It is obvious the class of Table of the William and Mary period, in date about 1670, illustrated (p. 73), with finely turned legs and stretcher and scalloped underwork, belongs to a period far more advanced in comfort than the days when such a table as that illustrated p. 63 was the ordinary type.

By the end of the century the growth of sea power and the astonishing development of trade brought corresponding domestic luxuries. The two children's stools illustrated (p. 77) must have come from a country squire's or wealthy provincial merchant's house. Their upholstered seats emulate the grandeur of finer types. The rare form of oak bedstead illustrated on the same page is a survival of the early type. In date this is about 1700; not too often are such examples found, for enterprising restorers and makers have seized these old Jacobean bedsteads and converted them into so-called Jacobean "sideboards," wherein nothing is old except the wood.

It requires some little imagination to conjure up what the daily meals were in the days of the early Stuarts. There was the leather jack, the horn mug, and the long table in the hall where the farmer and his servants ate together. An old black-letter song, entitled "When this old cap was new," in date 1666, in the Roxburgh "Songs and Ballads," has two verses which paint a lively picture:—

The "mechanical man" is a delightful touch of the old song-writer. We fear he would have been shocked at the degeneracy of a later day, when in place of the mug that was handed round came the effeminate teacups. The change from ale, at breakfast and dinner and supper, to tea the beverage of the poor, would be a sad awakening from the ideals set up by the rollicking song-writer of Restoration days. But such innovations must needs be closely regarded by the student of furniture.

We wish sometimes that historians had spared a few pages from military evolutions and Court intrigues to let us know what the parlours and bedrooms of our ancestors looked like. A rough résumé from Macaulay's "State of England in 1685," wherein he quotes authority by authority, holds a mirror to seventeenth-century life.

The state of the roads in those days was somewhat barbarous. Ruts were deep, descents precipitous, and the way often difficult to distinguish in the dusk from the unenclosed fen and heath on each side. Pepys and his wife, travelling in their own coach, lost their way between Newbury and Reading.[2] In some parts of Kent and Sussex none but the strongest horses could, in winter, get through the bog in which they sank deep at every step. The coaches were often pulled by oxen.[3] When Prince George of Denmark visited the mansion of Petworth he was six hours travelling nine miles. Throughout the country north of York and west of Exeter goods were carried by long trains of packhorses.

The capital was a place far removed from the country. It was seldom that the country squire paid a visit thither. "Towards London and Londoners he felt an aversion that more than once produced important political effects" (Macaulay). Apart from the country gentlemen were the petty proprietors who cultivated their own fields with their own hands and enjoyed a modest competence without affecting to have scutcheons and crests. This great class of yeomanry formed a much more important part of the nation than now. According to the most reliable statistics of the seventeenth century, there were no less than a hundred and sixty thousand proprietors, who with their families made a seventh of the population of those days, and these derived their livelihood from small freehold estates.

Such, then, were the chief differences dividing the life of the country from the life of the town. The London merchants had town mansions hardly less inferior to the nobility. Chelsea was a quiet village with a thousand inhabitants, and sportsmen with dog and gun wandered over Marylebone. General Oglethorpe, who died in 1785, used to boast that he had shot a woodcock in what is now Regent Street, in Queen Anne's reign.

The days of the Stuarts were not so rosy as writers of romance have chosen to have us believe. At Norwich, the centre of the cloth industry, children of the tender age of six were engaged in labour. At Bristol a labyrinth of narrow lanes, too narrow for cart traffic, was built over vaults. Goods were conveyed across the city in trucks drawn by dogs. Meat was so dear that King, in his "Natural and Political Conclusions," estimates that half the population of the country only ate animal food twice a week, and the other half only once a week or not at all. "Bread such as is now given to the inmates of a workhouse was then seldom seen even on the trencher of a yeoman or a shopkeeper. The majority of the nation lived almost entirely on rye, barley, and oats."

The change from these conditions to those we associate with the eighteenth century was not a sudden but a slow one. With the increase of average prosperity came the additional requirements in household furniture. It is impossible now to state accurately what the exact furniture was of the various classes of the community. Many of the seventeenth-century pieces now remaining have been treasured in great houses and belong to a variety which in those days was regarded as sumptuous. Now and again we catch glimpses of the former life of the men and women of those days. Little pieces of conclusive evidence are brought to light which enable safe conclusions to be drawn. But the everyday normal character has too often gone unrecorded. We are left with Court memoirs, diaries of the great, literary proofs of the more scholarly, but the simple annals of the poor are, in the main, unrecorded.

