Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/bookofamericaninOOelli ft THE BOOK OF AMERICAN INTERIORS. THE * BOOK OF American Interiors PREPARED BY CHARLES WYLLYS ELLIOTT FROM EXISTING HOUSES WITH Preliminary Essays and Letterpress Descriptions Illustrate in Jcliotype BOSTON JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. Copyright, 1875. Br JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. TO THE READER. r^-SS^j SrO ^ e cru ^ c P er f ec ti° n is easy ; to the work- JJ man it is difficult : is it not impossible ? Being workmen, we have done what we could with the material at hand. It is a matter of regret that we live in such a large country ; that the "magnificent distances" hinder us from seeing and study- ing the good examples of household art to be found in Baltimore and New Orleans and San Francisco and Chicago and Philadelphia and elsewhere. But in the progress of time we trust that these fine interiors may open their doors to us, and that we may glean a fruitful harvest. There is much to see in this new land of ours, much to study, much to enjoy ; and most fortunate it is that we have among our keen and appreciative people so many whose de- sires now lead them onward into the enchanted region where Art will beautify the commonplaces of life and make home the best. In making the sketches I have been much assisted by the firm pencil of Mr. H. M. Stephenson, an architect whose eye seizes and whose hand records the nicest points. Q TO THE READER. Something has been done to make the drawings more ap- preciable by short descriptions. But we lack the magic of color, and lose much. The artistic sense, however, will fill the gaps where we fail. What we all need is good models, — we wish to know what has been done ; for it helps us to know what we wish to do. In this collection I venture to hope that the thousands who now aim to make the inside of their houses charming will find many hints and suggestions which will be of use ; and that the revolt from the vulgar, the meretricious, and the commonplace, which have long afflicted us, will resolve itself into a social government, when, in every house, the Beautiful married to the Useful shall make life truer, finer, happier. To this end I work, and I ask your help. No one can do much, but together we may do all. CHARLES W? ELLIOTT. The Household Art Rooms, Boston, November, 1875. CONTENTS. I. Pagb THE HOME 11 II. THE DINING-ROOM .... With Illustrations ... 15 III. THE LIBRARY With Illustrations . . .47 IV. AMERICAN INTERIORS With Heliotype Illustrations 67 LIST OF INTERIORS. 1. LIBRARY. . . 2. DINING-ROOM 3. LIBRARY . . 4. LIBRARY. . . 5. DINING-ROOM 6. DINING-ROOM 7. GREAT HALL. 8. LIBRARY . . . 9. DINING-ROOM 10. CHINA-ROOM . 11. LIBRARY. . . Henry W. Longfellow, Cambridge, Mass. Dr. James R. Chad wick, Boston, Mass. Donald G. Mitchell, West Haven, Conn. Dr. Theo. F. Breck,. . Springfield, Mass. Dr. Theo. F. Breck, . . Springfield, Mass. Architects'or Designees, to face Page (House of the time preceding the American 69 Revolution.) . Messrs. Weston and Rand . 73 Donald G. Mitchell Charles Wyllts Elliott 77 81 Charles Wyllys Elliott . . 85 George Ward Nichols, 87 Cincinnati, 0. Major J. L. Rathbone, Memlo Park, Cal. 89 George B. Chase, Messrs. Ware and Van Brunt 91 Boston, Mass. J. V. L. Prttyn, Albany, N. Y. Mrs. Pruyn 97 99 J. V. L. Pruyn Mrs. Prdyn Albany, N. Y. William Cullen Bryant, 103 Roslyn, Long Island. 12. STUDY Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass. Charles Wyllys Elliott. . 107 13. DINING-ROOM James Lee, Jr. Boston, Mass. Messrs. Emerson and Fehmer 109 X LIST OF INTERIORS. 14. DRAWING-ROOM Prof. Fairman Rogers, Newport, R. I. Messrs. Furness and Hewitt ; Messrs. Hazard .113 15. LIBRARY 16. DINING-ROOM John A. Burn ham, Jr., . Boston, Mass. John A. Burnham, Jr., . Boston, Mass. Charles Wyllys Elliott. . .115 Charles Wyllys Elliott. . .117 17. DINING-ROOM George James Messrs. Sturgis and Brigham . 119 Nahant, Mass. 18. HALL Charles S. Sargent, . Brookline, Mass. Messrs. Sturgis and Brigham . 123 19. DINING-ROOM Charles A. Cummings, . . Messrs. Cummings and Sears . 125 Boston, Mass. 20. DINING-ROOM George W. Wales, Boston, Mass. Mr. and Mrs. Wales 127 21. HALL Francis Peabody, Danvers, Mass. 22. MEMORIAL HALL Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass. (Time preceding the American Revolution. ) 129 Messrs. Ware and Van Brunt . 131 HE HOME. THE HOME. Y belief is that nothing will make man or woman better, or well, or even safe, except their own home. We have tried all sorts of panaceas, — free-trade, free-press, free-schools, free and ignorant suffrage: they avail not. Vice, crime, folly, and discontent riot abroad. Whenever a man's home becomes to him the most attractive place on earth, he will not leave it to seek either the grog-shop, the gambling-room, or the "ring." Whenever a woman's house shall be her palace, her pride, her delight, she will not be a victim of ennui, or vanity, or ambition, or discontent. Who doubts this? None, — not one. For all, rich and poor alike, this is true. When we believe it and practise it, civilized life will become a satisfaction, and happi- ness in some degree will seem possible on earth. THE DINING-ROOM. ILLUSTRATIONS. Fro. Page 1. OLD ENGLISH HALL 22 2. OLD ITALIAN DINNER-TABLE 29 3. EAELY ITALIAN KITCHEN 33 4. BOUEGEOIS AT DINNEE 34 5. THE SWINE-KEEPEE 34 6. AN OLD KITCHEN 35 7. 8. EAELY ENGLISH KITCHENS 35 9-12. EAELY ENGLISH CHAIES 37,38 13, 14. ANTIQUE SETTLES 39 15. GEEAT CHEST 40 16. VENETIAN CHAIE 41 17. CHAIE OF CROMWELL'S TIME 43 18. GOVEENOE CAEVEE'S CHAIE 45 I THE DINING-EOOM. ^'^Sfe^Kj'N all ages men have lived who, in glorifying the soul, t contemned and despised the body. It has been a fatal mistake, as fatal as to contemn and despise the soul while magnifying the bod}'. Let us do neither : let us s»2jk& now help to restore the body, so that it shall be what St. Paul called it, a " temple of the Holy Spirit." It is the first and greatest duty of all men and women to be well, that so they may become beautiful ; for so were Adam and Eve. So we cannot be, nor our children after us, if we are feeble and hideous. Such our children will be if we are in that likeness. And what a legacy to give them, weakness instead of strength, despondency in place of hope, ugliness instead of beauty ! What wretched man or woman will do this ? To insure good health, fine strength, and gracious beauty, we must eat well and drink well, and we must teach our children to do like- wise. Dyspepsia now rides riotous ; tobacco and whiskey attack all nerves ; candy and cake are the food of children ; health, strength, and beauty fly away in disgust. What results ? Despondency, irritability, incompatibility between the sexes, wretchedness, hope- lessness, cowardice. Who admires this picture? In view of these things, we cannot err if we glorify the dining- room, and the food we eat in it. Let us do so. The history of the dinner may be made the history of man ; for all life centres there, though I will not here write such a history. 20 THE DINING-ROOM. We are wise, — possibly % But were not those ancients we affect to despise also wise, — wiser % Listen to what Herodotus said about those Egyptians whom we seem to know as persecutors of the He- brews : — " The Egyptians are, I believe, next to the Lybians, the healthiest people in the world They are persuaded that every disease to which men are liable is caused by the substances whereon they feed (mark that !) They live on bread made of spelt Their drink is beer made from barley Many fish they eat raw, either salted, or dried in the sun. Quails, also ducks and small birds, they eat uncooked, merely first salting them. All other birds and fishes, excepting those set apart as sacred, are eaten either roasted or boiled." No care for the body was too great. It was the home of the spirit, and thus sacred. Hence came the custom of embalming the body, that it might be free from corruption, ready for the repossession of the soul. Those old heathens may teach even us ! We well know that the arts of living had reached great excellence with the ancients, — among the Persians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks. European na- tions seem not to have learned much from them ; and especially the Germanic races, from which Ave come. These grew up out of barbarism and brutality in their own way, slowly, through the cen- turies ; until the dining-room has become with us what our illustra- trations show it to be. Good taste and good sense are now combined to make our homes what they should be and may be, fit tabernacles for the souls and bodies of men. I say souls advisedly; for no home and no room is or can be what it ought to be, unless it satisfies the soul, or that part of it we call the aesthetic sense. Whoever is content with a merely soft seat, and anything sufficient to fill his belly, is but a little above the brute. The chair must be made with fine lines, and a keen perception of the beautiful ; the meat must be delicately cooked, and served on THE DINING-ROOM. 21 porcelaine or faience, which is moulded and decorated by an artist, or we will not be content ; we shall not have done our best. The examples we give will help towards this end : if not perfect in them- selves, they are on that road, and point the way to perfection. These interiors are not fancy pictures, but are in real use, and have grown out of that demand for the good, the true, and the beautiful which, in the way of household art, marks the present time. We cannot in these pages give an elaborate account of the ways and doings of our ancestors, — how the dining-room has grown up — but a short sketch may be interesting to many. Far back among our Saxon ancestors in England we find that the houses were mostly of wood, and of one story. Furniture was of the rudest kinds, for Art had not awakened. A few benches and boards sufficed for the dining-room. Cooking was often done in the open air, before huge fires, where the wolf, the boar, and the wild ox were roasted whole. At their feasts was plenty, profusion, but not taste. Drinking is the excitement of all coarse lives, and in the "Saxon and all the Northern races the feast ran into riot and ended in drunkenness. After the Norman conquest the stone castle became the leading fact of English feudal life. This castle, however, was in no sense a home, — such did not then exist ; the castle was for defence, a fortress ; and social life was conformed to it. Around the castle gathered the followers, the dependants, the serfs of the baron. In the castle they found shelter, and upon the lord they depended ; the lands and houses and crops were his, and these were dispensed by him according to his pleasure or his wisdom. Up to this time, then, no such thing as domestic life or household art could be said to exist in England. Architecture, however, found expression both upon the exteriors and the interiors, but mostly upon the former, of those fine old structures, — some of which still stand, monuments to mark the growth of English society. The great hall was the principal room of all the baronial 22 THE BINING-R OM. houses both in England and France. In this hall were held the banquets, the dances, the mimes, the festivals ; and here the lord dined at the head of great tables along which sat his fighting men, and oftentimes the serfs or workmen of the surrounding lands. We give here a representation of one of these halls filled with guests, Fig. 1. •-r J.iLSc from an old manuscript, as given by Hudson Turner. It shows the dais upon which sit the lords and ladies ; at the end is seen the plate cupboard or sideboard; on the other side are the minstrels in their gallery; and on the floor among the guests, a conspicuous person, is seen the jester, or fool. From a French book, printed in 1732,* we learn something of the * Les Contes et Discours d'Eutrapol. Par Noel du Fail. 1732. THE DINING-ROOM. 23 furnishings of a later period, as well as the manners of the hall or great room in France, — not unlike what prevailed in England : — "There Avere stag's antlers for hanging the hats and caps upon, and to which were attached the hunting-horns and the coupling- cords of the dogs, as also the rosaries for the use of the common people. Upon the 1 dresser,' or sideboard, was placed the translation of the Bible as authorized by Charles V., of France, a hundred years previously, besides various 'romance' books of the period. Behind the great door were the pegs to hang the game upon. Upon the boarding at the end of the hall and over the chimney were hung weapons both offensive and defensive, while on one side were the nets and other instruments connected with hunting. It is curious to notice, too, that beneath the large bench, which was three feet wide, was strewed fresh straw for the hounds to lie upon, that they might be close to their master; while for strangers and guests two good chambers were provided in addition, and in the fireplace layers of green and dry fagots, by which arrangement the fire burned more slowly." In the middle of the hall great fires diffused a tempered heat, and the smoke found its way through openings in the roof called louvres. The food included the flesh of the horse as well as other animals, bread, sour fruits, butter and cheese, a few vegetables, among which are mentioned pease, beans, and kale. Cabbages and onions were sometimes brought from Holland, and were a luxury. Whales and porpoises were eaten and were sought for. Down to the time of Queen Elizabeth, porpoise-flesh is included in the purchases for her table. With the Crusaders came from the East sugar and some spices, such as cinnamon and frankincense ; but prices were high ; in the thirteenth century sugar sold for as much as thirty shillings of pres- ent money a pound. It was a peculiarity of the early time that the nobles dined early, the meaner people later ; as, for example, in Queen Elizabeth's time the gentry dined at eleven, the merchants at twelve o'clock, — quite the opposite of to-day. Dinner and supper were the two meals of the day. 24 THE DINING-ROOM. 11 In the fourteenth century the usual time of dining- was ten or eleven. When the king of France arrived at Airaines in pursuit of Edward the Third it was noon, but he found that the king of England had quitted the place about ten o'clock that morning. The French found there provisions of all sorts, meat on the spits, bread and pastry in the ovens, wine in barrels, and even some tables ready spread for dinner ; for the English had left in great haste. When the king of France entertained Richard II. on his marriage, the guests arrived at eleven o'clock, and they found the tables already spread for dinner. Our ancestors seldom partook of more than two meals a day, dinner and supper ; the hour at which they supped was five in the afternoon. "This had long been the accustomed time for the evening meal. When Richard II. went to arrest the Duke of Gloster at Pleshy Castle, he arrived at about five o'clock. The Duke had already supped, for he was very temperate in his diet, and never sat long at dinner or supper. The table was covered with a white cloth. In Richard Cceur de Lion we read, 'Whenne they hackle eten the cloth was folde.' And again, 'After mete the