NOT many years ago 'oak-collecting' was considered to be a form of eccentricity. Then came a period when the taste became more general, and many people imagined themselves to be adepts in the art simply from the fact that they possessed a chest or two of rough-and-ready design and workmanship, or perchance an arm-chair with a panelled back. Occasionally a specimen of more than ordinary beauty and value was acquired, but the chances are that its peculiar merits were unseen or not properly understood, the piece being looked upon as genuine with the rest of the collection. Chance collectors have in stray instances done the most valuable service possible by preserving, with simple love, types of the rarest kind. Unfortunately this medal has a reverse. The passion for collecting, when associated with a love for practical wood-carving, has, alas! only too often proved the ruin of really fine specimens by manifesting itself in attempts at their further embellishment. It cannot be insisted upon too strongly that to work on a piece, be it ever so plain, for any object but reparation, actually necessitated by age and wear, is at once to depreciate, if not destroy, its value in the eyes of a connoisseur.

One result of the Waverley romances was to arouse a keen interest in antiquities, but this, being to a great extent unaccompanied by any proper knowledge, led frequently to the production and acquisition of bastard imitations of the furniture of our forefathers. It can be no difficult matter for many of us to recollect what may be termed without error an old-fashioned home amongst the residences of our acquaintances, and recall the ghastly perpetrations for domestic use which the unrestrained relish for romance brought into existence during the first half of the nineteenth century. Even the great Sir Walter Scott himself, to whom posterity cannot be sufficiently thankful for creating an interest in objects of antiquity, seems to have possessed no special knowledge of furniture, and in his descriptions the details are often far from being reliable. Illustrated books of Sir Walter's day and still later times often display the most glaring anachronisms. And yet some years ago, before the art of steel and wood engraving became practically extinct, a great many very careful works on such antiquities were published which contain illustrations of articles we should be only too glad to trace now.

Amongst these, here and there, one may incidentally remark some beautiful early coffers existing at the date of publication in private collections, of which little or nothing is usually said, although what can be seen in the illustrations creates a desire to know more of such interesting examples. In most cases it would be nearly impossible to discover their ownership at the present time, and reference can consequently be made only to the well-executed plates. Shaw and Scott, while affording some very excellent illustrations of ancient woodwork, give practically no descriptions at all.

A French chest, of Gothic design, exhibiting armed figures under canopies, is depicted in Jacquemart's book on ancient furniture, published in 1876.* The text of this work, which shows the usual paucity of reference to early methods and examples, says nothing whatever about the chest in question, but the underline briefly indicates it as being in the collection of Monsieur A. Querroy. If genuine, this chest would probably date from the latter end of the fifteenth century, but there are not wanting some curious indications which seem to suggest that its complete authenticity might be open to doubt. It would be a matter of the greatest interest to examine this chest personally, if its whereabouts could be ascertained. With the magnificent knightly coffer which is pictured by Viollet le Due, in his 'Dictionnaire du Mobilier Francais,' we are more fortunate. This piece is there described as belonging to the collection of M. A. Gerente, but it has since found a home in the national collection of antiquities in the Cluny Museum in Paris.

* Jacquemart, ' Histoire du Mobilier,' Paris, 1876.

The Abbotsford impetus had no lasting effect, and ended in the relegation of antiques in the way of domestic furniture to the garrets and kitchens. I can myself remember as a boy that, in a home where mahogany and horsehair were plentiful, the finest piece of furniture in the whole house was abandoned to the housekeeper's room, as an out-of-date thing and of no particular interest. The piece in question happened to be a superb English buffet, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, bearing the date 1661 on its front. We can, however, congratulate ourselves on the fact that, owing to its special situation, this buffet received more care and attention than the rest of the household's belongings, and remains to this day one of the most carefully-preserved specimens of the art of the period.