We have extracted the following account of the mode of making or preparing grounds, from a small but excellent work on painting in oils, by the later Mr. Ibbetson, first published about forty years since, from which the reader may gather a few useful hints:-,'The cloths used at present for painting upon are prepared in the the worst and most dangerous manner imaginable. The cloths are brushed over with a strong glue to lay the flue, and to prevent its absorbing any oil, as I suppose; then with stiff paint, the greatest part of which is whiting, they plaster over the glue twice, seldom three times it is then finished. In a very short time, if kept in rolls, it gets so brittle, that it would be as easy to unfold a manuscript of Herculaneum as this, without breaking or cracking in ten thousand places. If the picture be hung in a damp place, it becomes covered with circular cracks, like net-work, for which there is no remedy, and also comes off in flakes altogether. It ought to be prepared with 'very thin starch'['italics'], and rubbed while wet with a rubber stone, to lay the flue smooth, and painted with proper thin colour several times. When the paint unites with the canvas, it is flexible, will never crack, and will endure for ages. In Holland and even Dublin, their cloths were formerly superior to, and more pliable than the English.'