Terra-Cotta And Luca Della Robbia Ware, Considered On The Principles Of Decorative Art.

fignrs iu the round of hardware put up all about , inside and out , our public as well as private buildings . Por the effect , I would call to mind an instance in the public hospital at Pistoja . There at every step you take in that long broad street facing which it stands , its fine entablature the

frieze , in Avhicli is figured in relief and variously coloured , AAdth groups , half life-size , setting forth the Avorks of mercy corporal—that is , done to man's body , distinguished from those wrought for his soul—grows upon your admiration ; and , while astonished at the undimmedunsullied freshness

, of its tints , all as bright and beautiful , after three hundred years' exposure to the rain and sun , as on the day they were laid on , you cannot but admit the fitness , especially under a sky like ours , of such a mode of decorati \ r o art for our buildings . In a grand public botanical garden it is that this

sort of highly ornamented hardware would be at home . To every such establishment must , by necessity , belong various offices—a theatre or large hall for lectures being one ; and Avhether the grounds be laid out in the landscape style , like the Botanical in Regent's Parkor after the

geo-, metrical , as in the Horticultural , at South Kensington , the mass of the building is incomplete if not flanked , as at the Crystal Palace , by IAYO high towers—always beautiful in themselves , but here

most especially needed for their utility , The perfection of a garden , with its fountains and canals , ancl flower-beds , and terraces , all set out after the geometric manner , is to slww itself , in all its symmetry , to the eye at once . Failing to do so , it lacks its very essential property , as far as its

design . Iu the Villa Pamfili Doria , at Rome , from the terrace before the house , one looks straight down from a good height on the geometrical gai * - den below , and beholds the whole at once . This is still a AA ant at the Horticultural ; for , go up to the terraces , ancl from no one spot upon them can

the eye take in the whole at one view . Walk to the south end , and upstairs "to the rooms for refreshment in the late Exhibition buildings , and from no windoAV there can you satisfactorily see the upper or northern portions of the garden . Two tall toAversone at each end of the semi-circular

, arcades , arising up as gracefully , and quite as high as those fine old belfries at Rome , would give , far and near , new beauties to the sky-line , and admit of- all tho richness of decorative hardware being lavished on them , standing in glorious companionshipwith the most magnificent of all

fountains—, Minton's—below them ; and as you mounted up their stairs , at every story , the gardens , in all their width and length and design , Avould burst upon the eye in full and gathered beauty .

Tho hall for lectures in this ( the Kensington . Museum ) and kindred institutions—call it lecture room or theatre—more especially leads itself to an elaborate ornamentation in coloured burned clay . . Following out the grand true principle that all good architecture is decorated utility , the

architect s first thought for such an erection must be to make his building the best he can to ansAver its especial purpose , or that the words of the speaker as he stands in his p lace may be well heard at all parts . Though the laAv of sound in such edifices is still a riddle , yeo there are some knoAvn facts ,

among which one is that earthenware , fashioned after certain shapes , is a great help for the clear and distinct circulation of sounds , Avhether of musical instruments or the human A oice . During years was it a puzzle among archaeologists to afford any satisfactory reason for the use of those hollow

earthen vases found built into the lower sides of several old chancel-walls , till the other clay , when this passage in the " Chronicle ofthe Order ofthe Celestines at Metz" for the year 1432 , turned np : —¦

" It was ordered that pots should , be made for the choir of the church of Caens , Brother Odo stating that he had seen such in another church , and thinking that they caused the chanting- to resound more strongly . " Coupling this with other acoustic properties that belonged to burned clay , the

usefulness of it , not to say need for its employment , in all sorts of theatres , Avants no proof ; and from the numerous fine specimens after so many kinds . brought together in this museum , its easy readiness in yielding such powerful help as a decorative art is undeniable . To my seeming , a hall intended

for the utterance of British thought , for the rearing of the British youth in arts ancl literature , that very spot itself should show upon it , all about it , the

workings of the British mind , and speak of Britain ; Avliile wrought by British hands , it ought to tell , as far as may be , of two among the other now great staples of British industry and manufacture , pottery and iron . After a stroll in the Horticultural Gardens , and gazing again ancl again at its

glorious St . George ' s fountain ; after wandering thence through the new splendid courts of this museum ; looking around upon Avhat had been done , centuries ago ; what was even now doing abroad and at home in coloured burned clay ; and seating myself by one of those peeps into that delicious fern-house with the afternoon ' s green sunshine on it , I there bethought myself of the hall for

lectures . Theatral in figure , its roof , like that of St . Peter's dome , might be ribbed—here with ribs in iron gilt ; if not of mosaic , the spaces could be filled in AA'ifch tiles larger and finer than those round blue plates of the months in the Museum , made by Luca for Piero di Cosimo de' Medici , to

put up in the ceiling of a circular study ( Vasari , i ., 341 ) . Around the lantern at top would look admirably a garland , bolder ancl richer than any of the wreaths by the Delia Robbia school : the stage , with its high tribunal-like shape ancl broad recess behindshould have much and thoughtful

, care bestowed upon it ; for , in every such erection always must the stage become a striking feature . But it opens , in the present instance , a Avicle field for the display of our countrymen ' s powers to put | forth all those many capabilities in coloured burned