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able.* Painting on walls may indeed be traced in England to highantiquity. Henry III. , a great encourager of the fine arts, kept severalpainters in his service; among others, William, a monk at West-minster, William the Florentine, and Walter de Colcester, so muchcelebrated by Matthew Paris for his painting and sculpture.f Onechamber in the palace at Winchester was painted green, with stars ofgold, and the whole history of the Old and New Testament. A room atWestminster, and another in the Tower of London , were embellishedwith the history of the expedition of Richard I. into the Holy Land.

The coronation, wars, marriages, and funeral of Edward I. werepainted on the walls of the great hall in the episcopal palace atLichfield , A.D. 1312, by order of Bishop Langton.j; “ Near themonastery of Westminster,” says Friar Simeon, “ stands the mostfamous royal palace of England, in which is that celebrated chamber, onwhose walls all the warlike histories of the whole Bible are painted withinexpressible skill, and explained by a regular series of texts, beautifullywritten in French , to the no small admiration of the beholder, anddisplay of royal magnificence.”§

So great and general was the taste for painting in Edward the

* And, as appears by Shakespeare , afterwards occasionally as a substitute for tapestry.

Hostess Quickly .—“ By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both myplate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.”

Falstaff . — “ Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking: and for thy walls — a pretty slightdrollery; or the story of the prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work, is worth athousand of these bed-hangings, and these fly-bitten tapestries .”—Second Part of KingHenry IV. Act II. Scene 1.

+ Walpole. I Warton’s History of English Poetry.

§ This palace was consumed by fire in 1299, but immediately rebuilt by Edward I. Itwas again destroyed by fire in 1512, and never afterwards re-edified. — Stowe . The “ cele-brated chamber” is known to us as the “ Painted Chamber.”