Chapter II: Act I: of Richard III., C. 8, preamble: "The Sellers of such course (1)

Clothes, being bare of Threde, usen for to powder the cast Flokkys of fynner Cloth upon the same." Again in 1541, Act of Henry VIII., C. 18: "Thei--shall (not) make or stoppe any maner Kerseies with flocks."

"Flock, which is one of the most valuable materials used in paper staining, not only from its cost, but from its great usefulness in producing rich and velvety effects, is wool cut to a fine powder. The wool can be used in natural color or dyed to any tint. The waste from cloth manufactures furnished the chief supply, the white uniforms of the Austrian soldiery supplying a considerable portion."

Other substances have been tried, as ground cork, flock made from kids' and goats' hair, the cuttings of furs and feathers, wood, sawdust, and, lately, a very beautiful flock made of silk, which gives a magnificent effect, but is so expensive that it can only be used for "_Tentures de luxe_."

Mr. Aumonier says: "Until quite recently there were on the walls of some of the public rooms in Hampton Court Palace several old flock papers, which had been hung so long ago that there is now no official record of when they were supplied. They were of fine, bold design, giving dignity to the apartments, and it is greatly to be regretted that some of them have been lately replaced by a comparatively insignificant design in bronze, which already shows signs of tarnishing, and which will eventually become of an unsightly, dirty black. All decorators who love their art will regret the loss of these fine old papers, and will join with the writer in the hope that the responsible authorities will not disturb those that still remain, so long as they can be kept on the walls; and when that is no longer possible, that they will have the designs reproduced in fac-simile, which could be done at a comparatively small cost.

"Mr. Crace, in his _History of Paperhangings_, says that by the combination of flock and metal, 'very splendid hangings' are produced; an opinion to which he gave practical expression some years afterwards when he was engaged in decorating the new House of Parliament, using for many of the rooms rich and sumptuous hangings of this character, especially designed by the elder Pugin, and manufactured for Mr. Crace from his own blocks."

In England, in the time of Queen Anne, paper staining had become an industry of some importance, since it was taxed with others for raising supplies "to carry on the present war"--Marlborough's campaign in the low countries against France. Clarence Cook, whom I am so frequently quoting because he wrote so much worth quoting, says:

"One of the pleasant features of the Queen Anne style is its freedom from pedantry, its willingness to admit into its scheme of ornamentation almost anything that is intrinsically pretty or graceful. We can, if we choose, paint the papers and stuffs with which we cover our walls with wreaths of flowers and festoons of fruits; with groups of figures from poetry or history; with grotesques and arabesques, from Rome and Pompeii, passed through the brains of Louis XIV's Frenchmen or of Anne's Englishmen; with landscapes, even, pretty pastorals set in framework of wreaths or ribbon, or more simply arranged like regular spots in rows of alternate subjects."

It may be interesting to remember that the pretty wall-papers of the days of Queen Anne and early Georges were designed by nobody in particular, at a time when there were no art schools anywhere; and one can easily see that the wall-papers, the stuff-patterns and the furniture of that time are in harmony, showing that they came out of the same creative mould, and were the product of a sort of spirit-of-the-age.

Mica, powdered glass, glittering metallic dust or sand, silver dross, and even gold foil, were later used, and a silver-colored glimmer called cat-silver, all to produce a brilliant effect. This art was known long ago in China, and I am told of a Chinese paper, seen in St. Petersburg, which had all over it a silver-colored lustre.

Block printing and stencilling naturally belong to this subject, but, as my theme is "Old Time Wall Papers," and my book is not intended to be technical, or a book of reference as regards their manufacture, I shall not dwell on them.

Nor would it be wise to detail all the rival claimants for the honor of inventing a way of making wall-paper in rolls instead of small sheets; nor to give the names even of all the famous paper-makers. One, immortalized by Carlyle in his _French Revolution_, must be mentioned--Revillon, whose papers in water colors and in flock were so perfect and so extremely beautiful that Madame de Genlis said they cost as much as fine Gobelin tapestry. Revillon had a large factory in the Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine, Paris, and in 1788 was employing three hundred hands. He was urged to incite his workmen to head the Faubourg in open rebellion, but refused to listen; and angry at his inability to coerce this honorable man the envoy caused a false report to be spread about, that he intended to cut his wages one-half.

_PLATE IV._

Scenes from the life of an eighteenth century gallant form this
unusual old French paper--a gaming quarrel, a duel, an elopement
and other edifying episodes, framed in rococo scrolls.

This roused a furious mob, and everything was ruined, and he never recovered from the undeserved disaster.

Carlyle closes his description of the fatal riot with these words: "What a sight! A street choked up with lumber, tumult and endless press of men. A Paper-Warehouse eviscerated by axe and fire; mad din of revolt; musket volleys responded to by yells, by miscellaneous missiles, by tiles raining from roof and window, tiles, execrations and slain men!--There is an encumbered street, four or five hundred dead men; unfortunate Revillon has found shelter in the Bastille."

England advanced in the art of paper-making during the time the French were planning the Revolution, and English velvet papers became the fashion. In 1754 Mme. de Pompadour had her wardrobe and the passage that led to her apartments hung with English paper. In 1758 she had the bath-room of the Chateau de Champs papered with it, and others followed her example.

