But they made mistakes, and the mistake of Heppel-white lay in his calling in the aid of the coach-painter to produce naturalistic flowers and birds upon the beautiful surface of his wood. So much is paint in his most elaborate specimens, that for many square inches the wood is disguised. Yet it will generally be found that the more paint, the less happy the result. Not every colour will harmonise with the yellow tone of satin-wood. The same discordancy is to be found in this style of furniture as leaps to the eye in the French furniture decorated with plaques of Sevres porcelain. Just as the cold white of the porcelain ground is hopelessly out of tone with the glowing red of mahogany, so the multiplication of painted colours and tones injures the quiet effect of the satin-wood. It is not to be supposed that successful or nearly successful examples are not to be found of this wood-painting. There are high degrees of merit even in a method which on the whole is to be deprecated. The wonderfully preserved dressing-table, No. 635 in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Plate cxlv.), and the cabinet No. 636 (Plate cxlvi.), are probably of Sheraton design, as is certainly the armchair from a set belonging to Sir Samuel Montague (Plate CXXXVIII.). The same may be said of his table with flowers and peacock-feather-painted top (Plate cxliv.). All these specimens are in excellent condition, and must have been kept with the greatest care.

Plate CXXXVIII. Arm-Chair, Satinwood, Painted Sheraton

CXXXVIII. Armchair, satin-wood, painted. Sheraton. Sir Samuel Montague, Bart.

Plate CXLIV.

I - Top Of Table, Satinwood Painted Sheraton

2 - The Table Entire

CXKIV. (1) Top of Table, satin-wood painted. Sheraton. (2) The Table entire. Sir Samuel Montague, Bart.

Plate CXLVI. Cabinet, With Its Top, Satin Wood, Inlaid And Painted Sheraton Late 18th Century

CXLVI. Cabinet with its top, satin-wood, inlaid and painted. Sheraton. Late eighteenth century. V. & A. M.

They show the style at its best, and from the more simple of them the Heppelwhite painted furniture may be imagined. Both Sheraton's and his were probably painted by the same hands, and Heppelwhite's reference to the method is quoted and his speciality discussed in the next chapter. When the Kauffmann or Cipriani figure-subject has lost, from wear, its original freshness, we discover the superiority of wood inlay over painting. The former can be restored without appreciable loss of artistic merit. In many respects it improves with age, and, to begin with, its more restricted range of tones was in its favour. There is not so much opportunity for garishness in wood inlay as in pigment. If the painted style in English furniture of the eighteenth century could be compared in decorative power with the painting of the old Italian 'cassoni,' there would be more to be said for it. As it is, in durability it is inferior to the Sevres-mounted furniture of France, and scarcely superior in aesthetic quality.

Thomas Shearer, of whom little is known, is chiefly responsible for The Cabinet-Maker's London Book of Prices, which, as its title further shows, made a new departure in furniture-books. It is a well-produced quarto work for the cabinetmaker himself, and shows the cost of every imaginable detail of any piece of furniture. The first edition was published in 1788. Those to which I refer are the second of 1793 and third of 1803. There is a frontispiece without an engraver's name, in which, if the picture part is bombastic, the ornamental border of medallions and flowers and trophies is very pretty and suitable to the subject. The details are exactly such as were executed upon furniture either in paint or inlay. In the picture a classic lady holds an open book with a design of a cabinet upon it. A cupid with compass and square unfolds a large scroll on which is inscribed 'Unanimity with Justice.' In the background is a cylinder-bureau bookcase, with urn and swan-necked pediment. Of the plates in this edition eighteen are by Shearer, six by Heppelwhite, and five by W. Casement, these last being mostly designs for the panes of glazed cabinet doors. There is some uncertainty as to whether Shearer did not publish his plates separate from the prices.

I have seen a collection of nineteen plates dated 1788, which are nearly but not quite identical, plate for plate, with the 1793 edition. There is no title and no letterpress. On the title-page of the edition of 1803 it is stated that there are twenty-nine copper-plates, but there is a supplement of 1805, by George Atkinson and William Somerville, cabinetmakers now forgotten, with two more. The most important of these last contains two designs for sideboards, one of which is quite plain and rectangular; the other is of a thick terminal shape at each end, and has a 'sarcophagus wine-cooler' beneath the centre part. These two designs show the fearful decadence which set in with the nineteenth century. They are both unpleasant, but the plainer of the two is so purely businesslike and inartistic, that it is difficult to quarrel with it, except for being a sideboard instead of an office table. Such additions as these to a composite book make it necessary to give each designer credit for his own.