THE reign of William III. marks an important change in the design and construction of the chair. Turned work gives way to flatter forms, especially in the uprights of the back. Footrails still continue very generally to be turned, but the tendency is for them to decrease in number, and when the curved or cabriole leg appears, cross-rails between the legs begin to disappear. As often as not in cabriole-legged chairs there are no cross-rails at all, and perhaps in considering the relative dates of chairs of the William and Anne periods we may to a considerable extent be guided by that fact. In a page of nineteen promise cuously selected chairs, settees, and stools of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, seven have no leg-rails. Of a similar collection of ten different so-called 'Hogarth chairs,' only two have leg-rails. Later still, in Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers Director, 1754, there are perhaps half as many chairs with leg-rails as there are without. No cabriole-legged chair has them in this his first book of designs, except one so-called Gothic chair, a very unfortunate invention, much disguised with rocaille ornament. When leg-rails are indicated they are either of rectangular section or elaborately shaped and carved, but not turned.

One inference to be drawn is that manners were becoming more refined, and chairs suffered less from rough usage than they did in the oak period.