THE English carpets, famous for durability, made fifty years ago, were too hideous to deserve notice as works of art. Whilst the well-spun and wellwoven worsted fully deserved the old English reputation of worth and integrity, we found as we grew to see the faults in design that it would not wear out however ill-used, and many a good old Brussels carpet after being endured in the drawing-room till human nature revolted, was sent into the best bed-room; from thence into the second best; finally, as nothing would ruffle its temper, it was 'swapped' for matting and rugs, and probably still lives in some humbler dwelling, looking 'showy' and feeling comfortable to the last.

All the furniture made under the influence of the Empire was durable; this was part of their general principle of truth, and earnestly do I wish that a principle so good could be combined with pleasanter forms but we must not be Quixotic. The carpets were indestructible; and if, as a Queen-Annite asserted the other day, 'that which has remained to us is really worthy of study and imitation, mainly because it has remained,' it strikes me that a consistent admirer of early nineteenth-century objects ought to fit the old carpets to the old furniture and have the room correct. They are quite as perfect after fifty years' service as the emaciated tables and sideboards. And perhaps enthusiasts will yet be born to see something 'nice ' about Bengal tigers and vast roses and snowdrops rearing and wriggling beneath their aesthetic feet.

Meanwhile carpets have deteriorated in quality and improved in colour. Morris's carpets, which are sometimes very pleasing, fade detestably soon; and there are few firms where durable materials seem to be united with ' high art' colours. But this is a consummation which will be granted as soon as the public devoutly insist upon it; and, putting intrinsic worth aside, we go on to examine the artistic merits to be sought in carpets.

Nothing can cultivate our eye as well as intelligent study of Oriental fabrics: not those made for the modern market by workmen sufficiently indifferent to their traditions to accept British dyes, and so impaired by want of keeping up to their original standard that they have almost forgotten how to work minute patterns and a close web. But sufficient Oriental carpets of older date remain to guide and satisfy cultured taste, and to serve, I rejoice to say, as patterns for reproduction; and now that import duties are entirely abolished, every year is likely to bring over more genuine old products until Turkey and India are exhausted, and that will be some time hence.

The first merit about these old carpets is that they are hand-made, which necessitates slight irregularities and 'imperfections;' which yet are more interesting than the excessive precision of machine-made goods. Irregularity in colour or web is called imperfection in the trade; but a certain imperfection seems necessary to the existence of beauty, which perishes amid the rigid parallelograms and clarifications of Science, like a wild bird in a doorless cage: and many things which machine-trained opinion calls 'spoilt' are beautiful through the very want of perfectness which is complained of. Not that bad work is in itself admirable. We must distinguish between the flights of fancy that spring from want of skill and concentration, and those derived from a strength superior to leading-strings - as also pretty accidents. But all old work shows us the impress of human minds and hands, instead of mechanical monotony. Every zigzag will be just so far irregular as a zigzag drawn by hand, not by a wheel; every spot and group will have its little individualities - as like as a pea to a pea, which is not very like - and every colour will be imperfect by the modern standard of distillation, for every colour will partake slightly of some other, and so there will be better harmony.

This is visible in all branches of decorative work, from carpets to china and jewellery. Approximate perfection is all we can endure in this imperfect world. Blue should be unmistakable as blue, yet it should contain just enough red to bear propinquity with red, or just enough yellow to bear propinquity with green. This is like a sweetly-tempered character that can sympathise with many other minds without sacrificing its own individual principles; and such colours, soft, pliable, not aggressive and obstinate, maybe called sympathetic colours.

All antique work is tinted with sympathetic colours. The rudeness of the old loom, or tool, or retort, may be responsible; but be the cause what it may, intentional or no, the result is good, and not uninstructive. When we use modern dyes, exquisitely distilled and rigidly pure, in similar combinations to the old, it will be at once seen that they are out of tune together, and irreconcilable. Our coal-tar colours look unnatural either in masses, or sudden contrast with each other, for such purity is never seen in nature save in an infinitesimal quantity instantly softened apologetically off - observe a grain of ore, a glimpse of a bird's wing, changing at the next grain or the next flash into its modified echo, or its palpitating opposite. This is why faded colours are often better than when new, their harshness has subsided.

This gentleness of character visible in antique colouring, and in antique shapes too, is very remarkable, and seems to possess a moral significance, which however does not bear pressing beyond the domain of art.

Probably because carpets were not originally intended to be trampled upon and disregarded, the ancients took the trouble to design beautifully for them and carry them out carefully. In the East the beautiful little carpet is intended for a devotional purpose; and the true believer would weave in the image of the sacred Kaaba with a memory of prayer to Allah: such embroideries and fabrics as were not devotional were meant for seats and hangings, constantly under criticism. Thus carpets were exclusively used in England up to the fourteenth century when they are first spoken of as luxuries 'sur quoy on marchoit!

The close, fine web without pile, of some Eastern carpets certainly seems still unsuitable to the rough service of modern drawing-rooms with their crowded parties and negligent or reckless housemaids. They are better fitted for wall-hangings and portitres than for the pummelling of hard and ceaseless boots.

The indefatigable Morris advertises an improved hand-made carpet called 'Hammersmith,' for which he will supply designs adapted to the place where it is meant to lie. This is a step in the right direction; but really fine designs cannot be made 'to order.' They must await inspiration.

One well-known firm has a pretty carpet, repeating J. M. Whistler's well-known signature of a butterfly; if it could but be reproduced in worsted which would wear more than a month.

Brussels is no doubt the most durable kind of English carpet, 'Wilton Pile' the most springy and pleasant, and I am sorry that the vagaries of our high-art teachers are limiting us to Kidderminster. This is a good carpet for bedrooms and schoolrooms, but it is too thin to be as silent as luxury demands, or as warm as an English winter deserves. The flat, visible threads always have a somewhat ascetic and 'wrongside' look compared with a deep delicious velvet-pile. Why cannot we have such luxurious copies of Eastern work at its best as Henry IV. required when he instituted La Savonnerie? Such carpets might be made better (and probably cheaper) at home than in the East; and if customers could procure them at anything like a reasonable rate, they would soon chase from the field the unsatisfactory carpets we have for some time been obliged to put up with.