98 DERBYSHIRE TAPESTRY. 



looms were arranged down the centre, and on the first of them we 

 saw the replica (just named) of the Visit of the Magi, a most 

 charming work, equalhng the best productions of the fifteenth and 

 sixteenth centuries. We could not see the whole of the work 

 because it was wound round the lower roller, or the greater part 

 of it, as soon as completed; but there was enough visible for us 

 to form a correct estimate of the quality of the work and the 

 status attained by these clever workmen — youths, perhaps, I 

 ought to say, some hardly out of their teens — for Mr. Morris 

 has his selected pupils, who are apprenticed to the craft, and 

 trained under his special supervision. They are the Messrs. 

 Knight, Sleath, Martin, EUeman, Taylor, Haines, Merrist, 

 Keech, and Ellis, and are under the immediate instruction of 

 Mr. J. H. Dearie, who has been with the firm about twenty 

 years. 



All honour to this persevering and enterprising public bene- 

 factor, of whom his country ought well to be proud. We may 

 safely predict that these works, under the present improved 

 standard of public taste, are destined to become the " Mortlake" 

 of our own times. 



On the second and third looms were being woven picturesque 

 and striking representations from the Legend of the Sangraal. 

 We were much surprised at the rapidity with which the fingers 

 plied the shuttle and manipulated the warp for the shoots ; but in 

 the face of this apparent facility, the progress is but slow at the 

 best, and the more elaborate pieces are often many months before 

 they leave the looms. This will account for the fact that tapestry 

 can only adorn the mansions of the wealthy. Be this as it may, 

 its beauty is now becoming more appreciated, and the demand for 

 it is increasing every day, as the enhancing value of old examples 

 brought under the hammer clearly shows. At a sale of old 

 tapestry at Christy and Manson's, held August ist, 1893, a hanging 

 of old Brussels, with Venus and Adonis, measuring 10 feet 

 9 inches by 15 feet, was sold for 850 guineas. Another, of old 

 Burgundian work, 13 feet 4 inches by 17 feet 6 inches, realised 

 300 guineas, and another sheet of old Brussels, 11 feet 9 inches 



