Fashion in picture frames, like all fashions, fluctuates greatly. Mouldings of the prevailing sizes and patterns are generally manufactured in special factories, and sup plied in lengths to carvers and gilders ready for use. A large proportion of such mouldings, especially those of a cheaper and inferior quality, are made in Germany. What is distinctively known as a "German" moulding is a cheap imitation of gilt work made by lacquering over the surface of a white metallic foil. German artisans are also very successful in the preparation of imitation of veneers of rosewood, mahogany, walnut, and other orna mental woods. The more expensive mouldings are either in wood (such as oak or mahogany), in veneers of any ex
pensive ornamental wood, or real gilt.A brief outline of the method of making a gilt frame, enriched with composition ornaments, may be taken as a characteristic example of the operations of the frame-maker. The foundation of such a frame is soft pine wood, in which a moulding of the required size and section is roughly run. To prevent warping the moulding is, or ought to be, made from two pieces of wood glued together. The moulding is " whitened up," or prepared for gilding by covering it with repeated coatings of a mixture of finely powdered whiting and size. When a sufficient thickness of the whitening mixture has been applied, the whole sur face is carefully smoothed off with pumice-stone and glass- paper, care being taken to keep the angles and curves clear and sharp. Were a plain gilt moulding only desired, it would now be ready for gilding; but when the frame is to be enriched, it first receives the composition ornaments. Composition, or " compo," is a mixture of fine glue, white resin, and linseed oil well boiled together, with as much rolled and sifted whiting added as makes the whole into a doughy mass while hot. This composition is worked in a hot state into moulds of boxwood, and so pressed in as to take up every ornamental detail. On its removal from the mould all superfluous matter is trimmed away, and the ornament, while yet soft and plastic, is laid on the mould ing, and fitting into all the curves, &c., is fixed with glue. The ornamental surface so prepared quickly sets and becomes very hard and brittle. When very laree bold ornaments are wanted for frames of unusual size they are moulded in papier mdche. Two methods of laying on gold oil gilding and water gilding are practised, the former being used for frames broken up with enrichments. For oil-gilding the moulding is prepared with two coats of fine thin size, and afterwards it receives a coat of oil gold-size, which consists of a mixture of boiled linseed oil and ochre. When this gold-size is in a "tackey" or "sticky" con dition, gold-leaf is laid on and carefully pressed over and into all parts of the surface ; and when covered with a coat of finish-size, the gilding is complete. Water gilding is applied to plain mouldings and all considerable unbroken surfaces, and is finished either "matt" or burnished. For these styles of work the mouldings are properly sized, and after the size is dry the gold is laid on with water, ^tatt- work is protected with one or two coats of finish-size; but burnished gold is finished only by polishing with an agate burnisher, no size or water being allowed to touch such surfaces. The mitring up of frames, the mounting and fitting up of paintings, e;ig vings, &c., involve too many minor operations to be noticed here in detail ; but these, with the cutting and fitting of glass, cleaning and repair ing pictures and prints, and similar operations, all occupy the attention of the carver and gilder.
CARY, Henry Francis (1772-1844), translator of Dante, and miscellaneous writer, was born at Gibraltar, December 6, 1772. He was the son of a captain in the army, and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, which he entered at the age of eighteen, having two years earlier made his appearance as an author, in a volume of Sonnets and Odes. In 1796 he took his master s degree, and hav ing entered the church was presented, in the following year, to the vicarage of Abbott s Bromley in Staffordshire. This benefice he held till his death. In 1800 he was also pre sented to the vicarage of Kingsbury in Warwickshire. While still at Christ Church he had devoted much time to the study of modern literature, not only English but French and Italian ; and the fruits of his studies in these fields appeared in the notes to his translation of Dante, the work on which his reputation now chiefly rests. The version of the Inferno was published in 1805, together with the original text. The version of the whole Divina Commedia did not appear till 1814. It attracted little attention for some years. But when Coleridge, in his lectures at the Royal Institution spoke of it in terms of high praise, the world was persuaded to acknowledge its merits. It gradually took its place among " standard " works, and passed through four editions in the translator s lifetime. It has the great merits of accuracy, idiomatic vigour, and readableness, and, although many rivals have since appeared in the field, still holds its honourable place. Its blank verse, however, cannot represent the close woven texture and the stately music of the terza rima of the original. In 1824 Gary published a translation of The Birds of Aristophanes. Two years later he was ap pointed assistant-librarian in the British Museum, a post which he held for about eleven years. He resigned in consequence of being refused the appointment, in ordi nary course on a vacancy, to the post of keeper of the printed books. From this time he applied himself to literary work on his own account, for which his duties at the museum had left him little opportunity. For the old London Magazine, he wrote a series of Lives of the early French Poets, and Lives of English Poets (from Johnson to Henry Kirke White), the latter intended as a continuation of Johnson s Lives of the Poets. These works were published in a collected form in 1846. He was also engaged in editing the works of Cowper, Milton, Pope, and other poets. He published about 1834 a translation of the Odes of Pindar, and at the time of his death was preparing a body ol illustrative notes for a new edition. A pension of 200 per annum was conferred on Gary by Lord Melbourne in 1841. He died in London, August 14, 1844, and his remains were interred in Westminster Abbey. A memoir of his life, with his literary journal and letters, was pub lished in two volumes by his son, the Rev. Henry Cary, M.A., in 1847.
at Burford, co. Oxon, in 1610 or 1611, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, his father being at that time lord- deputy of Ireland. On leaving the university he served for a short time in the Low Countries, but failing to attain promotion returned to England, and found a refuge from domestic troubles in the study of ancient literature and the society of the most eminent men of learning. Among his intimate associates were Jonson, Suckling, and Cowley ; and at his country seat, Great Tew in Oxfordshire, he subsequently gathered around him a small group of theologians whose liberal opinions were not without influence in the religious rivalries of the day. In 1GG3 he succeeded to his father s title, and was appointed gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles I. In 1640 he entered the House of Commons as member for Newport, Isle of Wight, and quickly assumed there a prominent part upon the side of the king, while at the same time he supported Pym in his schemes of moderate reform in church and state, and himself introduced the Bill for the exclusion of bishops from the House of Peers. But having been
chosen by Charles to be one of his secretaries of state.
