frog, and a death's head moth, besides leaves into the flames. In the early periods, the yeland shells. Now, these objects coarsely exe- low lustre, though dull in colour, has an extracuted and awkwardly placed by a dull work-ordinary mother-of-pearl iridescence which is exman, with no heart in his business, would be quisitely beautiful. On these lovers' offerings simply detestable. They would be stupid-costly valentines of the sixteenth century-the assertions of natural facts and so many incongruous and sometimes repelling objects stuck on a piece of pottery; but they are not so in Palissy's work. There, they come like glimpses of outer-world nature, and we seem when using his ware to be taking our fruit and conserves under the sunny green trees of a Boccaccio garden. The chief objection to using Palissy is that it is so precious, and so fragile, and it would be dangerous to entrust it to servants. We grant this, and we would remove this danger by mounting the Palissy plates in copper, and rendering their breakage almost impossible.

usual emblems are the old common-place hearts pierced with daggers and darts. The arms of Urbino often appear upon them (these pieces of painted clay have survived the lovers and the princes who caused them to be made), and often they literally glow with ducal coronets, arabesques, warring dragons, intertwined serpents, sphinxes, masks, military and musical trophies, garlands, and inscribed cartouches, all radiant with gold and flame colour. After such ware as this, our common dinner-plates, with blue and maroon edges and a coat of arms or crest in the centre, or maybe a bunch of flowers or a timid landscape, appear very mean and pitiful.

who are collectors we would advise, if they have Venetian glass, to use it-if not, at least to decorate with it safe places round the epergne. Most of our readers have seen Venetian glass of the sixteenth century, though some, perhaps, have not given it much attention. Let us recapitulate a few of its beauties and its claims as an art-decoration for the dinner tables of men of taste.

Men of fortune we would advise, when possible, to return, for dinner and dessert services, And now we come to glass, which can never to some of those fine old styles of pottery that be too thin or too tasteful. Claret and Burnever can become obsolete. For instance, if gundy should be drunk out of air bubbles, if Palissy appear to them too quaint, let them possible; while, on the contrary, ale should be use Majolica. Many of our readers, not versed brought round in massive silver-lidded jugs of in antiquities, may not know the story of Majo-grey Flemish stoneware. All wealthy men lica. It is a ware originally made by the Moors when they occupied Majorca, and it was exported into Italy from thence and from the potteries of the Spanish Arabs. About the middle of the fifteenth century, the Italians, probably aided by Italian workmen, began to make this beautiful ware for themselves, and soon the manufacturies of Faenza, Urbino, Castel-Durante, Gubbio, and Pesaro, became eminent for these iridescent plates-for which it was long supposed, in England, that Raphael, when young, had drawn designs. In due course, thanks to the patronage of the Italian princes, a great man arose, one Maestro Giorgio, a gentleman of Pavia, who about 1498 came to Gubbio, and either bought or succeeded to a manufactory that had the monopoly of the famed ruby lustre, the secret of which is now lost. Maestro Giorgio improved the yellow lustre into the golden, and purified the ruby from its previous orange tone. There is no discovering when ware like this was first made. It was probably one of the primeval discoveries. Mr. Layard found white enamelled pottery with lustre designs ten or twelve feet under the surface of ruins at Khorsabad.

These Majolica plates and dishes are often adorned with copies of Raphael's designs or fragments from Marc Antonio. Often they are what is called "amatoria," or love offerings. One, before us now, has an Amorino upon it, holding an eel which is sliding through his fingers, and the motto is, "Così fugge la vita nostra -"So flies our life." In another there is a female bust portrait in profile, with a motto, "Chi a tempo non dorma." On the lady's sleeve is the device of a burning heart bound round with a cord, the whole executed entirely in ruby lustre, with blue outline and shading. Often in the centre of these plates Andromeda cries to Heaven from her rocky prison, or Mutius Scævola thrusts his bold hand