But in 1765 the importation of English papers--engraved, figured, printed, painted to imitate damasks, chintzes, tapestries, and so on--was checked by a heavy tax. So at this time papers were a precious and costly possession. They were sold when the owner was leaving a room, as the following advertisements will show:

Dec. 17, 1782. "To-let; large room, with mirror over the fire-place and paper which the owner is willing to sell."

Feb. 5, 1784. "To-let; Main body of a house, on the front, with two apartments, one having mirrors, woodwork and papers, which will be sold."

When the owner of the paper did not succeed in selling it, he took it away, as it was stretched on cloth or mounted on frames. These papers were then often offered for sale in the Parisian papers; we find advertised in 1764, "The paperhangers for a room, painted green and white"; November 26, 1766, "A hanging of paper lined with muslin, valued at 12 Livres"; February 13, 1777, "For sale; by M. Hubert, a hanging of crimson velvet paper, pasted on cloth, with gilt mouldings"; April 17, 1783, "38 yards of apple-green paper imitating damask, 24 livres, cost 38."

By 1782, the use of wall-papers became so general that, from that time on, the phrase "decorated with wall-paper" frequently occurs in advertisements of luxurious apartments to let. Before this time, mention had commonly been made, in the same manner, of the woodwork and mirrors.

October 12, 1782, the _Journal general de France_ advertised: "To let; two houses, decorated with mirrors and papers, one with stable for five horses, 2 carriage-houses, large garden and well, the other with three master's apartments, stable for 12 horses, 4 carriage-houses, etc." Oct. 28, 1782, "To let; pretty apartment of five rooms, second floor front, with mirrors, papers, etc." Feb. 24, 1783, "To let; rue Montmartre, first floor apartment, with antechamber; drawing-room, papered in crimson, with mouldings; and two bed-rooms, one papered to match, with two cellars."

Mme. du Bocage, in her _Letters on England, Holland, and Italy_, (1750) gives an account of Mrs. Montague's breakfast parties: "In the morning, breakfasts agreeably bring together the people of the country and strangers, in a closet lined with painted paper of Pekin, and furnished with the choicest movables of China.

"Mrs. Montague added, to her already large house, 'the room of the Cupidons', which was painted with roses and jasmine, intertwined with Cupids, and the 'feather room,' which was enriched with hangings made from the plumage of almost every bird."

III

EARLIEST WALL PAPERS IN AMERICA

III

EARLIEST WALL PAPERS IN AMERICA

Wall-papers of expensive styles and artistic variety were brought to America as early as 1735. Before that time, and after, clay paint was used by thrifty housewives to freshen and clean the sooty walls and ceilings, soon blackened by the big open fires. This was prepared simply by mixing with water the yellow-gray clay from the nearest claybank.

In Philadelphia, walls were whitewashed until about 1745, when we find one Charles Hargrave advertising wall-paper, and a little later Peter Fleeson manufacturing paper-hangings and papir-maché mouldings at the corner of Fourth and Chestnut Streets.

Those who could not afford to import papers painted their walls, either in one color or stencilled in a simple pattern, or panelled, in imitation of French papers; each panel with its own picture, large or small. These attempts at decoration ranged with the taste and skill of the artist, from fruit and floral designs and patterns copied from India prints and imported china, to more elaborate and often horrible presentments of landscapes and "waterscapes." The chimney breast, or projecting wall forming the chimney, received especial attention.

In my own farm-house, which was built in Colonial style in 1801 (with, as tradition says, forty pumpkin pies and two barrels of hard cider to cheer on the assisting neighbors), one of my first tasks was to have five or six layers of cheap papers dampened and scraped off. And, to my surprise, we found hand-painted flowers, true to nature and still extremely pretty, though of course scratched and faded after such heroic treatment--fuchsias in one room, carnation pinks in another, and in the front hall honeysuckle blossoms, so defaced that they suggested some of the animal tracks that Mr. Thompson-Seton copies in his books. What an amount of painstaking and skilled work all that implied! That was a general fashion at the time the house was built, and many such hand-paintings have been reported to me.

Mrs. Alice Morse Earle mentions one tavern parlor which she has seen where the walls were painted with scenes from a tropical forest. On either side of the fire-place sprang a tall palm tree. Coiled serpents, crouching tigers, monkeys, a white elephant, and every form of vivid-colored bird and insect crowded each other on the walls. And she speaks of a wall-paper on the parlor of the Washington Tavern at Westfield, Massachusetts, which gives the lively scenes of a fox chase.

Near Conway, New Hampshire, there is a cottage where a room can still be seen that has been most elaborately adorned by a local artist. The mountains are evenly scalloped and uniformly green, the sky evenly blue all the way round. The trees resemble those to be found in a Noah's Ark, and the birds on them are certainly one-fourth as large as the trees.

The painted landscapes are almost impossible to find, but I hear of one room, the walls of which are painted with small landscapes, water scenes, various animals, and trees. A sympathetic explorer has discovered another in similar style at Westwood, Massachusetts, near Dedham.

In the old "Johnson House," Charlestown, New Hampshire, the door remains on the premises, with hatchet marks still visible, through which the Indians, "horribly fixed for war," dashed in pursuit of their trembling victims. The hinges of hoop iron and latch with stringhole beneath are intact. A portion of its surface is still covered with the paint of the early settlers, made of red earth mixed with skimmed milk.