cloth was drawe.' In Syr Eglamour we are told that 'Ryche metys forth they brodcte, The raynyish wyn forgat they nogt, Whyte clothes sone they spradde.' But the tablecloths were sometimes of silk. In the romance of Rich- ard Cceur de Lion we read that on the dining-table 'Clothe of sylk thereon was sprad.'" * In the construction and arrangement of the " dressoir," or buffet, we see some beginnings of art, but very rude. Silver cups were used, and spoons were made of bone, wood, and silver. Dishes were of wood (tre) and of pewter. Guests often brought their own knives. Forks are mentioned as early as the eleventh century, but were not much in use until the sixteenth. The fingers were used in * Turner's Domestic Architecture. THE DINING-ROOM. 25 their place ; and at first the fork was looked upon as a piece of affectation and foppery. The knight and the lady ate with their fingers from the same plate, and drank healths from the same cup. This was rude, but friendly. In an inventory of the college at Bishop's Auckland, we find : — I. almery (cupboard). I. borde with trests (trestles). I. choppyng knyfe. I. ymage of o r Ladye. III. mete bords, remouable. III. paire tresles. IIII. formys (forms). I. cobbord. I. hangyng of grene say (serge). III. old latyne basyngs. II. ewers to ye same. X. old standis of tre (wood). The almery took its name from the cupboard, where was stored the remains of the feast, which Avere to be given away as alms for the poor. The salt-cellar was an important article for the table. We find one described as early as 1380 as made in the shape of a dog. Castles, wagons, and other devices were used. The salt was often taken from it with ceremony, by throwing a pinch over the left shoulder, or by saying a small blessing. " Below the salt," has come to be a proverb. It grew out of the fact that below the place on the table where the great salt-cellar stood the guests were common or mean ; above, noble. Many such customs prevailed which we cannot enumerate. Splendor prevailed at an early date, before the home existed ; but Art had little to do at that time. Turner thus describes some of the decorations : — "The interior was richly decorated, even when the building itself was poor. When Cardinal Beaufort, who was sent as ambassador to 26 THE DIA T WG-liOOM. make peace with France in 1439, arrived in the marshes of Calais, there was a handsome hall erected there, upwards of a hundred feet in length, and made to accommodate three hundred persons at table. It contained at the north end all necessary offices, — a pantry, but- tery, wine and other cellars, and two chambers, and at the south end a passage led into the kitchen. The hall was beautifully hung with crimson tapestry. A short distance from the cardinal's was the hall of the Duchess of Burgundy, which was built of old rotten timber, and covered with dirty sails, but the interior was richly adorned with arras. " Edward IV. in 1480 bought of Piers de Vraulx, of Gascoigne, stuffs to the amount of £238 15 s. Gel, a sum which, when compared with its value in modern currency, appears enormous. Henry VII., however, exceeded him in his taste for such ornaments. We may take as examples three entries from the wardrobe accounts of that monarch : — £ s. d. ' To a merchant of Flanders for 52 elles of arras, . . 2G5 6 8 For a cloth of estate 47 yerds di xili. the yerd, . . 522 10 To Lewas de ffava for a pece of gold and vii peces of baudekyn, . 28G 9 0' These sums in the aggregate would be equivalent to about £ 12,000 of our present currency. " Towards the close of the fifteenth century tapestry began to be disused, and its place supplied by wainscoting or stamped leather. Wainscot of the time of Henry VIII. may generally be distinguished by the pattern called the "linen panel," being an exact imitation of the folds of a linen napkin, sometimes with a representation of the fringe, as in the abbot's house at Beaulieu, Hampshire." Their feasts, too, were lavish, and rich with a sort of barbaric splendor : — " The magnificence of the feasts of this period is a subject upon which the old chroniclers loved to dilate. The banquets of the four- teenth century were pageants, and the description of them, read in the pages of history, like passages from fairy-tales. We may form some idea of the vast scale upon which they were conducted, from the fact, that at the feast of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, son of Edward III., thirty courses were included in the bill of fare. These enter- THE DINING-ROOM. 27 tainments were sometimes kept up until a late hour, and were fol- lowed by masks and minstrelsy. The details of the dining-table are interesting-. The trestles being- brought forward and the boards arranged, the whole was covered with an ample cloth. The platters were usually of pewter, and, in houses of a second class, of wood ; these were sometimes square in shape. The display of plate was often extensive, and indicated the increase of national wealth. Silver dishes, cups, and salt-cellars, wrought in curious devices, glistened upon the board, and the taste displayed in the manufacture of these articles of plate was sometimes both chaste and elegant. We have in existence some of the choicest specimens of workmanship ranging through the mediaeval period, which sufficiently testify that in the working of metals the ingenuity and skill of the artisans of bygone days was far from contemptible. The nobles prided themselves upon their gold and silver vessels, and made many sacrifices to obtain them. The exchequer might be empty, but they dined off gold and silver. The author of a song, written in the time of Edward II., hints that it would have been better for them to have eaten out of wooden vessels and have paid for their provisions with silver, than to eat off silver and pay for their provisions -with wooden tallies : — ' Si 1c roy freyt moun consail, tunc vellem laudare, D'argent prendre le vetsel monctamque parare ; Mien valdriet tie fust manger pro victu nununasdare Qe d'argent le cois servyr, et legnum pacare, Est victii signnm pro victu solvere legnum.' Our forefathers had always an eye to the 'disport' of the hall, and even in the furniture of the table grotesque forms were much in vogue as auxiliaries to mirth. The huge salt-cellar was the chief ornament of the board; it was exerted to render it ornamental and grotesque. It formed a conspicuous object on the table before or on the right hand of the master of the house. It appears in various shapes : sometimes as a covered cup on a narrow stem : occasionally in a castellated form ; and at the caprice of the owner or maker it frequently took the form of a dog, a stag, or some other favorite animal. Edmund, Earl of March, in 1380, left to his son and daugh- ter each a silver salt in the shape of a dog. Sometimes they were wrought in the form of a chariot, with four wheels, by which they could be passed down the table with ease. Salt-cellars of this form are frequently introduced into the illuminations of this period. The 28 THE DINING-ROOM. annexed cut represents a large silver salt of tlie seventeenth century, preserved among- the plate at Winchester College ; although of comparatively recent date, there is every reason to believe it was fashioned after a more ancient type. The three projections on the upper rim seem to have been intended for the support of a cover, perhaps a napkin, as it was considered desirable to keep the cover clear of the salt itself: 'loke that your salte seller lydde touche not the salte,' saith the ' Boke of Kerry nge.' It appears from numerous allusions to the fact, that the state salt was used by the sovereign or entertainer only; and it is not unlikely, from the great number of salts mentioned in old inventories, that when possible, each guest had also one for his particular use. It is not easy to understand how any, one at the upper or cross table could be seated ' below the salt,' as it was not customary to sit at the lower end of that board, which was left unoccupied for the more convenient access of servants. The probability is, therefore, that this phrase, and the distinction it in- ferred, applied only when the company sat on both sides of a long table, where the position of a large salt marked the boundary of the seats of honor, or what may be termed the dais of the board." " Froissart, in his admirable Chronicles, gives us a description of the feast given on the arrival of Queen Isabella into Paris ; he says that, after washing their hands, the king and queen and all the court entered the hall ; you must know, he continues, that the great table of marble which is in this hall, and is never removed, was covered with an oaken plank four inches thick, and the royal dinner placed thereon ; near the table, and against one of the pillars, was the king's buffet, magnificently decked out with gold and silver plate, and much envied by many who saw it. Before the king's table, and at some distance, were wooden bars with three entrances, at which were sergeant-at-arms, ushers, and archers, to prevent any from passing through but those who served the table ; for in truth the crowd was so very great that there was no entering but with great difficulty. There were plenty of minstrels who played away to the best of their abilities." THE DINING-ROOM. 29 A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST. We are able to present a rude but picturesque sketch of a dinner- table taken from an Italian work by one Christoforo de Messisburgo, Fro. 2. which has been saved for us by one of those indefatigable French- men.* It can hardly fail to interest. * Mobots, Usages, et Costumes au Moyen Age. Par Paul Lacroix. 30 THE DINING-ROOM. The period is about 1540. The print shows the lord, the lady, and the guest seated at the end of the table ; and it seems odd to us, but nearly all the pictures of this early time represent them, as in this picture, seated, and wearing their hats or bonnets, decorated with plumes, etc. On either side are seated what seem to be officers of the household, Avhile at the lower end are placed the retainers and fighters of the house. The dinner is nearly over, and the indications all point to a free, if not an easy style of manners ; for musicians, cats, dogs, all seem not to be filled with aAve in presence of grandeur, or to be specially on their good behavior. It is a serious question whether the relation between master and man, the upper and the lower, is not much worse now than then. The pursuits of life brought them together, and they were not divided by a deep and impassable gulf in their pleasures and ways of living. It will be noticed that the benches are rude, and that the table is covered with a cloth. What they ate seems not to have been unworthy of the gourmand of to-day; here is something of the variety named : " Patt's of young chickens, of fresh venison, of veal, of eels, of bream, of salmon, of rabbits, of pigeons, of small birds, of giblets, of a mixture of cods' livers and fish chopped, not forgetting small pates made of beef hashed with dried raisins," etc., etc. Eoasts and ragouts were many, and a treatise of the fourteenth century enumerates thirty distinct dishes at a feast, beginning with beef, and closing with a swan cooked and reclothed with its skin and feathers complete. But the eating was undoubtedly more deli- cate in Italy and France at this period than in England, as it is to- day. They knew well the meaning of entremets, dorures, desserts; the ordinary dessert they say {"ordinary!") was made up with "baked pears, medlars, peeled nuts, figs, dates, peaches, grapes, filberts, white and red sugar-plums, etc, etc." The value of garlic in their meats was appreciated, as it is not with us; not that they made THE DINING-ROOM. 31 their dishes reek with it, as doubtless Mistress Bridget would make ours; no, they knew what a delightful zest a " suspicion" of it will give to any palate. It is doubted by many whether they did not dine better in the fifteenth century in Paris than they do to-day in the nineteenth. Kead this : — "Dining out in Paris. — Very few people, when they take it into their heads to give a dinner, consider what they are about to impose on their fellow-creatures. The great object, with the Amphitryon, is to exhibit his silver-plate, his furniture, his wife's clothes. We don't refer to those absurd dinners where you eat vol-au-vents, dubious turbots, strange game, and queer truffles ; where the lady of the house arranges for dessert an endless file of seedy bonbons and chalky biscuits. That sort of affair is a regular take-in, — one of Paul de Rock's scenes, as disagreeable as it is ridiculous. We allude to the usual dinner-party, which is simply bad without being absurd, — ' the correct thing,' so styled because it is served by two rascals in livery, commanded by another big rascal in black called a nf&itre (V hotel. This head devil is altogether insufferable. The two others are content to soil and grease the coats and dresses of the company. But the large man carves so as to leave all the best bits for down- stairs. The fellow should be made to hand round his dishful of mauled pieces ; instead of which he picks out and puts on your plate fish- bones, rags, scraps, odd morsels, two asparaguses, and twelve peas. This kind of waiting is unsatisfactory, because you are at the mercy of a man whose interest it is to withhold wings and inflict drumsticks. Every guest ought to help himself, as to choice and quantity, from whatever dish is set before him. The chief drawback to dining out is its everlasting sameness, as to the things to eat and the way they are served. You may go to a hundred dinners exactly like the first: after a pale broth, with certain floating ornaments in it, ' Sherry, sir, pale or brown ? ' says the perfectly serious rascal, and pours you out the mixture of cheap brandy, burned sugar, and sweet spirits of nitre. 1 Chateau Yquem, '47 ? ' says another droll dog. ' Turbot, lobster sauce or caper sauce ? ' Just so : then filet de hazuf with mushrooms, of course, says the veteran of a hundred feasts. 