dressmaking. However, no better guide can be given in this perplexing question than a short report of a visit to the Maison Virot. Quite unique is a Cardinal hat in red molleton, with its soft dented crown and flat brim lined and toned down with black velvet. In front there is a cluster of shaded ostrich-tips intermingled with stiff "ears," deftly fashioned with black watered ribbon. A similar model, reproduced in white felt and trimmed with bronze-coloured feathers and ribbon, would be very stylish for a drive or a matinée. The Lancret hat, in vertde-gris velvet, has a high crown bordered with a wide brim raised high on one side; a torsade of light-coloured watered silk encircles the crown, and is knotted in front amongst a panache of feathers gently drooping at the back; black velvet with a twist in pink moire silk, and black feathers, is another adaptation of this style. The Fragonard hat has also a soft crown in velvet of the peculiar shot tint known as "fly's wings," adorned in front with a group of bronze ribbon loops, simulating an aigrette, which towers over a military plume, and at the side is placed a high stiff wing, quaintly finished off with a square end. Very ladylike is the Infanta bonnet in black velvet, studded with small gilt flies, the gathered crown edged with a fluting of black lace over gold lace; on the side a fancy aigrette, composed of gold lace loops and black ostrich-tips.

The coiffure of our élégantes, like their dresses, is

gradually getting longer and narrower. Noirat, the hairdresser of the day, who last year introduced, or at least revived, for full dress the accroche-cœurs à la Duchesse de Bourgogne, has brought out a slight addition to the "Diana" knot; three or four long curls, attached at the side of the smooth bandeau, gracefully fall down the nape of the neck and the back. The plain twist still, however, remains the favourite for morning and ordinary wear.

Enough of the always alluring subject of chiffons. Let us turn a furtive glance to a highly artistic publication, which is sure to be one of the most welcome Christmas presents. This new book, so temptingly entitled "Les Peintres de la Femme," is published by the Maison Dentu, and bears the signature of Claude Vento, but another pseudonym of the well-known nom de plume of Violet, the reporter par excellence of the fashionable world. Biographies of painters, such as Henner, Bonnat, Chaplin, Lefebvre, Carolus Duran, Cabanel, and of the sculptor Prosper d'Epinay, will be given in this splendid work, where, in short, will appear numerous notes on a galaxy of living French artists who have acquired any celebrity for their poetical rendering or interpretation of female beauty. Those famous masters themselves have consented to illustrate "Les Peintres de la Femme,” which will contain over fifty engravings, mostly reproductions of chefs-d'œuvre.

come and read Rossetti here By a Japanese-y lamp."

Much has happened since then. Bedford Park is no longer æsthetic (if indeed it ever was so), and the appreciation of Japanese art wares has long ceased to be confined within its narrow bounds. There is now hardly a drawing-room in the kingdom in which the influences of Japanese art are not felt. Walls are draped and tables covered with the rich brocades of the Land of the Dragonfly; brilliant enamelled plaques have been found a cheap and effective substitute for china, always costly and often of doubtful antiquity. We put our flowers into Japanese bowls; serve tea from Japanese trays; and in the hot summers that have become the fashion fan ourselves, without regard to sex or condition, with Japanese fans. Some of us hang our snuggeries with Japanese pictures; others collect the beautifully illustrated books filled with "figures strange and sweet, all made out of the artist's

brain," that have come down from the Nippon of the Mikados. Most of the Japanese wares that are sold in England are exceedingly cheap, and there is consequently some danger that they may become vulgarised. But it so falls out that English taste can endure a good deal of such vulgarisation; and because a Japanese fan or two may brighten a garret, that is surely no reason why they should cease to beautify a boudoir. A much more imminent danger is that the Japanese may themselves become vulgarised by the absurd imitation of European customs and fashions which is at present the rage in their wonderful island. Dress-improvers and Parisian chiffons may be essential to the salvation of Japanese beauties, even as frock-coats and tall hats have become necessary to the comfort of their husbands and brothers. But Japanese native dress, especially the dress of women, was charming in itself, suggestive of infinite gracefulness, and capable of the richest and most delicate ornamentaMuch of this there is reason to fear we may lose unless the Japanese can be brought to recognise, before it is too late, that European fashions are oftentimes neither rational nor beautiful; and that even an island in the Pacific, so distant from modern civilisation and so long secluded from outside influences, may chance to possess canons of taste as well worth preserving as any that were ever laid down in the West.

tion.

