are the two extremes, the elementary schools and the royal academies; and between these two, we have-first, the gratuitous schools in Paris, and the school of St Peter at Lyons, and others, which systematically connect the study of art and manufacture; and, second, the polytechnic schools, which make use of art as a means towards scientific pursuits. Some of the French schools are supported entirely by the state, as the Ecole des Beaux Arts of Paris. Others are so supported only to a small extent; as being mostly limited to the improvement of art in the particular branches of industry most flourishing in the localities where they are founded; and it is considered that the manufacturers should contribute to their support. Thus, the staple manufacture of Lyons being that of silks, the municipality is called upon to defray the greater part of the expense of the school there; which, so far as it relates to industry, does so, only to the teaching of design for fabrics of silk. And it may be observed, that in the constitution of our own provincial schools, the same principle is acted on. The establishment is only granted, on the town agreeing to contribute a certain portion of the cost.

The whole of Mr Dyce's report is full of interesting and instructive matter; and the only wonder is, that we should have been previously in such total ignorance of what were the real means by which our rivals were enabled so completely to surpass us in all which related to design, as applied to manufactures. There are also, it is understood, other reports to the council, made by Mr Townsend, Mr M'Ian, and Mr Poynter, the Inspector of the government provincial schools, with respect to the state of the art of design in Paris, and the mode of instruction pursued in these schools. In Lyons, Mr Dyce states that the commercial value of taste is so high, that when a young man displays extraordinary talent in this way, many great mercantile houses will admit him into partnership, in order to monopolize his services; and a pattern designer in good practice commonly obtains as much as 10,000 francs a-year. A great evil often arises from want of education in the workmen ; as well as the want of good and competent designers. A French designer of paper-hangings lately came over to establish a manufactory in this country; he employed English workmen to print his designs, and insisted that the tints should exactly correspond with his drawing. But the workmen at once struck work; they had been accustomed to make up their tints in large quantities, had never used but three greens, two reds, or two yellows, and so on; and it was considered by them as absurd to submit to the caprice of a Frenchman, who seemed

to think that there were as many colours as days in the year! The concern, Mr Dyce states, was consequently broken up. When our workmen are better artists,' this will not happen; and when there is a good general system of artistic education, there will be no lack of workmen willing to avail themselves of it. Witness the 2,100 pupils already attending such schools as are open. It is but justice, both to the government which established the school, and to that of Sir Robert Peel, which succeeded, to state that there has been no want of support, liberal sums having been supplied for outfit, for the purchase of casts, prints, books, drawings, &c. Let us but once see an extended and complete course of instruction decided on, and we shall not despair of seeing our own schools rivalling those of our continental neighbours.

There is one important reason why the government should interfere in the furnishing of the most complete education to the designer and the artisan. In the ordinary branches of education, good teachers are easily obtained. But the principles of the fine arts can only be well taught by highly-instructed persons, whose aid can only be secured at a considerable cost. At the same time, the best examples cannot be procured without a large expenditure; while it must be kept in view, that art ill taught, would be worse than no instruction at all.

It is scarcely possible to estimate the value and importance of design in every matter connected with ornamental manufactures, or to guess at the apparently unimportant objects in which it becomes of value. The following extract from a very intelligent report made by Mr Poynter to the Board of Trade, on the advantage of establishing schools in Ireland, is so curious, that we lay it before our readers in his own words :

There is another branch of industry connected with design, the trivial nature of which contrasts strangely with its immense amount. It is the paper-bands with which the rolls of linen are tied round, and the boxes in which they are folded. For home consumption, these bands are usually of plain colour, stamped with some gilt ornament; but in preparing the linens for the foreign market, the manufacturers attach great importance to the effect of these ligatures; and the rolls are tied either by French ribbons and gold cord, or the paper bands are embossed, pictorially ornamented, and gaily coloured, and sometimes engraved with some popular subject, allusive to the country to which the goods are to be exported. A horseman throwing the lasso, for example, or the representation of the bolero, are adapted to the South American market. Humble as these objects may appear, they cost the linen manufacturers not less than from L.40,000 to L.50,000 per annum, the whole of which was, until very lately, expended out of Belfast, the

articles being supplied from London, or indirectly from Paris. There is now one stationer in Belfast, who has begun to manufacture them; and though his productions are very inferior, his returns amount already to a considerable sum. A comparison of the Belfast productions with those from London, and of the latter with the French, shows palpably the difference between art and no art, even in a matter apparently of so little importance. The establishment of a school of design at Belfast would probably secure for the town the greater part of this expenditure, and supply the manufacturers with a better and cheaper article.'

