During the 17th and 18th centuries we see only a mechanical kind of excellence, the results of the mere tradition of the workshop--the lingering of the power which when wisely directed had done so much and so well, but now simply living on traditional forms, often combined in a most incongruous fashion. Gorgeous effects were aimed at by massing the gold, and introducing stones elaborately cut in themselves or clustered in groups. Thus diamonds were clustered in rosettes and bouquets; rubies, pearls, emeralds and other coloured special stones were brought together for little other purpose than to get them into a given space in conjunction with a certain quantity of gold. The question was not of design in its relation to use as personal decoration, but of the value which could be got into a given space to produce the most striking effect. The traditions of Oriental design as they had come down through the various periods quoted, were comparatively lost in the wretched results of the _rococo_ of Louis XIV. and the inanities of what modern revivalists of the Anglo-Dutch call "Queen Anne." In the London exhibition of 1851, the extravagances of modern jewelry had to stand comparison with the Oriental examples contributed from India. Since then we have learnt more about these works, and have been compelled to acknowledge, in spite of what is sometimes called inferiority of workmanship, how completely the Oriental jeweller understood his work, and with what singular simplicity of method he carried it out. The combinations are always harmonious, the result aimed at is always achieved; and if in attempting to work to European ideas the jeweller failed, this was rather the fault of the forms he had to follow, than due to any want of skill in making the most of a subject in which half the thought and the intended use were foreign to his experience. A collection of peasant jewelry got together by Castellani for the Paris exhibition of 1867, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, illustrates in an admirable manner the traditional jewelry and personal ornaments of a wide range of peoples in Europe. This collection, and the additions made to it since its acquisition by the nation, show the forms in which these objects existed over several generations among the peasantry of France (chiefly Normandy), Spain, Portugal, Holland, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, and also show how the forms popular in one country are followed and adopted in another, almost invariably because of their perfect adaptation to the purpose for which they were designed.