A friend wrote me that her grandmother said that "before wall-paper became generally used, many well-to-do persons had the walls of the parlor--or keeping room as it was sometimes called--and spare room tinted a soft Colonial yellow, with triangles, wheels or stars in dull green and black for a frieze; and above the chair-rail a narrower frieze, same pattern or similar, done in stencilling, often by home talent.

"My great aunt used to tell me that when company was expected, the edge of the floor in the 'keeping room' was first sanded, then the most artistic one of the family spread it evenly with a birch broom, and with sticks made these same wheels and scallops around the edge of the room, and the never-missing pitcher of asparagus completed the adornment."

On the panels of a mantel, she remembers, an artist came from New Boston and painted a landscape, while in the sitting-room, across the hall, a huge vase of gayly tinted flowers was painted over the mantel. On the mantel of another house was painted the Boston massacre. This was in existence only a few years ago.

Later came the black and white imitation of marble for the halls and stairs, and yellow floors with the stencil border in black. This was an imitation of the French. In Balzac's _Pierrette_ is described a pretentious provincial house, of which the stairway was "painted throughout in imitation of yellow-veined black marble."

Madeleine Gale Wynne, in _The House Beautiful_, wrote most delightfully about "Clay, Paint and other Wall Furnishings," and I quote her vivid descriptions of the wall paintings she saw in Deerfield and Bernardston, Massachusetts.

"These wall paintings, like the embroideries, were derived from the India prints or the Chinese and other crockery. Whether the dweller in this far-off New England atmosphere was conscious of it or not, he was indebted to many ancient peoples for the way in which he intertwined his spray, or translated his flower and bud into a decorative whole.

"Odd and amusing are many of the efforts, and they have often taken on a certain individuality that makes a curious combination with the Eastern strain.

"An old house in Deerfield has the remains of an interesting wall, and a partition of another done in blue, with an oval picture painted over the mantel-tree. The picture was of a blue ship in full sail on a blue ocean.

"The other wall was in a small entry-way, and had an abundance of semi-conventionalized flowers done in red, black, and browns. The design was evidently painted by hand, and evolved as the painter worked. A border ran round each doorway, while the wall spaces were treated separately and with individual care; the effect was pleasing, though crude. Tulips and roses were the theme.

"This house had at one time been used as a tavern, and there is a tradition that this was one of several public houses that were decorated by a man who wandered through the Connecticut Valley during Revolutionary times, paying his way by these flights of genius done in oil. Tradition also has it that this man had a past; whether he was a spy or a deserter from the British lines, or some other fly-from-justice body, was a matter of speculation never determined. He disappeared as he came, but behind him he left many walls decorated with fruit and flowers, less perishable than himself.

"We find his handiwork not only in Deerfield, but in Bernardston. There are rumors that there was also a wall of his painting in a tavern which stood on the border line between Massachusetts and Vermont. In Connecticut, too, there are houses that have traces of his work. In Bernardston, Massachusetts, there is still to be seen a room containing a very perfect specimen of wall painting which is attributed to him. This work may be of later date, but no one knows its origin.

"This design is very pleasing, not only because of its antiquity and associations, but because in its own way it is a beautiful and fitting decoration. The color tones are full, the figures quaintly systematic and showing much invention.

"The body of the wall is of a deep cream, divided into diamond spaces by a stencilled design, consisting of four members in diamond shape; the next diamond is made up of a different set of diamonds, there being four sets in all; these are repeated symmetrically, so that a larger diamond is produced. Strawberries, tulips, and two other flowers of less pronounced individuality are used, and the colors are deliciously harmonized in spite of their being in natural tints, and bright at that. Now, this might have been very ugly--most unpleasing; on the contrary, it is really beautiful.

"There is both dado and frieze, the latter being an elaborate festoon, the former less good, made up of straggling palms and other ill considered and constructed growths. One suspects the dado to be an out-and-out steal from some chintz, while the tulips and strawberries bear the stamp of personal intimacy.

"The culminating act of imagination and art was arrived at on the chimney-breast decoration; there indeed do we strike the high-water mark of the decorator; he was not hampered either by perspective or probability.

"We surmise that Boston and its harbor is the subject; here are ships, horses and coaches, trees and road-ways, running like garlands which subdivide the spaces, many houses in a row, and finally a row of docile sheep that for a century have fed in unfading serenity at their cribs in inexplicable proximity to the base of the dwellings. All is fair in love, war, and decoration.

"The trees are green, the houses red, the sheep white, and the water blue; all is in good tone, and I wish that it had been on my mantel space that this renegade painter had put his spirited effort."

A friend told me of her vivid recollection of some frescoed portraits on the walls of the former home of a prominent Quaker in Minneapolis. Her letter to a cousin who attends the Friends' Meeting there brought this answer: "I had quite a talk with Uncle Junius at Meeting about his old house. Unfortunately, the walls were ruined in a fire a few years ago and no photograph had ever been taken of them. The portraits thee asked about were in a bed-room. William Penn, with a roll in his hand (the treaty, I suppose) was on one side of a window and Elizabeth Fry on the other. These two were life size.

"Then, (tell it not in Gath!) there was a billiard room. Here Mercury, Terpsichore and other gay creatures tripped around the frieze, and there was also a picture of the temple in Pompeii and Minerva with her owl. In the sitting room on one side of the bay window was a fisher-woman mending her net, with a lot of fish about her. On the other side of the window another woman was feeding a deer.

