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    Which is the cheapest newspaper in the world ? Bold as it may seem to answer such a question without a warehouse of newspapers carefully sorted , by-way of evidence , we think h priori the distinction may be awarded to the Volks-Zeitung , published at Berlin . This organ fur Jedermann aus Jem Volke is a daily paper which c osts about three-halfpence a week ! It is a very decent looking journal too , quite equal in appearance to most other German papers , well printed on a quarto sheet , with occasional supplements of an extra sheet . It contains a leading article , the telegrnphic despatches the Berlin news , with brief accounts of what is stirring in London , Paris , Switzerland , and America , and th e " Markets . " Generally it contains an article of popular science . Cheap as this paper is , it is not inferior to the mass o German papers ; to many it is superior . That such a paper could be established in so small a town as Berlin , and be made to pay the proprietors , may give our speculators matter for thought . Three « halfpence a week for a daily paper !

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    Victor Cousin has resumed his sketches of celebrated Frenchwomen during the 17 th century . To Madame de Longueville and Madame de Sable he now proposes to add La Duchesse De Chevheuse and Madame de Hadtefort . In the last number of J ^ a Revue des Deux Mondes appears the first part of his animated story of the life and adventures of Madame de Chevbbuse , to which all lovers of anecdotical history and all lovers of romance are recommended . That queer kind of compliment , so often passed on a hi story , " It reads like a novel , " may assuredly be passed on this chapter of the history of France . We shouldjbe glad if novels always read like it .

    In the same number of the Revue there is an article on Kingsley ' s ** Westward Ho \ " by M . ^ Euile M ontegut , who watches our literature with a careful eye , aud keeps his countrymen informed on whatever is likely to interest them . Gustave Plakche takes a retrospect of the year ' s productions at the Theatre Franpais , in his accustomed style o { trenchant selfsufficiency . Planche is eertainly one of those whom Gresset call les viiirans de lafatuiti . —one of those " Qui decide , qui fronde Parle bien de lui-meme , et rnal de tout le monde . "

    He has an adroit way of paying himself a compliment in every other sentence . His slightest opinion is une affirmation ; and he is careful to tell you that toiis les esprits dtilicats will at once see the justice of what he is about to saj ' . It is only in France such a writer could be tolerated . In France they secretly respect such colossal confidence , such absolute decision . They are not themselves given to pedantry ; but , however they may laugh at it , they have a certain awe of what Moliere so finely calls" Tout le savoir obscur de la pedanterie . " { Savoir obscur is very happy . ) Hence they have not dared to " put down " Gustave Planche , who for a quarter of a century has been flourishing the pedagogic ferule as if it were a sceptre .

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    Goldsmith has been a fortune to our painters . They cannot leave him alone . Every year the walls of the Academy show us a scene from the " "Vicar of Wakcfield , " or an episode in Goldy ' s own life . Mr . Birket Foster has this Christmas taken up the " Traveller , " determined on making it a gem among the gift-books . He has profusely illustrated the poem in his happiest manner ; and the publishers have clone their part with the " getting up . " We arc not sure that they have not overdone their part . The hook seems to us even too splendid : on the drawing-room table it will lie an ornament which our fingers scarcely dhre approach ungloved , for fear of soiling its gilding . However , when once that qualm of conscience is allayed , and the volume lies open , the visitor will not shut it until he has looked through all Mr . Birket Foster ' s illustrations .

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    THE DECORATIVE ARTS . Handbook of the Arts of the Middle Apes * and Renaissance , as applied to the Decoration of Furniture , A . rma , Jcueli , fyc . l'rom tho French of M . Julca Labarte . Joh 11 Murray M . Labaktk has brought a fine taste and extensive learning to the illustration of a neglected subject . His work , though originall y intended only as the introduction to a catalogue , has long been known and prized by artists and antiquaries throughout Europe . The translator , therefore , has performed a very useful tnsk , especially as he has procured for this edition the ori g inal woodcuts , in the possession of M . Labarte . Tho delineations of antique enamels , embossed goblets , Moorish arabesques , Saracen swords , and Etrurian vases had been executed too lovingly to be repeated to perfection by a copyist . It is seldom that , in books of this character , wo find the text to correspond , in clearness and elaboration , with tho engravings ; but M . Labarte ' a manual is virtually tho mediaeval history of ornamental sculpture , painting , metal-work , and pottery—the history , indeed , of refined luxury . The illustrations are remarkably varied , representing every form of ecclesiastical furniture , of arms and armour , of crowns , thronoa , and jewels , of cafaebs / goblets , vases , urns , and ewera—even clooka and Baddies . Thus has art , in tho ages of its highest development , passed from sacred and palatial architecture and monumental sculpture and painting into tho recesses of social

