443. When we employ painted woods instead of those which retain their natural colour, it is better for a stuff to give the wood such a colour as will best assort with the stuff. For assortments of this kind, I believe we cannot do better than refer to the examples of the assortments of the principal colours with white, black, and grey. (P. 49 _et seq._) 444. Ebony wood, on account of its dark colour, be employed with dark stuffs to produce the assortments of analogy. In this case it can be allied with brown tones, and with red, blue, green, and violet. It is scarcely necessary to remark that these assortments prevent our using with ebony, white and yellow inlaying woods, which can be used with more or less advantage in those assortments which enter into the case of harmonies of contrast. 445. Frequent use is made of crimson woollen, velvet, and mahogany. This assortment, which is related to the harmony of analogy, is preferable to many others, only in consideration of the great stability of the colour of the stuff, and therefore independently of every idea of harmony. This induces me to examine it under several relations, that we may make the best possible use of it, according to the particular purpose. When, in assorting crimson with mahogany, we wish to produce the harmony of analogy, by marking out the lines where the wood and the stuff touch, we can employ a cord or narrow galloon of yellow, or of golden yellow with gilt nails; or, better still, a narrow galloon of green or black, according to our wish to render the border more or less prominent. When, in assorting these colours, we are guided by the twofold motive of the stability of the crimson colour and of the beauty of the mahogany, we must necessarily increase the distance which separates the stuff from the wood, by making the black or green border wider. 446. As the red woods always lose more or less of their beauty by the juxtaposition of red stuffs, we can never ally mahogany to colours which belong to the vivid reds, such as poppy or cherry; and more particularly to orange-reds, such as scarlet aurora; for these colours are so bright, that, taking away from this wood its peculiar tint, it becomes no better than oak or black walnut. ON THE SELECTION OF FRAMES FOR PICTURES AND ENGRAVINGS. 447. If a frame is necessary to a picture, engraving, or drawing, to isolate it from the objects around it, it is always more or less injurious to the illusion the painter or designer has desired to produce, when it occupies its destined place. I only purpose here to examine the relation of colour between the frame and the object it surrounds. 448. Gilt frames accord well with large pictures painted in oil, when the latter do not represent gildings, at least so near the frame as to render it easy for the eye to compare the painted gold with the metal itself.