"On the dining-room walls a number of rabbits were playing under a big fern and there was a whole family of prairie chickens, and ducks were flying about the ceiling. Uncle Junius said, 'It cost me a thousand dollars to have those things frescoed on, and they looked nice, too!' I suppose when the Quaker preachers came to visit he locked up the billiard room and put them in the room with William Penn and Elizabeth Fry. He seemed rather mortified about the other and said it would not do to go into a Quaker book, at all!"

This house was built about the middle of the nineteenth century, when Minneapolis was a new town; but it undoubtedly shows the influence of the old New England which was the genial Friend's boyhood home. The scores of Quaker preachers and other visiting Friends who accepted the overflowing hospitality of this cheerfully frescoed house seem to have had none of the scruples of Massachusetts Friends of an earlier date. A lady sent me a strip of hideously ugly paper in squares, the colors dark brown and old gold. She wrote me that this paper was on the walls of the parlor of their house in Hampton, Massachusetts. The family were Friends; and once, when the Quarterly Meeting was held there, some of the Friends refused to enter their house, as the paper was too gay and worldly. And it actually had to be taken off!

After the clay paint and the hand painting came the small sheets or squares of paper, and again I was fortunate in finding in my adopted farm-house, in the "best room" upstairs, a snuff-brown paper of the "wine-glass" pattern that was made before paper was imported in rolls, and was pasted on the walls in small squares. The border looks as much like a row of brown cats sitting down as anything else. You know the family used to be called together to help cut out a border when a room was to be papered; but very few of these home-made borders are now to be found.

I was told of a lady in Philadelphia who grew weary of an old and sentimental pattern in her chamber, put on in small pieces and in poor condition, and begged her husband to let her take it off. But he was attached to the room, paper and all, and begged on his part that it might remain. She next visited queer old stores where papers were kept, and in one of them, in a loft, found enough of this very pattern, with Cupids and doves and roses, to re-paper almost the entire room. And it was decidedly difficult so to match the two sides of the face of the little God of Love as to preserve his natural expression of roguishness and merry consciousness of his power.

It may interest some to learn just what drew my attention to the subject of old-time wall-papers. One, and an especially fine specimen, is associated with my earliest memories, and will be remembered to my latest day. For, although a native of New Hampshire, I was born at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, and there was a merry dance to the music of mandolin and tambourine round the tomb of Virgil on my natal morn. Some men were fishing, others bringing in the catch; farther on was a picnic party, sentimental youths and maidens eating comfits and dainties to the tender notes of a flute. And old Vesuvius was smoking violently. All this because the room in which I made my début was adorned with a landscape or scenic paper.

Fortunately, this still remains on the walls, little altered or defaced by the wear of years. When admiring it lately, the suggestion came to me to have this paper photographed at once, and also that of the Seasons in the next house; these were certainly too rare and interesting to be lost. It is singular that the only papers of this sort I had ever seen were in neighboring homes of two professors at Dartmouth College, and remarkable that neither has been removed: now I find many duplicates of these papers.

What a keen delight it was to me as a child to be allowed to go to Professor Young's, to admire his white hair, which I called "pitty white fedders," and to gaze at the imposing sleighing party just above the mantel, and at the hunters or the haymakers in the fields! A good collection is always interesting, from choice old copies of first editions to lanterns, cow-bells, scissors, cup-plates, fans or buttons; and I mourn that I did not think of securing photographs of quaint and antique papers years ago, for most of them have now disappeared.

Showing the beginnings of my collection to an amateur photographer, he was intensely interested, and said: "Why, I can get you a set as good as these! The house has been owned by one family for eighty-five years, and the paper was put on as long ago as that." And certainly his addition is most interesting. The scenes in one are French. You see a little play going on, such as we have been told in a recent magazine article they still have in France--a street show in which a whole family often take part. They appear as accompaniment to a fair or festival. The hole for the stove-pipe, penetrating the foliage, has a ludicrous effect, contrasting in abrupt fashion--the old and the new, the imposing and the practical.

This enthusiastic friend next visited Medfield, Massachusetts, where he heard there were several such papers, only to be told that they had just been scraped off and the rooms modernized.

Hearing of a fine example of scenic paper in the old Perry House at Keene, New Hampshire, I wrote immediately, lest that, too, should be removed, and through the kindness of absolute strangers can show an excellent representation of the Olympic games, dances, Greeks placing wreaths upon altars, and other scenes from Grecian life, well executed. These are grand conceptions; I hope they may never be vandalized by chisel and paste, but be allowed to remain as long as that historic house stands. They are beautifully preserved.

_PLATE V._

A detail of the preceding paper. Though well designed, this is not
a beautifully colored or very well printed paper; the color scheme
is carried out in fourteen printings.

A brief magazine article on my new enthusiasm, illustrated with photographs of papers I knew about, was received with surprising interest. My mail-bag came crowded, and I was well-nigh "snowed in," as De Quincy put it, by fascinating letters from men and women who rejoiced in owning papers like those of my illustrations, or had heard of others equally fine and equally venerable, and with cordial invitations to journey here and there to visit unknown friends and study their wall-papers, the coloring good as new after a hundred years or more. It was in this unexpected and most agreeable way that I heard of treasures at Windsor, Vermont; Claremont, New Hampshire; Taunton, Massachusetts, and quaint old Nantucket, and was informed that my special paper, with the scenes from the Bay of Naples (represented so faithfully that one familiar with the Italian reality could easily recognize every one) was a most popular subject with the early purchaser and was still on the walls of a dozen or more sitting-rooms.

