IN a work of this character it is the modern custom to supply a bibliography, and such a feature I would willingly add if the materials for its composition existed. Strictly speaking, however, there is scarcely a single volume treating of English furniture made prior to the eighteenth century in anything approaching a scientific spirit. The careful reader will have observed how largely I have depended upon my personal examination of actual surviving examples, unassisted by the descriptions and criticisms of earlier writers, not, I hope, from any undue feeling of self-reliance, but merely from the scantiness of published material to be drawn upon.

The oldest sources of information as to styles and dates are the illuminations on old manuscripts, particularly those of the fifteenth century. The British Museum and the Bodleian abound in illustrated manuscripts, which may be referred to with advantage. Barclay's 'Ship of Fools,' published in 1509, and Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's 'Boke of Surveying,' 1523, among other early-printed books, contain some valuable illustrations showing furniture contemporary with the beginning of the sixteenth century. Returning to manuscripts, Henry VIII.'s own Psalter, now in the British Museum, also contains some wonderful representations of furniture in the new Italian style which prevailed at Court about this period. The determination of styles of the later periods of furniture is more easy, for of pictures in which contemporary furniture is depicted we have plenty, while internal evidence is sometimes afforded in the way of dates carved upon the objects themselves.

Harrison, in his 'Description of England,' 1577-1587, while treating of the home life of the middle classes of that period, gives many details showing the increase of luxury and appointments in the way of furniture consequent on the remarkable growth of national prosperity, and his statements on these matters are borne out by other contemporary writers.

With regard to modern books treating of the subject of ancient furniture, a place in the front rank must be assigned to 'Specimens of Ancient Furniture drawn from Existing Authorities,' by Henry Shaw, F.S.A., but the descriptions by Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick, K.H., LL.D., F.S.A., are meagre and of no scientific value, while in some cases they are obviously inaccurate. The work was published by William Pickering in 1856. Too much praise cannot be accorded to this work for the beauty and fidelity of many of its illustrations, which are also mainly of English examples.

Books treating of ancient furniture are usually only too prone to give prominence to foreign pieces, the works by Jacquemart and Willemin treating almost exclusively of Continental examples. Much the same may be said respecting volume i. ('Meubles') of Viollet le Duc's learned work, the 'Dictionnaire Raisonne du Mobilier Francais,' though he occasionally includes an English piece. The 'Dictionnaire' is delightfully thorough, but sometimes errs on the side of excess in the way of restoration. That superb treatise, Parker's 'Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages,' treats incidentally of the subject of furniture; but, in addition to this, the vast amount of knowledge which may be gathered from his pages on the architectural styles of the Gothic periods is of great assistance in leading to right conclusions on the subject of contemporary furniture, the fashion of which, it must be remembered, was always more or less influenced by architectural design. Hunt's 'Exemplars of Tudor Architecture,' published in 1830 - the low-water period of taste - also contains some instructive and well-selected remarks upon furniture of the period with which it deals.

Movable furniture of the successive periods ranging from the middle of the sixteenth century down to the commencement of the mahogany period has been absolutely neglected by writers. Gotch, however, in his recently published work on the early Renaissance in England, gives some exceedingly thoughtful and highly technical descriptions of panelling and fittings in both domestic and ecclesiastical edifices. The author's own volume on 'Ancient Coffers and Cupboards,' published by Messrs. Methuen and Co. in 1902, was intended to afford a critical survey of one branch of old furniture, and to fill a gap left by other investigators. Of the tendency of modern magazines - some of them purporting to be technical - to reproduce some half-dozen illustrations of old or would-be old furniture, and to run round them an article, pleasantly written perhaps, but from which technical knowledge is conspicuous by its entire absence, little that is good can be said. The student should be warned against accepting the bulk of such articles as of any value.

This is perhaps only to express a truth which is of common application to popular articles on all scientific subjects.