cally lamented by Burke, acknowledge France, so gracefully symbolized by Eugénie, the empress of taste and fashion."

CULTURE OF TASTE.

The modes in which taste is cultivated in France deserve study and imitation in this country. They are illustrated by the observations of Doctor Ure upon the habits of the silk weavers at Lyons.

"Among the weavers of the place, the children and everybody connected with devising patterns, much attention is devoted to everything in any way connected with the beautiful, either in figure or color. Weavers may be seen in their holiday leisure gathering flowers and grouping them in the most engaging combinations. They are continually suggesting new designs to their employers, and are thus the fruitful source of elegant patterns.

"There is hardly any considerable house in Lyons in which there is not a partner who owes his place in it to his success as an artist. The town of Lyons is so conscious of the value of such studies that it contributes 20,000 francs per annum to the government establishment of the School of Arts, which takes charge of every youth who shows an aptitude for drawing, or imitative design of any kind, applicable to manufactures. Hence all the eminent painters, sculptors, even botanists and florists of Lyons, become eventually associated with the staple trade and devote to it their happiest conceptions. In the principal school, that of St. Peter's, there are about 180 students, every one of whom receives from the town a gratuitous education in art for five years, comprehending delineations in anatomy, botany, architecture, and loom pattern drawing. A botanical garden is attached to the school. The government allows 3,100 francs a year to the school of Lyons. The school supplies the scholars with everything but the materials, and allows them to reap the benefit of their works. Their professor of painting is a man of distinguished talent well known to connoisseurs.

"The French manufacturer justly considers that his pattern is the principal element of his success in trade, for the mere handiwork of weaving is a simple affair with the improved Jacquard loom. He therefore visits the school and picks out the boy who promises, by taste and invention, to suit his purpose the best. He invites him to his home, boards him, and gives him a small salary, to be gradually advanced. One gentleman told Doctor Bowring that he had three such youths in his employment, to the youngest of whom he gave 1,000 francs, or £40, per annum. After three or four years, if the young artist's success be remarkable, he may have his salary raised to double or treble that sum; and when his reputation is once established, he is sure of the offer of a partnership. Such is the general history of many of the schoolboys of Lyons. Even the French weaver, who earns only 15d. or 20d. a day, prides himself upon his knowledge of design; he will turn over several hundred patterns in his possession and descant on their relative merits,

seldom erring far in predicting the success of any new style. By this disposition the minds of the silk weavers in France become elevated and refined, instead of being stultified in gin shops, as those of the English too frequently are. In flower patterns the French designs are remarkably free from incongruities, being copied from nature with scientific precision. They supply taste to the whole world, in proportion to the extent of their exportations, which amount to 110,000,000 out of 140,000,000. In the Lyons school collections of silk fabrics may be studied, extending over a period of 4,000 years, with explanations of the modes in which every pattern was produced, from the rude silk of the Egyptian mummies to figured webs of the last year."

It is worthy of mention that the Chamber of Commerce of Lyons solicited and obtained from the French government permission for M. Chevrueil, the eminent director of the dye works of the Gobelins, to lecture to the artisans of Lyons upon the "Laws of the simultaneous contrast of colors," which he discovered and has so ably elucidated-laws which, once demonstrated, become a means of assorting colors so as to obtain their best possible effect, and make the principles of taste which govern the arrangement of colors as definite as the harmonies of music. DYEING IN FRANCE AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF MODERN SCIENCE TO THE ART.

There would be but a limited field for the exercise of taste in the textile industry without the art of dyeing, which is to tissues what the summer's sun is to the landscape, the source of all which delights the eye in light and color. While admiring the splendors of impression and color displayed upon the fabrics of the present day, we should not forget how largely they are due to the intelligence and science of the French statesmen and savans of former generations.