The Reverend Wallace Nutting, of Providence, whose fame as an artistic photographer is widespread, sent me a picture of a parlor in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, where he found this paper. Three women dressed in old-fashioned style, even to the arrangement of their hair, are seated at table, enjoying a cup of tea. An old tabby is napping cosily in a soft-cushioned chair. And above, on the right, Vesuvius is pouring forth the usual volumes of smoke. A fine old mahogany side-board, at the foot of the volcano, decorated with decanters and glasses large and small, presents an inviting picture.

The house at Hillsboro Bridge, New Hampshire, where Ex-Governor Benjamin Pierce lived for years, and where his son, Franklin Pierce, passed a happy boyhood, has this paper, and several similar letters show how generally it was admired. Mrs. Lawrence, of Boston, wrote:

"I send by this mail a package of pictures, taken by my daughter, of the Italian wall-paper on her grandfather's old home in Exeter, N. H. The house is now owned by the Academy and used as a dormitory. The views which I enclose have never been published. We have two or three remarkable specimens of wall-paper made in India a hundred and fifty years ago; the strips are hanging on the wall, nailed up."

The Italian paper proved to be my old friend Vesuvius and his bay. An Exeter professor also wrote describing the same paper and adding translations of the Greek inscriptions on the monuments.

Friends would often write of such a wonderful specimen at some town or village. I would write to the address given and be told of this Bay of Naples paper again. They were all brought over and put on at about the same time.

One of the oldest houses in Windsor, Vermont, still has a charming parlor paper, with landscape and water, boats, castles, ruins and picturesque figures, which was imported and hung about 1810. This house was built by the Honorable Edward R. Campbell, a prominent Vermonter in his day, and here were entertained President Monroe and other notable visitors. Later the Campbell house was occupied for some years by Salmon P. Chase. It is now the home of the Sabin family.

A Boston antique dealer wrote me: "In an article of yours in _The House Beautiful_, you have a photograph of the paper of the old Perry House, Keene, N. H. We want to say that we have in our possession here at this store, strung up temporarily, a paper with the same subject. It forms a complete scene, there being thirty pieces in attractive old shades of brown. We bought this from a family in Boston some little time ago, and it is said to have been made in France for a planter in New Orleans in or before 1800. We feel we would be excused in saying that this is the most interesting lot of any such thing in existence. It has been handed down from family to family, and they, apparently, have shown it, because the bottom ends of some of the sheets are considerably worn from handling. You understand this paper was never hung on the wall and it is just as it was originally made." He fairly raves over the beautiful rich browns and cream and "O! such trees!"

To my inquiry whether his price for this paper was really two thousand dollars, as I had heard, he replied, "We would be very sorry to sell the paper for two thousand dollars, for it is worth five thousand."

An artist who called to examine the paper is equally enthusiastic. He writes: "I was greatly impressed by the remarkably fine execution of the entire work. Doubtless it was printed by hand with engraved blocks. A large per cent of the shading, especially the faces of the charming figures, was surely done by hand, and all is the production of a superior artist. There are several sections, each perhaps three feet square, of such fine design, grouping, finish and execution of light and shade, as to make them easily samples of such exquisite nicety and comprehensive artistic work as to warrant their being framed.

"The facial expression of each of the many figures is so true that it indicates the feelings and almost the thoughts of the person represented; there is remarkable individuality and surprising animation. I was forcibly struck with the inimitable perspective of the buildings and the entire landscape with which they are associated. Practically speaking, the buildings are of very perfect Roman architecture; there is, however, a pleasing venture manifested, where the artist has presented a little of the Greek work with here and there a trace of Egyptian, and perhaps of the Byzantine. These make a pleasing anachronism, such as Shakespeare at times introduced into his plays: a venture defended by Dr. Samuel Johnson, as well as other distinguished critics. The trees are done with an almost photographic truth and exactness. After a somewhat extended and critical examination of things of this kind in various parts of Europe, I do not hesitate to say that I have seen nothing of the kind that excels the work you have. What is quite remarkable about it, and more than all exhibits its truth to nature, it seems to challenge decision whether it shows to best advantage in strong daylight or twilight, by artificial light or that of the sun; an effect always present in nature, but not often well produced on paper or canvas. The successful venture to use so light a groundwork was much like that of Rubens, where he used a white sheet in his great painting, 'The Descent from the Cross.'"

Since the above description was written, this incomparable paper has passed into the hands of Mrs. Franklin R. Webber, 2nd, of Boston, who will either frame it, or in some other way preserve it as perfectly as possible.

The remarkable paper shown in Plate XLI and the three following plates were sent me by Miss Janet A. Lathrop of Stockport-on-Hudson, New York. It is certainly one of the finest of the scenic papers still in existence. The scene is oriental, the costumes seeming both Turkish and Chinese. Temples and pagodas, a procession, a barge on the river and a gathering in a tea-house follow in succession about the room. All are printed by hand on rice paper, in gray tones. The paper is browned with age, but was cleaned and restored about a year ago and is exceedingly well preserved.

