from the surface of the walls. But the architect who designs all this is not a builder only, but an artist also. Under his touch, therefore, the gargoyle, common in itself and menial in its application, is ennobled by a secondary use. It is fashioned into some shape that shall add another beauty to the fabric. Into some shape-yes, but what shape? Shall it be derived from the flora or the fauna that give their wealth of loveliness to the sculptor's work in wood and stone? There is no link of association between these and the purpose to be fulfilled. Shall men and women bend downwards

with mouths agape to scatter streams of water on the incautious passers-by? Their places are within the church. Shall the angels be made to fulfil this gentle office? Rather let them with outstretched wings bear up the fretted roof of the choir, looking down with mild eyes upon the worshippers. But the fiends!-the fiends that come with the night winds, bringing with them the fury of the storm. The fiends-that clamour at the painted casements, as in the "Golden Legend," which they cannot break because the sword of Michael, with which he drave them out of heaven, flames there. The fiends-that rock the great steeple to its base, if only they may shake down the cross uplifted high in air. The fiends who beat despairingly against the massive doors strong with a strength beyond that of oak and iron.

Transmute them into stone. Let them grin

downwards on the happy throng which crowds the threshold they can never pass.

This is but one of the innumerable instances in which

the Supernatural in its most fantastic form is made subservient to Art. It should suffice, however, to vindicate the Grotesque from the aspersion that it is to be classed with vulgar or impure stories.

But it may be said that "fiends," after all that Art

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can do for them, are still very far from being "things of beauty." That depends upon the point from which they are viewed. Is the hippopotamus a thing of beauty"? As he lolls against the bars of his prisonhouse, with rolling eyes and huge mouth opened wide for cakes and sweetmeats, it must be admitted that his shape is not elegant, and that his countenance is not attractive. But in his right place it is a very different matter. On the broad shores of the Nile, when the landscape is shimmering under the blaze of a tropical sun; when as far as the eye can reach there is nothing but the burning stillness of the vast solitude of vegetation without life; see! that mighty rush, as Leviathan passes to the water; see! the white foam lashed to the skies, and through it the purple and gold of his harness, iridescent with light startled from its sleep upon the river. The sea-horse is himself again. Offer him a biscuit now!

It is thus with the Grotesque. The gargoyle of which I have made a sketch, if placed upon a pedestal in a drawing-room, would not add a grace to the apartment. But in its right place-high up, that is, on Amiens Cathedral, casting its deep shadow from the meridian sun or touched by the silver of the moonlight - there it is good Art, judged even by the royal standards of Truth and Beauty.

There is indeed no true Art in which Beauty and

Truth are not the theme. Evil, whether physical or moral, must be faced, because it is a sad reality, and Art has to deal with all realities-but it must be faced as an evil. The subject of Raphael's cartoon is not the lame man, but the lame man healed. If amongst the twelve we see the face of Judas, we see also that of the beloved disciple. And it is the same with Art in all its forms. Where there is an Iago there must be a Desdemona; where there is a Regan and a Goneril there must be a Cordelia. No great poet perhaps has revelled more freely in the use of the Grotesque than has Shakespeare; yet he has never swerved from this principle. "Scratch my head, Peaseblossom; methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender Ass, if my hair doth but tickle me I must scratch." But it is the lovely Titania that "doth stick musk roses in his sleek smooth head, and kiss his fair large ears." And again: "I have a reasonable good ear in music; let us have the tongs and the bones." But this is followed by the "still, sweet music" of the Fairy Queen.

It is so everywhere in Shakespeare; a Caliban is possible only where there is a Miranda; a Falstaff where there is a Hotspur; a Pistol where there is a Fluellen to make him eat his leek. If Christopher Sly is looking on at the players, then it is the beautiful Katharine and Bianca that move upon the stage.

If

Pyramus and Thisbe and "the man with the rough cast" are for the moment actors, then it is the stately Theseus and Hypolita who sit enthroned. The element of Beauty is never absent. That which in coarser hands would be revolting is, by the fine alchemy known to the true artist only, transmuted into pure gold. It is like the drowned man in the "Tempest: "

Of his bones are coral made,

Those are pearls that were his eyes;

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea change

Into something rich and strange.

It is not a pleasant task to turn from this to the debased style once more. And yet I dare not shrink from it if I would deal honestly with the subject. With the knell of the sea-nymphs still ringing in our ears, let us take up again the "Ingoldsby Legends," and look a little farther into the stuff of which they are made. There is the rhyme of the Knight and the Lady; it is made familiar to us through public readings. The Knight is an affectionate old fool of an entomologist, whose young wife betrays him in his very presence. The old man falls into a pond and is drowned. But there is no coral made of his bones. After a long search the body is discovered half-devoured by certain slimy reptiles. Of these things which have eaten her husband the lady makes her supper; the