e before needlework shall assume that approximation to art which
is so desirable, and not perhaps now, with modern facilities,
difficult of attainment. Hitherto the chief anxiety seems to have been
to produce a glare of colour rather than that subdued but beautiful
effect which makes of every piece issuing from the Gobelins a perfect
picture, wrought by different means, it is true, but with the very
same materials.

The Berlin publishers cannot be made to understand this; for, when
they have a good design to copy from, they mar all by the introduction
of some adventitious frippery, as in the "Bolton Abbey," where the
repose and beautiful effect of the picture is destroyed by the
introduction of a bright sky, and straggling bushes of lively green,
just where the Artist had thought it necessary to depict the stillness
of the inner court of the Monastery, with its solemn grey walls, as a
relief to the figures in the foreground.

Many ladies of rank in Germany add to their pin-money by executing
needlework for the warehouses.

France consumes comparatively but few Berlin patterns. The French
ladies persevere in the practice of working on drawings previously
traced on the canvas: the consequence is that, notwithstanding their
general skill and assiduity, good work is often wasted on that which
cannot produce an artist-like effect. They are, however, by far the
best embroideresses in chenille,--silk and gold. By embroidery we mean
that which is done on a solid ground, as silk or cloth.

The tapestry or canvas-work is now thoroughly understood in this
country; and by the help of the Berlin patterns more _good_ things are
produced here as articles of furniture than in France.

The present mode of furnishing houses is favourable to needlework. At
a time when fashion enacted that all the sofas and chairs of an
apartment should match, the completely furnishing it with needlework
(as so many in France have been) was the constant occupation of a
whole family--mother, daughters, cousins, and servants--for years, and
must indeed have been completely wearisome; but a cushion, a screen,
or an odd chair, is soon accomplished, and at once takes its place
among the many odd-shaped articles of furniture which are now found in
a fashionable saloon.

Francfort-on-the-Maine is much busying itself just now with
needlework. The commenced works imported from this city are made up
partly from Berlin patterns, and partly from fanciful combin