32 THE DINING-ROOM. You get reckless, and taste of everything, but you are hungry when you get through, and would be glad of some beef-tea. On the whole, dinners are bad and unwholesome, partly because no one, nowadays, keeps a stock of wine, but sends out and buys for the occasion ; as some scholars and speakers get up classical allusions and authorities for the display of the moment. Again, the motive and purpose of dinners is not clear. If it be to show polite attention, it is a failure, when the dinner is not a good one. If it be the gratification of palate and apjoetite, then it means business, and all gourmands and judges of wine will agree that the first thing to do is to do without the ladies. Ladies come late and dishes are spoiled by the delay. They take up no end of place, and get their skirts under your chair./ They don't eat, and men are ashamed to devour beside them, and the servants profit by the general indifference to get off the legs and arms and carcasses (with two asparaguses). Then also ladies are apt to sit too long at dessert, encouraging its senseless profusion, and they frown upon the cigar. It ought to be settled squarely and be understood that a dinner shall be either what we may call a mob-dinner, with $ 200 of roses, nothing solid to eat, elaborate dessert, ices modelled and painted, fruits fresh and dried, etc., etc., liqjuors ; or, a practical dinner, good wine (no Madeira, which no longer grows), no swell-dishes, no flowers, no balderdash. This is, however, Utopian. Bad dinners will prevail, and so bad and so many of them, that the host ought to send the day after to inquire after the guests he has tried to poison." * We have spoken of the food that was eaten. The " drynkinge" was ample ; beer prevailed from a very early time, and was drunk by hogsheads. Every great house had its brewery. Wines, if made in England, were boiled and sweetened and spiced. Better wines afterward came in from Spain and France. Glass drinking-cups were brought from Venice in the sixteenth century, and Henry VIII. is reported to have had a great store in his "cubbords." Porcelain, as we know, was brought from China by the Portuguese early in the sixteenth century, but was costly and rare for a long period. * From "Parasine," by Nestor Roqueplast. Hetzel & Cie., Paris. THE DINING-11003L 33 In the year 1591 Queen Elizabeth used at her banquet a thousand dishes of glass and silver. In those early days the cook was often an artist as well as a man of quality. God grant that noblemen may become cooks Fig. 3. again ! The brother of Cardinal Otho, as we read, was his cook. The highest nobles, if not cooks, served the dishes for the king and his guests. But hard work is more disreputable now than then. The kitchen, here reproduced from an old Italian drawing, 34 THE DINING-ROOM. shows in some degree how the abundance was cooked. The fire, it seems, was built on the stone floor in the centre of the room, over which the great stew-pan held its seething treasures; while on the sides of the fire the busy spits prepared their delicious foods. The chief cook, wearing his bonnet graced with a sprig of some aromatic flavor, glorifies his office in the midst of his assistants. Of one thing we may be sure, that meats cooked in the free air before the blazing wood were better than the baked meats we noAv eat and are obliged to eat, smothered in the close air of the closed oven. But the "lower classes," of course, did not then live in that way. Do they now, when progress has almost deified mankind? We Fig. 4. Fig. 5. give from the same work the print of the plain bourgeois or busi- ness man taking his solitary meal ; most likely a simple one, but we may hope a well-cooked one. Indeed, when we read that in the sixteenth century the corporation of pastry-cooks was in France a very important body, with coats of arms and seals and officers, and that they produced "many kinds of tarts, and pies of meat to be eaten hot or cold," we may conclude that the bourgeois were not ill-fed. The companion print shows the swine-keeper and his pigs, which in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had come to be an important article of food. THE DINING-ROOM. 35 The interior of kitchen (Fig. 6) shows a good fire blazing on the hearth, which is well supplied with pots, pans, and roasters. The cooks, too, appear to be in good condition, and not overworked. Fig. 6. An old manuscript in the Bodleian Library shows these slight sketches of English kitchens, which are very simple. Fig. 7. Fig. 8. 36 THE DINING-ROOM. From a house near Boston, England, the following' inventory was taken: — "In the Kechyn. — A hen-cage with a shelfe withyn. 2 tubs. 2 sowes (large tubs). A great boll and a lesser boll. A hogs-hed to put in salt. A market maunde (basket) with a coveringe. 12 brass pots. Kettles &c. weighynge together 167 lbs. A great yron spyt weighynge 14 lbs. A payre of cobbards of yron weighynge 23 lbs. Other spytts, droppyng-pans, frynge-pans, brandreths &c. weighinge 86 lbs." The furniture and food of the peasantry during the mediaeval period was common and coarse ; a cupboard, a few benches, and some wooden trenchers supplied their needs. Art had not shone upon them ; and we may ask, Has it even now shone upon the Fall River operative? Among the New England farmers it has shed its light, and in many a farm-house may be found tasteful, if simple rooms. We quote a dismal and highly colored picture of the homes of the peasants about the year 1400: — "The houses of the peasantry were hovels of poverty and filth, and the villages were mere clusters of mud-built huts covered with reeds and straw." (Bad as this was, is the condition of the opera- tives of Glasgow and Manchester better ? ) " Although chairs and buffet-stools were, during this period (four- teenth century), in a more general use, and were often very beau- tifully decorated witli needle-work, benches and forms were still the seats in the hall. "The tables were of the rudest make. The poets of the age, faithful in their delineations, describe them as mere 'hordes' and trestles. "The high table at which the lord sat was movable, but the side-tables were generally fixtures of coarse materials and work- manship, and made by carpenters; these were the tables 'dor- mant.' Lydgate writes : — 'Eke in the halle it was cournable, On ech party was a dormant table.' Even as late as the reign of Henry VIII., the great halls in the * THE DINING-ROOM. 37 palaces of that monarcli contained little else but ' tables dorrnaunte ' and ' fformes dorniaunte.' " * No serious innovation took place, however, until the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the introduction of the banqueting- room, or dining-parlor, led the upper classes gradually to abandon the custom of eating with their retainers in the hall ; and we find Fig. 10. an allusion to it in the Ordinances of Eltham, made in 1526, where it is stated that " sundrie noblemen and gentlemen and others doe muche delighte and use to dyne in corners and secret places, not repayring to the kinges chamber or hall." This change is evident by the fact that few domestic buildings were without dining-rooms entirely detached from the hall. In the accounts of the Surveyor- * Turner's " Domestic Architecture, Fourteenth Century." 38 THE DINING-ROOM. General to Henry VIII., before referred to, we find a statement of the repairs done to the "kynges dynyng chamber," and also to the " quenys dynyng chamber," at the manor of Greenwich. After the fifteenth century, the "great dining-hall" gradually declined in importance, as the lord's habit of dining in common Fig. 12. with his retainers and servants went out of fashion. A more exclusive feeling began to prevail, and much to the disgust of the old-time people ; for growing out of this change the widespread and beautiful habit of hospitality was gradually abandoned. Up to this period the custom in all great houses was to receive the stranger and traveller freely. Inns and hostelries now sprang up, THE dining-room. Fig. 13. Fig. 14. 40 THE DINING-ROOM. and the benches of the common dining-room in the great houses were abandoned, first by the master and then by the chance guests. Merchants began to get rich, and the more strenuous ways of mod- ern life began to rule society ; until, indeed, hospitality has faded away among the lost arts. But little furniture existed before the time of the Tudors, most of the seats being benches. Still, from an early day, state chairs had been built, with some attempts at style and art. We give here a few examples of these ; but they are stiff, uncomfortable, and hardly rise to the first step of art. The settle, table, and money-box (Fig. 14), from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library, show better examples, and, though far from perfect, indicate the desire to express fineness of form and beauty of combination in the useful articles of life. We read how, in France, " The Duchess of Orleans bought of Johan de Troies a chair for her chamber, the four legs of which were painted vermilion, with a cover on which were depicted dogs and birds and other devices, garnished with a fringe of soy." Fig. 15. The great standing chest, or "standard," stood in the great halls; these were often elaborately carved, and many brought from Venice were painted with scenes in gay colors. Fig. 15 is a print of one from Rockingham Castle ; these, however, varied much in form and decoration. THE DINING-ROOM. 41 During the time of Henry VIII. society had become less war- like, less predatory, and the castle was giving way to the mansion. With peace and security the arts asserted themselves. The forms and styles of the Italian Renaissance had penetrated to England, and a style of architecture and decoration grew up there suited to its domestic life, which we now know as the Tudor Gothic. An excellent example of this style, refined and elaborated, may be seen in Mr. Van Brunt's design for Mr. Chase's library, shown in our pages. The chairs of the Tudor period were often supplied with cushions Fig. 16. of velvet. Chairs, too, were brought from Venice, and were some- times enriched with gilding. Fig. 16. By this time, too, the parlor, or "talking-room," had appeared in the houses of the noble and the rich, which was a resort for 42 THE DINING ROOM. dames and squires when the dinner had advanced beyond prudent bounds. The banquet in Henry VIII.'s time grew to be most luxurious and elaborate. The dinner was not only extravagant with rare and costly dishes, fruits, and wines, but was varied with mummings and maskings. The table was a fairy scene, and glittered with gold and silver. But down to this period the floors were strewn with rushes. Carpets had appeared from Spain, but they were small and costly, and were reserved for the parlor or the lady's chamber. The tables now were massive, and the legs were richly carved. Earthenware from Italy and from Delft came to England and was sought for. But the "trencher" of wood was still in use. These were often painted with a line or verse of poety. "Polishing the trencher" is a phrase still in use. The court cupboard was elaborately carved, and was used to display the stores of plate and glass. Ladies still attended to many household arts ; the making of pre- serves was still practised by them ; bread, too, was not unworthy their lovely fingers ; and to learn to use starch well was a lady's pleasure. Books were now in use, and were no longer chained to the board for safety. The accession of the Stuarts found England at peace, and prosperous. Commerce was widespread, and all things of use and luxury came to England. Art was more and more diffused in the households, not only of the rich and noble, but of the middle and the humbler classes. Chairs at this time came from Spain as well as from Venice ; and many of these Spanish chairs Avere covered with black ox- hide richly embossed, and studded with brass nails. Wooden seats also were made in England of many kinds and with more or less carving. The one here given dates back to the Cromwellian j^eriod ; it is of oak, and rudely but effectively cut. It is in the possession of Edward Hooper, Esq., of Cambridge. Fig. 17. THE DINING-ROOM. 43 Fig. 17. Coffee was added to the drinks of England by a Greek named Canopins in 1637. Twenty years later coffee-houses dispensed the drink in the streets of London. Tea was introduced about the middle of the seventeenth century, and was sold in 1657 at fifty shilling's a pound. "I did send," says Pepys, in 1661, "for a cup of tea, a China drink, of which I never had drunk before." The tea-services which now came into use were of Oriental porce- lain, which were brought into Europe by the Dutch. But Gothic richness and quaintness were doomed to banishment in the reigns of the Stuarts. The queen, Henrietta Maria, was a Frenchwoman, and with her came French fashions and French furniture, for which France was then famous. Following her time came the bad but attractive 44 THE DINING-ROOM. styles of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., which since that day have dominated all others in England. To-day war is declared against them, and they, too, are doomed to disappear before a purer and a better taste. The awakening of a desire for better things in household art is most marked in England to-day, and is being felt with us. Com- mencing some fifteen or twenty years ago with a love for quaint- ness and antiquity, it has developed into a widespread love for, and perception of, the true and the beautiful in the house. The dining-rooms collected in this volume are worthy attention, and will repay it. We have done well, and we may do better, whenever our people begin to see the difference between the bad and the best. A few already do. Artists and men of leisure are apply- ing taste and knowledge to this most beautiful and useful art, — household decoration. We have one rock ahead which may wreck society and the home, — the cook. This gets from bad to worse, and we may yet be forced to adopt the "heathen Chinee," or to go into a co-operative system of life, to enable us to get an eatable dinner at all. There is danger ! In the early days of our American history food was largely the prize of the bow, the spear, and the hook. Meat at first was the wild game of the woods, and the bays and creeks abounded with fish. " Fat hogs, kids, venison, poultry, geese, partridges," are men- tioned, and it is told also how three boys " brought in a bushel of eels and sixty great lobsters." Governor Winthrop, in one of his letters, enumerates the following articles of food : " Meat, Peas, Oat- meal, Malt, Beef, Prunes, and Aquavitae." The woods, too, abounded with wild fruits, such as the huckleberry, blackberry, strawberry, etc. Our Puritan ancestors were too busy in trying to win a living upon this hard New England coast, and too earnest in saving souls, to know or care much about art. Their furniture was rude, and attempted only the useful. We give here a drawing of Governor Carver's THE DINING-ROOM. 45 chair, now in the Museum at Plymouth, which shows what they had in those days. It is true that some few articles of better workman- ship, which had, too, the charm of art, were brought from England, and are still • found in the best of our old houses. One of the most noticeable chairs in the possession of Francis Peabody, Esq., of Dan- vers, is fine in form, and is handsomely carved. Tradition says it is Fig. 18. the chair upon which sat the judge who condemned the witches din - ing the Salem frenzy. In New England the three meals were partaken of at sunrise, mid- day, and sunset ; and at nine o'clock the bell or curfew was a notice that the hour for sleep had come. 46 THE DINING-ROOM. The simplicity of life has gone from New England, but the variety of food has vastly enlarged. Elegant people now dine in the even- ing, and the easy and delightful old hospitality of the tea-table is out of fashion ; indeed, all but formal hospitality has departed. Will it ever return \ At the period of the American Revolution much good work was done, and chairs, tables, etc., of mahogany, that fine old wood, were brought from England into Boston, Charleston, and Richmond; some of which still survive in the claw-footed chairs of George III.'s time, and are much prized. In an inventory of the household goods of the Rev. John Eliot, Jr., of Cambridge, taken in 1GG8, the following articles are mentioned: — " In the Hall. — 6 leather chairs, at £ 1 4s. ,6 d. ; long table, a forme, and 3 joyned stools, at £ 1 10 s.; 4 turned chairs, 2 great and 2 small ; 1 pair of andirons with brass knobs ; 1 still ; and a bottom of lead. " In Plate, viz. — One tankard, at £6; nine spoons, £4 16 s. ; a beer-cup, and a dram-cup, £2 12 s.; a wine-cup, 8s. Sd. ; a tobacco- box and a pair of tongs, £ 1 s. 6 (L, in all £ 14 7 s. A watch, £ 2." The plate indicates a household much above the average. New England was poor, and but little luxury existed ; but it is a curious sign of the times, that in this clergyman's house a "still" was kept, and that the plate was in great part a tankard and three drinking- cups. THE LIBRARY. ILLUSTRATIONS. Fig. Page 1. UNROLLED PAPYKUS MANUSCRIPTS 53 2. PLAN OF MEMNONIUM 54 3. BOX OF MANUSCRIPTS 55 4. INITIAL LETTER 57 5. BIBLE CHAINED TO THE DESK 59 6. CHAINED BOOK-CASE AT HERTFORD GO 7. CHAINED BOOK 61 8-10. OLD READING-DESKS 61 11. THE APOSTLE ELIOT'S CUPBOARD 64 THE LIBRARY. wrt?V$^£/M^ HEN we remember that a thousand years ago it ■ wwHp^ took the old monks seven years of hard work to \-»r*^* n/'/tt make a copy of the Bible, of which now one society ^'TaM^^^^ alone sends out a hundred thousand copies in a year, we can but be lost in amazement at the strange things which the art of man has devised and achieved. Books and libraries are to us such a matter of course, that we forget all that has been done before us. Public libraries have now reached fearful proportions ; we do not refer to those of London and Paris, but in this new country we find in — The Library of Congress already, pamphlets, 50,000 ; books, 280,000. The Public Library of Boston has 288,000 volumes. The Astor Library of New York, mostly valuable books, has grown since 1850 from 20,000 volumes to over 150,000 ; an increase of more than seven fold in twenty-five years. At the same rate of increase in the next twenty-five years, it will contain about 1,000,000 volumes; and within the next one hundred years, an impossible figure. Mr. Sibley, the Librarian at Harvard College, is perplexed ; he tells me that even now he is obliged to pile his volumes upon the floor, — space is consumed. Serious men are beginning to look upon the burning of the Alexandrian libraries by Julius Csesar, by Theophilus (a. d. 389), and finally by the Caliph Omar (in the 600's), as a boon. 52 THE LIBRARY. Omar's reason was quaint, and to him potent : " If these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed." We are prone to lament the loss of ancient books. No doubt we have something, perhaps much, to lament : — who can tell % But it may solace the regretful soul to know the results of the unrolling a great number of ancient papyri. Herculaneum remained buried from the year a. d. 79 to the year a. d. 170G. In the course of this century many rolls of papyrus have been discovered, and excited much interest. It was doubted if they could ever be unrolled; "they were in wooden cases, so much burned that they cannot be recovered." In the beginning, however, of the present century, an English commission made great efforts, and, with the assistance of Sir Humphry Davy, some eighty or more were unrolled, and with this result : — " Of the eighty-eight unrolled MSS the great body con- sists of works of Greek philosophers, of sophists ; nine are of Epicu- rus ; thirty-two bear the name of Philodemus, three of Demetrius ; one of each of these authors, Colotes, Polystratus, Carneades, Chry- sippus ; and the subjects of these works, .... and of those the authors of which are unknown, are either Natural or Moral Philoso- phy, Medicine, Criticism, and general observations on Arts, Life, and Manners." * Those who believe that the human mind is a perennial spring from out which flow thoughts, hopes, aspirations, they will exclaim : " Is this all ? lias wisdom indeed died with the Greeks, or the Hebrews, or the Chaldeans ? Is the loss of the Alexandrian library a calamity irreparable ? " Those who live by precedent, who fear that all human experience is lost which is not written down, that man simply imitates the man who precedes him, will answer, " Yes." But which is right? What is attempted here is to give a picture, more or less perfect, * Edwards's Memoirs of Libraries. THE LIBRARY. 53 of a few of the interiors which the ingenuity and taste of our people have devised, as the receptacles or treasure-houses for their volumes. No effort lias been made to show the most expensive rooms, but such as express a sense of the beautiful in their adaptation to their uses. Fig. 1. With their contents it is impossible now to treat. Some brief mention, however, of what has led up to our present means of intel- lectual gratification may perhaps be pardoned, if I consent to be brief, as I do. Many of the libraries of our private houses now contain thousands of volumes, and some of them the rarest and most valuable of edi- tions ; among which those of Mr. Lenox at New York, and Mr. Pro- basco at Cincinnati, are remarkable. The room for books — the library — is of comparatively modern invention, so far as it applies to private houses. In the days of the ancients, volumes (volumen, a roll) were rolls of writings upon parchment or papyrus, which were kept with care in public buildings or in palaces or churches, to be used upon special occasions. When we read that Jesus went into the synagogues and opened the book and read, it means that he unrolled the manuscripts t 54 THE LIBRARY. of the Jewish writing's, which were kept in the synagogues for this purpose. There is no reason to doubt that collections or libraries existed as early as the fourteenth century before our era in Egypt, Sir Gardi- ner Wilkinson designates one of the rooms in the Memnonium at Thebes as used for the purpose, and gives a reconstructed ground- plan of the wonderful structure. Fig. 2. Fig. 2. o»«| • •• • • ••O O9l|.l»00 • ■> •• '' ©• - m?oo l O «Lj»» fOO O } " Mr. Champollion goes a step further, and ex- pressly states that on the jambs of the first of these inner rooms are sculptured ' Thoth the inventor of letters,' and ' The Goddess Saf his companion,' with the titles 'Lady of Letters' and 'President of the Hall of Books.'" — Ed- wards's Memoirs of Libraries. Some of the earliest writings of the Baby- lonians and Assyrians, according to Layard, were made upon clay bricks or tablets, which were afterward hardened in the fire. But the books or volumes of the Egyptians and Greeks were upon rolls of papyrus or parchment. It may interest some to see in what form these existed, and we copy here from Edwards's work drawings of 1. The ink-bottle and reed pen, and manu- script unrolled. Fig. 1. 2. A box filled with the volumes. Fig. 2. The book collections of the Middle Ages were contained, (1) in the monasteries, and (2) in the palaces ; but the former were much the most important. The monks, being the lovers of learning, and having leisure and the means for doing it, became the collectors, the transcribers, the writers of books. In many of the monasteries was a room set apart for the scribes, THE LIBRARY. 55 with whom by and by were associated the illuminators. This room was the Scriptorium, and here were made most of the books of the Middle Ages ; here, too, was born for modern times pictorial art. The illuminators and miniature-painters of those days were many of them artists in feeling- and delicate colorists and draftsmen. Scribes and illuminators appear to have existed in Ireland and England from a very early day ; but about the year 600, St. Augus- Fig. 3. tin was sent from Rome to christianize the "pagans of Kent." His influence was quickly and powerfully felt ; and at Canterbury a school of illuminators was formed, which produced many works. Some of these early manuscripts exist, while the stone-walls of that day have gone to ruin. Of these, one called the Bcnedictional of St. Ethelwold is a splendid example of Anglo-Saxon illumination, now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. It was written in 960-980 by Godemann, a monk of St. Swithin. Another book of his is in the library of the city of Rouen. " Caedmon's Para- phrase of Holy Writ" is in the Bodleian at Oxford. St. Augustin may be said to have established at Canterbury the first library in England. He brought witli him on his mission the following books : — 56 THE LIBRARY. 1. The Holy Bible, in two volumes. 2. The Psalter. 3. The Gospels. 4. Another Psalter. 5. Another copy of the Gospels. 6. The (Apochryphal) Lives of the Apostles. 7. The Lives of the Martyrs. 8. An Exposition of the Gospels and Epistles. This collection grew, and finally included, besides religious works^ books of history and earthly romances. A Catalogue of it exists in Trinity College, Dublin, which will interest the fanatics of antiquity. The library in the Monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, in spite of danger and depredations of wars and turmoils, had grown so large that by the end of a. d. 1000's it counted over three thou- sand titles. This Catalogue still exists, but is more curious than valuable. Alcuin, an English priest,, who went from York to, France, estab- lished a school of illuminators, under the patronage of Charlemagne (about 800), at Aix la Chapelle, in which many works were made, some of which exist in the Imperial Library of Paris. In 183G one of these writings was sold by auction in London for £ 1,500. A single one of these fine manuscripts was a treasure eagerly sought and highly prized by any monastery. The Bible was of course a book in first request. Fine copies were bought by kings, and they were devised with much ceremony as precious possessions. Pious people made their interest with Heaven by presenting books to the libraries of the churches or monasteries. People who borrowed books for perusal were required to deposit a sum of money equal to the value of the book. The labor, care, and cost expended by these pious transcribers can hardly be appreciated except by seeing their work. Some of the early copies of the Bible were written in letters of liquid gold upon parch- ments of glowing purple. THE LIBRARY. 57 Fig. 4. The early illuminators used various forms of decoration, and much gold as well as color in this work. We give here one of their initial letters upon which they spent much time and art. Rarely were books sold in those days before the 1300's ; but we learn now and then such facts as these : that Grecie, Countess of Anjou, bought a book of Homilies, for which she paid two hundred sheep with their wool, besides a large quantity of wheat, bar- ley, and millet, and three marten's furs.* Richard II., of England, gave for a Bible and two romances £28, — about £ 400 of present currency. Edward III. paid for a "Book of Ro- mances " about £ 960 of our present value. It is on record that Guy of Warwick left a large collection of French, Latin, and English books to Bordesley Abbey, mostly romances ; delectable reading for their leisure hours ! The titles even we do not know, but among the early ones are these : — " Romaunt de la Rose. Florence de Blanche Fleurs. The Seven Thousand Virgins, etc., etc. Liber de Launcelot in Gallico. Liber qui Vocatur Graal in Gallico. Romaunz de Perceval le Galors," etc. After 1300 some trade grew up in books, and in Paris it became a known occupation to buy and sell them. But so expensive were they, * Scott's Half-Hour Lectures, etc. 58 THE LIBRARY. and so great the needs of scholars, that we find laws were made upon the subject. In 1342 a law existed in Paris which compelled the booksellers to hire their books to scholars ; the same existed in Tou- louse, Boulogne, and Vienna. The rates of charge were fixed by the University. I find on record as follows : — " St. Gregory's Commentaries on Job, for reading 100 pages, 8 sous. St. Gregory's Book of Homilies, 28 pages, for . . 12 deniers Anselm's De Veritate de Libertate Arbittrii, 40 pages . 2 sous. Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences . . . 3 " Scholastic History . . . . . . . . 3 " Augustin's Confessions, 21 pages ..... 4 deniers. Gloss on Matthew, by Brother Thomas Aquinas, 57 pages, 3 sous. Bible Concordance . . . . . . . . 9 " A Bible 10 sous." * But the time came when a cheaper page was produced than vellum or papyrus ; and from what ? " The earliest known specimens of paper made from rags," says Mr. Scott, "are some documents of the year 1318 in the archives of the Hospital at Kaufbeuren," and "the first German paper-mill Ave have some account of was worked at Nurnburg in 1390." Who invented this ? How % Why 1 These are questions ; but it is quite true that paper was invented without the aid of books. This was the first fact of a new era, when the pen was to become powerful, like the sword ; but not mightier ! — that is a phrase. A century after came a block, a wood-cut for stamping on the page : the earliest yet found of these dates back to 1418. What next? Then "block-books" were made, — pictures for the Bible, to help the priests in their ministrations. These exist, but are curious and scarce. From this grew movable types, which about 1440 were in existence. Four names are conspicuous for this inven- tion : Gutenberg of Strasburg, Faust of Mayence, Coster of Haar- lem, Schoffer of Gernsheim. Gutenberg, Faust, and Schoffer worked together, and jointly they * Bibliomania in the Middle Ages. By Merryweather. THE LIBRARY. 59 produced from movable types their first great book, the Latin Vulgate (1450), now known as the " Mazarin Bible " ; one copy of which exists in this country in the collection of Mr. Lenox. From this point the art of printing spread like fire on the prairie, until, in 1530, it is computed that three hundred, printing-places existed in Europe. But for a century after printing was invented books were scarce and valuable. The earliest public use of the Bible shows it chained Fig. 5. to the reading-desk for safety. In the libraries of the monasteries and elsewhere the books were kept on the shelves chained. We give here an illustration (Fig. 6) (still existing, I believe) from the library of Hereford, England, showing- the books clasped in their preserving- chains. A book with the chain attached is now in the Public Library of Boston ; and another, from Mr. Sumner's collection, is at Harvard. (Fig. 7.) It is a collection of manuscripts written upon paper about the year 1390, and is in an excellent state of preservation. It is bound in 60 THE LIBRARY. Fig. 6. oaken covers with a pig-skin back ; a part of the strap which held it together still remains. The iron chain is to be seen riveted to the wooden cover. The description attached to it shows it to have brought at a public sale £ 2 8 s. THE LIBRARY. Fig. 7. 61 Books appear to have made their way more slowly in England than in France ; yet in the fifteenth century we find books men- tioned; and in the curious Paston Letters is a catalogue of those owned by that family. These were probably manuscripts made before the days of printing. In 1427 the widow of Lord Fitzhugh wills as follows : — "And so I wyl yat my son Robert have a Sauter (Psalter) couered with rede velwet, and my doghter Mariory a Primer cou'd in rede, and my doghter Darcy a sauter cou'ed in blew, and my doghter Malde Eure a prim'r cou'ed in blew." The reading was either religious treatises or " romance books," the mother of our novel. Hardly any bookcases of this early period exist. The earliest ar- ticles to hold books pictured in the manuscripts are a sort of reading- desk or "lettern" (lectern), which, as many of the books were large Fig. 10. Fig. 9. 