IN the period at which we have arrived the resemblances between the exterior and interior details of a house and those of its furniture are no longer striking. We shall find that to the last - that is, till the commencement of the nineteenth century, when style and art in furniture for a time practically disappeared - there is some connection. It would, however, be unreasonable to suppose that it could be so universal or obvious as it was when the fine Renaissance houses were built. These were finished with their contents, as we have seen, for the most part by the same set of men. Except where panelling was imported from abroad, or foreign workmen were employed at home, the court cupboards, tables, chests, and chairs of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods were thought out and made by the native carpenter and joiner, who was also responsible for the whole woodwork of the house. If division of labour was not unknown, if a joiner and carpenter was differentiated from a mason, division of styles was a thing undreamed of. Except in so far as difference of material necessitated, the shapes of the stone were repeated in the shapes of the wood. The details of the mason are those of the carpenter. Both use the round arch, the steeple, the facet, and the flute.

The fact is, they were left to themselves, and they doubtless helped each other to work out the mere indications of 'carving here,' and 'carving there,' upon the 'Surveyor's' perfunctory plan.

Now times have changed. In the first place, we hear of the architect, and his name implies much.1 He is no longer the mere serving-man of the noble lord or rich merchant who intends to build a house. He imposes his own ideas, to crystallise or perhaps even to discover which he has been at the expense of a journey to Italy. Returning fully laden, it is not likely that he will leave the artisan to any devices but the architect's own. Herein is a first great division of labour, and stone being the chief material of architecture the mason feels the change most. The architect is engrossed in the general lines and exterior appearance of the house. He has time and energy remaining to think about the interior and the woodwork, but scarcely about the furniture. The task of supplying details from superior knowledge to an army of joiners and cabinet-makers is more than he cares to undertake. With neglect of movables comes perhaps contempt. It is not an architect's business to trouble himself with tables and chairs. That is, on the whole, the prevailing idea until Sir W. Chambers (1726-1796), W. Kent, and, above all, Robert Adam (born in 1728, and flourishing most between 1764-1784), come to counteract it.

The increase of comfort, and the desire for much and fine furniture by contrast with the scanty times of the early eighteenth century, taught the prudent Scotsman Adam that furniture was worth an architect's attention. And so he finds it not beneath his dignity to assimilate cabinets to carpets and counterpanes, and even to descend to the consideration of a lady's workbag.

No such universality of practice can be ascribed to John Shute, 'painter and architecte,' 1563, is perhaps the first to whom the name was applied.

1 Shakespeare only once uses the word 'architect,' - in Titus Andronicus, 1593; 'surveyor' appears on six occasions. With Evelyn the word architect is obviously in common use. July 20, 1670 : Lord Arlington's 'architect was Mr. Pratt.'