It is supposed that old Venetian glass was partly an imitation of antique examples, and partly an imitation of the enamelled glass of the East. They seldom cut it on the wheel, but obtained its extreme tenacity and beautiful curves by blowing only. It is generally allowed that Venetian glass evinces greater originality and beauty of form than any we can now make. The skill of the Italian workmen of Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth's reign seems little short of miraculous. No wonder that that old Italian goblet, "The Luck of Eden Hall," was supposed to be the work of fairies! Some old Venetian glasses have, in the long slender columns of their transparent stems, cross threads of an opaque milk-white colour (Latticineo). These, twine like the roots of hyacinth bulbs through their transparent prison, as if they were growing tendrils. Often, this network of white threads is crossed into a lattice or lace-work pattern (Vitro di Trino), and between each lozenge a little shining air bubble has been artfully left.

Then there is the Millefiori (thousand flowers), when the glass is richly variegated with stars, circles, and other geometrie fantasies, produced by mingling small cylindrical pieces of vari ous coloured filigree glass, cut from thin rods, with the colourless melted glass of the mass. The Schmelze, too, is beautiful, with its agatelike colours, variegated brown, green, or blue, which, when seen by transmitted light, assume a deep blood-red tinge. Last, but most beauti

ful of all, we must mention the Schmelze-avan- in a shade of white that only shows in certain turine, when patches or globules of gold vein lights.

the blue and brown surface of the Schmelze, We want more mind about our table furniwhile in the Avanturine, in the melted glass of ture. If we must have few ideas, let them which levigated leaf gold or metallic filings have been mixed, sparkles of gold are suspended in the glass. Sometimes, Venetian glass is of a smoky brown, or has a blackish tinge, which connoisseurs admire as they do the coffee-colour of old lace. The latter glass has often the fillets, margins, or entire stems, coloured; or it is decorated with bands and fillets of imbricated work in gold, pearl, or jewel enamel. Not unfrequently, a shield of arms is enamelled in the centre of the bowl of the tazza, or there are medallions of classical subjects. We have seen Venetian glass frosted; now and then it takes the vivacious form of a ship, rigging, masts, and all complete; we have seen it spring into leaping chimeras, dragons, and winged monsters.

There were no bounds to the vigorous and original genius of those old glass-workers in that beautiful city by the sea. They enchanted the glass; they made their wine-glasses like nautilus shells, with wings of blue. We remember a lobster with blue claws, glasses with syphons inside the bowls, and tiny stems crocketted all the way up with little coloured ornamental spikes, and red and white flowers in the stem. Such glasses are sometimes, but not always, fragile, and they might often be brought on by the host himself for Tokay, or any specially rare wine. After having been used, admired, and discussed, they might be removed to a place of safety, and next day washed by the lady of the house with her own fair hands.

a

At the end of the second course, a certain luxurious alderman used always to call for " cold chair," and upon that fell to at the feast with renewed vigour. Now, there is much more to be said about chairs than we have room to say. The Voltaire chair, the curule chair, the old Venetian chair, the pseudo-classical chair of the First Consulate, with gilt legs; the old splay-legged Queen Anne chair, the wide-backed Molière chair; all have their admirers; but they are nearly all deficient in some one or more essentials of beauty and comfort. Some have not back enough, some have too much, some feel insecure, others are too cumbrous. A good dining-room chair should be portable and yet substantial; the seat neither too soft nor too hard; the back firm and supporting; it should move on casters, so as to roll quickly and without labour. There should be no hard wooden ornaments at the back to cut one's coat and burt one's spinal vertebræ. It should be graceful in form and yet also cozy. Away with the old conventions of upholsterers, the absurd lions' feet, the wearisome leg ornaments, the everlasting acanthus leaves! Can no fresh type be invented?

