Get rid, then, at once of any idea of Decorative art being a degraded or a separate kind of art. Its nature or essence is simply its being fitted for a definite place; and, in that place, forming part of a great and harmonious whole, in companionship with other art; and so far from this being a degradation to it--so far from Decorative art being inferior to other art because it is fixed to a spot--on the whole it may be considered as rather a piece of degradation that it should be portable. Portable art--independent of all place--is for the most part ignoble art. Your little Dutch landscape, which you put over your sideboard to-day, and between the windows tomorrow, is a far more contemptible piece of work than the extents of field and forest with which Benozzo has made green and beautiful the once melancholy arcade of the Campo Santo at Pisa; and the wild boar of silver which you use for a seal, or lock into a velvet case, is little likely to be so noble a beast as the bronze boar who foams forth the fountain from under his tusks in the market-place of Florence. It is, indeed, possible that the portable picture or image may be first-rate of its kind, but it is not first-rate because it is portable; nor are Titian's frescoes less than first-rate because they are fixed; nay, very frequently the highest compliment you can pay to a cabinet picture is to say--"It is as grand as a fresco." Keeping, then, this fact fixed in our minds,--that all art _may_ be decorative, and that the greatest art yet produced has been decorative,--we may proceed to distinguish the orders and dignities of decorative art, thus:-- I. The first order of it is that which is meant for places where it cannot be disturbed or injured, and where it can be perfectly seen; and then the main parts of it should be, and have always been made, by the great masters, as perfect, and as full of nature as possible.