The house in which this paper is hung was built by Captain Seth Macy, a retired sea-captain, in 1815. The paper was put on in 1820. Captain Seth seems to have used up all his fortune in building his house, and in a few years he was forced to sell it. The name of "Seth's Folly" still clings to the place. In 1853 Miss Lathrop's father bought the house, and it has ever since been occupied by his family. By a singular coincidence, Mrs. Lathrop recognized the paper as the same as some on the old house at Albany in which she was born. Repeated inquiries have failed to locate any other example in America, and photographs have been submitted without avail to both domestic and foreign experts for identification. In the early seventies Miss Lathrop chanced to visit a hunting-lodge belonging to the King of Saxony at Moritzburg, near Dresden, and in the "Chinese room" she found a tapestry or paper exactly similar, from which the paper on her own walls may have been copied.

The two papers just described would seem to be the finest examples of continuous scenic papers still extant. I learn as this book goes to press that Mrs. Jack Gardner, of Boston, has a remarkable old geographical paper, in which the three old-world continents are represented. I have been fortunate enough to secure, through the courtesy of Mrs. Russell Jarvis, a picture of the paper in her parlor at Claremont, New Hampshire. The Jarvis family have occupied the house since 1797. This is not a landscape, but consists of small pastoral scenes, placed at intervals and repeated regularly. The design is brown on a cream ground. It has a dado and a frieze in dark blue. It is hand made and all printed by hand, in squares of about eighteen inches, matched carefully. Mrs. Jarvis writes: "I had no idea that the photographer would take in so much each side of the corner, or I should have arranged the furniture differently. The picture I did not suppose was to appear is one of great interest and value. It is supposed to be a Rubens, and has hung there for over a hundred years. It was bought in 1791 in Boston, of a French gentleman from San Domingo, who, on the night of the insurrection there, escaped, saving but little else of his vast possessions. It had evidently been hastily cut from the frame. It represents the presentation of the head of the younger Cyrus to Tomyris, Queen of the Scythians. The coloring is fine, the figures very beautiful, and the satin and ermine of the Queen's dress extremely rich. If you look closely, you will see a sword lying on the piano. This is the one Sir William Pepperell was knighted with by King George the Second, in 1745, because of the Battle of Louisburg, and was given my husband's father by Sir William's grand-daughter, I believe."

You see how one photograph brings to you many valuable bits of information apart from the paper sought.

This letter, for example, with its accompanying photograph (see Plate XXII) leads one to the study of history, art, and literature. The subject of the picture, aside from its supposed origin, is of interest.

The Scythians were Aryans much mixed with Mongol blood; they disappear from history about 100 B. C. Cyrus the younger, after subduing the eastern parts of Asia, was defeated by Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae in Scythia. Tomyris cut off his head and threw it into a vessel filled with human blood, saying, as she did so, "There, drink thy fill."

Dante refers to this incident in his _Purgatory_, xii; and Sackville, in his _Mirrour for Magistrates_, 1587, says:

Consyder Cyrus--
He whose huge power no man might overthrowe,
Tomyris Queen, with great despite hath slowe,
His head dismembered from his mangled corpse
Herself she cast into a vessel fraught
With clotted blood of them that felt her force,
And with these words a just reward she taught:
"Drynke now thy fyll of thy desired draught."

Here seems to be the place to speak more fully of the small scenes placed regularly at intervals. There is a great variety of pretty medallion pictures of this sort, as, alternating figures of a shepherdess with her crook reclining on a bank near a flock of sheep, and a boy studying at a desk, with a teacher standing near by.

Mr. Frank B. Sanborn writes: "The oldest paper I ever saw was in the parlor of President Weare, of Hampton Falls--a simple hunting scene, with three compartments; a deer above, a dog below, and a hunter with his horn below that. It was put on in 1737, when the house was built, and, I think, is there still. Colonel Whiting's house had a more elaborate and extensive scene--what the French called 'Montagnes Russe'--artificial hills in a park, for sliding down, toboggan fashion, and a score of people enjoying them or looking on."

A good authority asserts that rolls of paper did not appear in this country until 1790, so that all these now mentioned must have been imported in square sheets. Notice the step forward--from white walls, through a clay wash, to hand painting, stencilling, small imported sheets, and, at last, to rolls of paper.

_PLATE VI._

Fragment of the famous old racing paper from the Timothy Dexter
house. This is too broken and stained to admit of the reproduction
of its original colors--blue sky, gray clouds, green turf, brown
horses and black, and jockeys in various colors. The scene here
given fills the width of the paper, about eighteen inches.

IV

WALL PAPERS IN HISTORIC HOMES

IV

WALL PAPERS IN HISTORIC HOMES

Esther Singleton, in her valuable and charming book on _French and English Furniture_, tells us that in the early Georgian period, from 1714 to 1754, the art of the Regency was on the decline, and "the fashionable taste of the day was for Gothic, Chinese and French decorations; and the expensive French wall-painting and silken hangings were imitated in wall-paper and the taste even spread to America." In 1737, the famous Hancock House was being built and, until it was demolished a few years ago (1863), it was the last of the great mansions standing that could show what the stately homes of old Boston were like. This house was built by Thomas Hancock, son of the Rev. John Hancock, the kitchen of whose house is now owned by the Lexington Historical Society.