62 THE LIBRARY. and lieav)^, were quite needful. Three are here pictured, which are convenient and in a degree ornamental. (Figs. 8, 9, 10.) In the days of the Tudors (sixteenth century) we find books in private houses, and that women spent some of their time in reading the "Romaunts" of the earlier time. Bookcases were now made with much carving and ornamentation, and the books were protected with curtains. Now hardly a house exists which does not contain a larger collection than most palaces could then enjoy. But we may well ask ourselves whether we are not doing what Shakespeare said they did once in England, " spoiling a good thing by making it too common." Eight thousand publications a year in Eng- land, and twelve thousand in America, may make one pause. We have also gone into a craze upon the subject of education! We. may as well answer these questions : Are Ave not unfitting men and women for the work of life? Are we not taxing ourselves heavily and unwisely to teach all children all things, which can avail to only a few? It is found we cannot pay a teacher of sewing to-day in our com- mon schools; but can we, can any community, pay and live for such a list of studies as is attempted? In the public schools of Boston thirty-five studies are enumerated, as follows : — " List of the branches authorized to be taught in the public schools of this city : Orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geogra- phv, arithmetic, general and local history, good behavior, algebra, vocal music, drawing (art, mechanical, and industrial), physiology, hygiene, agriculture, bookkeeping, surveying, geometry, natural pliilos- (>})//>/, chemistry, botany, civil polity of the Commonwealth and of the United States, Greek, French, Latin, astronomy, geology, rhetoric (which covers elocution and prose composition), logic, intellectual and moral science, political economy, arts, trades and occupations (in cities and towns where industrial schools have been established)." We may well pause and consider. The early books of New England were few ; no room called the THE LIBRARY. 63 "library" was included in their houses. In the study of the minis- ter a few books found a place, almost all scholastic or of a controver- sial religious kind. The titles of some of those written in New England were such as these, and sufficiently sensational to suit the newspapers of to-day : — New England's Salamander discovered. By an irreligious and scornful Pamphlet called New England's Jonas cast up at London, etc., etc., etc. By Edward Winslow. London. 1647. The Heart of New England rent, at the Blasphemies of the present Generation, etc., etc. By John Norton, etc. The first book printed in America was the Psalms translated into metre by Weld, Eliot, and Mather. This was published in 1640, and was known as the " Bay Psalm Book." It was republished in England, and went through seventy editions. The edition of Eliot's Indian Bible, published in 1660, was and is a remarkable example of industry, patience, and faith. Some twenty-six or twenty-seven copies are to be found in this country, and probably about the same number in England. Fac-si miles of the title-page, from the copy owned by the Public Library of Boston, will appear in the new magazine shortly to appear under the name of "The Facsimilist." The New England Primer was in general use from 1691. It began with the alphabet, and contained a strange dialogue between Christ, A Youth, and the Devil ; pictures of John Rogers burning at the stake, also his wife and " nine small children, with one at the breast," "with which sight he was not in the least daunted"; also the Assembly's Shorter Catechism, and Cotton's Milk for Babes. The woodcuts are marvellous for simplicity and grotesqueness. These early examples of New England books may interest the curious ; and it may be well to compare them with the perfect ex- amples of book-making now presented to us by the Messrs. Osgood and Company of Boston, Harpers, Appletons, Scribners, and Sheldons of New York, Lippincott and Lea of Philadelphia, and others in the wonderful " West." 64 THE LIBRARY. Of the bookcases or writing-tables of the early colonial period we have but little. It is not likely that much existed. Books, few as they were, were in many cases carefully guarded in a locker or other safe place, and they were too few in most cases to have a room set THE LIBRARY. 65 apart for them. I find in the President's room at Cambridge a quaint piece of furniture described to me as the writing-desk of John Eliot the Apostle ; it is, however, rather a locker or cupboard. It is made of oak, and is a work of art of a simple but effective character. It bears the initials J. E., 1681, cut on the front. The wood is of oak, and after the lapse of two hundred years it has not become black, as, according to the popular notion, it should ; it is not darker than olive-wood, though richer in tone. The library has come to be the room of the house, — that room where the air is peopled with the finest spirit of the best departed. Hospitality to the living daily diminishes, and partly by reason of books. For it is a thousand times pleasanter to commune with the wisest and wittiest of the dead than with the dull and common- place of the living. But the Avise man never foregoes human sym- pathy and conversation ; if he does, there is danger. Books will do much, but not all ; they will not make great men ; it is in action that men become greatest; but books may tell us how to act. In this room, then, we can and should combine the souls of the dead and the conversation of the living ; and Aet has its great func- tion to create here a tabernacle worthy of both. The examples given in our book must speak for themselves. AMERICAN INTERIORS. THE LIBRARY OF HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, AT CAMBRIDGE, MASS. OMEWHERE about the year 1739 or 1740 the fine house where the poet Longfellow now lives was built. In those " good old days," as we love to call the days of a hundred years ago (and Noah said the same of his forefathers' days), they builded fewer houses than now, and they buildcd some few of these delightfully. The old " Vassal House " was one of those choice homes, which grows more and more attractive as it gathers about it its legacies of time and humanity. Colonel John Vassal we suppose to have been one of those men whom we call "merchant princes"; and this house, which perhaps is the only proof of it, is a good proof. There were fewer merchants then, also, and among them were men of large comprehension, high courage, great power of brain and action. We need not be surprised that such men as Colonel Vassal and his son were stanch loyalists ; and thafe when the tempestuous Revolutionary days came, this son, the owner of this fine place, abandoned it rather than submit to the reiom of what he called King Mob in place of King George. It is certain he did aban- don it, and the house became the headquarters of General Washington, when in command of the little army of Ameri- 70 THE LIBRARY OF HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. cans, in the year 1775. The smaller room adjoining the Li- brary was then the dining-room of Washington, as it is now the study of Longfellow. For nigh forty years the poet has enjoyed the shelter of this roof, has sat under the shade of these old trees, has looked with dreamy eyes across the placid meadows of Charles River, and rested them upon the distant blue hills, beyond which imagination could picture the universe, and see " Evangeline " and " The Belfry of Bruges " ; could hear " Footsteps of Angels " and " Voices of the Night." No patriot could be better housed ; no poet can be better sheltered ; — a fit home for able men. We have not to write a biography or a laudation, — only to give briefly some explanation of one room in this house, which is shown in our picture. The house itself is dignified and am- ple, its style being a very mild form of the classic. The hall and staircase through which Ave pass to the Library has those quaint twisted balusters which lead us back to the days of Queen Anne, and which always please. The Library is in the northeastern quarter of the house ; it is a spacious room some twenty-two feet by thirty in size. Entering from the hall, the eye sees through the northern win- dows a shaded lawn, with paths, seats, vases, etc., in keeping with the house and its history. Let us turn our back to those. Carved bookcases — French work, we think — fill the spaces, except on the eastern side, where two wide windows have been converted into alcoves for books. All these are filled, and their fine bindings attract. Let us not despise the outsides of things ; let us be choice in our surroundings ; let us have rooms to enjoy, and books too, if we can. A swift glance shows a most varied collection of Spanish, French, Italian, and German THE LIBRARY OF HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 71 authors, who rest in peace beside the good writers of America and England. Then we remember, that before the poet the professor was, and that at all these delectable fountains he drank. The mantelpiece is most unpretending, — not stately enough for the room ; but it is very quaint in its old tawny mar- ble sculptured with lions and griffins. The walls of the room, panelled to the ceiling, are in a wonderful state of preserva- tion, and are painted a creamy white. We are apt to regret that fine panelling should be covered with paint ; but this light cheerful color certainly has its charm. Might it not be wholly unbearable, if one were shut in by the sombre hues of the walnut or mahogany ? The wainscot loses itself in a fine and effective cornice. It is uncommon in our advanced days. Too often this feature is left to some workman, who does as well as he can, but it is not well enough. On the western side of the room stand two Ionic columns, which make a most striking effect in the room. Standing, as they do, inde- pendently of the wall, they make a recess or alcove, in which we see the largest of the bookcases. These columns were so placed by a law of necessity, not of design. In extending the walls of this room it was found necessary to support the upper floor, and these two columns were placed here for the purpose. But it was artistically done. The accessories of the room are good : a very fine full-length picture of Listz catches the eye ; a bust or two crown the bookcases ; and some brilliant Japan- ese screens and ornaments give life and piquancy to the quiet which sometimes reigns too supreme in the library of the good American. Note. — On an iron plate in a chimney-back are the arms of the Vassals, and the date 1739. 72 THE LIBRARY OF HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. Among the interesting books in the collection are the fol- lowing : — Histoire du Theatre Francois, fifteen volumes, and Histoire du The- atre Italien, seven volumes, once belonging to David Garrick, and having his book-plate, with this motto from Menage: " La premiere chose, qu'on doit faire quand on a emprunte un livre, c'est de le lire, afin de pouvoir le rendre plutot." Coleridge's Sibylline Leaves. 1817. Author's own copy, with auto- graph marginal notes, and one stanza of "The Ancient Mariner" erased. Italian Poets, Pisa edition ; fifteen volumes fol. Roman parchment binding. Der Nibelunge Lied, folio, 1840; printed for the Fourth Centennial of the Art of Printing. THE DINING-ROOM OF DR. CHADWICK, CLARENDON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. HIS room is on the ground, or first, floor, as we term it, and is lighted from two sides. At the end opposite the entrance door is a large square bay-window, which we are not able to show in the drawing, though one corner of it is seen on the left. The room is some 17 by 22 feet, including the space in the bay-window, and is well proportioned. Its style may be termed " Old English," mainly because in the days of good sense and good taste this kind of timber-work was well done in England. The FLOOR is inexpensive, and is finished with a brownish stain, protected by shellac. Under the table, as shown, i,s a handsome square carpet, which is essential to comfort as well as elegance. The wood-work is of ash, and bears a delicate tint, to re- lieve it from the rawness of new wood ; but it is not dark. It is a question whether the goodness and cheapness of black- walnut has not led us into making our rooms too sombre and heavy for a cheerful life. Certainly a dining-room should not 74 THE DINING-ROOM OF DR. CHAD WICK. run to that character. But the raw, new tones of tlie lighter woods, which the purists now affect, is most unsatisfactory for some styles of work, as, for example, the one shown here. An ash DADO some four feet high protects the walls, and finishes them as nothing can do so well in a dining-room. Two cupboards on either side the fireplace are not only useful as such, but serve also as side-tables for various uses. The WALL itself is in a lightish gray tint, which is much better than the heavy dull colors so often used with this style of finish. This is completed under the cornice with a frieze or stripe of squirrels upon paper, which is of course less ex- pensive than stencilled work. It will be observed that the timbers are earned across the ceiling, which is broken into panels by cross-timbers. The FURNITURE of the room is of carved oak, so much used in France. It is not quite massive and severe enough for the room, but is effective and pleasing. It is a question whether the spiral cutting for wood should ever be used where strength is required. So many hopelessly maimed legs are lying about the world which no hospital can cure, that one is filled with pity for the owners. The portiere covering the entrance-door gives opportunity for a fine bit of Moorish color, and that the artistic taste will never neglect using. The lighting of the room deserves attention. It will be observed that no great chandelier hangs over the table, often blazing into the eyes of the diners, and always heating the brain to fever, which a very little wine will intensify. In place of this, four wall-lights, or SCONCES, amply supply the needed light. Two of these are shown set into panels over the fire- place, and two are on the opposite wall. THE DINING-ROOM OF DR. CHAD WICK. 75 The pictures and ornaments are not striking, but the few bits of real armor on the fireplace panel are effective and in keeping with the style of the room. The middle panel of the fireplace is filled with an old German picture (date 1525), which is delicately finished for that period. It is interesting, for reasons. The frame holding it swings on hinges, and opens to a small cupboard. On the back of the picture is this inscription : ws3 3 house, and is used as a living-room and pic- ture-gallery, as well as the« grand interior into , 1 which all the rooms of the house open. It is approached from the front door by a small