r and _marque_ (a sign), of
German origin. It is distinguished from parquetry (which is derived from
"_pare_," an enclosure, of which it is a diminutive), and signifies a kind
of joinery in geometrical patterns, generally used for flooring. When,
however, the marquetry assumes geometrical patterns (frequently a number
of cubes shaded in perspective) the design is often termed in Art
catalogues a "parquetry" design.

In considering the design and manufacture of furniture of the present day,
as compared with that of, say, a hundred years ago, there are two or three
main factors to be taken into account. Of these the most important is the
enormously increased demand, by the multiplication of purchasers, for some
classes of furniture, which formerly had but a limited sale. This enables
machinery to be used to advantage in economising labour, and therefore one
finds in the so-called "Queen Anne" and "Jacobean" cabinet work of the
well furnished house of the present time, rather too prominent evidence of
the lathe and the steam plane. Mouldings are machined by the length, then
cut into cornices, mitred round panels, or affixed to the edge of a plain
slab of wood, giving it the effect of carving. The everlasting spindle,
turned rapidly by the lathe, is introduced with wearisome redundance, to
ornament the stretcher and the edge of a shelf; the busy fret or band-saw
produces fanciful patterns which form a cheap enrichment when applied to a
drawer-front, a panel, or a frieze, and carving machines can copy any
design which a century ago were the careful and painstaking result of a
practised craftsman's skill.

Again, as the manufacture of furniture is now chiefly carried on in large
factories, both in England and on the Continent, the sub-division of
labour causes the article to pass through different hands in successive
stages, and the wholesale manufacture of furniture by steam has taken the
place of the personal supervision by the master's eye of the task of a few
men who were in the old days the occupants of his workshop. As a writer on
the subject has well said, "the chisel and the knife are no longer in such
cases controlled by the sensitive touch of the human hand." In connection
with this we are reminded of Ruskin's precept that "the first condition of
a work of Art is that it should be conceived and carried out by one
person."

Instead of the carved ornament being the outcome of the artist's educated
taste, which place