On January 23, 1737-8, we find him writing from Boston to Mr. John Rowe, Stationer, London, as follows: "Sir, Inclosed you have the Dimensions of a Room for a Shaded Hanging to be done after the Same Pattern I have sent per Captain Tanner, who will deliver it to you. It's for my own House and Intreat the favour of you to Get it Done for me to Come Early in the Spring, or as Soon as the nature of the Thing will admitt.

"The pattern is all was Left of a Room Lately Come over here, and it takes much in ye Town and will be the only paper-hanging for Sale here wh. am of opinion may Answer well. Therefore desire you by all means to get mine well Done and as Cheap as Possible and if they can make it more beautifull by adding more Birds flying here and there, with Some Landskips at the Bottom, Should like it well. Let the Ground be the Same Colour of the Pattern. At the Top and Bottom was a narrow Border of about 2 Inches wide wh. would have to mine. About three or four years ago my friend Francis Wilks, Esq., had a hanging Done in the Same manner but much handsomer Sent over here from Mr. Sam Waldon of this place, made by one Dunbar in Aldermanbury, where no doubt he, or some of his successors may be found. In the other part of these Hangings are Great Variety of Different Sorts of Birds, Peacocks, Macoys, Squirril, Monkys, Fruit and Flowers etc.

"But a greater Variety in the above mentioned of Mr. Waldon's and Should be fond of having mine done by the Same hand if to be mett with. I design if this pleases me to have two Rooms more done for myself. I Think they are handsomer and Better than Painted hangings Done in Oyle, so I Beg your particular Care in procuring this for me and that the patterns may be Taken Care of and Return'd with my goods."

John Adams writes in his Diary (1772): "Spent this evening with Mr. Samuel Adams at his house. Adams was more cool, genteel, and agreeable than common; concealed and retained his passions, etc. He affects to despise riches, and not to dread poverty; but no man is more ambitious of entertaining his friends handsomely, or of making a decent, an elegant appearance than he.

"He has newly covered and glazed his house, and painted it very neatly, and has new papered, painted and furnished his rooms; so that you visit at a very genteel house and are very politely received and entertained."

Paper is the only material with which a man of but little means can surround himself with a decorative motive and can enjoy good copies of the expensive tapestries and various hangings which, until recently, have been within the reach of the wealthy only. The paper-hanger was not so much a necessity in the old days as now. The family often joined in the task of making the paste, cutting the paper and placing it on the walls. This was not beneath the dignity of George Washington, who, with the assistance of Lafayette, hung on the walls at Mount Vernon paper which he had purchased abroad.

The story goes that the good Martha lamented in the presence of Lafayette that she should be unable to get the new paper hung in the banquet room in time for the morrow's ball in honor of the young Marquis. There were no men to be found for such work. Lafayette at once pointed out to Mistress Washington that she had three able-bodied men at her service--General Washington, Lafayette himself and his aide-de-camp. Whereupon the company fell merrily to work, and the paper was hung in time for the ball. Not only did the Father of our Country fight our battles for us, but there is evidence that he gracefully descended to a more peaceful level and gave us hints as to that valuable combination known to the world as flour paste.

There is in existence a memorandum in Washington's hand, which reads as follows:

"Upholsterer's directions:

"If the walls have been whitewashed over with glew water. If not--Simple and common paste is sufficient without any other mixture but, in either case, the Paste must be made of the finest and best flour, and free from lumps. The Paste is to be made thick and may be thinned by putting water to it.

"The Paste is to be put upon the paper and suffered to remain about five minutes to soak in before it is put up, then with a cloth press it against the wall, until all parts stick. If there be rinkles anywhere, put a large piece of paper thereon and then rub them out with cloth as before mentioned."

During the period when Mount Vernon was in private hands, the papers of Washington's day were removed. There is now on the upper hall a medallion paper which is reproduced from that which hung there at the time of the Revolution.

Benjamin Franklin was another of our great men who interested themselves in domestic details. In 1765 he was in London, when he received from his wife a letter describing the way in which she had re-decorated and furnished their home. Furniture, carpets and pictures were mentioned, and wall coverings as well. "The little south room I have papered, as the walls were much soiled. In this room is a carpet I bought cheap for its goodness, and nearly new.... The Blue room has the harmonica and the harpsichord, the gilt sconce, a card table, a set of tea china, the worked chairs and screen--a very handsome stand for the tea kettle to stand on, and the ornamental china. The paper of the room has lost much of its bloom by pasting up." This blue room must have been the subject of further correspondence. Nearly two years later Franklin wrote to his wife:

"I suppose the room is too blue, the wood being of the same colour with the paper, and so looks too dark. I would have you finish it as soon as you can, thus: paint the wainscot a dead white; paper the walls blue, and tack the gilt border round the cornice. If the paper is not equally coloured when pasted on, let it be brushed over again with the same colour, and let the _papier maché_ musical figures be tacked to the middle of the ceiling. When this is done, I think it will look very well."

There are many old houses in New England and the Middle States which are of historic interest, and in some of these the original paper is still on the walls and in good preservation, as in the Dorothy Quincy house at Quincy, Massachusetts. The Dorothy Quincy house is now owned by the Colonial Dames of Massachusetts, who have filled it with beautiful colonial furniture and other relics of Dorothy Q's day. The papers on all the walls are old, but none so early as that on the large north parlor (Plate XXIX), which was imported from Paris to adorn the room in which Dorothy Quincy and John Hancock were to have been married in 1775. Figures of Venus and Cupid made the paper appropriate to the occasion.

