138 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



and chocolate, and displayed in gorgepus shops on the Boulevards and in the 

 Rue Vivienne every New Tear's Day, fully testify. 



" But the artist- workman of Paris does not produce in common materials. 

 It is not his mission to diffuse a sense of beauty over his country. If he can 

 conceive any errand beyond that which enables him to frequent his Barriere 

 ball, it is to show how ornament may be added to ornament how silver may 

 be wedded to gold, and ebony to satin-wood. In the Fable for Critics, we 

 are assured that 



Over-ornament ruins both poem and prose 

 Just conceive of a Muse with a ring in her nose ! 



Now the art- workman's Muse has a ring in her nose. Not a plain gold ring, 

 if you please; but a circle studded all round with gems! His Muse wears 

 nothing plain. Her bonnets are orchards ; her dresses employ hundreds of 

 hands to each ; her fingers display the revenue of a State ; and upon her 

 bosom lies the wealth that would feed armies. To this Muse the Paris work- 

 man turns his eyes unceasingly, looking out from a maiisarde where a pot of 

 flowers, bought near the Madeleine after market-hours, is the only beauty. 

 For it is remarkable that Paris, the city where Art is the passion of the 

 masses, is conspicuous for the tastelessness of its common household goods. 

 Angular straw chairs, deal tables, thick clumsy crockery, and frightfully bar- 

 barous stone-ware, make up the poor man's menage. "With the middle classes, 

 you see a gaudy salon, with a splendid clock, chairs elaborately ornamented, 

 handsome lace curtains but here household grace ends. A tea-service is 

 permanently placed upon the salon table for the inspection of visitors, and 

 very beautiful this service is, often. But proceed to the dining-room, examine 

 the crockery hi daily use, and you will be thoroughly disenchanted; for these 

 will in variably be found coarse and ugly. It is not that the master of such a 

 menage has no appreciation of Art-manufacture : the truth is, he loves it ; but 

 it is beyond his means. All he can afford is a salon furnished, as he expresses 

 it, with luxe; and there being no medium between luxe and positive plainness 

 and ugliness, he is compelled to adopt the style, or want of style, perceptible 

 in his dining-room." 



