Coming to a bureau bookcase, we find that suavely curved and hollowed lower rail, in which the feet seem mere prolongations of the curves, so absolutely characteristic of Heppelwhite; and the same is the case with a waved fronted chest of drawers. Where the waved line is found not only in the horizontal direction, but also in the perpendicular - that is, down the two front corners - we can trace a superiority in Heppelwhite over Shearer. His curves are not so sudden or Dutch-like. But in the particular instance of Shearer, the designer has done the worst for himself by his extraordinary perspective, which represents a chest of drawers at least six feet deep from front to back. This defect of perspective is a common one with most of the furniture-books, so common as to suggest that it was occasionally intentional, by way of giving the. idea that a chest of drawers at £5, 10s. might be expected to hold twice as much as any one would imagine. More obvious still is the usefulness of this scheme in those designs which Shearer clearly has most at heart.

When we look at his lady's dressing-table, with its numerous real drawers, sham drawers, glass frames to slide, weights to make them rise, 'furniture drawer' details and the rest, it is plain that the more capacious it can be made to look, the better. Perhaps not even Sheraton can outdo Shearer in his ingenuities of arrangement. It is curious to reflect that these elaborations are the natural outcome of the rather primitive domestic arrangements of our great-grandfathers. The practice of making the interior belie the exterior was due to the habit of using a bedroom as a sitting-room and vice-versa. A bed, in old and hospitable times, might be found anywhere, even in the hall. There are old Scottish instances of boxbeds which shut up against the wall and are invisible by day, or only discernible by cracks in the panelling near the floor. A house at Inverness successively occupied in 1745 by the Pretender and the Duke of Cumberland was the only one whose parlour did not contain a bed. Miss Singleton, Furniture of our Forefathers, tells us also of frequent hall beds in old American houses. Now that our rooms have their set uses, the necessity is not so pressing for disguises and harlequin arrangements.

Only when these interior fittings accompany a graceful exterior do they call for much notice.

Plate LXXXI. Dressing Table, Veneered Early 18th Century

LXXXI. Dressing-table, veneered. Early eighteenth century. Made of oak, walnut, and pine, veneered with amboyna, kingwood, and rosewood. There is a secretaire with pigeonholes and drawers. Below its sloping lid a large drawer has fourteen compartments. There are three drawers also at the sides. The stand contains a writing slide with a hinged flap. V. & A. M.

Dimensions: Height 60½, Breadth 19, Depth from front to back 14⅜ inches.

The shield shape, of which Heppelwhite made so much use in his chairs, is employed by Shearer for a mirror-frame which tops a combination writing- and dressing-table. This has a cylindrical front, rising above the back of which is a species of divided plinth with hollow curved sides. The bottom of the shield-shaped glass, which is supported by two slender branching curves, works in the deep hollow of the division of the plinth. The arrangement and shape of the glass is something similar to that of the painted dressing-table, No. 635 in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Plate cxlv.). This example is Shearer's own speciality, and not to be found in Heppelwhite's collection. The same may be said of a 'writing fire-screen,' which is of an upright secretaire shape, very shallow, not more than six inches from back to front. It was to be used by a lady who wished to write her letters near the fire but protected from its heat. There is a falling front, with metal quadrants, which fills the upper half. The lower is a cupboard with folding doors. Inside there are many drawers and pigeon-holes. The top is either straight or convex, and the whole is supported upon a pair of trestle legs sufficiently high to allow of the writer's feet to be kept warm.

Plate CXLV. Dressing Table, Satinwood, Painted Sheraton

CXLV. Dressing-Table, satin-wood painted. Sheraton (?). V. & A. M.

There was a good opportunity here for graces of ornament, which would have added very little to the weight; but simplicity is the hall-mark of Shearer, and a lightness considerably greater than that of Chippendale, but less than Heppelwhite's. There are many designs of the latter which are so like Shearer's that either might have made them. But in the few plates by Heppelwhite in this book are to be found two objects which Shearer would perhaps not have planned. One of these is a cabinet resting on a lower part schemed like a sideboard. It has winged cherubs' heads upon the triangular brackets, presumably painted, which support the central lower drawer. The top is surmounted by an eagle perched on a ball in full relief - that eagle which we find so often surmounting circular gilt mirrors of the period. The painting and inlay are more suitable than in the large sideboard with the basket of flowers designed by Shearer, for whom the whole cabinet is too elaborate.