The Queen Anne Cabriole Leg.—It is not to be expected that the long-continued triumph of the cabriole leg of the eighteenth century would leave the dresser without making its mark thereon. The exact curve of the cabriole leg is dangerous in the hands of a novice, who rarely if ever gets the correct balance in conjunction with the rest of the construction. Accordingly, in farmhouse pieces this tells its own story. It is as though the cabriole leg were a sudden afterthought. This touch of representative want of repose is shown in the specimen illustrated (p. 135). In date this is about 1740, and is a somewhat rare form, having double cupboards.

A unique Dresser and Clock combined is illustrated (p. 131). The form of the dresser, it will be seen, is quite different from other specimens. The back is only sufficiently high to carry a row of small drawers. The legs are circular and tapered, terminating in circular feet. In the centre of the dresser is a clock of the familiar grandfather form in miniature. This clock is not an addition to the dresser, but is a portion of the dresser and was made with it. The illustration shows the size of the door of the clock-case, with its hinges not cut down or in any way interfered with, and the lock on the other side is in the centre of the panel. It is obvious that no later hand has tampered with this fine example, and it stands as a remarkable dresser and unique in form in its construction with this clock.

Mid-eighteenth-century Types.—In the Lancashire Dresser illustrated (p. 135) the top is reminiscent of early types. The cupboard has removed its position to the middle, a departure from all earlier forms. This is a very characteristic example, and the ample drawer accommodation shows the speedy transition from the old form of dresser through its varied stages to the later modern variety of the kitchen dresser, devoid of poetry and lacking interest to the collector, and yet to the student having traces of its ancient lineage.

The eighteenth-century farmhouse varieties offer no great departure. They aim at being capacious and massive. They make no pretensions to approach the niceties of the sideboard in use in the better houses. They supply an undoubted want in the farmhouse for storage. There were cordials and home-made wines and much prized linen and a bright array of silver and Sheffield plate and pewter, and no doubt tea services or porcelain from the new English factories of Worcester, Derby, Bow, or maybe Plymouth or Bristol, to be shielded from breakage. The farmer's wife and the farmer's daughters were less than human if they did not follow the new fashions in some degree, more or less, in tea-drinking and in becoming the proud possessors of tea services and dinner services somewhat more delicate than the old delft and coarse Staffordshire ware. The cupboards had ample accommodation for these more valuable accessories of the farmhouse parlour. The cabinet-maker therefore developed on lines exactly suitable for the country clients whom he served.

In conclusion it may be said that a good deal has been talked about Welsh dressers, as though they were a type absolutely apart from any other. The differences are not great, as the carving, in which the Welsh craftsman offers characteristics of his own, is absent in pieces of furniture such as the dresser. Then there is the Normandy dresser, a much-abused term: a considerable number of these, and others, too, from Brittany, have been imported and the terms have become trade descriptions. But in the main the English dresser has passed through the phases we have described, and the outlines herein suggested may be filled in by the painstaking collector. In the chapter dealing with local types there is an illustration of a Lancashire dresser (p. 273) which adds one more example to the gallery of dressers we give as types in this chapter.

CHAPTER V

THE BIBLE-BOX, THE CRADLE, THE SPINNING-WHEEL,
AND THE BACON-CUPBOARD

The Puritan days of the seventeenth century—The Protestant Bible in every home—The variety of carving found in Bible-boxes—The Jacobean cradle and its forms—The spinning-wheel—The bacon-cupboard.

The Authorised version of the Holy Bible, "translated out of the original tongues and with the former translations diligently compared and revised," by His Majesty's command, found a place in every household in Stuart days. The letter of the learned translators "To the most High and Mighty Prince James, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith," &c., retains its place in modern editions. It is an historic document worthy of preservation, and perhaps those who have forgotten its terms may be glad to have their memory refreshed. It is of surpassing moment to all who recognise the Protestant derivation of the Bible as we now know it, and the sectarian feelings which inspired the translators under King James in their fulsome dedication to the Modern Solomon. "Great and manifold were the blessings, most dread Sovereign, which Almighty God the Father of all mercies bestowed upon us the people of England, when first he sent your Majesty's Royal Person to rule and reign over us. For whereas it was the expectation of many, who wished not well unto our Sion, that upon the setting of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth, of most happy memory, some thick and palpable clouds of darkness would so have overshadowed this land, that men should have been in doubt which way they were to walk; and that it should hardly be known who was to direct the unsettled State; the appearance of your Majesty, as the Sun in its strength, instantly dispelled those supposed and surmised mists, and gave unto all that were well affected exceeding cause of comfort; especially when we beheld the Government established in Your Highness and your hopeful seed, by an undoubted title, and this also accompanied by peace and tranquillity at home and abroad."

