Page [iii]

                        PREFACE.
  IT is very frequently a subject of surprise that while daily improve-
ments are taking place in the different branches of the arts and sciences,
and so many professional men have written on the architectural beauties
of antiquity, no work has appeared on the subject of general interior
house decoration, an art so universal in its application, worthy of public
notice and attention. An attempt will be made in this work to supply
the deficiency; and by a careful investigation of the true principles of
design and character, endeavour to fix some rules by which both the
employer 4nd the decorator may be directed.
   The art of decoration is intimately connected with a provision for the
enjoyments and elegant comforts of life, and has engaged the attention
of the most eminent men in past days. In the early ages of the world,
little more could have been desired in their fragile buildings than shelter
from the changes of atmosphere and the effects of the weather. But
when cities arose, the art of decoration attracted much more of their
attention, and nations vied with each other, not only in the splendour
and elegance of their structures, but in the propriety of application
and design of their interior decoration.
   In looking at the designs of the ancients, it is too common a practice
to apply all the external ornaments of the Greeks and Romans to the
interior of our own dwellings, without any regard being paid to their
primitive uses, or any authority on which to found their present ap-
plication; and thereby trying to make the interior of a modern drawing-
room resemble a temple; and to render the application still more
absurd, we find introduced, heavy entablatures and overgrown columns.
That the ancients, in the decoration of their dwellings, admitted a more