lighted in the evening, and add very much to the "finish" and artistic beauty of the room even by day.

The following method of gilding will be found more durable than gold paint and easier of application than gold leaf. Procure some Dutch metal in powder, which can be obtained from Mr. Jones, Gold Beater, Wardour Street, at about 1/9 the oz., either gold, silver, or bronze gold, a very beautiful colour. Cover the place to be gilt with gold size; when this is nearly dry (in about four hours in dry weather) put on the powder with a camel's-hair brush, and leave it for a while. Then remove the loose powder, and polish up the gold with a piece of chamois leather.

VII. RENAISSANCE.

THIS style, as I imagine most people know, took its name from the new birth of art in Italy in the 16th century, the highest exponents of which were Raphael and Michael Angelo. The decorations in the Loggie of the Vatican are the most celebrated examples of this style. They consist of what are usually called arabesques, though there is nothing Arabic about them; curves and circles expanding into foliage, and sometimes into Cupids and conventional animal forms.

This particular style of art has made its chief home in France. It was at its best, probably, in the reign of Louis XV. All art and taste suffered a complete collapse during the empire in France, and under the fostering care of the Georges in England. Renaissance designs are generally used now to decorate mirrors and all other gilt work originating in France. It is a style which goes well with luxury, rich carpets, silks, gold and bright colours. It is very

well suited, for example, to be used in decorating a lady's boudoir, to be associated with rose-colour or pale-blue hangings. Paint the walls a pale tone to

match the furniture, and stencil on them arabesques in a darker shade. A pretty dado might be designed of Cupids dancing or playing games, still in the same shades. Doors and shutters might have Watteau figures, either keeping to the same tones or fully coloured. There will not be the slightest difficulty in getting designs of this sort to copy. The only trouble may be to select good ones, as so many Watteau groups are badly drawn and worse coloured.

"Queen Anne" furniture is quite in keeping with this style of decoration.

Of course there are many other styles which I have not enlarged upon in this handbook, notably the Gothic, a manner of decoration peculiarly suited to churches and to large halls; but as most amateurs would not be capable, without professional assistance, of carrying out a work consisting chiefly of panelling and carving in oak, and as this book is meant to assist those who wish to do up their own rooms without such assistance, I have omitted all reference to this branch of art as unnecessary in an unpretending work of this kind, written in the hope that it may prove of some little use in assisting and encouraging artistically inclined but perhaps diffident and inexperienced amateurs who may long to embellish their surroundings in their own little world, and feel that they could improve on the existing state of things if

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