The pieces of and form, have This is seen in

be the number of colours present. the corolla, being all alike in size each an equal proportion of colour. the common primrose, where there is only one colour. So irregularity of corolla is associated with irregular distribution of colour, whether one or more colours are present." In irregular flowers where the number five prevails, the odd piece is most varied in form, size, and colour. When only one colour is present, it is usually more intense in the odd lobe of the corolla. When there are two colours, one of them is generally confined to the odd piece. Sometimes, when only one colour is present and of uniform intensity in all the pieces, the odd segment has spots or streaks of white."* We have an example of this in the common laburnum, for four petals are yellow, and the fifth yellow with purple veins.

Although Mr. Ruskin is a man of wonderful intuitional power, he seems to have been unguarded in his statements in reference to colour; for he says, in his "Lamps of Architecture," that "the natural colour of objects never follows form, but is arranged on a different principle;" and again, "Colour is simplified where form is rich, and vice versa." "In nature," he further says, "the boundaries of form are elegant and precise; those of colours, though subject to symmetry of a rude kind, are yet irregular -in blotches." Prompted by the candour which distinguishes men of real genius, he will probably correct these statements in a new edition of his beautiful work.

* "Typical Forms," &c., p. 151.

The laws of colour are very important to artists and workers in tapestry, silk, and stained glass. The charm of some colours depends on association, but it needs no associated object to see 66 loveliness in the red rose, and the blue harebell, and the yellow primrose.' Present to a skilful colourist an article of human workmanship, constructed according to the rules of simultaneous contrast in colouring, and he will at once say, Here are art and design. Place before him a piece of Gobelin tapestry, one of our finer carpets, or the stained glass of a window, and he will perceive at a glance that the associations of colour are not accidental, but that they are purposely suited to the physiological and psychical nature of man. We are convinced that there are equally clear proofs of contrivance in the colouring of natural objects, organic and inorganic. Indeed, colourists long ago, observed that there was a beautiful harmony in the colours of nature; and within the last age Field and Hay, and very possibly others, have stated what is the nature of this harmony, though they have not followed it into the various departments of natural history. He who can trace all these adaptations to Him who causes His works to make sweet music by their harmony, has surely here a source of higher-we should rather say, of highest joy."*

Colours, to be beautiful, must be clear and fair, not dusky or too strong; as light greens, soft blues, delicate whites, pink reds, and violets. There is something very refreshing to the eye in the light

*Drs. M'Cosh and Dickie, "Typical Forms," &c.

green of young fir-trees in early spring, in the pink of a monthly rose, in the blue of a forget-me-not when just fading, in the chaste rich white of a camellia, and in the softened scarlet geranium.*

Mr. Ruskin thinks that "the loveliest colours ever granted to human sight are those of morning and evening clouds before or after rain." Where colours are strong in nature they are diversified and blended, so that the effect is softened. In gorgeous sunsets the dark clouds are empurpled, the white ones tinged with roseate hues, and the deep blue illuminated: so that in the exquisite commingling of blue, yellow, orange, green, scarlet, and purple, we have the richest tapestry draping the heavens: and it seems as if the city of gold, emeralds, and pearls, had opened its gates, and the refulgent beauty of heaven was streaming down on the earth. The richest and most gorgeous tints of Turner fall infinitely below the colours of a grand sunset, such a one as only occurs five or six times in a summer, among the higher clouds. Two or three of these have made an indelible impression. They only lasted for a few minutes in the richest and most

* "According to the commonly-adopted doctrine, there are three Primary Colours-red, yellow, and blue. The combination of these in certain proportions yields white; the absence of them all, is black. These primaries, mixed together two and two, produce what are called Secondary Colours, viz., orange, from the mixture of red and yellow; green, from the mixture of yellow and blue; and purple, from the mixture of red and blue. From the combination of the Secondaries arise three Tertiary Colourscitrine from the mixture of orange and green; olive, from the mixture of green and purple, and russet from the mixture of orange and purple."-" Types," &c., p. 157.

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delicate colours. One was at Fleetwood, another at Highgate, and the most lovely at Scarborough. I cannot withhold from my young friends the graphic words of that wonderful word-painter, Mr. Ruskin, in his description of the splendours of sunset :— "We have been speaking hitherto of what is constant and necessary in nature; of the ordinary effects of daylight on ordinary colours, and we repeat again that no gorgeousness of the pallet can reach even these. But it is a widely different thing when nature herself takes a colouring fit, and does something extraordinary, something really to exhibit her power. She has a thousand ways of rising above herself, but incomparably the noblest manifestations of her capability of colour are in these sunsets among the high clouds. I speak especially of the moment before the sun sinks, when his light turns pure rose colour, and when this light falls upon a zenith covered with countless cloud-forms of inconceivable delicacy, threads and flakes of vapour, which would in common daylight be pure snowwhite, and which give, therefore, fair field to the tone of light. There is then no limit to the multitude, and no check to the intensity of the hues assumed. The whole sky from the zenith to the horizon becomes one molten mantling sea of colour and fire; every black bar turns into massy gold; every ripple and wave into unsullied shadowless crimson and purple and scarlet, and colours for which there are no words in language and no ideas in the mind-things which can only be conceived while they are visible; the intense hollow blue of

the upper sky melting through it all, showing here deep, and pure, and lightness; there, modulated by the filmy formless body of the transparent vapour, till it is lost imperceptibly in its crimson and gold.” This superb description is an illustration of the beauty and power of words, and the writer asks, "What can the citizen, who can see only the red light on the canvas of the waggon at the end of the street, and the crimson colour of the bricks of his neighbour's chimney, know of the flood of fire which deluges the sky from the horizon to the zenith? What can even the quiet inhabitant of the English lowlands, whose scene for the manifestation of the fire of heaven is limited to the tops of hayricks, and the rook's nests in the old elm trees, know of the mighty passages of splendour which are tossed from Alp to Alp over the azure of a thousand miles of champaign?"

Drs. M'Cosh and Dickie say, "It would not be difficult to show that harmonious colours appear in the morning and evening sky. The blush of morn is a reddish yellow of divers hues and tints, and contrasts most beautifully with dark blue, or at times. purplish clouds. At the sunset we may commonly see various degrees of orange, sometimes rising to intense red orange, glowing from the midst of blue or blue-green sky or cloud. We suppose the physical cause of this to be, that the blue of the beam is absorbed by the atmosphere or cloud, whereas the gold-yellow passes on to the eye; and so the skyseen in its own colour-appears blue, while the body of the sun-or moon or stars-or part of cloud or