That the large importations of Japanese wares into England during the last few years have had much to do

with the sharpening and elevation of our artistic sense does not admit of a doubt. How large those importa tions are, would perhaps hardly be suspected by those who have not made inquiry. The cheaper goods are, of course, most in demand; and the pretty little fans and hand-screens that are sold in the streets for a penny each arrive in the port of London in consignments of millions. Hundreds of cases of cheap wooden ash-trays are imported every year; and each case contains 4,000 trays. The large lacquer trays which are used for five o'clock tea, and the smaller ones which are utilised as salvers and card-trays, are sold in numbers which almost equal those of the fans. They are made in scores of sizes, and in the most diverse designs, and they can be put to so many uses that their popularity is likely to increase rapidly for a long time to come. For years past most incomes, even the largest, have been undergoing a process of reduction; and the obtaining of articles of household adornment which are at once cheap and beautiful has become a matter of importance to a great many châtelaines. In the hour of need the many delights of Japanese knick-knackery were discovered; and the expenditure of literally only a few shillings will now insure that a room shall be ornamented with many a brilliant stripe and spot which shall add to the gaiety of a summer and increase the cosiness of a winter interior.

The most beautiful products of Japanese industrial art are as yet in comparatively restricted use in England; since, while being strictly speaking cheap, they are relatively much dearer than the articles with which all classes are familiar. Still, even the higher-priced wares have of late been in greatly-increased demand. The Japanese artificers produce nothing finer, more delicate, or more essentially artistic, than the silken embroideries which are now being largely used as hangings for drawing-rooms and boudoirs, as anti-macassars, as covers for cushions, and even as portières, where something light and graceful is preferred to the heavy tapestry-like stuffs which have hitherto been commonly used. These breadths of silk are of very convenient size their length is ten feet-and they may therefore often be used as window-curtains, for which they are uncommonly effective. The ornamentation consists as a rule of birds and flowers, which are hand-embroidered upon the silk, most frequently in colours, but often in gold. In the higher-class goods the gold used is the actual virgin metal, which will not tarnish. The purchaser of these stuffs can therefore make her mind easy that, so long as the fabric endures, the embroidered figures will retain their original lustre. Many of these silks are of very great beauty, all spangled with birds of gorgeous hues, or sown about with flowers, whose tints have been imitated with extraordinary fidelity. In whites, blues, and golds in particular, the craftsmen who make these stuffs excel marvellously. Antique Japanese embroideries are in great request, and the agents of English importers ransack the Empire for fine specimens, which of course command high prices. A very effective ornamentation of a somewhat similar character consists of quaint human figures in stiff brocade mounted on cardboard. These figures look very

well upon the panels of doors, or upon any small space of blank wall.

Much of the most characteristic Japanese art work is executed in lacquer-trays and small boxes for odds and ends being, perhaps, the most familiar articles so made. Of the trays I have already spoken; but it should be added that new designs and shapes are constantly being devised, and that some, at least, of the newer fashions are very pretty and convenient. The small boxes are admirable as ready receptacles for a pair or two of gloves, or for the odds and ends of the toilette-table. But it will not do to entrust anything valuable to their keeping. They are usually furnished with locks and keys; but a Japanese lock is an engine pour rire, and the best can be picked in a moment with a hair-pin or a bit of bent wire. These boxes, when not of lacquer, are most commonly made of a kind of black wood, and the lids are fantastically ornamented with dragons, insects, and an endless variety of minute figures cast in gun-metal, and plastered on with a certain order in disorder which aims only at variety. To the class of pretty but useless presents belong the native pipe-cases, similarly ornamented. They are not large enough to contain the more heroic pipes of the West, but they are graceful little trifles.

Upon the great subject of fans I could, of course, say much; but I must confine myself to a brief notice of some of the new designs. And it may here be well to establish the necessary distinction between a fan and the more clumsily-named "hand-screen." The latter is nearly always pleasant to look upon, and is well worth the very small coin that it costs; but in artistic merit and in excellence of workmanship it will not compare with the fan properly so called. There are now in the market, a bewildering variety of designs, some very elaborate, others exceedingly simple. Some "variegated fans" which have lately been introduced are most pleasing. They consist merely of the ordinary paper and bamboo; but according as the fan is reversed it is alternately blue, crimson, or gold. A fan, crimson on one side and dead gold on the other, is exceedingly charming. The better examples are hand-painted; but the patterns upon the cheapest fans and hand-screens are stencilled. Then there are yet other fans of recent introduction, coloured in monochrome and intended for painting upon. But perhaps the very newest variety of this description is a series of fans bearing designs embroidered upon satin in colours of great brilliance and limpidity. These are certainly the most beautiful of all the Japanese fans that have hitherto been introduced here.

