ng back to antiquity for
inspiration. Morris associated with him the latter, who drew wondrous
figures of maids and men and angels, figures filled with the devout
spirit of the time when religion was paramount, and perfect with the
art of to-day.

The romance of _The Holy Grail_ gave happy theme for the work, and
three beautiful tapestries made the set. _The Adoration of the Magi_
was another, made for Exeter College, Oxford. Sir Edward Burne-Jones
designed all these wondrous pictures, and the wisdom of Morris
decreed that the _Grail_ series should not be oft repeated. The
first figure tapestry woven on the looms was a fancy drawn by Walter
Crane, called _The Goose Girl_.

[Illustration: TRUTH BLINDFOLDED

Merton Abbey Tapestry. Byram Shaw, Artist]

The most enchantingly mediaeval and most modernly perfect piece is by
Burne-Jones, called _David Instructing Solomon in the Building of the
Temple_. (Plate facing page 257.) In this the time of Gothic beauty
lives again. Planes are repeated, figures are massed, detail is clear
and impressive, yet modern laws of drawing concentrate the interest on
the central action as strongly as though all else were subservient.

_The Passing of Venus_ was Burne-Jones' last cartoon for Merton Abbey
looms. (Plate facing page 260.) Although a critique of the art of this
great painter would be out of place in a book on the applied arts, at
least it is allowable to express the conviction that more beautiful,
more fitting designs for tapestry it would be difficult to imagine.
Modern work of this sort has produced nothing that approaches them,
preserving as they do the sincerity and reverence of a simple people,
the ideality of a conscientious age, yet softening all technical
faults with modern finish. An unhappy fact is that this tapestry,
which was considered by the Merton Abbey works as its _chef d'oeuvre_,
was destroyed by fire in the Brussels Exhibition of 1910.

Alas for tapestry weaving of to-day, the usual modern cartoon is a
staring anachronism, and a conglomerate of modes. An "art nouveau"
lady poses in a Gothic setting, a Thayer angel stands in a Boucher
entourage, and both eye and intelligence are revolted. The master
craftsman and artist, William Morris, alone has known how to produce
acceptable modern work from modern cartoons. Other examples are
_Angeli Laudantes_, and _The Adoration_. (Plates facing pages 261 and
256.)

A false note is sometimes struck, even in this