Before quitting the subject of the elaborate ebony work in the seventeenth century, we must confess that black and white in its place certainly adds a touch of elegance to a richly coloured room, like an unexpected turn of speech which pleases the ear. It gives a moment's relief and rest amid the storm of colour, for the small bas-reliefs are not visible till you are close to them, and then the carvings are a pleasant surprise; the same is true of the ivory panels. The finest specimens are mounted in silver, the less costly ones in pewter or white metal, with bone in place of ivory.

They became popular enough to be produced in blackened deal for buyers who would not pay for ebony, and such degenerate copies are still quite common in Italy, some of the cheapest bearing etchings on bone, full of talent, which I would be glad to believe any English workman could supply.

Conditions may no doubt render dead black, or black and white, quaint and pleasing, as on the mighty sides of Florence Cathedral, gay, moving life around, and a purple sky overhead: so in a shrine of gold and crimson and endless dancing patterns. But per se black and white are lugubrious and dull, and when over-done, as they certainly were at one time, are most coffin-like and grievous.

This gloomy development of pagan taste ended in a reaction; of course, healthy opinion reasserted itself, Florentine mosaics revived, the ebony sepulchres were brightened up with gilding and tortoiseshell, into luminous colour - Rubens himself did not disdain to furnish designs for such cabinets, if report saith true.

Ruskin, mourning over the death of the noble Gothic) .period, speaks strongly about this want of colour. 'The winter which succeeded was colourless as it was cold; and although the Venetian painters struggled long against its influence, the numbness of the architecture prevailed over them at last, and the exteriors of all the latter palaces were built only in barren stone.' - 'Stones; of Venice,' iii. 17.