In view of this series of queer and remarkable facts strung together to afford the reader a rough and ready picture of those dim days, one comes to believe that much of the ordinary seventeenth-century furniture must be regarded as having belonged to the great yeoman class of the community. With this belief the collector very rightly regards it of sterling worth, as reminiscent of the men from whose sturdy stock has sprung a great race.

CHAPTER III
THE GATE-LEG TABLE

Its early form—Transitional and experimental stages—Its establishment as a permanent popular type—The gate-leg table in the Jacobean period—Walnut and mahogany varieties—Its utility and beauty contribute to its long survival—Its adoption in modern days.

The gate-leg table is always regarded with veneration by collectors. It has a charm of style and beauty of construction which afford never-ending delight to possessors of old examples. It is an inspired piece of cabinet-work which belongs to the middle of the seventeenth century, and exhibits the supreme effort of the early Jacobean craftsmen to break away from the square massive tables, the lineal descendants of the great bulbous-legged table of the Elizabethan hall. Dining-tables with the device of slides to draw out when occasion required, even in early days became a necessity. It is a note indicating the changing habits of the people. A table was no longer used for one purpose. The large table required a permanent place in a large room. But smaller houses fitted with minor furniture had their limitations of space, and so the ingenuity of a table that would close together and stand against a wall, or could be used as a round table for dining, was a welcome innovation.

Its Early Form.—The series of illustrations in this chapter afford a fairly comprehensive survey of the progress and differing character of the gate-leg table during the hundred years that it held a place in domestic furniture. It is difficult to say with exactitude which are the earliest forms, or whether the round table without the moving gates was a sort of transitional form prior to the use of the movable legs. It is quite possible that in his attempt to invent something more convenient than the heavy square dining-table the progressive cabinet-maker of the middle seventeenth century did strike the half-way form. But on the other hand it must be admitted that there is the possibility that the gate-leg table came first, and that the types with three legs and half circular tops stand by themselves as later types. On the whole, one is inclined to the belief, especially as it prettily illustrates forms of natural evolution, that the three-legged table with fixed legs and half round top came first.

The two tables illustrated on p. 87 belong to this three-legged type. The upper one is half circular at the top and the three legs are stationary. This particular table is in date about 1660, and although in this instance it is obviously later than other forms we illustrate having gate-legs, yet by the theory we have advanced above, it belongs to a type prior to the use of a gate. The lower one is a fine example, in date about 1640, of a triangular gate-leg table. The top is round, and the illustration shows the gate open at right angles to the stretcher. The arcaded spandrils are an interesting and rare feature.

It is this picturesque and endless stream of designs which appeals to the collector. It is quite worthy of study to follow the difference in the cabinet-work of these gate tables. The long line of craftsmen who fashioned them added here and there not only touches of ornament that were personal, but invented details of construction as improvements to existing forms.

A very early type with urn legs and having plain gates is that illustrated p. 91. It is small in size and belongs to the first half of the seventeenth century. The survival of the Gothic trestle feet of an earlier type is noteworthy. The table on the same page has the trestle ends still retained. There is still the single leg at each end, as in the example above. The gates are square and plain and the legs are ball turned, a combination representing an early type. The size of this piece is small and its date is about 1650 or somewhat later.

Its Establishment as a Popular Type.—The varied improvements and the slightly differing characteristics make it perfectly clear, when examined in detail, that the gate table in various parts of the country had firmly established itself and had won popular approval as a permanent type. In the search for tables of this form, however wide the net is spread by those indefatigable seekers in out-of-the-way places, and by the small army of trade collectors who scour the country for the purpose of unearthing something rare and unique, the story is always the same. In the most remote districts such tables are still found: the growth of the use of this gate-leg form permeated every part of the country. It was copied and recopied, native touches were added, and the old leading lines followed by generation after generation of craftsmen. It had as great a vogue during the long period of its history as the styles of Chippendale chairs had at a later date, when every country cabinet-maker was seized with the desire to produce minor Chippendale in oak or beech or elm.

