try was acquired for the Stuart Collection in 1881, in Paris, before the revival of interest in tapestries had dragged the facts about them out from ancient diaries and ledgers. Recently it has been cleaned and given the minor repairs that time and dust had made necessary; and the bottom selvage has been turned down and out so that every visitor to the Stuart Collection can see for himself the Brussels mark and the I. DEVOS.

The tapestry is very beautiful and the composition decidedly interesting. The magnificent size, 131⁄2 feet high by 211⁄2 feet wide, brings all the details into easy view. The scene is set on Parnassus, the Olympian home of the ancient Greek gods. On the right, under the trees, stands the banqueting table of Jupiter and the other divinities, with Hebe and Ganymede in active service. In the distance arrives Neptune out of the sea, pushing his steeds as if he were late. High up in the sky, far above the chariot of Neptune, is the chariot of the sun. This part of the composition is suggestive of Raphael, and quite in keeping with the work of Jan van Orley, the Brussels painter who flourished at the end of the seventeenth century and who is probably responsible for the design. Apollo himself, lyre in hand, occupies the centre of the scene. Before him, in typical costumes and coiffures of the period of Louis XIV, are the nine Muses, with song books, stringed instruments and even an organ. Above Apollo's head appears Helios the Sun God, whose identity is sometimes the same as that of Apollo, holding the blazing sun that forms a brilliant light source for the whole picture. Out of the woods in the background on the left, two rustic divinities, pipes in hand, peer jealously at the scene of celestial harmony. The border is a woven imitation of gilt frame — the kind introduced at the end of the seventeenth century.

I am well aware that some persons will blame this tapestry because it is not Gothic; others, because it is not Renaissance; still others, because it is not contemporary and modern American. To them I wish to point out that provincialism of taste is quite as distinctive of ignorance as is provincialism of ideas; that nothing is more characteristic of barbarism. than a passionate prejudice in favor of a single style, and the expression of that prejudice in meaningless shibboleths. The man who cannot find beauty in all the range of art from classic through romantic to naturalistic, and who is not thrilled by the great creations of the periods of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, as well as by those of Greece, and Rome, and the Renaissance, and of Gothic, is only part of a man. The "Parnassus" tapestry at the Public Library is a splendid definition of what the style of Louis XIV really is, and attracts the quick admiration of all who have not been educated against it.

try was acquired for the Stuart Collection in 1881, in Paris, before the revival of interest in tapestries had dragged the facts about them out from ancient diaries and ledgers. Recently it has been cleaned and given the minor repairs that time and dust had made necessary; and the bottom. selvage has been turned down and out so that every visitor to the Stuart Collection can see for himself the Brussels mark and the I. DEVOS.

The tapestry is very beautiful and the composition decidedly interesting. The magnificent size, 132 feet high by 211⁄2 feet wide, brings all the details into easy view. The scene is set on Parnassus, the Olympian home of the ancient Greek gods. On the right, under the trees, stands the banqueting table of Jupiter and the other divinities, with Hebe and Ganymede in active service. In the distance arrives Neptune out of the sea, pushing his steeds as if he were late. High up in the sky, far above the chariot of Neptune, is the chariot of the sun. This part of the composition is suggestive of Raphael, and quite in keeping with the work of Jan van Orley, the Brussels painter who flourished at the end of the seventeenth century and who is probably responsible for the design. Apollo himself, lyre in hand, occupies the centre of the scene. Before him, in typical costumes and coiffures of the period of Louis XIV, are the nine Muses, with song books, stringed instruments and even an organ. Above Apollo's head appears Helios the Sun God, whose identity is sometimes the same as that of Apollo, holding the blazing sun that forms a brilliant light source for the whole picture. Out of the woods in the background on the left, two rustic divinities, pipes in hand, peer jealously at the scene of celestial harmony. The border is a woven imitation of gilt frame the kind introduced at the end of the seventeenth century.

I am well aware that some persons will blame this tapestry because it is not Gothic; others, because it is not Renaissance; still others, because it is not contemporary and modern American. To them I wish to point out that provincialism of taste is quite as distinctive of ignorance as is provincialism of ideas; that nothing is more characteristic of barbarism than a passionate prejudice in favor of a single style, and the expression of that prejudice in meaningless shibboleths. The man who cannot find beauty in all the range of art from classic through romantic to naturalistic, and who is not thrilled by the great creations of the periods of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, as well as by those of Greece, and Rome, and the Renaissance, and of Gothic, is only part of a man. The "Parnassus" tapestry at the Public Library is a splendid definition of what the style of Louis XIV really is, and attracts the quick admiration of all who have not been educated against it.