For purposes of wall-decoration there are few things more effective than the cloisonné plaques which are made so well in Japan. They are much less liable to be injured than pieces of china, since the basis upon which the ornamentation is laid consists of brass or copper. The design is laid on with fine wire of silver, copper, or brass, while the colours are enamelled. The depth and delicacy of the tints thus obtained are quite remarkable. These handsome and brightly-coloured plaques can be obtained at very modest prices. To this class of ornaments belong the bronze jardinières adorned with

bands of fantastic tracery, or, more commonly, with the conventional dragons of which the Japanese never tire. Some very handy little bronze candlesticks, suitable either for the writing-table or the bed-room, are somewhat similarly ornamented, and look exceedingly well. In china the familiar Imari ware, with its broad masses of striking colours and its variety of bold designs, is still high in favour, and is sold in large quantities. It is of course understood that this ware is modern. The designs are imitated from old work which, upon the rare occasions that it is met with, fetches startling prices. Also there are cheap imitations of the imitations made in a kind of paste. The red and gold Khaga ware is very decorative, but its effect is a little barbaric, and it would not suit every room. Some of the larger plaques of this ware are hand-painted by artists of eminence in Japan, and they sell in England at £4 or £5 each.

For at least two centuries Japanese screens have had a European fame. Evelyn mentions a room in the house of Mr. Bohun, at Lee, which was wainscoted with Japan screens of lacquer bien entendu-of which the famous vernis Martin was an imitation. Screens of Japanese lacquer are now curiosities of price; but still the Land of the Rising Sun sends us a great variety of beautiful screens in materials more easily perishable. Some of

the newest importations are delightful. They consist of two or more folds, and the panels are filled in with silk or satin embroidered in gold and colours. Here again birds and flowers form the chief motives of decoration; but one screen of unusual size which I have seen is embroidered with a landscape, with trees in the foreground populous with monkeys in grotesque attitudes. Some particularly rich and handsome screens are of brocade, painted; while others are covered with hundreds of native photographs, very various and entertaining. A great golden dragon embroidered upon a black silk screen is startlingly effective. More costly screens

of a semi-barbaric cast are of black wood with carved bases, the upper portions inlaid with ivory and motherof-pearl. But for an apartment of ordinary modesty there is nothing more effective than a plain screen of black silk or satin, embroidered with birds of gorgeous plumage, their wings wide-outstretched.

The tale of Japanese novelties is so long that many useful and curious things must be very summarily dismissed. The small grotesque masks that are now seen in so many shops can be put to a great variety of uses. They are to be had, according to their quality, in coloured plaster, in painted wood, or in bronze, and they represent monkeys' heads, heathen deities, and grinning faces of the most diverse expressions. When two are joined together they make very quaint stands for photographs or menu cards, and they are sometimes used as handles to bell-pulls; while the bronze ones make excellent paper-weights. Among articles more solidly useful, every housekeeper who studies economy should be made aware of the virtues of Japanese fibre matting. Being about eighteen inches wide, it is admirably suited for stairs and corridors, or for any use to which drugget ing is usually put. This matting is pale yellow in hue, is very clean and cool to look upon, and is almost

imperishable. It is as soft as jute and nearly as strong as whalebone, and it costs only a penny a foot!

To those who like to be very Japanese, I may recommend a not unpleasing form of semi-transparent windowcurtain, consisting of the young bamboo and many-coloured beads threaded alternately. The effect is quaint and thoroughly Oriental. We have all along been familiar with the ordinary bulbous patterns of Japanese paper lanterns; but of late a number of new and fantastic shapes have been introduced that have a very odd effect when they are lighted up. One can now illuminate a conservatory or even a garden with gaily-coloured lanterns fashioned in the semblance of ships, lighthouses, fish, animals, and grotesque human figures. These lanterns are to be had in almost any size, from half an inch to five feet in height. It has of late become possible to purchase large Japanese cabinets of polished black wood, elaborately carved and inlaid, sometimes with ivory, sometimes with mother-of-pearl, and not infrequently with both. It is difficult to conceive of a piece of furniture better suited to the display of china and curiosities of small bulk than one of these cabinets. They contain many quaint little recesses and pigeon-holes, with here and there small drawers for articles that might be injured by constant exposure to the air. A cabinet that is worth having is sure to be expensive, whether it be Japanese or European; but those from Yokohama or Tokio are, relatively, less costly than equally well-made ones of home manufacture would be. For a Japanese cabinet there can be no more effective decoration than a collection of native curios and relics of old Japan. Much bric-à-brac of this kind is to be had at figures which are far from exorbitant-ivories, enamels, bits of work in mother-of-pearl, and such-like beautiful trifles. The importers of native work eagerly snap up Japanese antiquities, and they are now to be had in great variety, from twenty-four hour clocks to the daggers with which recalcitrant nobles were allowed, under the old régime, to commit the "happy despatch." An appropriate curio for a lady's dressing-room would be one of the antique steel hand-mirrors which have no doubt reflected the charms of many an island beauty in the long ago. Old sword-hilts of gold and ivory have of late become quite an article of commerce: many of them are very fine and delicate, and would be valuable additions to any cabinet of curiosities. The lover of old ivories will find much gratification in the curiously shaped and carved ivory buttons which are now often met with. They could no doubt often be very effectively used upon modern costumes.