The great Colbert in establishing manufactures in France, made improvements in the art of dyeing the object of special care. He published in 1672 a set of regulations "for the dyeing of wools and the manufacture of wools of all colors," and showed that dyeing was an object deserving public attention from the additional value which it confers upon many of the articles of commerce. "If the manufactories of wool, silk, and thread are to be reckoned among those which contribute most to the support of commerce, dyeing," says Colbert, "which gives them that striking variety of color by which they resemble what is most beautiful in nature, may be considered as the soul of tissues, without which the body could scarcely exist. Wool and silk, the natural color of which rather indicates the rudeness of former ages than the genius and improvement of the present, would be in no great request if the art of dyeing did not furnish attractions which recommend them even to the most barbarous nations. All visible objects are distinguished and recommended by colors, but for the purposes of commerce it is not only necessary that they should be beautiful, but that they should be good,

and that their duration should equal that of the material which they adorn."

These ideas bore fruit in the magnificent tapestries of the Gobelins manufactory, and more usefully in the famous black cloths of Sedan, both of which are due to this great statesman. The art of dyeing was also during his time applied to printing cottons. The industry of calico printing was founded in Holland during the 17th century by a native of France. It was planted by a Frenchman in 1690 upon the banks of the Thames, and established about that time by a French refugee at Neufchatel, from whence it was brought back again to the country of its nativity by the celebrated Oberkampf. The regulation of the art of dyeing continued after the time of Colbert to be an object of governmental care in France; and Hellot, Macquer, and Berthollet, all eminent chemists, were successively appointed to superintend the practice of dyeing and to cultivate the branches of science which had a tendency to promote the progress of the art. Each of these chemists left practical treatises upon dyeing, of great value. The work of Berthollet, published in 1791, became the standard book of the age, since it contained not only a detailed account of the practical operations of the art, but theoretical views of the principles upon which it was founded. These works, and that of Chaptal, who while occupying the office of minister of the interior, had become interested in the art, contained nearly all that was valuable respecting the art of dyeing in any language at the close of the last century. The best informed Englishmen of that period, such as Mr. Anderson, author of the "History of Commerce," and Mr. Howe, author of an essay on bleaching, did not hesitate to admit the superiority in brilliancy of color of the articles of French manufacture of this period, and to attribute it to the fostering care of the government. The Exposition of Paris has called forth a beautiful study on the dyeing and printing of fabrics from M. De Kaeppilin. This treatise, the more elaborate work of M. Schutzenberger, published in 1867, under the auspices of the Industrial Society of Mulhouse, and the admirable report of Dr. Hoffman, president of the Chemical Society of London, published in 1863, furnish ample information as to the progress of the art in this century. A signal step in the advancement of this art was the discovery by the celebrated Vauquelin, in the early part of the present century, of the metal chromium the compounds of which have since had so many industrial applications, especially in the printing of mousselines and calicoes, as in the chromate of lead first prepared for printing cottons by Lassarque in 1819, and the oxide of chromium combined with arsenious acid to form green, applied by Courez. In 1810 Loffet introduced the process of fixing colors by means of steam to the printing of cashmere shawls, thus dispensing with the immersion of the fabrics in a bath of tincture. During the years 1837, 38, 39, 40, and '45, the beautiful discovery of Loffet received its most remarkable application in the fabrication of mousselines of wool, and wool with warps of cotton, by means of colors fixed by steam. It was

this application which gave the vast extension to the manufacture of printed woollen tissues, which constitute at present the most important part of the combed-wool industry of France, and the only branch which has been successfully pursued in this country. The application of steam colors to cotton fabrics was greatly advanced by the discovery of stannate of soda by Mr. Steiner, which enables the colorist to give to the steam print a solidity and lustre in which it was wanting before.

Of the modern discoveries in chemistry there is none more brilliant than that of the cheap production of ultra-marine, which was effected by Guimet in 1828, the right being secured to him by patent. This material, affording a blue color of surpassing intensity and purity, was formerly supplied by levigating the powder of the mineral lapis lazuli, obtained in small masses from Siberia. Its value in the arts was 125 francs an ounce, more than its weight in gold. The artificial ultra-marine is produced by combining the same chemical substances, the soda, silica, sulphur, and alumina which are found in the lapis lazuli, and is equal in brilliancy of color to the natural ultra-marine. Its cost has been reduced from 6,000 francs to 6 francs the kilogram. The first impressions were made with this color, fixed by albumen upon mousselines delaine, in 1834, and in the richest fabrics of France this beautiful color replaces the duller tints formed by indigo and prussian blue, the latter dye having been fixed upon woollen tissues as a color of impression in 1836.

