REVIEWS 271
mention of which roused him into fury." " It may seem strange," Morris here writes, " that whereas we can give some distinguished name as the author of almost every injury it has received, the authors of this great epic itself have left no names behind them. For, indeed, it is the work of no one man, but of the people of southeastern England. It was the work of the inseparable will of a body of men, who worked, as they lived, because they could no otherwise, and unless you can bring these men back from the dead, you cannot 'restore' one verse of their epic."
3. Regarding the conduct of his business there are new assertions made and interesting anecdotes given. In Vol. I, p. 150, is printed much of the first circular issued by the firm of "Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., Fine Art Workmen in Painting, Carving, Furniture, and the Metals." It contains pertinent paragraphs, and concludes with these words : " It is believed that good decoration, involving rather the luxury of taste than the luxury of costliness, will be found to be much less expensive than is generally supposed."
At the opening of the Merton workshops in 1881, the circular issued is written of with some fullness by the biographer, and gives data regarding times when Morris' business suffered (?) in conflict with his rigid practices in the "protection of ancient buildings." "When Dean Stanley asked him to execute a window for Westminster Abbey, and upon his refusal cited the Vyner window in Christ Church as a precedent, Morris replied that even that window, the excellence of which as a piece of modern work he did not affect to deny, was an intruder where it stood, and alien in character and sentiment from the
building in which it was placed In accordance with Morris'
theory, he laid down a self-denying ordinance with regard to supply- ing painted windows for ancient buildings — self-denying, doubly, because not only did the resolution injure, and for a time cripple, this branch of the business, but because the result in three cases out of four was simply that the owner or guardians of the mediaeval building went somewhere else, and the window was filled with glass as much inferior to his in color and design as it was alien from the spirit of the Middle
Ages By abstaining himself, however, he hoped to set an
example that others might gradually follow, and perhaps his action has not been wholly without effect."
Regarding the question of his own genius being altogether the cause of his general business success, " Morris always insisted it would have worked just as well and with much greater certainty, if instead of