The beauty and variety of the art wares which are now being imported from Japan cannot be fully realised without a visit to some great warehouse, crammed from basement to roof with the airy and graceful designs that are produced in such profusion in the Mikado's Empire. Japanese decorations need no longer be confined to the drawing-room and the bed-room. The severe diningroom and the studious library may both be brightened and adorned by the judicious employment of some of the pretty things that come to us from the North Pacific. A little taste and a five-pound note will work miracles in the most sombre and puritanical of houses.

YES,

ES, they have lived! these women whose great names
Are graven deep on the world's history:
Strong, splendid souls that chafed at human wrong,
And tyranny and servile servitude,

And bonds that strangle nations to the death;
So flung their lives down with a passionate, waste,
As incense upon altar sacrifice,

For glory, country, love, or some great cause;
For a whole people merged in nationhood,
Or one, more loved than nations or the world.
Annihilating even womanhood,

With all its soft tears and compassionate grace,
When Heaven had need of hero-hands to strike
For vengeance, people's rights, or liberty.
And who dares judge these women, God-possessed,
With deep prophetic eyes, on whom was laid
The mission to avenge? Strength from the Lord
Was given them. Their words had priestess-power,
Their deeds, though red with crimson cruelties,
Had yet the deep significance of justice,
And taught the world by many a dreadful sign
That sin must be struck down with resolute hand,
E'en though it wear a monarch's mighty crown,
Or feast with us at purple festivals,
Or plead for shelter in our very tent.

See Miriam clashing cymbals in the dawn.
For bondage broken and a people freed,
While Pharaoh's hosts are drowning at her feet,
Till up through gilded folds of morning clouds,
By desert Temples and by yellow seas,
Loud hymns of freedom echoed back her words,
And the grand rhythm of the march of men!

Thus, 'mid the clustering palms by Ramah's well
Arose great Deborah's tragic song of scorn;
While Jael stood by fallen Sisera,
Fearful to see- -the hammer in her hand-
Even as she smote him sleeping in her tent;
The awful inspiration still upon her

Of that fierce deed by which "the land had rest.”
So, Judith, gorgeous in her painted tire,
And loveliness that dazed men's eyes to see,

With jewels twined amid her perfumed hair,
Passed like a glorious vision through the gate
Of sad Bethulia to the Assyrian's tent,
And slew him with her beauty ere she took
The glittering falchion from the golden bed
And freed her people by one mighty stroke.

This must at least be granted to the sex,
That Woman is no coward fronting fate.
Sublime in love, in suffering, in death,
She treads all terrors down with calm disdain,
As stars tread out the blackness of the sky,
In silent grandeur. Such the Roman wife
Who drew the dagger from her husband's hand
And stabbed herself, to teach him how to die ;
Then, smiling, said, "It is not painful, Pætus;"
Such the proud queen, who would have flung away
A kingdom for her lover, like a pearl,
Yet scorned to wear the Victor's gilded chain,
Or trail her royal robes in Roman streets,
So, from the asp took swift and sudden death,
Self-slain, in all her splendour like a queen,
With Egypt's crown still resting on her brow.