"But the fortunes of war," says Katharine M. Abbott in her _Old Paths and Legends of New England_, "upset the best of plans, and her wedding came about very quietly at the Thaddeus Burr house in Fairfield. Owing to the prescription on Hancock's head, they were forced to spend their honeymoon in hiding, as the red-coats had marked for capture this elegant, cocked-hat 'rebel' diplomatist of the blue and bluff. Dorothy Quincy Hancock, the niece of Holmes's 'Dorothy Q.,' is a fascinating figure in history. Lafayette paid her a visit of ceremony and pleasure at the Hancock house on his triumphal tour, and no doubt the once youthful chevalier and reigning belle flung many a quip and sally over the teacups of their eventful past."

The Hancock-Clarke house, in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a treasure house of important relics, besides files of pamphlets, manuscripts and printed documents, portraits, photographs, furniture, lanterns, canteens, pine-tree paper currency, autographs, fancy-work--in fact almost everything that could be dug up. There is also a piece of the original paper on the room occupied by Hancock and Adams on April 18, 1775. But the bit of paper and the reproduction are copyrighted, and there is no more left of it. It is a design of pomegranate leaves, buds, flowers and fruits--nothing remarkable or attractive about it. I have a small photograph of it, which must be studied through a glass.

In the sitting-room the paper is a series of arches, evidently Roman, a foot wide and three feet high. The pillars supporting the arches are decorated with trophies--shields, with javelins, battle-axes and trumpets massed behind. The design is a mechanical arrangement of urn and pedestal; there are two figures leaning against the marble, and two reclining on the slab above the urn. One of these holds a trumpet, and all the persons are wearing togas. The groundwork of color in each panel is Roman red; all the rest is a study in black and white lines. Garlands droop at regular intervals across the panels.

The paper in the Lafayette room at the Wayside Inn, South Sudbury, Massachusetts, is precious only from association. The inn was built about 1683, and was first opened by David Howe, who kept it until 1746. It was then kept by his three sons in succession, one son, Lyman Howe, being the landlord when Longfellow visited there and told the tale of Paul Revere's ride. It was renovated under the management of Colonel Ezekiel Howe, 1746-1796, and during that time the paper was put on the Lafayette room.

Several important personages are known to have occupied this room, among them General Lafayette, Judge Sewall, Luigi Monti, Doctor Parsons, General Artemus Ward. The house was first known as Howe's in Sudbury, or Horse Tavern, then as the Red Horse Tavern; and in 1860 was immortalized by Longfellow as The Wayside Inn.

"The landlord of Longfellow's famous Tales was the dignified Squire Lyman Howe, a justice of the peace and school committee-man, who lived a bachelor, and died at the inn in 1860--the last of his line to keep the famous hostelry. Besides Squire Howe, the only other real characters in the Tales who were ever actually at the inn were Thomas W. Parsons, the poet; Luigi Monti, the Sicilian, and Professor Daniel Treadwell, of Harvard, the theologian, all three of whom were in the habit of spending the summer months there. Of the other characters, the musician was Ole Bull, the student was Henry Ware Wales, and the Spanish Jew was Israel Edrehi. Near the room in which Longfellow stayed is the ball-room with the dais at one end for the fiddlers. But the polished floor no longer feels the pressure of dainty feet in high-heeled slippers gliding over it to the strains of contra-dance, cotillion, or minuet, although the merry voices of summer visitors and jingling bells of winter sleighing parties at times still break the quiet of the ancient inn."

Judge Sewall, in his famous diary, notes that he spent the night at Howe's in Sudbury--there being also a Howe's Tavern in Marlboro. Lafayette, in 1824, spent the night there and, as Washington passed over this road when he took command of the army at Cambridge, it is more than likely that he also stopped there, as Colonel Howe's importance in this neighborhood would almost demand it. Washington passed over this road again when on his tour of New England, and then Colonel Howe was the landlord and squire, as well as colonel of a regiment.

Burgoyne stopped there, a captive, on his way from Ticonderoga to Boston; and, as this was the most popular stage route to New York city, Springfield and Albany, those famous men of New England--Otis, Adams, Hancock, and many others--were frequent guests. A company of horse patrolled the road, and tripped into the old bar for their rum and home-brewed ale. It is worth recording that Agassiz, in his visits to the house, examined the ancient oaks near the inn, and pronounced one of them over a thousand years old. Edna Dean Proctor refers to them in her poem:

Oaks that the Indian's bow and wigwam knew,
And by whose branches still the sky is barred.

I have a photograph of the famous King's Tavern, where Lafayette was entertained, and a small piece of the paper of the dining-room. This tavern was at Vernon, Connecticut, (now known as Rockville,) on the great Mail Stage route from New York to Boston. It was noted for its waffles, served night and morning, and the travellers sometimes called it "Waffle Tavern." It was erected by Lemuel King, in 1820. Now it is used as the Rockville town farm. The noted French wall-paper on the dining-room, where Lafayette was entertained, represented mythological scenes. There was Atlas, King of the remote West and master of the trees that bore the golden apples; and Prometheus, chained to the rock, with the water about him. The paper was imported in small squares, which had to be most carefully pasted together.