Ripe examples of the best period may be assigned to the last three or four decades of the seventeenth century. These, it should be explained, are in oak. We illustrate (p. 93) a particularly pleasing specimen with double gates which belongs to this finest period. There are, it will be observed, twelve legs, and the stretchers are finely turned with what is known as the egg-and-reel pattern. As a matter of fact pieces such as this, on account of the rare form, bring from £15 to £35, and they are rapidly being gathered into the folds of collectors.

Another rare form is shown on the same page. This, too, has double gates, and the stretchers are similarly turned. There is only one flap to this table, and it will be observed that it makes another variation from accepted styles in having a rectangular instead of a circular top. Tables with one flap are always rare, and when found they usually have two gates.

It will be seen that there are pleasant surprises in following changing forms all through the period. On p. 97 a table is illustrated with two gates on one stretcher. This in date is about 1660.

The table below, on the same page, exhibits florid turning in the legs. The stretchers across the two legs are half way up and are the Yorkshire form of splat stretcher. This type is found as early as 1660 and as late as 1750.

The difference in structure is noticeable in two tables shown on p. 99. The one has six legs and the other eight legs. The first has finely turned legs and stretchers in what is familiarly known as the "barley-sugar" pattern. Among its exceptional features are the legs being only six in number, the gates being hinged to stretcher, two legs thus being dispensed with, and the additional bar across the two central stretchers. This is a rare piece and in date is about 1670. The Gate Table on the same page with eight legs is a good example of ball turning. This is a type which survived well into the eighteenth century.

As exhibiting two types as wide asunder as the poles, and yet not far removed in point of time, the two tables illustrated, p. 101, make a curious contrast. The upper one, in date about 1660, is a slender, graceful example, with the unusual X-shaped stretcher. It will be seen from the illustration that the two stretchers when closed fit flat with the legs and the top flaps over, thus making the table practically collapsible.

The lower Table, of late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, is a somewhat primitive form, with the gates at one end. This has obviously been made by a local carpenter or wheelwright not conversant with turning, as the shaping of the legs is strongly suggestive of the rude fashioning of the shafts of a farm wagon.

Walnut and Mahogany Varieties.—As the mid-Jacobean period is left behind, and walnut is the chief wood used in ornamental turned work, so the character of the gate table begins to incline towards the technique more suitable to walnut than to oak. The turning, more easily done in the former wood, becomes more intricate. Hence some examples appear which are practically types of the walnut age. But, in general, the old gate-leg table is a survival throughout the William and Mary and Queen Anne periods, wherein country makers clung to the oak form and employed oak still in its manufacture.

The William and Mary Gate Table illustrated (p. 105) is constructed with one gate. It is small in size, practically being an ornamental or occasional table. It has a fine character, and the "barley sugar" pattern is deeply turned. Side by side with this is a small square-topped Gate Table with the pillar-leg, denoting a reversion to early type. The stretcher is of the old trestle form. Both these pieces, on account of their small size and well-balanced construction, show that considerable attention was being paid to symmetry. Such specimens can readily be transplanted to more modern surroundings, and yet in some subtle manner harmonise with later furniture.

They share this peculiarity with objects of Oriental art of the highest type. Old blue Nankin and old lac cabinets, although anachronisms amid furniture of a later date, possess the property of being in sympathy with their new environment, much in the same manner as an old Persian rug becomes a restful acquisition in a luxurious Western home.

Some of the forms are so rare as to be almost unique. It is seldom that so interesting a piece is found as the Table illustrated (p. 105) with the scroll feet in Spanish style. It has only one gate, and the top of the table lifts up, forming a box. The lock is shown at the front in the photograph. The adjacent table has a corrupted form of the Spanish foot, doubled under in cramped fashion like the flapper of a seal. This also has one gate; in date this piece is about 1680.

The days of mahogany, with Chippendale in his prime and Hepplewhite, Ince and Mayhew, Robert Manwaring, Matthias Lock, William Shearer, and a crowd of others, brought intricate carving in mahogany into intense prominence. This was the golden age of furniture design. An outburst of enthusiasm, following the architectural triumphs of the Brothers Adam, wherein they raised interior decoration to a level as high as that in France, had swept over the country. In spite of the rich profusion of new design being poured out in illustrated volumes and in executed furniture, the old gate-leg table still survived. In form it was the same, but the richness of the new wood was too enticing for the cabinet-maker not to employ. Accordingly we find examples in mahogany.

