What has been observed as regards French styles and their influence, or otherwise, on English practice is almost equally true of Flemish work, which mainly derived its inspiration from France. The methods of the two Continental countries had much in common, but a certain floridity or grotesqueness of design belongs to Flemish productions, distinguishing them from the purer designs of France. Flemish linen panels, crocketing, and interlaced ornament nearly always exhibit this tendency towards extravagance which, in the case of France, was mostly restricted to the dying Flamboyant. French, and especially Flemish characteristics no doubt had a direct influence upon our east coast productions, but there are really few English pieces belonging even to the Eastern Counties which cannot be detected as native work owing to their greater boldness, both of design and execution. As regards such early rarities as the so-called tilting-coffers, there is little to distinguish between the specimens existing in Flanders and those to be found in England, but it may be taken for granted that the joinery of the Flemish craftsman in early times was superior to that of his English contemporary.

A fine instance of this superiority of technical skill may be seen in one of the ancient municipal coffers now deposited in the Ypres Museum. The structural form of this receptacle, as well as the fashion of the thirteenth-century lancet arches incised upon the lid, is in every way similar to our national work, but a near inspection will discover that the parts of the piece are dovetailed together with the greatest skill and ingenuity. Though several English examples exist which exhibit a somewhat similar form of dovetailing, the nicety of workmanship which characterizes the Flemish coffer is wanting in them.

The full purity of the Gothic style appears never to have been quite grasped by the Dutch, but the Dutch Renaissance exercised an undoubted influence on furniture as well as on architecture in England. But as in France, so in Holland, the change of style preceded by some few years the corresponding change of style in England. The style of the later Dutch Renaissance, which our second Charles brought over from Holland, is very pronounced and easily recognised. The lines are somewhat heavy, and the decoration is often coarse, a great part of the projecting ornaments, such as jewel knobs or roundels, being merely applied instead of carved out of the solid. The engraving of such inlaid materials as mother-of-pearl and ivory, which were both largely used in the decoration, is also extremely rude, resembling more than anything else the execution of rough wood-cuts of the period. As an illustration of the superficiality of certain specimens of Dutch art of the latter half of the seventeenth century, a cabinet known to the author may be mentioned. In this piece the bottom panels are decorated with an oblong, raised centre plaque, formed of ebonized wood, and inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory, surrounded by a small fillet of applied moulding.

During a recent spring cleaning one of these plaques became loose and fell out, exposing to view what was probably the original decoration in the shape of an inlaid plaque of bone, engraved with the name of the first possessor of the cabinet. This alteration - something in the nature of a palimpsest - had evidently been effected at a date very little subsequent to the construction of the piece.

This accidentally-discovered instance shows how the Dutch art of the period was characterized by much rough-and-ready superficiality. Such examples are often beautiful in their colouring, and interesting as specimens of genuine antiques, but are deplorably lacking in the higher elements of art.

There is but little to say regarding the influence of German art upon English furniture. The floridity of German architectural types had no effect whatever upon English decoration, though in certain matters of ornament English detail was visibly affected. The German emblazonment of heraldry and the disposition of such features as the lambrequin found a certain amount of imitation in our own country, while in one species of decoration certainly our wood-carvers borrowed largely from the Teuton. I refer to what is known by some as the parchemin panel. It is not known in what country this particular form of decoration was evolved, but it is found more frequently in Germany and the Low Countries than anywhere else. Specimens of this type that we find in England approximate in appearance more nearly to those just mentioned than to those existing in France. Very often German and Low Flemish types of this decoration err on the side of floridity, but they very seldom possessed the debased vulgarity to be found in some of the latest types of linen panelling.

In spite of all that has been said as to the leadership of France as regards wealth of design, it is probable that the parchemin panel was the product of German fancy.

