More successful, because less teased about with alternatives, appears to be his 'Wing Clothes-Press,' a wardrobe upper part, with drawers and small cupboard in one wing beneath. Here the swan neck gives way to a convex rail at each end and two concave ones in the centre. Between the two flattish concave rails appears the semi-circle and its pedestal all in one. Upon this arch shape is inlaid or painted a full-grown wheat-sheaf, flanked by fan-inlaid upright ovals. An urn tops the whole, and other smaller ones mark the ends of the various curves of the rail of the pediment. The frieze of the cornice is filled with a row of close-set pendants, forming, by juxtaposition, the tops of pointed arches, which seems a favourite idea with Shearer, though it may be found amongst Chippendale's details. The rest of the piece is of a severely plain description.

After this comes a series of sideboards, unambitious but admirable. They have waved or serpentine fronts, sometimes broken by jutting angles above the tops of the regulation four legs. The centre curves outwards, the ends hollow inwards, but in one case there is an alternative ogee curve, both bulging and hollow, for the ends. Down the legs, which are slim, tapering, and spade ended, run lines of inlay or inlaid husks. Little ovals, fan-inlaid, grace the tops of legs, and there are generally bracket-shaped corner-pieces under the central drawer. Bands of dark wood run round the drawers, enclosing long rectangles or ovals of a light colour, mahogany and satin-wood respectively. The large sideboard, with a 'furnitured' secretaire centre, reproduced in Plate cxxiii., the property of Mr. E. B. Wauton, of Uppingham, might be of Shearer's make. Bands of inlay forming pointed arches give a Gothic touch to a scheme chiefly composed of the classical stock-in-trade of the Adams, Heppelwhite, and Sheraton. It is beautifully made and of very fine mahogany.

Plate CXXIII. Sideboard, Mahogany, Inlaid

CXXIII. Sideboard, mahogany, inlaid. E. B. Wanton, Esq.

Dimensions: Length 87, Height 36, Depth from front to back 34 inches.

The ring handles are a restoration.

Sometimes the sideboard is a pure semi-circle, and the most grandiose of all has a plain convex front with two straight wings, and six legs to carry that front, with others, not shown, behind. This design is in fact a moderate-sized sideboard of the kind already described such as may be seen in a thousand little country parlours at the present day - with the addition of a convex-railed backboard and the side wings. These wings are raised above the central top slab, and carry urn-shaped knife-boxes. On the lower front panels of the wings are upright ovals, with painted figures in the style of Angelica Kauffmann or Cipriani. On the backboard is a basket full of flowers and fruit. The paintings do not look well in the design, and we may imagine what their appearance was likely to be after a few years of use. There are extremely similar moderate-sized sideboards in Heppelwhite's book which may be compared with Shearer's. The conclusion is likely to be that it would be very difficult indeed to give a definite attribution as between Heppelwhite and Shearer. The more ornament of a lighter, smaller kind, the more likely it is to be by Heppelwhite; the greater severity, the more attributable to Shearer. The urn is as much a perquisite of one as the other, but to Shearer alone perhaps may be assigned the wheat-sheaf and the central fan semi-circle above a square.