Abasuerus, mentioned in Esther, or like the
feathered cushions covered with stuffs and embroidered with silk and
threads of gold in the palace of Scaurus.

Seats on the principle of our camp-stools seem to have been much in
vogue. They were furnished with a cushion, or were covered with the
skin of a leopard, or some other animal, which was removed when the
seat was folded up; and it was not unusual to make even head-stools,
or wooden pillows on the same principle. They were also adorned in
various ways, bound with metal plates, and inlaid with ivory, or
foreign woods; and the wood of common chairs was often painted to
resemble that of a rarer and more valuable kind.

The seats of chairs were frequently of leather, painted with flowers
and fancy devices; of interlaced work made of string or thongs,
carefully and neatly arranged, which, like our Indian cane chairs,
were particularly adapted for a hot climate; but over this they
occasionally placed a leather cushion, painted in the manner already
mentioned.

The forms of the chairs varied very much; the larger ones generally
had light backs, and some few had arms. They were mostly about the
height of those now used in Europe, the seat nearly in a line with the
bend of the knee; but some were very low, and others offered that
variety of position which we seek in the kangaroo chairs of our own
drawing-room. The ordinary fashion of the legs was in imitation of
those of some wild animal, as the lion or the goat, but more usually
the former, the foot raised and supported on a short pin; and, what is
remarkable, the skill of their cabinet-makers, even before the time of
Joseph, had already done away with the necessity of uniting the legs
with bars. Stools, however, and more rarely chairs, were occasionally
made with these strengthening members, as is still the case in our own
country; but the drawing-room fauteuil and couch were not disfigured
by so unseemly and so unskillful a support.

The stools used in the saloon were of the same style and elegance as
the chairs, frequently differing from them only in the absence of a
back; and those of more delicate workmanship were made of ebony, and
inlaid, as already stated, with ivory or rare woods. Some of an
ordinary kind had solid sides, and were generally very low; and
others, with three legs, belonged to persons of inferior rank.

The ottomans were simple square sofas, without backs, raised from the
ground nearly to the sam