TAPISSERIES;" TAPESTRY OF ST. MARY'S HALL, COVENTRY;
TAPESTRY OF HAMPTON COURT.

"There is a sanctity in the past."

Bulwer.

All monuments of antiquity are so speedily passing away, all traces of
those bygone generations on which the mind loves to linger, and which
in their dim and indistinct memories exercise a spell, a holy often,
and a purifying spell on the imagination are so fleeting, and when
_irrevocably_ gone will be so lamented--that all testimonies which
throw certain light on the habits and manners of the past, how slight
soever the testimonies they afford, how trivial soever the
characteristics they display, are of the highest possible value to an
enlightened people, who apply the experience of the past to its
legitimate and noblest use, the guidance and improvement of the
present.

In this point of view the work which forms the subject of this
chapter[125] assumes a value which its intrinsic worth--beautiful as
is its execution--would not impart to it; and it is thus rendered not
less valuable as an historical record, than it is attractive as a work
of taste.

"La chez eux, (we quote from the preface to the work itself,) c'est un
siege ou un tournoi; ici un festin, plus loin une chasse; et toujours,
chasse, festin, tournoi, siege, tout cela est _pourtraict au vif_,
comme aurait dit Montaigne, tout cela nous retrace au naturel la vie
de nos peres, nous montre leurs chateaux, leurs eglises, leurs
costumes, leurs armes et meme, grace aux legendes explicatives, leur
langage a diverses epoques. Il y a mieux. Si nous nous en rapportons a
l'inventaire de Charles V., execute en 1379, toute la litterature
francaise des siecles feconds qui precederent celui de ce sage
monarque, aurait ete par ces ordres traduite en laine."

This book consists of representations of all the existing ancient
tapestries which activity and research can draw from the hiding-places
of ages, copied in the finest outline engraving, with letter-press
descriptions of each plate. They are published in numbers, and in a
style worthy of the object. We do not despair of seeing this spirited
example followed in our own country, where many a beautiful specimen
of ancient tapestry, still capable of renovation by care--is
mouldering unthought of in the lumber-rooms of our ancient mansions.

We have seen twenty-one numbers of this work, with which we shall deal
freely: excepting, however, the eight parts which are