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

beautifully coloured clay . Nothing Avould better show the world what may be done in this material . Going to hardware glazed and variously coloured , we find the for Avails and flooring the tiles produced by Minton , by Maw , and others , are what

we want . Those especially Avith a pattern deeply sunk , manufactured by Minton , after Pugin ' s design ' s , are admirably adapted for walls upon Avhich a diapering , like any of those beautiful ones we admire so much in Westminster Abbey , Canterbury Cathedral , Selby Church , and Lincoln

Minster is required . The productions of M . Devers , a Parisian manufacturer , are very good , both for their modelling and their smooth , even , well-chosen colour ; but the bust by another French artist , of Luca della Robbia , is sadly at fault regarding costume , and most egregiously so in it garish colours , daubed upon it so blotchy .

For all ornamental domestic purposes , Minton's pottery has won for itself not only an English , but a European reputation , so that it is needless to point out the many fine specimens of it in this museum ; but as Ave began , so will Ave end this lecture with the mention of that man ' s name , and

that , too , in connexion with the largest and most elegant work of its sort ever produced in this or any other country , that splendid fountain noAV in tbe Gardens of the Horticultural Society . The land that wrought this great Avork could , we are sure , if asked , send forth still mightier works of

tlie kind . On looking on that splendid figure of St . George , and all the several accessories of so diversified a character around him , confident are Ave that the hands that modelled , coloured , and fired everything there , are well able to people our squares , our streets , our edifices , public and private , to the world ' s delight and instruction , with thousands of statues in coloured burned clay .

All through this lecture I have tried to guard myself against the use , while dealing Avith my own words , of such terms as terra-cotta , enamelled terra-cotta , encaustic tiles , Luca della Robbia ware , and for the reasons following . Always are such expressions outlandish ; and , though

such hard Avords , with their learned length , may astound the crowd the more they are not understood by them ., those very words fail in their object , which is , or ought to be , to afford people information ; quite Avrong in their application to hardware , tliey mystify the better educated , whom

they lead astray respecting the various and oftentimes totally different methods and materials which art employs in her several productions . Take , as an instance , the term " encaustic . " This means , and among the ancients Avas assigned to , quite another craft and process essentially apart from

that of colouring ancl filing tiles or any other kind of pottery . For true enamel , other ingredients are required , and are laid upon metals , not clay . Again , the making of figures out of earth , giving

to them a coloured glaze , and fixing it by fire , belongs of right to the early Egyptians far more than to Luca della Robbia or , to Minton ; nay , as much as priority of time in use or invention can bestow a title , more fittingly is such an appellation of honour rendered to that ancient people than to

the Italian or to the Englishman , of whom neitherthe one nor the other can with fairness attach his name as the originator of that specific sort of hardware .

When old Chaucer , in sketching his pilgrims , tells us of one of them " cleped Hubert , " and how : — " Somewhat he lisped for his Avanfcormesse To make his English swete upon his tonge , " we laugh , like tha poet , at this foolish limitour ' s

childishness and silly affectation ; , but ought Ave to smile or frown Avhile we read the catalogues to some of the national museums , and find page after page bespattered with words and phrases borrowed , and Avithout the slightest need , from French and Italian , as if it were the advertisement of a Parisian

curiosity shopkeeper , or the bill of fare of a Neapolitan pastrycook ? Of a truth , our dear old mother-tongue , Avhile it has about it the strength of iron , can take the burnish and the bri ghtness : of glittering steel , and be made as bendable as the Avants of any pen can need . If English

undefiled was able enough for a long and large race of men who have by their writings— " in words that burn and thoughts that breathe "—raised our literature to be among the finest that mankind either ever had or has , surely it ought to be good and full enough to answer all the wants even of the compilers of our art-museum catalogues . .

For the description of art-works , ancient and modern , I am aware , a particular set of terms—a . phraseology of its OAVU—is required ; but it easily can , and ought to be , in unmistakable English for English folks , of Avhom not the thousands only , but the millions , know nothing of any foreign

language , words borrowed from which are so much gibberish to them—and not to them only , but to the better educated . As , among a crowd of others , I happened , a few weeks ago , to be looking at a collection of antiquities labelled by one of those Avho have adopted the modern style of Avording ,

a gentleman of classical acquirements—an Oxford M . A . —asked why a small piece of stone figured with Egyptian hieroglyphics should be called "an Egyptian plague ? " There Avas a laugh , and he was told it was an Egyptian " placque : " the second andas far as the label spokecorrect

read-, , ing , that was meant to scatter , only thickened , the mist upon this scholar ' s mind . If a cure for such a vanity is to be wrought , it must be begun by a department which is bound up Avith . science and education , as well as art ; and among those Avho Avork under it there are those

who might very soon draw up a fitting set of terms in pure good English , for the description of anything of an artistic nature that could possibly