“The French have furnished us with abundance of fanciful decorations for these purposes (ceilings and panels) little less barbarous than the Gothic; and they were, like that species of building (for we will not descend to call it architecture) received with great readyness; the art seemed upon the point of being lost in England; but a better taste has now prevailed. We should, in that danger, have declared for banishing whatever came under the denomination of French ornament; but, now we see it over, the art will be to receive these ornaments with discretion, to adapt them to the few uses for which they are proper, and to soften their luxurious use, and blend them with better figures, till we have reduced them into a more decent appearance. “A ceiling straggled over with arched lines, twisted curves, with X’s, C’s and tangled semi-circles, may please the light eye of the French, who seldom carry their observation farther than a casual glance; but this alone is poor, fantastical and awkward; it is a strange phrase to use for anything from France, but those who have seen such ceilings as we here describe must acknowledge it is just.” He then goes on to recommend a ceiling which the plate shows to be Louis XV. in style. Here then we have direct evidence of the favour in which the styles of the Regency had been received in England. The _rocaille_ decoration and the excessive use of Chinese subjects, and monkeys, arabesques and floral devices, and particularly the broken curve, quickly overcame the opposition encountered from conservative members of the old school and strongly influenced Germany and England. The expensive French wall-painting and silken hangings are imitated in wall-paper. The taste even spread to America, for Mr. Hancock, of Boston, sent to London in 1736 for paper-hangings for one of the rooms of his new house. He says about three or four years ago one of his friends had a hanging like the sample he sends, but he adds, “If they can make it more beautiful by adding more birds flying here and there, with some landskips at the bottom, should like it well. Let the ground be the same colour of the pattern. At the top and bottom was a narrow border of about 2 inches wide, which would have to mine.... In the other part of these hangings are great variety of different sorts of birds, peacocks, macoys, squirril, monkys, fruit and flowers, etc.” The macoys (which, of course, are macaws or parrots) and the monkeys proclaim the Regency taste.