ise and admiration at
the beauty and artistic cleverness of the work, and, until he had
touched and examined it closely, would not believe that plumage was
the only material used.

There are beautiful hangings and bed furniture at Moritzburg, near
Dresden, said to have belonged to Montezuma. They were given to
Augustus the Strong, King of Poland, by a king of Spain.

In the seventeenth century, and later, feather work was still an art
in Mexico, the convents continuing to preserve its traditions.
Bustamente says that this industry was still in operation in the
beginning of our century. The Mexican Museum preserves specimens of
the last three hundred years, from the time of the conquest of Mexico.

There is in the Cluny Museum, in Paris, a beautiful triptych,
evidently of the sixteenth century. It is worked in feathers, with
delicate outlines in fine gold thread. Nothing can exceed the
tenderness and harmony of the colouring in shades of blue, and warm
and cool brown tints. This is probably a survival of that lost art of
Mexico which was carried on in their convents, and may have been a
copy of a treasured relic of European art.

Among the few noteworthy specimens that have survived, is the mitre of
St. Carlo Borromeo at Milan, described by M. F. Denis as being both
artistic and beautiful. He tells us in his Appendix that even now, a
tissue of feathers is woven in France, as soft and flexible as a silk
damask; and rivalling the Mexican scarlet feather fabric, which the
Spaniards admired so greatly. He also speaks of the inlaid feather
work, invented by M. Le Normant of Rouen, in the last century, and
afterwards continued in Paris by his English pupil, Mr. Levet, who
sold two of his works to the then Duke of Leeds, in 1735. The first is
a vase of flowers, the second a peacock, designed by M. Oudry (peintre
du Roi). Both of these, framed as screens, are now at Hornby Castle.

Unfortunately feathers are, by their nature, most attractive to that
greatest destroyer, next to Attila--the moth. Ghirlandajo called
mosaic in marble and glass, "painting for eternity;" we may call
feather work, "painting for a day."

From the essays of M. Ferdinand Denis,[340] much may be learned of the
_arte plumaria_ of the Mexicans and their neighbours of Brazil,
Guatemala, Peru, and Yucatan, and the land of the Zapotecas, &c.,
where it was also cultivated. He says that their civilization is so
mysterious that we have as yet no means of ju