century with cabriole legs, did have stuffed backs.

Robert Adam, born in 1785, was an architect and decorative artist. The
Adam rooms, walls, ceilings, mantels, etc., are the most perfect of
the period; beautiful classic mouldings encrust ceilings and
sidewalls, forming panels into which were let paintings, while in
drawing-rooms the side panels were either recessed so as to hold
statuary in the antique style, or were covered with damask or
tapestry. It is stated that damask and tapestry were never used on the
walls of Adam dining-rooms. James Adam, a brother, worked with
Robert.

Every period had its own weak points, so we find the Adam brothers at
times making wall-brackets which were too heavy with ram's heads,
garlands, etc., and the Adam chairs were undoubtedly bad. They had
backs with straight tops, rather like Sheraton chairs, and several
small splats joining top rail to seat. The bad chairs by Adam, were
improved upon by Sheraton and Heppelwhite. The legs of Adam furniture
were straight.

The ideal eighteenth century interior in England was undoubtedly an
Adam room with Heppelwhite or Sheraton furniture.

Sir John Soane, architect, had one of the last good house interiors,
for the ugly Georgian style came on the scene about 1812. Grinling
Gibbons' carvings of heavy fruits and flowers, festoons and masks made
to be used architecturally we now see used on furniture, and often
heavily gilded.

William Morris was an epoch maker in English interior decoration, for
he stood out for the "great, simple note" in furnishings. The
pre-Raphaelites worked successfully to the same end, reviving classic
simplicity and establishing _the value of elimination_. The good,
modern furniture of to-day, designed with reference to meeting the
demands of modern conditions, undoubtedly received a great impetus
from that reaction to the simple and harmonious.

CHAPTER XXII

THE COLONIAL PERIOD

The furniture made in America during the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries was reproduced from English models and shows the
influence of Chippendale, Sheraton, Heppelwhite and the Adam brothers.
For those interested in these early types of American output, the Sage
and other collections in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, give a
delightful object lesson, and there has been much written on the
subject in case any data is desired.

If some of our readers own heirlooms and plan reproducing Colonial
interiors of the fine