    life , and made Pictures of tables spread for social use . Ihe Greek waterjar , over which we hang a veil of glass , stood in the Athenian ' s courtyard ; it was worthy to stand by his wine-goblet or his funeral urn . la our own days a Revival is promised . The artist is employed by the manufacturer . M . Labarte ' s work appears opportunely to-promote this Renaissance . It is rich in examp les of exquisite design , in suggestions and practical explanations —of high interest to the student , and of obvious value to the designer . The first part is occupied by the history of ornamental sculpture during the Mediaeval and Renaissance periods . The works of the G < thic and Lombard kings , the carved thrones and chairs of wood and ivory , the reliefs on church walls , the diptychs of the consuls—appropriated by the priests—the portable altar-pieces and sacred vessels wrought upon the surface into pictures—displayed the transition from a Pagan to a Christian form . Albert Purer , Nicolas and John of Pisa , Agostino , Agnolo , Orgagna , Donatello , and Ghiberti are the great names of the Revival , as it influenced carving and decorative sculpture . Some of their works had all the breadth and grandeur of monumental art ; others were marvels of minute elaboration . In Germany and France carvings were produced which contained within the space of an * inch twenty figures , admirable in attitude and expression . In another form this ingenuity was carried so far , that a specimen of Mediaeval painting exists , in which a bird , drawn on the corner of a leaf , is so small that it can only be seen thoroughly through a microscope , yet so perfect , that the eye is full of life and observation . The Renaissance fostered a style of picturesque decoration , covering walls , balustrades , furniture , and festal services with traceries , scrolls , arabesques , flowers , and fruit . M . Labarte describes successively the progress of decorative paintingon walls , windows , manuscripts—in embroidery and in mosaic . It was a daring impulse that excited the mosaic artist to rival the painter ia oil—to produce cartoons instead of pavements , by means of bits of marble , or glass , endlessly diversified colours . The Greeks introduced into their mosaics many new processes , and added an effect of astonishing brilliance by laying the cubes of glass on a ground of gold and silver . In the sixteenth century this singular art , encouraged by the Venetian Senate , and hy Titian , who gloried in all colour , continued to flourish ; but painting , under the influence of the great masters , became incomparable , and mosaic , for a time , disappeared : — In x'eatricting mosaic to the imitation of painting , the artists were obliged to improve its mechanical processes ; instead of the little stones and the cubes of glass of which it had been formerly composed , they now employed coloured enamels , reduced to strips of various forms and sizes , the different shades of whicli have been estimated , at ten thousand . By means of these enamels they were able to produce every colour , to emulate every half tint , and to represent every transition and degi-adation of tone . Possessed of such powerful resources , mosaic , towards the end of the XVIIth century , was wonderfully restored to favour , and brought to great perfection . It was then employed to render an important service to art in the reproduction , in more durable materials , of the masterpieces of the great painters . The popes , by causing the finest paintings of the Vatican to be copied in mosaic for the churchof St . Peter , have secured their immortality . * In . works of small size , mosaic has succeeded in treating with inconceivable minuteness , landscapes , buildings , and even portraits , and ia enabled to render with the truth of painting , skies , water , foliugo , and oven the lightness of the hair of animals . M . Labarte ' s chapters on Damascene work , and on enamel , abound in curious detail . There were two kinds of Damascene work —the incrustation of one metal on another , and the inlay of a brighter in a dull metal . Of enamels there were three descriptions—the painted , the translucid , and the incrusted : — Towards the middle of the XVfch century , painting in enamel had made great progress , and with the specimens before ua we are enabled to explain the processes employed in making them . On an unpolished plate of copper , the enameller traced with a style the outline of the figure or subject to be repreaontod . The plate was then overlaid with a thin translucid flux , after which the eimmeller began to apply his colours . The outlines of the drawing traced by the style were first covered over with a dark-coloured enamel , which was to give the outlino upon the surface of the picture ; the draperies , the sky , the background * and accessories , were then expressed by enamel colours in tolerably thick layers , filling up the interstices formed by the dark-coloured outline which enclosed tho different enamel colours , performing as it were tho same office as the lines of metal in tho process of inorusted enamels . There was thoroforo a total abacneo of shadow in this painting , in which tho first design was expressed by thickness of colours . The space for tho flesh tints was filled with . a black or deep violet enamel ; they were then rendered upon this ground by white euiunol applied iu layers more or less thin , in order to preserve the shadows , and thereby obtuiu a Bketch very lightly in relief , of tho principal bony and muscular parts of tho face and the body ; consequently , all the carnations in this process have a bistro or violet hue by which they may easily be recognised . In order to produco effect in the rest of the painting in which tho shadows woro entiroly wanting , tho light parts of the hair , of the draperies and back-ground , were , most frequently , indicated by touches of gold . The imitatioua of precioun stones applied upon the mantles of tho saints and upon the draperies , arc poculiar to this description of enamels , which aro generally painted upon flat plates of copper , rather thick , and coatod with a thick enamel at tho back , presenting ft vitreous appearance . A taste was prevalent during the Middle Ages for the works , orig inal and imitated , of ancient lapidaries—vases of rock crystal , drinking vessels of agate , cups ' of sardonyx and lapis-lazuli , richly mounted anil engraved . M . Labarte describes , also , the wonderful progress of the goldsmith ' s craftperfected in Itnly , and degraded in France . Perhaps , however , tho most interesting portion of his summary is devoted to the Keramic art—to Greek and Etruscan pottery , to tho varnished and enamelled wares of Spai n and Italy—the jars of the Alliumbra , the painted majolica of Florence , Faenza , and Urbino—the works of Palissy and his pupils , and tho Flemish and Gernmn schools . The history of ornamental glass , starting from tho imitation of onyx-eamco in the Portland vase , is traced through the period of the Lower Kmpire to the establishment of tho "Venetian miumfnctories In tho golden hook of Murano nine names of glass-makers appear . This

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    THE LEADER . . TNo . 299 , Sat i . * . Vy ?

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    * Ohlrlandnjo ug ? d to Bay that mosaic was tho . only pnl =. tlng for eternity . —Vrbhi'I W ° J OMrtondqfo .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 15, 1855, page 1204, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2119/page/16/