vestibule, which is floored and wainscoted with tiles. The dimensions of the hall are 48 feet in length, by 24 feet in width, by 25 feet high. The ceiling is of ground glass, tinted. The cross-beams and curved sides of the ceiling are painted in fresco, and the same style of decoration is used on the upper portion of the walls. The wall proper is tinted, as a background for pictures. The floor is of inlaid wood. A large Turkish rug occupies the centre, and with table, sofa, and chairs constitutes the living-room. The rugs upon the floor are very fine ; one of ostrich-feathers, from the Straits of Magellan, is very large and rare. The furniture is almost wholly of old black-oak. It is antique French, and heavily carved ; it was bought in France, piece by piece, by Major Rathbone. The large oaken mantel, 90 THE GREAT HALL OF J. L. RA THBONE. which extends from floor to ceiling (not shown in photo- graph, having been put in since it was taken), was designed and made to order in England. One of the cabinets shown is of great age, and interesting because it was once the property of Charles V. of Spain, and by him presented to one of his court. It is a remark- able piece of mechanism, full of secret drawers and compart- ments. The workmanship is admirable. The pictures are principally of the Spanish school. Most of them were bought by Major Rathbone himself in Spain ; some of them at great cost, and all are of value. The collec- tion is a rare one, and those who appreciate and understand Spanish art greatly admire many of the subjects. There are also one or two paintings by Mrs. Rathbone, copies of modern French animal subjects, which are faithful and beautiful copies. The lighting of this hall being from the roof alone, and through tinted glass, is of a rich and curious tone, — heighten- ing the antique effect of furniture and paintings. It is a cool and well-ventilated room in summer, and in winter the warm color from the ceiling and the generous proportions of a wood fire give it an air of great luxury and comfort. THE LIBRAE Y OF GEOEGE B. CHASE, Esq, OF BOSTON. SPACIOUS room, some thirty-three feet long, and twenty-three broad. At the northern end opposite the entrance door opens the bay-win- dow, through which we see rippling water and the far-off hills. A writing-table stands in this bay, and first attracts attention : here the writer's chair is turned from the view and faces the apartment. This smaller table is one of two for which there is ample space. The FLOOR is covered with a crimson carpet, in but two shades, which color prevails in the chairs and coverings. The curtains are of a heavy olive-brown material, in harmony with the walls and ceiling. One of the handsomest of LIBRARY TABLES occupies the middle of the room ; it is of black-walnut, — as are the book- cases and woodwork, — and is very highly carved in that style of decoration usually called Elizabethan. Our drawing will sufficiently indicate it. The table is some three and a half feet by six feet, and is none too large for the uses of the room. However large such a table may be, books will there accumu- late. Both designer and workman have spared no pains on this handsome production. 92 THE LIBRARY OF GEORGE B. CHASE. Open bookcases fill all the spaces, and are about five feet high. One peculiarity of these is their ample depth, some twenty inches ; this is more than is absolutely needed for the books ; but it gives a broad top, upon which vases, busts, and antique bronzes may be most effectively placed ; the mind, too, is insensibly affected with the impression that such cases give ample room for whatever accumulations the owner may make. Some of the chairs are broad and low and spacious, while some are light and easily movable. Two sorts* of chairs are needed in a library : the first, to work in, to write in, — these should be easy, but not too easy. The second to read in, to rest in, to dream in ; and these may be very easy. The wall above these bookcases is covered with a leather paper in diaper pattern, where brown, black, and gold inter- mingle, and make a quiet, and, as some might think, a darker background than would seem to be needed. The few PICTURES which ornament the walls are effective and interesting, and are not numerous enough or obtrusive enough to turn this library into a picture-gallery, while, as each picture is placed in a separate panel, a better effect is obtained for the artists' compositions. The principal are as follows: — 1. By Fuller. A Landscape, very rich and harmonious in tone. 2, 3. By J. F. Cole. Two Normandy Landscapes, with sheep, etc. 4. By Ames. An ideal Head. 5. By Wurtz. Landscape, scenery in the Hartz Mountains. 6. By Stanfield. English Landscape. 7. By Otto Weber. Group of French Cattle. 8. By Gay. A delightfully cool and attractive shore hill-view, between which breaks the sea, showing a mackerel fleet. THE LIBRARY OF GEORGE B. CHASE. 93 But the mantel-piece is the most effective, if not the best, thing in the house. It is broad and large ; the shelf is sup- ported by decorated pilasters, and the fire-opening is sufficient to receive either brass dogs or the low open grate suitable either for soft coal or logs of wood, while its unusual height and width causes a fire within it to throw its heat farther and wider into the room. The mantel-piece extends its carved columns to the ceiling, making a space in which is held a nearly full-length life-size portrait of Sir William Pepperrell, Baronet, commander of the New England expedition which succeeded in capturing Louis- burg in 1745, — an ancestral portrait of the most distinguished member of an early family in New England, long extinct in the male line. The ceiling itself is very elaborately decorated ; it is divided into panels, the " Elizabethan " style of ornamentation prevail- ing in it, and is painted in diaper between the beams, in har- mony with the rest of the room. For those who admire this school of ornament, it is well to elaborate the ceiling ; yet to the great majority of our readers such a surface should be but a study rather than a possession, for two reasons : — 1. The time which its faithful execution requires takes, not days, but weeks of labor, as the workmen, whether in wood, in plaster, or in color, are always obliged to labor at great disad- vantage of position. 2. It is well to recollect that decoration so placed is to some people difficult to see and enjoy. The library contains some eighteen hundred volumes, and is very full in the department of American, and especially of New England history, containing full series of the publications 94 THE LIBRARY OF GEORGE B. CHASE. of several historical associations, together with the Prince and other societies' reprints. The library contains, upon two shelves, many of the books of the owner's ancestor, the Rev. Stephen Chase ; among them a copy of William Perkins's writings, published at Oxford in 1613, and having upon the fly-leaf of one of the volumes sev- eral autographs of early New England clergymen, among them that of the first John Eliot. If a study of our illustration of this library, of which we have thus given a brief description, conveys any hint to the reader, it is that in interior decoration, as in the design for an exterior or in the laying out of a floor, it is well to have from a professional source an intelligent motive, which, when once determined upon, should be steadily adhered to, from the start even to the most subordinate detail. Too often, in America, he who builds his house looks upon the architect or profes- sional decorator as one whose services can be safely dispensed with as soon as the usual contracts are executed and the house delivered. How few realize that to the successful decoration of even one interior, a professional architect often brings hours of patient study and labor ! A few words upon the conditions that all library-rooms should fulfil. Such a room is not merely the place to receive and preserve those books which record the lives and thoughts of other men and women. It should be the most interesting, stimulating, and useful room in the house. Here the family should gather in the evening for talk, for work, for reading ; here should come friendly people ; here should wide, open hospitable bookcases offer and tempt all comers by books placed within their reach. THE LIBRARY OF GEORGE B. CHASE. 95 The library-room is, and ought to be, the most attractive room in the house, because its atmosphere should be full of that perfume which does forever linger about the good thoughts and the histories of good and great deeds of our fellow-men. THE DINING-ROOM OF JOHN V. L. PRUYN, Esq., ALBANY, 1ST. Y. house in Albany, possibly none in the country, is so rich as this of Mr. Pruyn's in Oriental chinas and works of art. To describe them would require a book. We can give but a few notes descriptive of the dining-room, which is some seventeen by thirty feet in size, and is most tasteful and intcrestino;. The ceiling of the dining-room is in dark woods, with ash, cherry, and mahogany in the cornice ; flooring of same woods, and wainscoting of black-walnut, with a row of crim- son tiling inserted. Leather paper is on the walls ; a leather- colored ground with red parrots, green leaves, and bunches of black grapes. Chandeliers are of cuivre poll ; brackets the same ; clock on chimney the same. Candlesticks, fire-dogs, etc., are all curiously wrought ; also a fine pair of black and gilt can- delabra, which belonged to Prince Napoleon, in the style of the Empire. A heavy Smyrna rug, crimson, green, and black, covers the middle of the room. Heavy crimson silk curtains, bordered with black velvet, drape the three windows. A lambrequin of 98 THE DINING ROOM OF JOHN V. L. PRUYN the same hangs over the foldiner-doors which enter the draw- ing-room. Antique elnny-lace curtains, coffee-colored, hung inside of red ones, are at the windows. The lambrequin on chimney-piece is of crimson leather, held with brass nails, and is heavily fringed. The old oak sideboard in the recess is from a convent near Sienna ; it is heavily carved, and is graced with various pieces of plate, chiefly old English. In the room is a massive carved oak sofa, bought at York, England, made A. D. 1568, covered with red leather. There is also an inlaid corner cabinet, made in Florence, in which are rare bits of Venetian glass, etc. There is one sideboard of ebonized wood, made by the House- hold Art Company of Boston, inlaid with tile, intended chiefly for plate. Two smaller sideboards stand on each side of chimney. A large mirror hangs over the chimney, with frame of wood. Two family portraits hang either side of mirror. Over Floren- tine cabinet is a portrait of Washington by Rembrandt. The plate was purchased from an old Maryland family. In addition to these are various pieces of repousse silver, framed and hung on the walls ; also various paintings of scenes in Italy and Norway ; also fruit-pieces, etc., etc. THE CHINA-ROOM OF J. V. L. PRUYN, Esq., ALBANY, 2T« Y. 1j£ : f » K opportunities of Mr. Pniyn, while Minister ^^>?'T % - , '> , nipotentiary at Pekiti, for collecting rare V^iJsL^^S^ specimens of Oriental china and lacquers, were ^^K^ of the best; fortunatelv lie had the taste and the purse which enabled him to make good use of these opportunities ; thus he has beautified his house and enriched his country with a collection, which contains not only Oriental chinas, but also those of the best artists of Europe. A portion of these are arranged in a china-room, which is here pictured and described. "The room is thirteen by eighteen feet square. The walls ' Hi India, in crimson, with little black devils strewn over it. A large dark-blue vase, made at Sevres, stands in the centre of the room, with an exotic plant growing in it. The chimney-piece is of white marble, with crimson satin < H>ibrequins, held with brass nails, and fringed. On the man- ii ' piece is an old Sevres clock in the centre, and a pair of Marie Antoinette candlesticks, dark blue ; also a pair of large lamps of an Indian pattern and style, duplicates of a pair made in Paris in 1857 for the Queen of Spain. THE CHINA-ROOM OF J. Y. L. PKUYN, Esq., ALBANY, 1ST. Y. C^Q|p^^HE opportunities of Mr. Pruyn, while Minister f^u)/* Plenipotentiary at Pekin, for collecting rare 'fgj^TH^' specimens of Oriental china and lacquers, were of the best ; fortunately he had the taste and the purse which enabled him to make good use of these opportunities ; thus he has beautified his house and enriched his country with a collection, which contains not only Oriental chinas, but also those of the best artists of Europe. A portion of these are arranged in a china-room, which is here pictured and described. " The room is thirteen by eighteen feet square. The walls are papered in white ; the floor is of inlaid woods, with a rug from India, in crimson, with little black devils strewn over it. A large dark-blue vase, made at Sevres, stands in the centre of the room, with an exotic plant growing in it. The chimney-piece is of white marble, with crimson satin lambrequins, held with brass nails, and fringed. On the man- tel-piece is an old Sevres clock in the centre, and a pair of Marie Antoinette candlesticks, dark blue ; also a pair of large lamps of an Indian pattern and style, duplicates of a pair made in Paris in 1857 for the Queen of Spain. 100 THE CniNA-ROOM OF J. V. L. PRUYN. The fireplace is of tiles, with scripture subjects, and a motto around the semicircle : " Vanitas Vanitatum est omnia Vanitas." It contains a gas-fire imitation of soft coal, and a fender of tile mounted in brass. The hearth is inlaid with " salve " bought in Naples in 1851. The chimney has a mirror with frame of gilt, and around the mirror a broad border of crimson velvet holding crimson velvet brackets, on which are placed small specimens of porcelain. There is the same style of decoration around the doors. On the east side of the room is a case in wood, with glass sliding-doors, kept always locked, the shelves and backs lined with crimson velvet, containing many rare specimens of porce- lains in Sevres, pieces that belonged to Louis Philippe, Marie Antoinette, etc. ; Meissen ; Japanese of various kinds ; old and new Dresden ; old majolica ; old delft and faience ; mosaic cups and saucers of Berlin ware, once in the collection of the late King of Holland. There are two cases of same style as first mentioned on either side of the door to entry, but deeper and narrower. These contain larger pieces, such as a water-kettle of modern Dresden, part of a duplicate set made for the late Queen of Saxony ; a Sutsuma vase ; various tall covered pots with handles, a superb one of LoAvcstoffe ; of Berlin, India, Dresden, etc. ; various bowls of Sevres, of old Bristol, of green Indian, etc., and many specimens of Crown-derby, Derby, Chelsea, Swansea, Leeds, Staffordshire, old and modern Wedgewood, old and new Delft, Copenhagen, French, Dutch, Plymouth, Abruzzi, Sarona, Rouen, Pinxton, Furstenburg, Nancy, and modern English. There are many specimens of beautifully decorated old Berlin and " A. R," and of Sevres, Capo di Monti, Palissy, etc., etc. Large oval and round Placques hang on the walls, of Sevres THE CHINA-ROOM OF J. V. L. PRUYN. 