ONCE past the period of the Trestle (a word which is of doubtful derivation, not from 'three-stule,' as some like to fancy, but probably of French and Latin outcome), we find at least half a dozen different types of table to fill up the space from the end of the sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. Perhaps not very many sixteenth-century tables remain, but we may presume that those which we have of the early seventeenth century very much resembled their immediate forerunners. Amongst other places, the college halls of Oxford and Cambridge retain the principle of the dais or raised platform at the end of the room, on which was placed the chief table, or 'high table,' as we still call it. It is a prosaic enough object now, but we may be very sure that at such a place as Wolsey's palace of Hampton Court, the best tables were worthy of the innumerable tapestries and the two hundred and eighty beds mostly hung with silk. One of these tables we can guess at from a contemporary drawing of the seizure of the Cardinal's goods by Henry viil, reproduced in Mr. E. Law's History of Hampton Court Palace. Though it is covered by the usual 'carpet' or tablecloth, the end legs are half seen.

They are of cabriole shape, heavily carved with acanthus leaves,and ending in broad scrolled feet resting on a massive plinth. Between the feet, and resting on the plinth, is a satyr's head in full relief. The ancient custom, according to which the head of the house dined with all his household in the hall, was only then beginning to be neglected, and we may conclude that there was plentiful demand for the largest and finest tables in the days of Wolsey's and Henry VIII.'s ownership of Hampton Court Palace. In Elizabeth's reign, in the year 1592, the Duke of Wurtemberg paid a visit, and mentions in his diary a table-cover valued at 50,000 crowns, and also notices that there were many writing-tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl. These may have been foreign in design, but it is also equally possible that they were English in execution, as the entirely English names of the authors of the most minute carving in the palace, still preserved in the accounts, would render likely.