the centre of this figure. Then measure the breadth of the six coils on each side, counting from the centre backwards and forwards.

Then draw a vertical line through centre, and measure the breadths above and below. Then draw the complete curve lightly through these fixed points-alter it to your mind-and then paint over it the determined line, with any dark colour and a camel's hair brush.

The difficulty is to draw it so that there shall not be the smallest portion of it which is not approaching the inner curve, and narrowing the intermediate space. And you will find no trick of compasses will draw it. Choose any number of centres you like, and still I defy you to draw the curve mechanically; it can be done only as I have done it myself, with the free hand, correcting it and correcting till I got it right.*

* The law of its course will be given in the Laws of Fésole, Plate V.

When you have succeeded, to any moderate extent, in doing this, your hand will have begun to receive the power of executing a serene and dignified flourish instead of a vulgar 'dash.' And you may also begin to understand that the word 'flourish itself, as applied to writing, means the springing of its lines into floral exuberance,—therefore, strong procession and growth, which must be in a spiral line, for the stems of plants are always spirals. (See Proserpina, Number IV.); and that this bursting out into foliage, in calm swiftness, is a totally different action from the impudent and useless sweeps and loops of vulgar writing.

Further. As your eyes get accustomed to the freely drawn, unmechanical, immeasurable line, you will be able, if you care about architecture, to know a Greek Ionic volute from a vulgar day-labourer's copy of it-done with compasses and calculations. And you will know how the volute of the throne of Lippi's Madonna, (though that is studied from the concave side of the shell) shows him to have been Etruscanbred; and you will begin to see what his power was; and to laugh at the books of our miserable modern builders, filled with elaborate devices for drawing volutes with bits of circles: -the wretches might as well try to draw the lips of Sir Joshua's Circe,-or the smile in her cat's triangular eyes, in that manner. Only in Eleutheria of soul and body, shall any human creature draw so much as one rightly bending line.

Any human creature, I say. Little freedom, either of body or soul, had the poor architect who drew this our first model line for us; and yet and yet, simple as his life and labours may be, it will take our best wits to understand them. I find myself, at present, without any startpoint for attempt to understand them. I found the downs near Arundel, being out on them in a sunny day just after Christmas, sprinkled all over with their pretty white shells, (none larger than a sixpence, my drawing being increased as about seven to one, in line, or fifty to one, square,) and all empty, unless perchance some spectral remnant of their dead masters remain inside; -and I can't answer a single question I ask myself about them. I see they most of them have six whirls, or whorls.

Had they six when they were young? have they never more when they are old? Certainly some shells have periodical passion of progress—and variously decorative stops and rests; but these little white continuities down to this woful time of their Christmas emptiness, seem to have deduced their spiral caves in peace.

But it's of no use to waste time in thinking.' I shall go and ask some pupil of my dear old friend Dr. Gray at the British Museum, and rejoice myself with a glance at the volutes of the Erectheium-fair home of Athenian thought.

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.

I. I am surprised to find that my Index to Vols. I. and II. of Fors does not contain the important article "Pockets"; and that I cannot therefore, without too much trouble, refer to the place where I have said that the Companions of St. George are all to have glass pockets; so that the absolute contents of them may be known of all men. But, indeed, this society of ours is, I believe, to be distinguished from other close brotherhoods that have been, or that are, chiefly in this, that it will have no secrets, and that its position, designs, successes, and failures, may at any moment be known to whomsoever they may concern. More especially the affairs of the Master and of the Marshals, when we become magnificent enough to have any, must be clearly known, seeing that these are to be the managers of public revenue. For although, as we shall in future see, they will be held more qualified for such high position by contentment in poverty than responsibility of wealth; and, if the society is wise, be chosen always from among men of advanced age, whose previous lives have been recognised as utterly without stain of dishonesty in management of their private business,the complete publication of their accounts, private as well as public, from the day they enter on the management of the Company's funds, will be a most wholesome check on the glosses with which self-interest, in the minds even of the honestest people, sometimes may colour or confuse their actions over property on a large scale; besides being examples to the accountants of other public institutions.

For instance, I am myself a Fellow of the Horticultural Society; and, glancing the other day at its revenue accounts for 1874, observed that out of an expenditure of eleven thousand odd pounds, one thousand nine hundred and sixty-two went to pay interest on debts, eleven hundred and ninety to its 'salaries'-two hundred to its botanical adviser, a hundred and fifty to its botanical professor, a hundred and twenty-six to its fruit committee, a hundred and twenty to its floral committee, four hundred and twenty to its band, nine hundred and ten to its rates and taxes, a hundred and eighty-five to its lawyers, four hundred and thirty-nine to its printers, and three pounds fifteen shillings to its foreign importations' account, (being interest on Cooper's loan): whereupon I wrote to the secretary expressing some dissatisfaction with the proportion borne by this last item to the others, and asking for some further

particulars respecting the 'salaries'; but was informed that none could be had. Whereas, whether wisely or foolishly directed, the expenditure of the St. George's Company will be always open, in all particulars, to the criticism not only of the Companions, but of the outside public. And Fors has so arranged matters that I cannot at all, for my own part, invite such criticism to-day with feelings of gratified vanity; my own immediate position (as I generally stated in last letter) being not in the least creditable to my sagacity, nor likely to induce a large measure of public confidence in me as the Company's Master. Nor are even the affairs of the Company itself, in my estimate, very brilliant, our collected subscriptions for the reform of the world amounting, as will be seen, in five years, only to some seven hundred and odd pounds. However, the Company and its Master may perhaps yet see better days.

First, then, for the account of my proceedings in the Company's affairs. Our eight thousand Consols giving us £240 a year, I have appointed a Curator to the Sheffield Museum, namely, Mr. Henry Swan, an old pupil of mine in the Working Men's College in London; and known to me since as an estimable and trustworthy person, with a salary of forty pounds a year, and residence. He is obliged at present to live

in the lower rooms of the little house which is to be the nucleus of the museum:-as soon as we can afford it, a curator's house must be built outside of it.

I have advanced, as aforesaid, a hundred pounds of purchase-money, and fifty for current expenses; and paid, besides, the lawyers' bills for the transfer, amounting to £48 16s. 7d.; these, with some needful comments on them, will be published in next Fors; I have not room for them in this.

I have been advised of several mistakes in my subscribers' list, so I reprint it below, with the initials attached to the numbers, and the entire sum, (as far as I can find out,) hitherto subscribed by each; and I beg of my subscribers at once to correct me in all errors.

The names marked with stars are those of Companions. The numbers 10, 17, 36, 43, and 48 I find have been inaccurately initialled, and are left blank for correction.