101 delft, and of rare old Chinese and Japanese. Many of these Sevres specimens are from the palaces of Fontainebleau, St. Cloud, and Les Tuileries." The collection of porcelain, if not the largest in the country, is second to none in its rarity and value. It is and has been a source of delight to its owners, and is a lasting gratification to their friends, and to the lovers of household art who have had the pleasure of examining it. THE LIBRARY OF WILLIAM CULL EN BRYANT, BOSLYN, what thev re.a<» always interest. they live, where thev nd what they study, Ve r an do no better than to print the brief description of Bryant's library, at Roslyn, Long Island, as written by the firm pen of our oldest and most earnest poet. " The library is easily described. It is not a very choice selection, either as regards' the authors or the editions, but thert are florae good books. The collection of English poets b* p«M:fcy full, -.ij* might be expected in the library of one who • tifis* vet cannot mv* a» (. 'owner once said, that he reads no con- "A long row of volumes with yellowish leather backs, on tb*s f ast wall of the library, is the French Biographie Generale. ."*!«» vc it is Amyot's Plutarch, — a much better translation than tfn- English one of Laughorne, who has made the old Greek biographer drawling and tedious.' In the same quarter are to be seen Bayle's Dictionary in the original French, and several of the nrincinH I German classics, — Goethe, Schiller, Lessiug. THE LIBRARY OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, ROSLYN, LONG ISLAND. HE homes of poets, how they live, where they write, what they read, and what they study, must always interest. We can do no better than to print the brief description of Bryant's library, at Roslyn, Long Island, as written by the firm pen of our oldest and most earnest poet. " The library is easily described. It is not a very choice selection, either as regards the authors or the editions, but there are some good books. The collection of English poets is pretty full, as might be expected in the library of one who himself is a writer of verse, and who, though he admits that his love of poetry has declined somewhat with the decline of life, yet cannot say, as Cowper once said, that he reads no con- temporary poetry. "A long row of volumes with yellowish leather backs, on the east wall of the library, is the French Biographic Generate. Above it is Amyot's Plutarch, — a much better translation than the English one of Langhorne, who has made the old Greek biographer drawling and tedious. ' In the same quarter are to be seen Bayle's Dictionary in the original French, and several of the principal German classics, — Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, 104 THE LIBRARY OF WILLIAM GULLEN BRYANT. Herder, and Schlegel, with others, the lesser lights of German literature, and a few other books in French, Spanish, and Italian, principally the poets of those languages. " The proportion of biographical works is rather large. But there are many of a miscellaneous character, not perhaps the best of their class, which came into the library through the connection of its owner with the daily press. These are often American reprints of works produced in England, and are rather inferior in mechanical execution to the English copies. Of what pass for the classics of the English language, the pro- portion is as great as might be expected from the tastes and pursuits of the owner ; but no particular care has been exercised in obtaining the best editions. The collection is not without its books on religious subjects, though there are but few of a controversial nature. It includes also a copy of a French edi- tion of the Latin classics. On the whole, it is such a collection as one who is fond of reading, with a disposition to look into many books and thoroughly to read but few, might, without taking any special trouble, get together, partly by chance and partly by choice, in the course of a long life, principally de- voted to literary pursuits. " The shelves of the library are of the wood of the tulip-tree, rather neatly made and varnished. They contain from three to four thousand volumes. There is a fireplace in the room which was once of the ample dimensions common a hundred years ago, about the time that the house was built, but is now reduced to such dimensions as to receive a Franklin stove or open iron fireplace. This has been surrounded by Dutch tiles of the ancient pattern, representing events in Scripture history. The room has two bay-windows, one on the north side look- ing out upon a cluster of huge pear-trees, supposed to be THE LIBRARY OF WILLIAM CULL EN BRYANT. 105 more than a hundred years old, between the trunks and branches of which are caught glimpses of Hempstead Harbor and white gleams of the gliding sails. The other, on the west side, opens on a flower-garden, beyond which is a belt of trees shutting out a view of the water, on the edge of which they stand." STUDY HAR \ CAMBKIDG •4 ^y^j^fSrf? ^ ^ r\)om requires but a brief clemTiption. ^i/'^HV When the present occupam took possession, ^rW^^^^ it was a most commonplace room, with white k SvSw^ &S wood-work and walls covered with a gray felt paper. To transform this into an agreeable room at a moderate cost was the problem. To clean it thoroughly was the first task. The walls were then kalsoinined up to the picture -moulding with a light olive- green color ; above this a line of flowered paper was applied, ending with a crimson band of paper an inch wide at the top. l »ie pu t i«re-joouidni<£ was made a dark crrccn. 1 ne wo*. »o- work. ■ The rest of the room is furnishod a« far A Jftiftfi library, w ith writing-table, bookcases, and mantel- piece in antique-colored •dk, of simple and artistic forms. The *pt*-iai u*w of the ■ wner does all the rest, and it is much. In the panel of the mantel-piece is an exquUite proof of Alema-Tailemas'H picture of the Procession of the Vine, and on the walls are some rare etchings, and other w r orks of art. The room has proved tcr be satisfactory. THE STUDY, HARVARD COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. • ^ M1IS room requires but a brief description. lh»^>BmSSy When the present occupant took possession, f* it was a most commonplace room, with white wood-work and walls covered with a gray felt paper. To transform this into an agreeable room at a moderate cost was the problem. To clean it thoroughly was the first task. The walls were then kalsomined up to the picture-moulding with a light olive- green color ; above this a line of flowered paper was applied, ending with a crimson band of paper an inch wide at the top. The picture-moulding was made a dark green. The wood-work was then painted a dead or flat black, with panels of green like the wall, relieved with crimson mouldings. The rest of the room is furnished as for a small library, with writing-table, bookcases, and mantel-piece in antique-colored ash, of simple and artistic forms. The special taste of the owner does all the rest, and it is much. In the panel of the mantel-piece is an exquisite proof of Alema-Tademas's picture of the Procession of the Vine, and on the walls are some rare etchings, and other works of art. The room has proved to be satisfactory. in any city. It is some one hundred and fifty feet wide, and through its centre runs a broad strip of green grass, fringed with trees, which yet small. The whole street is a new one, being one of built on land reclaimed from the water ; so that the < wonr an air of newness ; but withal they are in good uf»d. ad a rule, without pretension. The house which . I viA*m in laid with Swiss parquetry, in one color of oak; iKcier the table is spread a small Turkey carpet, large ft W±hl& begin with an oaken panelled dado, four feet 4' THE DINING-ROOM OF JAMES LEE, JR., Esq., BOSTON, MASS. fi ^Qj j ff jjgj^ffEE finest street of Boston is Commonwealth Avenue, and few finer streets are to be seen in any city. It is some one hundred and fifty feet wide, and through its centre runs a broad strip of green grass, fringed with trees, which are as yet small. The whole street is a new one, being one of those built on land reclaimed from the water ; so that the houses wear an air of newness ; but withal they are in good styles, and, as a rule, without pretension. The house which contains this dining-room belongs to James Lee, Jr., Esq., and is built of brick, with light sandstone facings. At the end of the very handsome hall opens the door of the drawing-room ; and to the right of that the dining-room. Facing you as you enter it is a broad bay-window, making one end of the long room, some twenty-five by seventeen feet. The octagon of the bay is floored with tiles, which makes a place for a small winter garden. The FLOOR is laid with Swiss parquetry, in one color of oak ; and under the table is spread a small Turkey carpet, large enough to hold the table and chairs. The walls begin with an oaken panelled dado, four feet 110 THE DINING ROOM OF JAMES LEE, J 11. high. This dado is engraved with rosettes and some lines and chamfers, which are touched with dull red and black. Above the dado, extending to within two feet of the ceiling, is a Pompeian red in flat color, with an illuminated border at top and bottom ; gay, but not too gay. At the top of this is a picture-moulding of oak ; and above that is a broad band of yellowish green, with narrower stripes of green, etc., at the base and top. The CEILING is of oak, panelled and bracketed, the chamfers and lines of which are touched with red, green, and black ; altogether this ceiling is a success, though a little less color would be preferred by some. It is easier for a man of courage to overdo than to fail to do. The sideboard, which is in the recess opposite the bay- window, is the principal feature of the room, as it should be, and is in excellent taste ; it is roomy, stately, and not over- ornamented. Good brasses decorate the doors, and the shelves above the table give excellent positions for some good china, silver, and brass dishes. The dining-room should be gay and cheerful, and nothing diffuses these charming effects more than the fine colors of china and the brilliancy of silver or brass dishes. The table is massive oak, some four feet six inches by seven feet six inches, and is not an extension. Two side-tables, about twenty inches wide, may be used at either end, to extend it if wanted. This style of dining-table cannot be too highly commended. All tendency towards rattle-trap, all possibility of it, is escaped, which cannot be said of the pillar extension tables, even when made in the most careful manner, as they almost never are. The CHAIRS have the great merit of beino; most com- es o THE DINING-ROOM OF JAMES LEE, JR. Ill fortable, and one certainly can sit long at the feast ; whatever dyspepsia may come of that, who knows ? They are made after an English model of mediaeval design. I do not seek to criticise a good piece of work, but it can do no harm to say that to my eye they are too heavy, and I fancy they would be so to the delicate hand of " lovely woman." But better a heavy chair than a heavy feast or a dull wit, which we do not believe ever go with these. The chandeliers and side-lights are in exquisite taste, as our artist has only been able to indicate. To those who admire the light color of the oak in a state of nature, this room is a most excellent illustration of good work and good taste. THE DRAWING-ROOM OF PROF. F. ROGERS, NEWPORT, R. L THE LIBRARY OF JOHN A. BURNHAM, JR., Esq., BOSTON, MASS. IIS room looks out upon the fine wide street, snatched from the sea, named Commonwealth Avenue. The room is some seventeen by twenty-five feet in size, looking upon the street through a broad bay. The floor, of pine, is colored, and coated with shellac, over which is spread a rich Indian carpet of red, green, and white, imported for this purpose. The library-TxVBLE, standing in the middle of the room, is furnished with drawers to the floor, the corners being pro- tected and ornamented with turned and carved posts. This, as well as the rest of the furniture, is of black-walnut, carefully polished. The hooded mantel-piece is an effective piece of work; upon the bracket of its roof stands an eagle owl ; below him is this motto, cut in crimson, " A GOOD fire, good friends, GOOD BOOKS." A superb bronze figure of M ephistopheles stands by the clock, which, with two Sevres vases, furnishes the shelf. Around the open fire space are cavaliers and horse- man tiles in sepia. 116 THE LIBRARY OF JO BUST A. BURNHAM, JR. The BOOKCASES, four in number, flank the sides of the mantel-piece, and the spaces opposite ; they are ample and stately. In the top can be seen small lockers, ornamented with brasses. A very decorative feature of these bookcases is the curtains, hanging upon brass rods. They are of celadon- green silk, bordered with crimson. The walls are finished with broad crimson bands at base and top ; the space between being covered with a neutral green paper, figured with delicate brown. The timbered ceiling is of black-walnut, the panels being colored with a light yellow, toned with green. The chandelier and two bracket-lights arc of steel-colored brass, relieved and brightened with touches of the yellow metal. In the bay lies a large bear-skin rug. The bay-window is filled with seats ; the curtains across the wide opening are of heavy woollen tapestry, with a crim- son ground covered with pomegranates in green, blue, and brown. The portiere across the double door which leads into the drawing-room is of the same material, which also covers the chairs and sofa. It is a satisfactory whole ; few rooms are as perfect in harmony. I THE DINING-ROOM OF JOHN A. BUENHAM, Jr., BOSTON, MASS. jjj^|SHIS room opens from the long hall, and is ifSh some eighteen by twenty-four feet in size. The ~p carpet covering the whole floor is of a small y rC figure in dull greens, browns, and reds, — in harmony with all the rest, and not obtrusive. The DUSTING-TABLE in style may be termed domestic Gothic ; not Eastlake, a most vague and badly used term. The CHAIRS, designed specially for the room, are covered with crimson leather ; they are easy and stately. In the cross-rail of the top of the back are inlaid three agates, of various colors. The sideboard and mantel-piece are in harmony. The lat- ter is massive and quiet. The central panel holds a mirror. Upon the broad overhanging upper shelf stand two tall can- delabra, and a great Moorish vase, gay with color ; upon the lower or mantel-shelf are a clock and vases. The Sideboard is finished with brass hinges and handles, and the upper shelves are decorated with china and silver, giving brightness and life to the room. All the furniture of the room, and the panelling, arc of 118 THE DINING-R003I OF JOHN A. BURNHAM, JR. American ash, tinted with a dark stain, which gives great effect to the grain and the character of the wood. As the aspect of this room is to the north, the WALLS are tinted with a warm yellow, subdued with a dash of green. The cornice is a broad band of rosy color, above and below which are mouldings of green. The CEILING is a cool Q'rav, from the centre of which haners a brass chandelier. The curtains draw with brass rings on wooden poles, and are not looped