or, which will be found to
have been obeyed more or less instinctively by all nations in proportion
as their art has been a genuine product of the national genius; and,
secondly, of brief historical essays, some of them contributed by other
eminent artists, presenting a commentary on each characteristic series of
illustrations, with the useful appendage of bibliographical lists.

The title "Grammar of Ornament" is so far appropriate that it indicates
what Mr. Owen Jones is most anxious to be understood concerning the
object of his work, namely, that it is intended to illustrate
historically the application of principles, and not to present a
collection of models for mere copyists. The plates correspond to
examples in syntax, not to be repeated parrot-like, but to be studied as
embodiments of syntactical principles. There is a logic of form which
cannot be departed from in ornamental design without a corresponding
remoteness from perfection; unmeaning, irrelevant lines are as bad as
irrelevant words or clauses, that tend no whither. And as a suggestion
toward the origination of fresh ornamental design, the work concludes
with some beautiful drawings of leaves and flowers from nature, that the
student, tracing in them the simple laws of form which underlie an
immense variety in beauty, may the better discern the method by which the
same laws were applied in the finest decorative work of the past, and may
have all the clearer prospect of the unexhausted possibilities of
freshness which lie before him, if, refraining from mere imitation, he
will seek only such likeness to existing forms of ornamental art as
arises from following like principles of combination.

X. ADDRESS TO WORKING MEN, BY FELIX HOLT.

Fellow-Workmen: I am not going to take up your time by complimenting you.
It has been the fashion to compliment kings and other authorities when
they have come into power, and to tell them that, under their wise and
beneficent rule, happiness would certainly overflow the land. But the
end has not always corresponded to that beginning. If it were true that
we who work for wages had more of the wisdom and virtue necessary to the
right use of power than has been shown by the aristocratic and mercantile
classes, we should not glory much in that fact, or consider that it
carried with it any near approach to infallibility.

In my opinion, there has been too much complimenting of that sort; and
whenever a speaker, wh