Table linen should always be studied. Nothing can be better of its kind than the old Dutch linen, with quaint figures of the old Duke of Marlborough sort of generals, worked |

be repetitions of some fine type, like the Greek chair, the Greek tripod lamp, or the Greek amphora-let them be at least repetitions of beauty, not of dulness and ugliness. By all means use fine works of antiquity when practicable. The beautiful always assimilates, and Palissy and Majolica dishes would not lose, even by contrast with Sèvres plates. Buy harlequin suits; the variety is always pleasant. Designs from Raphael are more intellectual than barbaric wealth of mere gold or silver plate. Besides, metal is not pleasant to eat off. What we want in England is, not to produce a few masterpieces of art every year, but a better average of the ordinarily manufactured art articles. Mr. Cole did good work in this direction, but there is a vast deal still to do before a man of taste of the present day can dine surrounded by plates, cups, dishes, and glasses of beautiful shape and colour.

This deficiency ought not to exist. Our wealth is great, and our countrymen who have taste as well as means are numerous. The demand for tasteful table furniture is great. If our workmen cannot invent, let them imitate. In the fifteenth century, men had time to think, and patience to execute-they had love for their work, and spared no labour in thinking it out. Labour costs more now, but there are plenty who will pay labour. If material be dear, there are plenty who can afford to buy material. But there must be far more education of the eye, or people will still abound who will wish for nothing more beautiful than willow plates, stucco cornices, and tea-tray landscapes.

AT A LITTLE DINNER-PARTY.
FIRST OLD HUMBUG.

DEAR brother Brown, if we could take,
Such liberty with Time,
As just to back his fatal clock

To mark our early prime.
When we were barely twenty-three,
And prodigal of Youth,
And thought all women were divine,
All men the souls of truth:-
If we could feel as then we felt,

And know what now we know,
We'd take more pleasure than we did,
Twice twenty years ago.

SECOND OLD HUMBUG.
Dear Brother Smith, I'm not so sure,
'Tis heart that keeps us young,
And heart was ever ignorant,

Since Eve and Adam sprung.
And if we knew in youthful days
As much as when we're old,

I fear that heart would turn to stone,
And blood run very cold.

Yet none the less, for sake of life,

Though life should bring me woe,
I'd gladly be the fool I was
Twice twenty years ago.

perhaps, to wear a tail. The full-grown beard of Britain is too nearly allied to the Moorish or Israelitish appendage to be tolerated by Let's bless our lot! orthodox believers, who shave off the whis

to be lists of letters lying inside for identification. The name alone is given, and as it is nearly always wrongly spelt, and as the traveller has several dozens of names from which to make his selection, the process affords scope for wiling away a little time, and exercising ingenuity in deciphering hieroglyphics. Each name has a number prefixed, so the traveller presents himself at the inquiry window with a demand for number so and so. If his Spanish numerals be shady, he gets somebody else's property; but if he make an intelligible demand, he will get his own letter; always supposing that it has been correctly numbered, and that no one has been to fetch it before him.

Having gone through a course of post-office discipline, the sojourner in Seville will have qualified himself for the still more arduous and exciting task of money-changing. Having been duly informed by his London bankers that they have advised a certain sum of money to his credit at the house of their correspondent at Cadiz, he writes to have it sent on to their agents at Seville. He hears that this has been done, and then, if he have been brought up in Lombard-street notions of punctuality and despatch, he fondly imagines he has nothing to do but call and get it. He does call, and, if his patience hold out, he does get itat last; but the process is something like the following:

