treamers for battle or procession,
with the twelve apostles; and 'one coat for his grace's body, lute with
fine gold,' takes precedence of St. George and the Dragon."

We wish some of the criticism in this chapter had been milder, and a few
of the invectives not so highly charged; some of them even out-Herod the
fury of an article on Painting, in a recent number of the _Edinburgh
Review_. But we must pass on to pleasanter matters--as the following
poetical paragraphs:--

"The art of tapestry as well as the art of illuminating books, aided in
diffusing a love of painting over the island. It was carried to a high
degree of excellence. The earliest account of its appearance in England
is during the reign of Henry the Eighth, but there is no reason to doubt
that it was well known and in general esteem much earlier. The
traditional account, that we were instructed in it by the Saracens, has
probably some foundation. The ladies encouraged this manufacture by
working at it with their own hands; and the rich aided by purchasing it
in vast quantities whenever regular practitioners appeared in the
market. It found its way into church and palace--chamber and hall. It
served at once to cover and adorn cold and comfortless walls. It added
warmth, and, when snow was on the hill and ice in the stream, gave an
air of social snugness which has deserted some of our modern mansions.

"At first the figures and groups, which rendered this manufacture
popular, were copies of favourite paintings; but, as taste improved and
skill increased, they showed more of originality in their conceptions,
if not more of nature in their forms. They exhibited, in common with all
other works of art, the mixed taste of the times--a grotesque union of
classical and Hebrew history--of martial life and pastoral repose--of
Greek gods and Romish saints. Absurd as such combinations certainly
were, and destitute of those beauties of form and delicate gradations
and harmony of colour which distinguish paintings worthily so
called--still when the hall was lighted up, and living faces thronged
the floor, the silent inhabitants of the walls would seem, in the eyes
of our ancestors, something very splendid. As painting rose in fame,
tapestry sunk in estimation. The introduction of a lighter and less
massive mode of architecture abridged the space for its accommodation,
and by degrees the stiff and fanciful creations of the loom vanished
from our walls. The art is now n