For strength is in the woman's pliant nature As iron in the bending grasses. These The softest wind may prostrate to the earth, Though storms will fail to break. We trace it plain, Through all her sad, vain, feeble outward life, Like steadfast threads of gold in gossamer. And never failed the race in heroines When God had need of martyrs, or the world Of ministrants to pour the wine of life For the pale athletes weary with the toil, And fainting in the dust of the Arena. Through Pagan, Christian, Feudal, Modern times The Woman is the synonym for courage; From Artemisia to the Orleans maid, Whose pyre was lighted with her victor palms; Or her who stabbed the tyrant in his bath For love of France, then bowed her fair young head Beneath the guillotine-content to die,

So Marat's yoke was lifted from the land;

Or Roland's wife, who stood amid the storm
Of surging passions sweeping down a throne,
Calm as that sculptured goddess, on whose brow
The whirlwind drives the drifting Libyan sands.
We see her yet! Her proud, pale features lit
With glory of such dreams as Plato loved,
Strewing red rose-leaves on the wine-cup drained
That last night with the fated Girondins;
Still true to Freedom, holding it absolved
From all the desecrating crimes of man;
Still to the last invoking Liberty,

E'en on the blood-stained scaffold as she died,
The Martyr-Priestess of the Revolution.

But there are gentler memories of Women.
Let us take up the bead-roll reverently,
As holy hands count rosaries with prayer,
Of those whose influence on glorious minds
Have made their own names glorious evermore,
Shining in splendour on the poet's page
Like bright initial letters on a scroll
Made consecrate by saints; or some fair bordering
Woven of shimmering lights like powdered gems
On dark, discoloured leaves of human life.
Vittoria Colonna's marble brow

Still bears serenely as a Phidian Muse
The laurel-wreath of Michael Angelo;
Petrarca's crown is laid at Laura's feet;
While Leonora by that trembling kiss
On Tasso's lips one gentle summer's day
In the duke's garden, as he read to her
His own great story of Christ's Sepulchre,
Has bound the poet's soul with hers for ever.
And radiant Beatrice with starry eyes
Guiding great Dante up from Hell to Heaven,
Until he reached the glory of the Throne,
And saw the circling saints in their white stoles,
Stands yet within the everlasting light,
Her gaze fixed on the sun, immovable,
As Dante saw her in the Paradiso,
The glorified ideal of the Woman.

And still are with us women who can guide
The souls of men to calm, clear heavenly heights
Where clouds and mist roll down beneath the feet.
Heroic hearts are near, deep spirit-eyes
Gleam on us in the darkness of our lives,
As on the shepherds in the midnight gleamed
The star that lit them to the feet of Christ.
The race can never die. Still on our ears
The clear "Excelsior" from a woman's lips
Rings out across the Apennines, although
The woman's brow lies pale and cold in death
With all the mighty marble dead in Florence.
For while great songs can stir the hearts of men,
Spreading their full vibrations through the world

In ever-widening circles till they reach
The Throne of God, and song becomes a prayer-
And prayer brings down the liberating strength
That kindles nations to heroic deeds-
She lives the great-souled poetess who saw
From Casa Guidi windows Freedom dawn
On Italy, and gave the glory back
In sunrise hymns for all Humanity!

And homage must we give to her who wears,
With the calm grace of God's anointed Queen,
The diadem of Kingdoms on her brow.
Supreme above all women-Empress-Queen
Of countless millions and of half the globe,
Yet blending with her royal majesty
The soft, sweet music of a woman's life.
Gentle, while all her armies shake the earth,
And seas and oceans bear her lion flag,
Strong, with the sacred reverence for truth,
Steadfast for right, and loyal to her land
Through storm and sunshine, splendour, gloom, and tears;
For no unworthy act has ever marred

The holy consecration to the vow

Her child-lips uttered in that solemn hour

When, crowned with sovereignty, she took her place. Amid the sceptred monarchs of the world.

And others, great as heroines of old,

Still breathe our common air. Do we not see
Imperial, beautiful, and gifted women
Reigning by right divine of womanhood,
By angel-goodness, or by queenly grace,
Claiming instinctive homage from the crowd?
Some Sibyl with her shadowed, mystic eyes,
Seems fresh from commune with Divinity;
Or some sweet Sappho with her passionate lute
Wakes the deep inner music of the heart.
Others recall the glory of the Greek
Who ruled with the Olympian Pericles,
And, with Aspasia's genius-given power,
They gather round them in a zone of light
Poets and sages and philosophers,
Golden-mouthed orators, and all whose souls
Burn with the proud ambition to be great.
And some bear high above the people's heads
The starry oriflamme of nationhood,
Chanting their solemn songs of Faith and Hope,
Till all the masses tremble as the leaves
Of forests when a tropic storm sweeps by,
While from the Pythian passion of their eyes

Flow mighty inspirations, such as fired

The souls of Greeks-made heroes when they gazed
On great Athene of the Parthenon.

But above all creation Woman stands
Sublimely consecrated by His Will
Who chose the maiden-mother of the Christ,