Provincial Roman painting is not fine as compared with the great things in either Greek or Gothic art, but we must remember, in comparing it with anything we can obtain to-day, that it was the ordinary journeyman decorator’s work of the time. It is certainly far beyond the standard of common work which we reach to-day; and Roman London, on the testimony of the arts, must have been quite a civilised place. A full study of the fragments in country museums ought to make an interesting subject for a student who is prepared to take up a definite piece of research on the history of art in Britain. Further, suggestions for enlarging the scope of work undertaken by present-day “painters and decorators” might be gathered from these ancient paintings. Our workmen are capable of much better work than is ordinarily demanded of them. Their skill in graining was noticeable; it was the last field where any freedom was left the workmen, and it was probably for that very reason (unconsciously functioning) that architects have tried to kill it. It is our duty to demand free and interesting work. A point to be thought of in regard to the Roman decorations is the character of the designs. These are not laboriously set out, transferred from a full-sized drawing, and painfully “executed”; they are swiftly painted in masterly brush strokes and varied at will for the fun of the thing. [Illustration: FIG. 118. ] _Marble Wall-Linings._—In London, at Silchester, and elsewhere, fragments of coloured marbles, and even of porphyries, have been found, which suggest that they were parts of wall-linings, or rather of dadoes. Wright says, of the Great Villa at Woodchester: “Several slices of marble, of different sorts, but chiefly foreign, were also found. These had, perhaps, been employed to encrust the walls. Some of these pieces were not more than a quarter of an inch thick.” At Silchester pieces of porphyry have been found not more than three-sixteenths of an inch thick, and also pieces of fine white marble. At Colchester, fragments of Purbeck and white marble and porphyry have just been dug up. At the British Museum there are many small pieces of marble of various colours, and some of red and green porphyry. A piece of white marble at the British Museum has a shallow edge moulding such as I have frequently seen on dado-slabs in Rome. Such moulding is an excellent way of joining up continuous slab work. The pieces of green porphyry at the British Museum are from the site of East India House (where the Bacchus pavement was found), and they were given by Sir W. Tite in 1884, who, about that time, wrote on the mosaic pavement. These pieces are cut into forms—a part of a circular band and a triangle; they must have belonged to some handsome piece of work, like an Opus Alexandrinum pavement. It looks as if this building, close by the Forum and Basilica, was of special importance—perhaps the governor’s palace.