We cannot go farther without a few words on the quality of the carving which distinguished Anne's and her father's reign, and on the genius of the first Englishman who founded a school of art in his native land. Of his life we know little, of his character nothing, save what Evelyn tells us: he was 'musical, and very civil, sober and discreete in his discourse.'

But his work indicates a conscientiousness, a firmness and facility, a grace of fancy, and a sympathetic understanding of bird, beast, and flower, which may well reflect the habit of mind which brought it forth, and it is sufficient to stand in the beautifully re-decorated Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, where the Gibbons'-carvings long unnoticed now stand forth from a golden ground, to be struck with an almost passionate admiration of the dainty groups, as Evelyn himself was. Like all truly great work, it stands outside criticism. We forget whilst looking at it that the canons of art repudiate naturalistic decoration, and that a frieze of undying flowers is rather astonishing, and that lilies-of-the-valley, carnations, and blue-bells are not alike dark brown, as Gibbons' contemporaries forgot that such wreaths were rather Gothic than classic, when they laid them round Wren's pillars. The fragile stalks and tremulous leaves engross our minds, the wood is alive, and Gibbons remains independent of cavillers and canons.

In Trinity Library, similar work in pale pear-wood, standing forth in bold bouquets nigh a foot from the background, is even more marvellous, and we have the curious opportunity of comparing, in the case of one decayed bouquet, first-rate modern work with Gibbons' own. An eminent English carver who has revived in the present day some interest in wood-carving, undertook to copy exactly the decayed bouquet; and this he did in somewhat boastful spirit, insisting when he sent it in that his own was superior to the master's. But vast is the gulf between them. Gibbons' leaves are thin as paper, his stalks as delicately finished behind as before, a third the density of the copy: his curves are more subtle, his poise of dainty twigs more nice and wondrous; the comparison is most interesting and instructive.

Gibbons' finest work is at Chatsworth, where certain nets of game seem to represent the dying struggles of soft-plumaged birds with startling truth, a miracle of carving; and in St. Paul's Cathedral, in St. James's, Westminster, the South Kensington Museum, and other places, there are fine examples of Gibbons' skill. But who ever goes to see them? They hang enveloped in the gloomy atmosphere of unlovely London, killed by the dull colouring of grained painting and senseless dirty Renascence scrolls and borders; they are to all intents and purposes lost.

The wondrous skill of the young artist, of whom Evelyn's description is well known, working in his humble studio 'neere Sayes Court,' commanded a good price, happily, while he yet lived, to say nothing of the munificent retaining fee, or pension, of 1s.6d.a day from George I., which Gibbons enjoyed during the last seven years of his life. What was more, it created a school of ingenious imitators, one of whom, Watson, who worked under Gibbons at Chatsworth, was but slightly inferior to the master; hence the conscientious hand-work in mouldings, Corinthian capitals, rich door-frames, pediments, mantel-pieces, and furniture, which renders Georgian houses interesting, was directly inspired by Gibbons and the finer taste of Stuart times. Gibbons died in 1721: but it is probable that latterly he rather supervised than executed his world-famed wreaths. His best work was done in Charles II.'s reign, when he was associated with Wren, like a delicate bindweed around an oak.

To return to the ordinary furniture of James II. and Anne.