was executed from models of fruit, animals, flowers, and so forth, furnished by Desportes. At Orleans a tapestry is now preserved which represents the triumphal entry of Joan of Arc, and at Nancy can be seen the "Condemnacion de Souper and de Banquet," an allegorical theme, which shows the snarls and drawbacks of good living. This was the property of Charles le Séméraire, from whom it was wrested at the battle of Nancy, January 5, 1477. The tapestries "de verdure" were especially admired by Molière, in whose effects several pieces of them were found. Flowers and ornaments were profusely employed. Boucher designed pastoral scenes of great beauty and freshness. But even all this expenditure of genius and skill could not prevent the decline of taspestried hangings from popular favor in the eighteenth century, when they were supplanted by Venetian and Cordova leather, stamped with elaborately gilded figures, whence it was called "d'or basané." After this the art was rather concentrated at the manufactory of the Gobelins, to which, in 1826, was annexed the establishment of La Savonnerie, dating from 1615, and so called from-the fact that it had formerly been an old soap factory. La Savonnerie it was that produced such magnificent carpets as rivalled in all their qualities the famous carpets of Persia. They required from five and six to ten years to make, and any one was valued at from $60,000 to $150.000. None of them were sold, but magnificent pieces have been presented by the State to other nations. Louis XIV. gave one to the King of Siam, one to the Czar of Russia, and one to the King of Prussia. In 1855 France presented the "Massacre of the Mamelukes," a carpet of La Savonnerie, after Horace Vernet's famous picture, to the Queen of Eng land. It is probably the finest ever produced. There are now preserved some seventy-two of these carpets, aggregating thirteen hundred feet in measurement. At the present day the manufactory of the Gobelins employs one hundred and twenty workmen, and can provide wool to match over fourteen thousand different tints, the employment of which, however, has been deprecated, inasmuch as they weaken the power of the work to endure against time. Some colors fade much more rapidly than others, and the introduction of such a quantity of different tints renders some parts of the tapestry liable to outlast others, and thus the harmony of the work would be completely destroyed. It has been suggested that, with a thought for durability, clearer, bolder colors should be employed; but if we are content with the enjoyment of the present hour, what could be more enchanting than the blending of these delicate shades? The work of weaving is very slow, in which it resembles lace-making. One workman is hardly expected to produce in a year more than thirty-six square inches of tapestry, which amounts in value to three thousand francs. Formerly the pieces produced could be of indefinite length; but from the lack of space in the looms were necessarily very narrow. However, they were often united to form a wider piece, and so expertly that it could not have been detected. There are two kinds of looms now in use, the basse lisse, or low warp, and the haute-lisse, or high warp. In the haute-lisse the warp is arranged vertically in a frame, and the weaver stands behind. The principal figures of the design are chalked out on the tightly-drawn threads of this warp, with indications for the position of the light and dark shades. The warp threads are then parted by the fingers, and the colored threads introduced by a needle. This is the method employed at the Gobelins. In the basse lisse the warp is horizontal, and the weaver sits in front. The painting to be copied is placed under it, and the weaver, observing the pattern through the threads, parts them with his fingers, and then, depressing a treadle, he introduces the colored threads in a shuttle called a flûte, driving the weft thus formed close up with the teeth of a comb. The hautelisse is generally preferred, because in it the progress of the web can be observed, whereas in the basse-lisse the face is downward, and cannot be seen until the whole work is completed. It is hardly possible that the use of tapestry hangings, which gave way before the advent of the cheaper luxuries of painted wood and painted paper, will ever be revived to a general extent, although there may be many instances of fortunate individuals who are able to support the princely magnificence of the masterpieces yet furnished by both England and Turkey, as well as France. AN INDIAN LEGEND. TALL, clad in an ill-fitting pair of trousers, a single suspender, a soiled, collarless shirt, and a soft felt hat, "the judge," an Indian philosopher, lounged past me. "Good morning, judge," said I, civilly, making him a military salute. "Whisky!" I called after him. On the moment he turned, put forth his hand, ar.d said: "How?" In half an hour he was convivial. As a moral agent, intoxicating liquor is a failure; But he passed on, chewing his quid; the hard but as a softener of the Indian heart and loosener lines in his copper face immovable. of the Indian tongue, it is alone. Under its |