er, Mr. Simonds did his best. He described
modelling in clay and wax; casting in plaster and in metal; how to
enlarge and how to diminish to scale; bas-reliefs and working in the
round; the various kinds of marble, their qualities and characteristics;
how to reproduce in marble the plaster or clay bust; how to use the
point, the drill, the wire and the chisel; and the various difficulties
attending each process. He exhibited a clay bust of Mr. Walter Crane on
which he did some elementary work; a bust of Mr. Parsons; a small
statuette; several moulds, and an interesting diagram of the furnace used
by Balthasar Keller for casting a great equestrian statue of Louis XIV.
in 1697-8.

What his lecture lacked were ideas. Of the artistic value of each
material; of the correspondence between material or method and the
imaginative faculty seeking to find expression; of the capacities for
realism and idealism that reside in each material; of the historical and
human side of the art--he said nothing. He showed the various
instruments and how they are used, but he treated them entirely as
instruments for the hand. He never once brought his subject into any
relation either with art or with life. He explained forms of labour and
forms of saving labour. He showed the various methods as they might be
used by an artisan. Mr. Morris, last week, while explaining the
technical processes of weaving, never forgot that he was lecturing on an
art. He not merely taught his audience, but he charmed them. However,
the audience gathered together last night at the Arts and Crafts
Exhibition seemed very much interested; at least, they were very
attentive; and Mr. Walter Crane made a short speech at the conclusion, in
which he expressed his satisfaction that in spite of modern machinery
sculpture had hardly altered one of its tools. For our own part we
cannot help regretting the extremely commonplace character of the
lecture. If a man lectures on poets he should not confine his remarks
purely to grammar.

Next week Mr. Emery Walker lectures on Printing. We hope--indeed we are
sure, that he will not forget that it is an art, or rather it was an art
once, and can be made so again.

PRINTING AND PRINTERS

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 16, 1888.)

Nothing could have been better than Mr. Emery Walker's lecture on
Letterpress Printing and Illustration, delivered last night at the Arts
and Crafts. A series of most interesting speci