On p. 109 two specimens of this period are shown. The upper one is of somewhat unusual type, having a Cupid's bow underframing. It is seen that the Spanish foot has still survived into the eighteenth century. The lower table is again a rare form. It is probably early in date for mahogany, being about 1740. The Spanish foot is employed, but in a coarsened form, unusually inelegant, and suggestive of a golf club.

Its Utility and Beauty.—It is a natural question that one may ask as to the reason that the gate table had such a prolonged life. It passed through several strong periods of fashionable styles that were overthrown in turn by newer designs. The reason is not far to seek. It survived because the public could not do without it. There must have been a continuous demand, unchecked by the excitements of contemporary substitutes. But apparently there was nothing to take its place, or which could permanently supplant it. Its utility is undoubtedly one of its most marked features. This alone affected its stability as a possession with which the farmer's wife and the cottager would not part. Customs long established in the country were not easily discontinued. Mother, daughter, and granddaughter clung to the old and practical form of table. Nowadays there are families in the shires whom nothing would induce to sell their old gate tables. Partly this is for love of the old home, but mainly is it the common-sense attitude which rebels against the sale of any piece of furniture which is in constant use. Many objects long gone into disuse, but really valuable from an artistic point of view, are readily dispensed with. The cottager imagines that if he disposes of a mere ornament for a sum of money with which he can buy something useful he has effected a good "deal."

So much for its utility. Its beauty is a quality which has appealed to persons of higher artistic instincts. It is not the quaintness, because there are scores of other objects equally quaint, nor is it altogether the antiquity, though, of course, nowadays that is a determining factor, but it is the actual symmetry of form and ingenious form of construction, enhanced by the wide range of decorative treatment, which irresistibly appeal to the lover of the beautiful. These manifold reasons, therefore, endowed the gate-leg table with great vitality. Its hold of the people was not relaxed till the age of the factory-made furniture. The banalities of the early-Victorian period, which destroyed taste in persons of finer susceptibilities than the common folk, supplanted the old historic form, and it was made no more.

The life-history of the gate-leg table is, therefore, shown to be an interesting one. It is one of our oldest forms, and its construction nowadays, save that it is now produced in a factory, is singularly similar to that in the days when Oliver Cromwell was establishing our power as a voice in Europe, when James II. had an eye towards the supremacy of our navy, and when later our troops fought in Flanders.

The Adam sideboard with its severe classical lines, and Sheraton's elegant bow fronts and satinwood panels decorated with painting, belong to the later developments of the sideboard as now known.

The dresser is something more homely. It is indissolubly connected with homeliness and with the farmhouse and the country-side. In its various forms it has appealed to lovers of simple furniture, and farmhouse examples have found their way into surroundings more or less incongruous. The dresser in its more primitive form requires the necessary environment. It loses its charm when placed in proximity to pieces of more pretentious character. The cupboard dresser, or the type with open shelves, is less decorative than some of the forms without the back. That is to say, it requires the exactly suitable accompaniment to prevent its simple lines from being eclipsed by furniture of a higher grade. The dresser is, therefore, especially desirable to the collector furnishing a country cottage in harmonious character; but its inclusion in the modern drawing-room is an incongruity and its presence in the dining-room is more often than not an unwarrantable intrusion.

The Days of the Late Stuarts.—It will be seen that the early types have fronts finely decorated with geometric designs panelled in the same fashion as the Jacobean chests of drawers, such as that illustrated p. 69. The split baluster ornament is a noticeable feature in this style, and the fine graceful balance of the panels with the drawers with drop brass handles is an attractive feature beloved by connoisseurs of the late Stuart period. The decoration in the fronts of these early dressers is as diverse in character as the fronts of the contemporary chests of drawers. This variety is indicative of the personal character imparted to the work of the old designers. It is rare to find two examples exactly alike. They differ in details, much in the same manner as the brass candlesticks of the same period, which possess the same charm of individuality.

Of this particular type of oak Dresser the two examples illustrated (p. 117) have characteristics which are common to the class. The geometric front panels, the laid-on moulding, and the Jacobean leg—in most cases the back legs of these side dressers are square—should be intently noticed. In regard to the number of the legs, this is governed by the length of the dresser. In the lower example it will be seen that there are six legs and that the stretcher is continued round three sides. In this example the legs begin to show indications of the late-Jacobean style of more delicate turning. In the upper example the legs are bolder.

These are oak specimens; the walnut varieties of similar design offer more sumptuous decoration and belong to furniture more suitable for the manor house than for the farm or cottage.

