Punch: Punch (69.1875)

July 24, 1875.]

PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

31

THE HOUSE AND THE HOME;

OB, HINTS TOWARDS A GRAMMAR OF DECORATIVE ART.

By Leo^aebo Della Robbia be Tubok Westponb Tumpkyns,
Esq., S.A.S., A.R.F., M.U.F., and Hon. Member of the Dulli-

dillitanty Society.

At this point you will generally find in Grammars what is termed
an

exeecise on the aeticle.

Oar instances shall speak for themselves : e.g.—
I ride on a Chair. My Brother dances on the Table. Our
Grandmother is rolling on the Hearth-rug. Your Sister is tearing a

Window-sash. Tommy is kicking
the Door. The Boy is thumping the
Piano. The Girl is playing Cricket
with the China Ornaments.
And so on.

Of Substantives and Gender in
furnishing, we will not treat at
present. Perhaps we shan't say
anything about them at all. "We 'H
see.

Number.—No Grammar of Deco-
rative Art would be perfect were
" Number " left out. There can, in
furnishing^ be any number of any-
thing. This rule can be best com-
prehended by the following exam-
ples : e.g.—

We bought two hundred and sixty
Pokers with brass handles. He
bought fifty Stoves and seventy Side-
boards. She bought three hundred China Cups, seventy Ornamental
Vases, sixty specimens of Wedgeivood, and a hundred Louis Quatorze
Tables.

This will give you some idea of Number in Decorative Art. There
is also, as in Greek, the dual number. Things go in pairs, as
candlesticks, sugar-tongs, &c,
and cannot be sold separately.

Of the use of the Adjective
and Adverb in Decorative Art
not much need be said here.
Everything is "0, quite too
lovely!" "0, what a little
duck of a thing ! " " How de-
liciously frightful!" "How
frightfully charming! " " How
quite too inexpressibly horribly
lovely!"

Adjectives are considerably
used by the vendor, as e.g.,
"That little table there is
really beautiful." "You
couldn't get so perfect a pair of
candlesticks if you were to try
everso! " " That lovely escri-
toire, Ma'am, is a decided
bargain at thirty-six guineas,"
&c, &c. , CKKkm*** »

Possessive Adjectives. — The
use of these is evident. You buy a chair and it's yours. This is,

by the way, how to make chairs
into washing-basins. Do you see ?
Why, you buy my three chairs,
and then my three chairs become
ewers.

" Ewer another I " as the sugar-
basin said to the washing-basin.

Exercise on the Possessive Ad-
jectives in furniture is simple:
e>9 —

Here, jump up! that's my
Chair. Get out ! that's my Bed.
It's thy Table, is it f then thou
■wilt pay for thine. It's his Piano.
I say, those are our Carpets you 're
beating so cruelly ! fyc.

Cases.—As for Cases in such a
Grammar of Furnishing Decorative
Art as this, there are various cases:
—Book cases, writing cases, wine
... cases, spirit cases, music cases,

pillow cases, brush cases, cigar cases, glass cases, &c, &c, which

we must notice in due order, that is, as you order them, beginning
with wine cases—say a case
of Pommery tres sec. (Ad-
dressed here, of course, to the
Author of this work.*)

If you would be really ori-
ginal, be guided by me, and
never follow precedent for
precedent's sake. For in-
stance, if it strikes you that
a grand piano would be ad-
mirably adapted for a four-
post bedstead, do not hesitate
to fit the mattress on to the
strings, your pillow near the
keyboard, space for your
hands to pass through on to
the notes, and, after a very
little practice, your fingers would wander easily and lazily over the

octaves, and you could play yourself drowsily to sleep. A banjo
upside down would form a first-rate looking-glass for shaving.

If a carpet would, in your opinion,
serve better for a blind, have it up,
and make a blind of it. If anyone
says to you, " You can't make a look-
ing-glass into a feather bed," at once
seize the opportunity for trying it.
Depend upon it, there are many uses
to which glass may be put, at present
quite unknown, because hitherto un-
tried. Had the idiot, who laid down
the maxim that " there is nothing
like leather," been able to prevent
anyone from using glass, we should
still have been drinking out of the
" leather bottel," and decanters would
have yet to be invented.

* Opportunity for advertisement. Never
were such, times ! I take the opportunity
of informing Upholsterers, House Decora-
ters, &c, that here is a splendid chance for
advertisement. Being committed to no one
taste in particular, I am open to the best offer, and am prepared to give, in
the course of these useful hints, the names and addresses in full, 'with list of
cheapest prices, of all these tradesmen who have t/ie true interests of art in
view. My artist will also execute designs for furniture, with the name and
address of the maker appended. We, the author and the artist, are willing
to take it out in part cash, part furniture, or articles of vertu, and our motto
is " Ars longa, but business is business."

P.S.—The Editor takes this opportunity to warn tradesmen against the
artist calling at their shops and undertaking to execute designs in this work
on his own account for value received. He is unauthorised to do anything
without the Editor. Share and share alike.

{To be continued.)

"the sabble on the eight h0ese."

Paris has got an International Exhibition of " Maritime and
Fluvial Industries." It includes, in the French Export Department,
" a trophy of Saddlery." For a moment we were at sea on reading
this piece of information, and at a loss to account for the pre-
sence of Saddlery in a Maritime Exhibition; but then we remembered
our old friends "the Horse Marines," and understood at once that
the trophy must consist of their equipments.

ecclesiastical mem.

What the two great Church parties want to do to each other-
Turn the Tables.