In connexion with this subject, we must mention two important works-one, the most magnificent publication of modern times, namely, the work of Mr Gruner-the other, the humble pamphlet, containing abstracts of the papers read at the meetings of the Decorative Art Society. This institution consists almost entirely of practical men, professionally employed in designs for manufactures, or as decorators. The book is full of instructive matter. It is a proof of the zeal and earnestness with which the subject is pursued, and shows how completely the members feel the importance of acquiring the true principles of the art of design, as applied to the different manufactures in which they are engaged. We trust that the council of the School of Design will take a hint from the contents of these transactions. We select the following heads-Carpets, Elizabethan furniture designs, Harmony of Colour, Chromatic Designs, style of Louis XIV., Paperhanging, Geometrical figures, Marquetrie, what circumstances should determine a preference for Italian or Gothic styles, &c. It is of course to be expected, that, in addition to the teaching the principles of high art, everything relating to the application of these principles to the peculiar conditions of different manufactures, will be taught by the council; but, if Mr Redgrave is correct in his statement, none of these matters are yet taught; and to that extent, at least, the English schools are defective. In every thing relating to taste the great body of the English people have never hitherto had a chance. Without an opportunity of seeing a work of art worth looking at, whatever genius they may possess remains yet to be developed. It will be a pleasant circumstance, should we owe to the competition of our manufacturers as much in national taste as in national riches.

With regard to Mr Gruner's work, we consider its publication most opportune, and of the highest importance with respect to decoration. It consists of forty-six folio plates, engraved and most elaborately coloured from the finest specimens of decorative art of the best time in Italy. These are an inex

haustible mine to the designer in almost every branch of his art; and the fidelity of the execution renders them fit for working drawings for the artisan. We regret that our space does not enable us to enter more at large on the peculiar service done to art in the production of this work; but we hope, shortly, to resume the subject of decorative design, and to pursue it with particular reference to the essay by Mr Hiltorf, on the ancient arabesques as compared with Raphael and his school; a task which will enable us to show in detail how much the arts of this country, and indeed of all Europe, are indebted to Mr Gruner.

ART. IX.-The Billow and the Rock. A Tale. By HARRIET MARTINEAU. London: 1846.

THE

HE announcement of a new work by Miss Martineau was always a pleasing announcement to us: But it is doubly so now, by reason of the risk to which we were recently exposed of being deprived of her altogether: And the work before us, we are happy to say, gives ample proof that her restoration is complete, that her mental powers have been strengthened rather than impaired by Mesmerism, and that her long trials have left no traces of other than healthful influences, such as the admirable book entitled Life in the Sick-Room would lead every reader of taste, feeling, or reflection to expect.

The Billow and the Rock is not, like most of her other tales or stories, written to illustrate any peculiar principle or doctrine of legislation or political economy; but it is a tale founded upon Fact. Is this an advantage or a disadvantage? ought it to be put forward as a recommendation or the contrary? We shall endeavour, before coming to the Tale itself, to answer this question as precisely as such a question can well be answered: For a good deal of error is afloat concerning the points involved in it; and a class of writers who are now exercising a wide-spread influence in both France and England, have evidently decided it somewhat summarily in their own way; since they seem to think that all objections to a scene, description, character, or plot, are answered at once by proving it to be a faithful drawing from life or nature, or an actual occurrence in society. To take only two prominent examples-when we turn away repelled and sickening from the pictures of physical suffering and moral debasement which abound in Les Mystères de Paris, M. Sue assures

us that the originals may be seen at the shortest warning in the hospitals or lunatic asylums of the French capital; and when all the thought, observation, artistical skill and brilliant writing lavished on Lucretia, or the Children of the Night, fail to neutralise the painful feelings with which we run over such a catalogue of crimes or contemplate such monsters of iniquity, we are told, that some fifteen or twenty years ago, an artist, named W————, did actually poison two of his female relatives, for the purpose of defrauding the insurance offices.

It consequently becomes necessary to re-assert what we thought has long ago been firmly established as an axiom, that the strictly imitative school is the very lowest in all branches of art, not even excepting the most imitative of all-painting; an axiom which can scarcely be denied by any one who is not prepared to assert the superiority of Van Stein and Teniers over Raphael and Michael Angelo. A truly great artist manifests his greatness by heightening, elevating, idealising; by addressing himself to our sensibility and imagination; by making us glow with enthusiasm, or filling our minds with beautiful and sublime associations—not by simply calling our powers of observation, memory, and comparison into play. To be true to nature, and to present nothing but a servile copy of nature, are very different things. The Apollo and the Venus are types of the ideal, not the real; and tradition says that even the Fornarina was indebted to the rich warm pencil of her lover for the most glorious part of her surpassing though thoroughly mundane loveliness. No fine portrait (as we once heard Sir Thomas Lawrence remark) was ever painted directly from the original, or except from an image distinctly present in the mind of the painter; and it is well known that Sir Thomas himself, even in the ordinary every-day practice of his profession, and when dealing with subjects which there was little chance of making historical, always began by getting his sitters into conversation and turning their attention from the object in hand, so as to have as much variety of manner and expression to choose from, as time and circumstances would admit.

A graceful truth thy pencil can command,

The fair themselves go mended from thy hand;
Likeness appears in every lineament,

But likeness in thy work is eloquent ;

Though nature there her true resemblance bears,
A noble beauty in thy piece appears."

A striking example of the consequences of an opposite mode of proceeding, is afforded by a book now lying on our table, entitled Fisher's Drawing-Room Scrap Book. The frontispiece