prescribed weight. This is done by slowly depositing it in a pair of scales large enough to try a jockey's weight at Epsom. The destination and weight of the letter having been ascertained, the next thing is to get stamps for the requisite amount; but this is rather a complicated business. The post-office does not sell stamps, so the hungry clerk explains in pantomime-for the traveller's Spanish is not up to conversation mark-and points in a distracted way towards the cigar he is smoking. The good-natured traveller, thinking that the official in question might be seized with a sudden frenzy for tobacco, makes a polite tender of his cigar-case. A cigar is accepted, but still the stamps are not forthcoming. A gloomy suspicion crosses the traveller's mind that the clerk is mad, so he goes back to his hotel and consults a waiter, who explains that the object of all the pantomime was to refer the traveller to a tobacconist's shop, since it is to that particular branch of trade that a paternal government has entrusted the privilege of selling postage stamps. If this arrangement causes a little trouble, it is not without its direct advantage to the revenue, for tobacco is a royal monopoly, and, as a man who buys a stamp, may, in the process of negotiation deem it advisable to buy a cigar too, this innocent little device is productive of benefit to the ruling powers. On arriving at the shop, the traveller is confronted by a solemn man in a mulberry cloak and black turban hat. The customer's wants are politely ex- The agent is a merchant, who cannot, or plained, and the old gentleman gruffly desires will not, speak any language but his own, to see the letter. He first poises it upon a pair and, as his mouth is temporarily engaged of very dirty fingers, and then with a growing with a monster Havannah, he is not inclined sense of responsibility, weighs it in some snuffy to speak more than he can help, even of scales. This operation concluded, he finds it that. A quarter of an hour or so is occupied necessary to light a fresh cigar. He next in catching a polyglot clerk, who expounds the adjusts his spectacles and struggles manfully business to his principal. It does not appear to be through every word of the address. This done, to his taste, for he draws a cheque in a very he turns the letter over and over, either in a sulky way, and, without bestowing a look sort of forlorn hope of getting at the inside, or on the traveller, betakes himself to his newswith the more innocent intention of disposing paper. The next thing is to find the parof a little of his spare time, and maybe driving ticular bank indicated on the cheque. The aid his customer to take refuge in cigars. He of a cabman is invoked, who naturally enough then dives into the inmost recesses of a drawer, drives his unfortunate fare to every bank exand very slowly, and, to all appearance reluctantly, produces a stamp. Off the traveller goes in triumph with his letter to the post-office. It is sure to be all right now: but no. The old gentleman has given you a wrong stamp. And, as no letters can pass through a Spanish post-office which are not paid in full, you are obliged to go back again. At last you get your letter off. And, if you be wise, you make a vow that you will write no more letters as long as you remain in Spain.

The process of receiving letters is nearly as complicated as that of despatching them, for the Spaniards have devised a pleasant little plan, by means of which you may get your neighbour's letters quite as easily as your own. You call at the Poste Restante, and are referred to a long row of frames hanging round the outside of the building. These turn out, on inspection,

cept the right one. When he does discover it, he discovers also that it is the festival of St. Isidore, or St. Somebody else of local celebrity, and that no business is transacted on that day. He notes the name of the street, and resolves to put in an appearance in the morning.

Spaniards, as a rule, are averse to cash payments, when paper will answer as well: so the production of the cheque is followed by a tender of a bundle of notes. It is by no means unlikely that some of these may belong to banks which have stopped payment for six months; and as the traveller has his own misgivings concerning the soundness of Spanish credit, he begs to be accommodated with gold. This proposal appears to operate prejudicially on the clerk's nervous system, for he puts his shoulders and arms through a series of complicated movements, emblematical of wonder and dismay,

