I think female dress may be either very gorgeous, or very simple--gorgeous as a Venetian lady when Titian and Paul Veronese delighted to depict her in rich brocades and a wealth of pearls and jewellery, or simple as in England a hundred years ago, when our great-grandmothers wore muslin gowns with short waists and silk sashes, the beauty and refinement of their faces making their chief attraction, and the simplicity of the dress leaving full scope for the gracefulness of the figure to display itself, as we see in the pictures of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gainsborough, George Morland, Romney, and others. But the great artists seldom adhere to the passing fashions; they arrange the dress or reconstruct it so that it shall be most becoming to their sitters and at the same time make a good composition of colour and form for their pictures. This is also done by ladies of taste, who will often turn some freak of fashion into a thing of beauty, and, regardless of their milliner and dressmaker, will adopt some modification of the passing style if it seems to them more suitable and becoming. The sense of fitness in dress as in everything else, should, I think, guide the fair sex of whatever degree--and I must say that there are fewer costumes more suitable and, at the same time, much prettier than those of some of our domestic servants, who, with their white caps, bibs and aprons and black dresses make quite dainty little pictures, often reminding us of that well-known print of "La Belle Chocolatière." Whether this idea of fitness could be carried out in the cases of lady Town Councillors, female clerks, &c., &c., I do not know. I must leave that and many other matters connected with this subject to more competent judges,--and remain, Yours obediently, G. A. STOREY. MR. WYKE BAYLISS, P.R.B.A. SIR,--You ask me to give you, in the form of a letter, my ideas on the subject of ladies' dress. It is not without considerable hesitation that I venture to approach so sacred a mystery. I should indeed be disposed to decline your courteous invitation to be "drawn" upon the question, on the ground that I am not a figure painter, but for the consideration that although unhappily an artist is obliged in his work to limit the range of his vision, yet the beauty that exists in the world is the common heritage of us all, and every artist is, or should be, equally appreciative of the loveliness of our companions in life, and jealous of the safety and honour of the shrine at which we all worship. Replying to your letter, therefore, not as a specialist, but simply as an artist, I would say: