lished itself in the favourable esteem of the
few, and, thanks to exhibitions, its fame was spreading. Though as many
as twelve branches are mentioned in a single copy of its prospectus,
there was generally one department which for the moment occupied most of
the creative energy of the chief.

Painted glass is named first on the prospectus, and was one of the
earlier successes of the firm. As it was employed for churches more
often than for private houses, it is familiar to many who do not know
Morris's work in their homes; but it is hardly the most characteristic
of his activities. For one thing, the material, the 'pot glass', was
purchased, not made on the premises. Morris's skill lay in selecting the
best colours available rather than in creating them himself. For
another, he knew that his own education in figure-drawing was
incomplete, and he left this to other artists. Most of the figures were
designed by Burne-Jones, and some of the best-known examples of his
windows are at St. Philip's, Birmingham, near the artist's birthplace,
and at St. Margaret's, Rottingdean, where he died.[52] But no cartoon,
by Burne-Jones or any one else, was executed till Morris had supervised
the colour scheme; and he often designed backgrounds of foliage or
landscape.

[Note 52: Other easily accessible examples are in Christ Church
Cathedral, Oxford, and Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge.]

To those people of limited means who cannot afford tapestries and
embroidery (which follow painted glass on the firm's list), yet who wish
to beautify their homes, interest centres in the chintzes and
wall-papers. These show the distinctive gifts by which Morris most
widely influenced the Victorian traditions. It is not easy to explain
why one design stirs our curiosity and quickens our delight, while
another has the opposite effect. Critics can prate about natural and
conventional art without helping us to understand; but a passage from
Mr. Clutton-Brock seems worth quoting as simply and clearly phrased.[53]
'Morris would start', he says, 'with a pattern in his mind and from the
first saw everything as a factor in that pattern. But in these early
wall-papers he showed a power of pattern-making that has never been
equalled in modern times. For though everything is subject to the
pattern, yet the pattern itself expresses a keen delight in the objects
of which it is composed. So they are like the poems in which the words
keep a precise and homely sens