ers of the eighteenth century made ingenious
contrivances in the way of furniture, washstands concealed in what
appear to be corner cupboards, a table that looks as simple as a table
possibly can, but has a small step-ladder and book rest hidden away in
its useful inside, and many others. Sheraton was especially clever in
making these conveniences, as these two examples show, and his books
have many others pictured in them. Sheraton's list of articles of
furniture is long, for he made almost everything from knife-boxes to
"chamber-horses," which were contrivances of a saddle and springs for
people to take exercise upon at home.

Sheraton's "Drawing Book" was the best of those he published. It was
sold chiefly to other cabinet-makers and did not bring in many orders,
as Chippendale's and Hepplewhite's did. His other books showed his
decline, and his "Encyclopedia," on which he was working at the time of
his death, had many subjects in it beside furniture and cabinet-making.
His sideboards, card-tables, sewing-tables, tables of every kind,
chairs--in fact, everything he made during his best period--have a
sureness and beauty of line that makes it doubly sad that through the
stress of circumstances he should have deserted it for the style of the
Empire that was then the fashion in France. One or two of his Empire
designs have beauty, but most of them are too dreadful, but it was the
beginning of the end, and the eighteenth century saw the beautiful
principles of the eighteenth century lost in a bog of ugliness.

There were many other cabinet-makers of merit that space does not allow
me to mention, but the great four who stood head and shoulders above
them all were Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. They, being
human, did much work that is best forgotten, but the heights to which
they all rose have set a standard for English furniture in beauty and
construction that it would be well to keep in mind.

The nineteenth century passed away without any especial genius, and in
fact, with a very black mark against its name in the hideous early
Victorian era. The twentieth century is moving along without anything we
can really call a beautiful and worthy style being born. There are many
working their way towards it, but there is apt to be too much of the
bizarre in the attempts to make them satisfactory, and so we turn to the
past for our models and are thankful for the legacy of beauty it has
left to the world.