We must not pass over another series of inventions, although they have special relations to the printing of cotton fabrics. For the printing of cottons madder is by far the most important material on account of the permanency of its dyes. The extensive demand for this material and the desirableness of obtaining brighter tints has made it an object of the highest importance to free the coloring principle of the madder root from extraneous matters. The French chemical manufacturers have achieved remarkable results in this direction. In 1826 MM. Robiquet and Collin discovered in the madder root the principle alizarine, formerly a rose-colored dye, which the English afterwards introduced as a commercial article under the name of pincoffine. In 1828 purpurine, also derived from madder, was indicated by the same chemist as a chemical species distinct from alizarine. It furnishes a more vivid red than the alizarine, and is now prepared commercially. Since the period last mentioned the coloring matter of madder has been concentrated in the form known as garancine and flowers of madder. These materials are prepared commercially in France in vast quantities, their use proving greatly advantageous, both in respect to economy and improvement of color. The dyeing powers of purpurine and alizarine are remarkable, that of purpurine being equal to forty or fifty times the same quantity of madder, and that of alizarine to that of thirty-eight times that of madder. These new substances have been found valuable in dyeing wool. Wool mordanted with alum and cream of tartar gives, with purpurine, a brilliant crimson

red, and mordanted with tartar and a solution of tin gives, with purpurine, a scarlet almost as fine as that from cochineal.

The advantages resulting from the recent improvements by which the coloring matter of madder is obtained in a purer and more concentrated form will be rendered more obvious by a brief statement of the usual processes in printing. These may be divided into three principal classes: First, where the colors are fixed without a mordant, as in dyeing blue with indigo, either of a uniform tint, or where the whites are reserved by an application which prevents the contact of the dye upon the parts to remain uncolored. Second, where mordants are first printed upon the tissues, which are afterwards subjected to subsequent operations of tinctures, as by immersion in the dyeing liquid, &c. This process until very recently has been necessary for all madder dyes. Third, where the mordants and coloring matters are previously combined together to form the color to be impressed, which is called a "color of application." In this last class of processes the printed tissues are suspended in a vessel filled with steam from boiling water, which produces the same effect as dying by immersion in a liquid bath, the colors combining directly with the fibres of the tissues. By means of the steaming process, the operator can print and fix at once an indefinite number of colors, and terminate by the two or three operations of printing, fixing, and washing a work, which formerly required many weeks when accomplished by the process of dyeing after the printing with mordants; almost all the coloring materials known could be fixed by the third process upon tissues of wool, silk, or cotton. The coloring matter of madder alone has not been isolated in sufficiently advantageous conditions of assimilation, that the process of fixing by steam could be applied to it. The discovery of the different purifications of madder has placed it in the power of the printer of tissues to apply the expeditious process of steam printing to the most permanent and useful of all vegetable colors. The most important use of madder as a color of application has been achieved only within a few months. Very beautiful fabrics printed by this process at two establishments, one in France and the other in Bohemia, were displayed at the Exposition. M. De Kaeppilin, referring to these fabries, says, "It is evident that the long and difficult operations required for fixing the vegetable coloring material on tissues are now quite simplified, and that the new manner of fixing the coloring material of madder, all prepared and combined with the different mordants, being allied with the beautiful and simple fabrication of colors from aniline, will achieve for the industry of printing tissues its most beautiful conquest. Instead of the ancient steam colors, which in respect to solidity left much to desire, the madder colors, married as it were with the brilliant colors derived from coal tar and the solid and resistant mineral colors, like ultramarine and chrome green of Guignet, will replace the fugitive colors of the dye woods. The fabrication will be more perfect, and will reunite solidity and brilliancy of colors with the delicacy of execution which can be obtained only by machines which print mechanically."