up. They are of raw silk in green, yellow, and red, finished with broad bands of crimson and green. THE DINING-ROOM OF GEORGE JAMES, Esq., MHANT, MASS. iESTING upon one of the most picturesque head- lands of the New England coast, at Nahant, is the house of George James, Esq. It would be difficult to find a more effective, ample, and delightful house than this, which has been built within the last three years, and is not yet completed. It is of stone, with brick facings and arches, and has broad, bold piazzas. It is of the dining-room only that we have here to speak. This is on the southern side of the house ; the windows look out, through a break or depression in the rocky coast, upon the Atlantic waters, and across a fine bit of green lawn. A few years ago it was supposed that trees might struggle for life, but could not grow, and that delicate vegetation must perish in this briny air. But the last few years have disproved this, and we find ribbon borders, banks of flowers, and fine trees grow- ing satisfactorily on the very line where the spray dashes after an ocean gale. Opening with broad doors from a spacious hall, the dining- room is seen, some seventeen by twenty-seven feet in size. The style of finish may be classed as the domestic Gothic, 120 THE DINING-ROOM OF GEORGE JAMES. which is susceptible to such infinite variety, and in the hands of an artist can so well be made to express " use and beauty." The floors are of pine, finished with a slight dash of sepia color, and waxed. In the centre is a carpet of Persian design, well covered, the prevailing tints being blues, grays, and browns. The sideboard and mantel-piece are the two striking features of the room, as will be seen by referring to the accompanying sketch. The sideboard is tall, stately, harmonious ; the size, some eight by ten feet, is lightened and relieved by lockers, protected by brass grilles ; the top shelves are made interest- ing with pots and dishes and jugs. The mantel-piece enshrines the fireplace, which is not for show, but, furnished with its brass dogs holding good store of logs, does its work by sending up to heaven burnt offerings to the deity of the home. In the central panel is seen a great dish from the art pottery of Minton, with a citron-yellow ground, upon which are brilliantly colored birds. On either side stand two grand bronze bulls; after Itosa Bonheur ; two delicate Sevres vases are near the top, — too far from the eye for such delicate work to be fully appreciated. The furniture and the woodwork are of our good ash, all fin- ished in the light, and simply filled and oiled ; this light wood makes a bright, cheerful room, which to many persons more than compensates for a certain weakness or want of color ; time, however, is expected to add this richness. With our fine woods (and ash is one of the best) we are able to secure the satisfactory effects we see when we compare a room like this to one where the wood is covered with paint, hiding whatever beauty it has. A true and delicate sense of color has secured both harmony i THE DINING ROOM OF GEORGE JAMES. 121 and brilliancy in the tints of the walls, cornices, and ceiling. The wall itself is a flat tint, of a brownish gray ; the ceilings much lighter ; on the lines of the cornices and above the dado are narrow but strong bands of red, brown, and blue. Great spaces of strong color are dangerous, but laid on in this way all dulness and commonness is banished. This fine room is the very reverse of the dull and common. The windows are draped with Moorish curtains hung on brass rods ; and these windows rival the attractions within, presenting, as they do, most delightful views of the wonderful and varying sea. Criticism would be out of place in the presence of this fine work, which is a satisfaction to us on-lookers, and a credit to the artists and the master. ♦ THE HALL OF CHARLES S. SARGENT, Esq., BROOKLIjSTE, mass. THE DINING-ROOM OF C. A. CUMMINGS, Esq., BOSTON, MASS. THE DINING-ROOM OF GEO. W. WALES, Esq., BOSTON, MASS. BROAD, deep bay-window opens to the north, through which we see the waters of the Back Bay, and through which comes a flood of light. 99E ^ ne room is some twenty by twenty-five feet in size. The wood-work is of oak, as are the various pieces of furniture. Next to the table, always impor- tant in a dining-room, is a plate-cupboard, or what was once called the " dressoir," through the glass doors of which the shining silver reflects the light. The colors of the room are crimson and green ; the wall being covered with crimson, which makes a good background for the many pieces of porcelain which hang there. We have made a sketch of this room mainly to show in some slight degree the fine effect of these, though it is impossible to give without color the best results. With the exception of a few pictures, almost lost among them, the walls are occu- pied with fine examples of Chinese and Japanese porcelain, and a few pieces of European work, and some delft plates. Mr. Wales's collection of china is known as the largest and best in Boston, and the method he has adopted of hanging some small part of it is most brilliant and effective. 128 THE DINING-ROOM OF GEORGE W. WALES. We direct attention to this, because so many people have a few fine old china dishes, and so few know how to use them so as to give most pleasure to themselves and their friends. A fine bit of china upon the wall is more attractive and gay than most pictures. In this room Mr. and Mrs. Wales may be said to have been their own artists. THE HALL OF FRANCIS PEABODY, Esq., DA1STYERS, MASS. IE house now owned and occupied by Francis Peabody, Esq., known as " General Gage's Headquarters," is situated in Danvers, Mass. (formerly Salem Village), and was built in 1754 by Mr. Robert Hooper (of Marblehead) , usually called at that time " King Hooper." " Thomas Gage, the royal governor of Massachusetts, find- ing his residence in Boston unpleasant, removed to Danvers, and took up his residence in this house, June 5, 1774. He was accompanied by a part of the 64th Regiment of Royal Troops, who were encamped in the adjoining fields." The architectural proportions and details of the house are very fine ; and as great care has been taken in their preserva- tion, the general condition of the whole establishment is as perfect as when originally built. It is one of the best examples of the best style of house built in New England in the last century of the colonial period. A peculiarity of the rooms on the lower floor is that the inside partitions are panelled to the ceiling ; the outside walls being finished with plaster. 130 THE HALL OF FRANCIS PEABODY. The hall we have attempted to picture is ample, extending through the house, and is some twelve by fifty feet in size. We show a little of the balusters of the staircase, which are delicately twisted. The panelling rises some four feet from the floor, above which is one of those brilliant landscape papers in fashion a century ago. -This gives a gay tone to the whole house, and cannot fail to impress whoever enters it. Something about such a hall as this speaks of hospitality, which I believe is not unknown to it ; it is roomy, receptive, and cheery. A few antique chairs and cabinets are in keeping with the hall, and a great head of spreading antlers recalls those " good old times " when every man hunted his venison in the mys- terious forests ; strongly in contrast with these good new times, when men slaughter their bulls or bears in State or Wall Street. THE MEMOEIAL HALL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. IVE hundred young men, full of hope and of health we trust, seated at dinner in such a fine hall as this, is a sight worth seeing. How to get the body fed is as important, and, we con- clude, almost as difficult, as to cater for the mind. This great dining-room, the finest probably in the country, is thus described in the Sketch-Book for July, 1874 : — " Of the three portions which compose this building, two — the Dining Hall and the Memorial Vestibule — are finished, and were dedicated with appropriate ceremonies on the 23d of June. The Dining Hall was furnished with chairs and benches, and accommodated about twenty-three hundred persons. On the next day nearly twelve hundred persons sat down to the Commencement dinner. It is one hundred and sixty-four feet long, fifty-nine feet wide, and seventy- five feet high to the point of the roof, which is supported on hammer-beam trusses of Southern pine. The walls above, below, and between the windows are of face brick, with two bands of buff tiles decorated in black and red. Below they are sheathed with brown ash to a height of twenty feet, of which the lower five or six are taken up with a panelled dado. 132 THE MEMORIAL HALL. Upon the plain surface above are hung the College pictures, with marble busts standing upon brackets under the trusses. At either end of the hall is a gallery. The window over the western gallery is twenty-five feet wide by thirty high, and is filled with stained glass. • • • • • " The whole cost of these portions of the building, work on which was begun in the spring of 1870, has been about two hundred and ninety thousand dollars, all of which has been raised by subscription among the friends and graduates of the College." It may be of interest to state how this fine building was originated, and how it has been built. It appears that after our lamentable war, in the month of May, 1866, a numerous assembly of graduates met to consider the matter of a " Memo- rial Hall," which should combine three things : — " The first — that lying deepest in the hearts of all — is the irrepressible desire of a suitable monument in commemoration of the sons of Harvard who perilled and laid down their lives to preserve us as a nation, and in defence of all that makes our country dear to us. " The second, is that of a hall in which to hold the meet- ings of the Alumni, and for their festal entertainments on the various occasions on which these are held. " The third necessity, — a necessity certainly no less impera- tive, and one from which no escape is perceived but by the aid of contributions for the purpose, — is that of a theatre for the celebration of the literary festivals of the College and its affiliated institutions." A most efficient committee of fifty was appointed, who pro- ceeded vigorously with the work, and spared neither labor, THE ME 31 ORIAL HALL. 133 pains, nor skill, until the fine structure, nearly completed, now stands near the buildings of old Harvard. This Dining Hall is the largest or western portion of the pile. Whether it was intended in the first plans to use this as a " commons," or students' dining-hall, is not certain ; but it is so appropriate, that it would seem to be inevitable, if the managers of the College are to attempt a commons at all. It appears from the great " Harvard Book," recently pub- lished, that the common dining-room was an institution from the very founding of the College, and at that day it was prob- ably indispensable ; but it also appears to have been the fruit- ful cause of dissatisfaction and confusion, sometimes culminat- ing in " rows," which often led to punishments and expulsions. One of the punishments mentioned (1674) is that of being obliged to sit uncovered at the meal ; the inference being that the " good " fellows ate with their hats on. In the 1600's * the meals appear to have been breakfast, morning bever (or lunch), dinner, afternoon bever, supper. Beer and cider were among the beverages, and in 1715 the butler was forbidden to sell his cider at over two-pence a quart. In 1734 pewter plates were bought at the cost of the College; and it would seem that before this, in a greater or less degree, each man supplied his own plate. In 1757 it was ordered that pudding should be given three times a week, but the meat be lessened on those days. In 1766 a "rebellion" broke out because the butter was so vile that no respectable wagoner would desire it for wheel-grease. During the Revolutionary War the rule providing " chocolate, tea, coffee, and milk " for breakfast was suspended, because of the cost of the three first. Those who wished those drinks were to pay extra for them. * Seventeenth century. 134 THE MEMORIAL HALL. In 1807 it was obligatory upon the professors, as well as the students rooming in the College buildings, to eat at com- mons. It was hoped in this way to change the dining-room from a sort of bear-pit to a Valhalla, but it did not wholly suc- ceed. The struggle to harmonize conflicting interests went on till 1848, when commons were abolished. It appears that the cost of living at commons, of Thomas Graves, in 1654 -5, was 8 31.50 per year. In 1805 it cost per week, 8 2.24; in 1833, 81.90; in 1836, 8 2.25; in 1848, 82 and 8 2.50, there being a cheap table and an " aristocratic " one ; to-day it costs 8 4.50. In the early days of the Colony it was greatly desired to educate a body of men who should become clergymen, then the most important calling in the community. Many of the applicants were poor, and everything was done to secure free tuition and, as nearly as possible, free food. How, therefore, to get food, and good food, enough for a growing man at the smallest charge, was the problem. It too often became a choice of evils, — either to deplete the purse or to pinch the belly ; both were disagreeable. To-day, when poor clergymen are not much sought for, the question arises, why should a college student have his education free, or partly free ; why should he have his dinner or his dining-room free, or partly free? At this moment more men who can afford to pay a fair price for their tuition and food than the colleges can accommodate are seeking admission. Therefore, has not the condition of things changed, so that the educated classes are able and willing to pay fairly for what they get, and no longer wish the contributions of the charita- ble to aid them % So many demands are now made upon the THE MEMORIAL HALL. 135 generous purse, that we may begin to answer these questions to the public advantage. A visit to this fine timbered hall will repay the trouble. It is pleasant to praise, and to some it is pleasanter to find fault. Few pieces of work are better conceived or better carried out than this, and we are grateful for it. What we much desire is that the chandeliers were more worthy the room. The great west window is filled with richly colored glass, which makes the pale side windows seem poor and starved. With more money we may expect more color. Sixty-two por- traits and sixteen busts look down upon the living young men with steady eyes, and we trust the fine souls of the departed shed down upon them their good influences. Among the painters we read the names of Copley, and Stuart, and Smibert, and Newton ; of the sculptors, Houdon, Powers, Crawford, Story, etc. It is a matter of regret that we could not have made a pic- ture of the room with the tables surrounded by the men who are coming forward to do the world's work, and better, we hope, than it has been done. But it was impossible to make such a picture. Cambridge : Elcctiotypcd and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company. GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE 3 3125 01360 4711