It is only necessary to treat briefly here as to the influence of Italian art upon England and its revolutionizing consequences. Bonaffe says that 'among the Italians the art of wood consists in disguising it, among the French, of making it prominent'; and this is no doubt true respecting the painted decoration of early pieces of furniture. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Italian cassone was elaborately and deeply carved, this remark would hardly apply. Italian art, as seen through the medium of the French conquerors, was eventually responsible for the bold caryatides and projecting mouldings on our Elizabethan furniture. Yet, with all that we derived from Italian sources, English classic wood-carving possessed an individuality - of roughness, it may be, but individuality still - which is hardly to be mistaken. The screen in King's College Chapel, Cambridge, with all its tremendous effects of light and shade, combined with delicacy of detail, is totally unlike anything achieved by our native craftsmen. The projecting portrait heads, thrusting themselves forward from the panel, as in many of our English-made chests of the time, are as distinct in their individuality as the fine scrollwork and arabesques which adorn this magnificent structure.

French decoration of this character often approximated very nearly in nicety of execution to the Italian models; and this was especially the case towards the South of France, where the influence was naturally strongest. At no period during the Renaissance, however, could our English scrollwork and arabesques vie with the Italian in delicacy and refinement, though our imitations of Italian designs often approached the originals very closely.

During the sixteenth century a vast quantity of furniture was produced in Italy, decorated with what is technically known as pokerwork - that is, with designs lightly incised in outline on the flat surface of the wood, certain shades or colourings being produced by the application of a hot iron. The ground is, furthermore, in some cases covered with a sort of cross-hatch pattern, to insure greater relief to such figures as appear on it. Coffers thus decorated are often of very large size, and are by no means rare. The designs are frequently of a gross or voluptuous character, and not too well drawn, but it is fair to say that some very fine specimens are occasionally to be found. The author well remembers seeing a remarkably beautiful example in Suffolk some years ago, in which the front was decorated with a representation of a troop of soldiers, armed with halberds and carrying standards, marching in front of a walled and fortified town. The costumes were of the lanzknecht order, with puffed and jagged sleeves and broad-toed shoes, such as one sees in Albrecht Diirer's wood-cuts. The piece seemed to have originated in the North of Italy about the commencement of the sixteenth century.

Secretaires and cabinets, ornamented in the manner described, were freely imported into England during the latter part of the sixteenth century, and, oddly enough, fitted with home-made stands or substructures of purely national design. In such pieces the contrast between the English pseudo-classic and the veritable Italian design can be studied with remarkable advantage. The introduction of these Italian goods led to our English craftsmen taking up the same method of decoration which they freely employed on cypress or camphor wood chests during the reign of Charles I. and later, the royal arms and supporters being the favourite device adopted. To Italy, directly or indirectly, England, with the rest of Europe, owed the classical element which practically revolutionized the decorative arts in the sixteenth century, but, notwithstanding this, English individuality, manifesting itself in the valuable qualities of boldness and freedom of handling, has always remained to distinguish our work from that of the Continental artist and craftsman.

Little enough has been written or said about Scandinavian influence and its effects on English design. That such influence should be exercised during what we may term the 'Dark Ages'is not to be wondered at, or even that a recurrence took place during the thirteenth century, the latter being, in fact, a veritable after-math of the Viking times. Later indications of Scandinavian influence are more difficult to explain. It is a fact, nevertheless, that this recurrence of Scandinavian decoration cropped up again in England during both the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries. There is but little difference between the patterns employed during all these periods, whorls and intricate geometrical patterns, often of a fan shape, or composed of intersecting circles, being the forms employed.

During the seventeenth century a vast number of small boxes incised with this species of decoration were found in the English market, the design of which was almost identical with the wheels carved on that undoubtedly English coffer of the thirteenth century in Stoke d'Abernon Church, Surrey. Some people who are conversant with this species of decoration on early English coffers commit the very easy error of assigning these later boxes to a date contemporary with the earlier specimens. The date of their origin can without difficulty be detected by the lightness of their material, by the utter want of rest caused by the repetition of the designs, which frequently cover the whole surface of the wood, and by the dovetailing by which the parts are joined. Whatever may be the causes which led to the periodical resuscitation of this Scandinavian influence, it may be taken for granted that the well-known conservatism of Scandinavian design was responsible in itself for the striking repetition in the character of the designs.

How widespread the influence was may be judged by the fact that considerable traces of it are to be found as far south even as Spain. From the liberality with which the later examples were decorated, the design assumed a monotonous appearance, and they do not appeal very strongly to critical collectors.