I must not, however, leave the consideration of "The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book" without brief reference to the first part of that work, upon which I have up to the present commented but little. It was Sheraton's contention that every designer and maker of furniture should possess a thorough knowledge of geometry, perspective, and the "Five Orders"; he, therefore, devoted nearly three hundred pages of his great work to those subjects, discoursing upon them to his heart's content, and, at the same time, lamenting the fact that few of his predecessors had adopted a similar course, and blaming them for not doing so.

But with this section we have little or nothing to do, save to place its existence on record, and regard it as yet one more proof of the rare thoroughness that characterised the operations of this old master in the pursuit of any object that he may have had in view.

To sum up the style in as few words as possible. The reader will, I think, have come to the conclusion by this time that, in all Sheraton did in connection with the craft he loved so well, there is everything to praise, and little or nothing to call forth unfavourable criticism; and this conclusion is, on the whole, a correct one. It is true that, towards the end of his career, when he was a broken-down old man, worn-out in mind and body alike, he published a series of supplementary plates of designs which make it painfully apparent that, at the time of their publication, the over-wrought brain of this poor old artist, craftsman, preacher, theologian, and publisher had commenced to lose its balance, and the hand its cunning.

These consist, for the most part, of what can only be described as caricatures of the "Empire," which probably never were made up, and, fortunately, are never likely to be. But they must not be counted against him; and, if they were brought up as evidence to counteract the effect of much that I have written, I should, in the capacity of counsel for the defence, put in the plea of "artistically unsound mind, the result of never-ceasing work and anxiety." I should remark, further, that "my client," in a fit of aberration, or may be in response to an order which he dared not refuse, perpetrated a "Prince of Wales's Chinese Drawing-Room," of which, however, he said but little, and we need say less. The only comment, indeed, necessary upon it is, that evidence appears throughout that the designer's heart was not in the work, and that he determined to give as small a flavouring of "Chinese" as possible. As a natural consequence the outcome is necessarily weak; and that is the worst that can be said about it. There are, at all events, no "Chippendale " extravagances there in the way of Pagoda-cum-Rococo.

We may, therefore, overlook these occasional divergences from the straight path, seeing that we have such overwhelming evidence of previous "good character"; and we may be permitted even to express surprise that, with a brain so phenomenally active, fertile, and imaginative, such lapses were not far more numerous. Their absence proves conclusively that Sheraton did not regard the designing of household furniture as an art which anyone could take up with success on the spur of the moment; he understood that a long and special training was essential. It was here that his early and thorough drilling at the bench stood him in good stead; but that alone did not satisfy him. He determined to master geometry, perspective, drawing, and the principles of design, himself pursuing the same course that he recommended to others. What was the result of it all? Simply that he became an authority in matters appertaining to the beautification of the home whom few in this or any other country have equalled.

Now that we have completed our study of the work of the three greatest eighteenth-century English designers of our household gods - Chippendale, Heppelwhite, and Sheraton - and seen the part which each played in raising our national furniture to the pitch of excellence it had attained when the nineteenth century dawned, let us reconsider briefly the claim put forward, not by one advocate alone, but by many, that the period which elapsed between the years 1750 and 1800 should be regarded as "the Chippendale Period," and that everything produced during that time should come under the one generic title "Chippendale." I hardly think that it is necessary for me to write much more upon that point. Earlier in the book I have protested, with all the emphasis in my power, against the perpetuation of any such absurd and unjust view; but mere protest cannot be of much avail unless supported by ample proof to justify it. I have, therefore, done my best in the last hundred or more plates of illustrations and pages of text to present such justification as shall leave no loophole for those who entertain the opinion that the eighteenth century boasted but one great master of furniture design; that that master was Chippendale; and that all his contemporaries and successors in the craft were but "small fry," of not sufficient importance for their names to be recorded - men who did nothing but sit at the feet of the great "upholder" of St. Martin's Lane, copy his ideas, and remain but humble disciples of the school which he founded. That is, in brief, the creed of many; a creed whose demolition has been one of my aims in penning these pages, for I believe it to be pernicious and unjustifiable in every respect. A careful examination of the foregoing plates will reveal the fact that, in the work of Chippendale, infractions of the cardinal principles of good construction, the wilful ignoring of the conditions imposed by material, and fantastic extravagance are far too frequent to be ignored by the student. The creations of Heppelwhite and Sheraton, on the other hand, are nearly, if not wholly, free from any such faults. Above all things, let us accord honour freely where honour is due; and let us, at the same time, overlook such faults as were not committed "with malice aforethought." When those faults are repeated again and again, and, further, "gloried in," it is time to draw the line. Chippendale did a vast amount of good work, as well as much that was indefensible, and we have meted out to him full credit for it. But of Heppelwhite and Sheraton it may be said that, in spite of many temptations to transgress in numerous ways, and in spite of the example of their erratic predecessor before them - whose popular success was in a large measure due to his extravagance and eccentricity - they never wearied in welldoing.

"Sheraton." X. Plate 6i

A Typical Sheraton Interior