and clenches the matter by a solemn declara- are to be rented in an hotel which commands a tion that there is no gold in the bank, and view of one of the most fashionable thoroughthat the traveller must take the notes or no- fares, at the rate of two dollars a day for an thing. With dismal reflections on the state adult, and one dollar for children. This inof Spanish finance, he wends his way back cludes two capital meals at the table d'hôte, to the merchant's office. His appearance is with a fair proportion of inferior wine. Most the signal for a burst of virtuous indignation. reasonable people would be content with this, Does he expect, that honest citizen wishes when it is remembered that a Spanish breakto know, that they are going to coin money fast is almost a dinner, or rather an early lunfor his especial benefit? Why does he not cheon, and, besides meat and pastry, winds up take what he can get, and be thankful, as with dessert. A repetition of this meal at five or better men have been before him? Having six o'clock will be quite as much as most diges restored his mind to comparative tranquillity tions can safely undertake. But, if the bill of by this well-timed piece of sarcasm, it seems to fare be princely in its dimensions, there are one occur to the merchant that his customer ought or two drawbacks to a public meal which rento have something for his letter of credit der a less sumptuous repast in private more beyond foul words and surly looks, so he pro- to the taste of travellers with English-bred ceeds to explain in somewhat blander tones notions of politeness. In the first place every that there really is a remarkable dearth of gold Spaniard smokes. Meet him when and where in the town just now, but that he thinks he you will, there is the inevitable cigar. So he is knows where gold may be bought. So the clerk pretty sure to bring it in to dinner with him, of many languages is in requisition once more, and the smallest delay between the courses and accompanies the traveller to divers dingy finds him puffing away with such vigour as to dens, bearing a suspicious resemblance to make a stranger wonder whether, for some unthe abode of money lenders of the Jewish per- known cause, the dinner is being served in the suasion. Having now consumed the greater smoking-room of the establishment. In the part of two days in the simple process of getting next place, Spaniards seem to suffer from colds a cheque for fifty pounds changed, and seeing and bronchial affections to a most alarming no reasonable prospect of turning it into cash, extent. A priest at the altar, an actor on the without leaving ever so much per cent. in the stage, a man of fashion at the club, your next hands of these town-bred brigands, the traveller neighbour at the table d'hôte, perform such rushes off to the merchant's office with his prodigies of expectoration as can only result blood at boiling point, and delivers himself in from the chronic derangement of the national his native tongue of sentiments that would mucous membrane. Bating these little pecurather startle the man of business, if he could liarities, there is nothing to hinder an enjoyable in the least comprehend them. The traveller meal. winds up by tearing the cheque to pieces. The merchant begins to think that matters have gone too far, and that his London correspondents may not be altogether flattered by his reception of their letter of credit; so, almost as soon as the infuriated Briton has reached his hotel, the polyglot clerk makes his appearance with many bows and smiles, and states that, by making superhuman exertions, his master has been enabled to scrape the money together, and that if the traveller will have the kindness to draw a fresh cheque, he is ready to count out the gold on the table. Left to his own reflections once more, the traveller perceives that Andalusia is not a favourable region for the speedy conducting of banking operations.

Hotels in Seville are good and reasonable. As a rule they are kept by foreigners, Italians or French; for the Spaniard still clings fondly to his notion of what an hotel ought to be-a place where you and your horse may sleep, with the privileges of a common fire for cooking any provisions you may chance to have brought with you.

Communication with foreign nations has done much to destroy this national institution, and the result is, that in southern Spain, board and lodging may be obtained for less than would be demanded in most parts of France or Germany. In Seville, for example, first-floor apartments

The bedroom is sure to be cool, for houses and streets are so constructed as to keep out as much sunshine as possible. Some of the streets have wires drawn across from house to house, over which canvas is spread during the heat of the day; and, as many of the shopkeepers dispense with window-fronts, and allow their goods to lie exposed in tempting profusion, the sensation is like that of walking through a gigantic fancy fair. There are three things to be noted in streets devoted to private resi dences: First, that all the houses have projecting windows from the first floor to the top. This gives much the same sort of character to a house that a good nose does to a human face, and is a most pleasing relief after the dull monotony of an English terrace. effect is further enhanced by the framework being painted in all kinds of bright colours, according to the taste of the owner. Secondly, in place of a solid street door there is always an iron gate, tastefully wrought in filagree work, and affording a most captivating glimpse of the marble court, or patio, with its fountain in the centre, and orange-trees and heliotropes grouped around. Thirdly, the windows on the ground and first floor are furnished with stout iron bars, raising an unpleasant suspicion that burglaries must be of very common occurrence in Seville, or that a somewhat unreasonable portion of the city is de

The