An earlier type, in date about 1660, illustrated p. 119, exhibits a less ornate appearance and has the split urn-shaped legs in front and flat legs at the back. The split legs are found sometimes in gate tables, but when such is the case it may safely be conjectured that these tables are not of English origin, as the split leg did not find great favour with the English cabinet-makers.

Before passing to later examples it should be observed that this particular form of dresser is most frequently found without a top with shelves. Examples there are which, as we shall show, have the original top, but as a rule it is advisable to note this feature in examining these Jacobean dressers, for there are a great number in the market to which later tops have been added, as suitable to more modern requirements, or as likely to prove more attractive to those collectors not familiar with the dresser in its earlier form. Originally in early dressers with shelves there is no back, that is to say, the shelves showed the wall behind them. This deficiency has been obligingly supplied by later hands.

The dresser, as it found itself after certain transitional stages had been passed through, is shown in the early eighteenth-century piece illustrated (p. 119). This is of the early days of the eighteenth century, that is to say, in the reign of Queen Anne. It is here seen that the dresser is a set piece of furniture possessing attributes instantly marking it as having been carefully designed with a due observance as to the purpose to which it was to be put. The shelf at the bottom was evidently intended for use; the arched formation below the drawers has been planned in that manner to admit of utensils placed there being taken out and replaced with ease. One can only conjecture what may have stood there, maybe a barrel of cider, or perhaps only a breadpan.

The Decorated Type with Shelves.—The back with shelves was a useful addition, which, as will be seen in the earlier examples leading up to this later development, had borne several experiments in the way of cupboards. In this particular specimen the broken or serpentine outline at sides of shelves is a noticeable feature, and always adds a grace and charm to the dresser when employed by the cabinet-maker. Another example in which this is effectively used is illustrated on p. 123.

To return to the early-Jacobean types: two interesting pieces are illustrated together (p. 123). That on the left, with four legs and stretcher, has three drawers, and the upper portion or back is ornamented by a primitive scalloped design suggestive of the country hand. The other, on the right, has six legs and four drawers, and the upper portion is beginning to receive detailed treatment in regard to spacing of the shelves, and a small cupboard on each side fills the growing need of cupboards and drawers, a rapidly growing taste in English furniture for domestic use as the home-life began to be more complex. About this time nests of boxes and drawers in lac work from the East began to be imported into this country in the better houses, first as articles of great luxury and beauty, on account of their colour and fine gold work, and later as being something new and essentially utilitarian in regard to the accommodation they afforded for the treasures the housewife wished to put away from the prying eyes of her curious neighbours. As time went on, the art of the cabinet-maker became more intricate. It is not the place here to enter into the minutiæ of the development of drawers and bureaus and cabinets, but the late eighteenth century brought such furniture, apart from points in relation to beauty of design, to great constructive skill. The age was one of hidden contrivances and intricately cunning mechanism concealing secret drawers or receptacles. Such pieces were never made for farmhouse use; but the germ of the idea is ever present in all furniture with indications of locked drawers and cupboards. This is the note of intense civilisation as against the simpler modes of primitive folk who have no bolt to their door and no lock to guard their possessions.

William and Mary Style with Double Cupboards.—The variety with double cupboards are interesting as giving a date to the dressers in which they are found. It is usually accurate to place such pieces in the William and Mary period, that is to say from the year 1689 to the end of the seventeenth century. The tendency in this class of furniture is to cling tenaciously to older forms, especially in certain portions of the cabinet-work which presented difficulties to the local cabinet-maker. The legs retained their early-Jacobean character even when associated with much later styles. This is noticeable in the William and Mary example illustrated (p. 127). The arcaded doors are inlaid, the canopy is decorated, the underwork beneath the drawers belongs essentially to the "Orange" period of design in its feeling.

That the dresser could be made an ornamental piece of furniture and found its place as an important possession in the farmhouse, bright with an array of china, or pewter, or even silver, is amply shown by the two examples illustrated together of which the foregoing is one. The other oak dresser has at the top, where the mugs are hanging, the original mug-hooks. It is of the square-leg type and the arcaded work below the drawers gives distinction to its lines; it possesses also the broken or serpentine ends to the shelves. These curves and simple touches of ornament all contribute to make such dressers pleasing in character and representative of native work attempting with strong endeavour to produce artistic results suitable to their environment.