elaborate stone chimney-piece (Plate LX.), in which the prevailing idea is highly developed. The lower entablature is supported by pairs of caryatides growing out of pilasters, and adorned with bands and swags of flowers. Within the main enclosure is a subordinate margin of mouldings and egg-and-tongue enrichments. The upper part of the composition, though founded on the same idea of columns supporting a crowning cornice, is much elaborated with niches and carved panels. There are no shields of arms, which is rather a curious omission, but instead there are statues of abstract conceptions--Arithmetica, Geometria, Prudentia, and Justitia. The whole effect is extremely handsome, but it is too intricate to be quite satisfactory. [Illustration: PLATE LVI. STONE CHIMNEY-PIECE FROM BOUGHTON HOUSE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE (BEFORE 1556).] [Illustration: PLATE LVII. STONE CHIMNEY-PIECE FROM LACOCK ABBEY, WILTSHIRE. (BEFORE 1553).] [Illustration: PLATE LVIII. BARLBOROUGH HALL, DERBYSHIRE (1584). A CHIMNEY-PIECE.] [Illustration: PLATE LIX. HATFIELD HOUSE, HERTFORDSHIRE. CHIMNEY-PIECE IN KING JAMES'S ROOM (ABOUT 1612).] [Illustration: PLATE LX. STONE CHIMNEY-PIECE IN THE GREAT CHAMBER, SOUTH WRAXALL MANOR HOUSE, WILTSHIRE.] [Illustration: PLATE LXI. HARDWICK HALL, DERBYSHIRE. A CHIMNEY-PIECE.] In contrast to this is an interesting chimney-piece in a bedroom at Hardwick Hall, in Derbyshire (Plate LXI.). The material is marble, and the design is unpretending. Its noticeable feature is the panel that serves as overmantel, carved with much grace and spirit. The subject seems to be Apollo and the Nine Muses, though some of the latter appear to have abandoned for the time being the callings over which they presided, in order to join in concerted music. The period of the work is put beyond a doubt by the presence of the royal arms with Elizabeth's supporters, the lion and the dragon, and of the initials E. R. Panels with figure subjects were not uncommon, although they were not often so well executed as this. Scriptural themes were frequently represented, but they did not necessarily imply any special religious character in the house, and often in some of the other rooms of the same house would be other themes of quite mundane inspiration. At East Quantockshead, in Somerset, a house of the Luttrells, one room has in the overmantel the Descent from the Cross, the next a mermaid with scrollwork and flowers, the next the Luttrell arms and the date 1614: others have Christ Blessing the Children; the Lamentation over Jerusalem, with the city in the distance, and a hen in the foreground gathering her chickens under her wings; and the Agony in the Garden. Another house in that district has the Affliction of Job, with the principal figure represented as being in exceedingly poor case. Occasionally there were no figure subjects, nor even shields, the panels being quite plain, as in the wood chimney-piece at Ford