It is, as we affirm, an interesting document as showing the Puritan tendencies at a time when much was in the melting-pot and the first of the Stuarts, with his broad Scots accent and his ungainly ways, came down to St. James's from the North. Compare the above literary dedication to James the First with the word-portrait painted by Green the historian, and one may draw one's own inferences. "His big head, his slobbering tongue, his quilted clothes, his rickety legs, stood out in as grotesque a contrast with all that men recalled of Henry or of Elizabeth as his gabble and rodomontade, his want of personal dignity, his buffoonery, his coarseness of speech, his pedantry, his contemptible cowardice. Under this ridiculous exterior, however, lay a man of much natural ability, a ripe scholar with a considerable fund of shrewdness, of mother-wit, and ready repartee."

The Protestant Bible in every Home.—Himself a theologian, James influenced his contemporaries. "Theology rules there," said Grotius of England only two years after Elizabeth's death. There was an indifference to pure letters and persons were counted fine scholars who were diligent in the study of the Bible. The language of the people became enriched with this study, which extended to all classes. John Bunyan, the son of a tinker at Elstow, learned his intense prose from the Bible. The peasant absorbed the Bible till its words became his own. With the Puritan movement came the production of men of serious type, and with it too came the disappearance of the richer and brighter life and humour of Elizabethan days. It was a literary movement and a religious movement which penetrated to the lower classes and often left the upper classes and gentry unmoved. In dealing with this and its reflex upon the domestic habits of the people, the visible effects in regard to furniture are strikingly evident in the plethora of Bible-boxes belonging to those in this period of Biblical study, to whom Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were unknown and Spenser's Faerie Queene and Milton's Comus were sealed books.

It would almost seem that in many cases the Bible was the only book which was read and treasured. It was incorporated in the home life. It served as a register to record the names and dates of birth and death or marriage of members of the family. Some of these family registers have been most valuable in tracing details in biography where parish registers have failed to supply the necessary information.

The Variety of Carving found in Bible-boxes.—We give a series of illustrations indicating some of the interesting details of carving to be found on such boxes, where, as in work intended for a treasure-chest to preserve a sacred book, considerable zeal has gone to the elaboration of ornament. These seventeenth-century relics of a wave of religious enthusiasm are the crude Puritan likenesses, belonging to a less innately artistic race, of the tabernacles and ivory carved Madonnas and saints of the Italian renaissance. They both, though poles asunder in realisation, represent the instinctive love of man for ornament in connection with his religious emotions. Savage races with another ritual produce religious and ceremonial woodcarving representative of their best. Here, then, is the Puritan craftsmanship, mainly of provincial origin and found scattered over various parts of the country, following motifs executed by the same hands as Jacobean chairs and dressers, but bearing rich touches of ornament, betraying much originality, within the limited scope of Jacobean design.

The carving has nothing of the humour or strong bold relief of the miserere seats of the palmy days of the woodcarver in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century in details that might well have been applied to the Bible-box. The ambition of the Puritan woodcarver never reached figure-work, or he might have represented Biblical scenes if his abhorrence of graven images had not demoralised his fancy. Some of the early boxes have bold carving. We illustrate a fine example (p. 143) of the time of James I., about 1600. The design is floral, which embodies the well-known conventional rose. Illustrated on the same page is another carved box of unusual pattern with floriated design. It was a frequent practice to treat the front of the box as though it were continuous and the pattern leaves off at the ends much in the same manner as modern wallpaper. In the box above it will be seen that the front is panelled and the design is confined to the circumscribed area.

Another piece with very rare pattern, in date about 1650, has a bold type of carving in the two semicircles stretched across the front. This use of semicircles occurs in types usually found. The example illustrated (p. 145) has incised carving or "scratch." It will be seen that there is never an attempt at inlay or any of the delicacies of the refined craftsman. Among the various types of "scratch" boxes the use of circles and heart-shaped ornament is constant. The locks found on this type of box are always of the class as shown in the illustration, and the clasp is well known.

In the collection of Bible-boxes the novice must carefully learn the exact limitations of the school of woodworkers in this minor field. The touch of the foreign craftsman should be easily recognisable, with its piquancy and real artistic feeling. These Puritan Bible-boxes have flat lids, and in order to give some touch of romance to them or whet the appetite of the collector they are frequently described as "lace-boxes," though it is very doubtful if such boxes were ever used for storing lace. Sometimes similar boxes with sloping lids were used as early forms of writing-desks.

The Jacobean Cradle.—The specimens of this type of furniture always exhibit, in the oak variety associated with farmhouse use, a plainness as a noticeable factor. They are usually panelled, but the panel has received no carved ornament and is especially simple. Of course they always have rockers. In the examples illustrated the slight variation in these rockers will be observed. Sometimes they are plain and sometimes they have slight ornamental curves. The only other ornament may be found in the turned knobs at the foot and sometimes at the head. Sometimes there are fine knobs on the hood.

The hood is sometimes shaped and exhibits a naïve attempt at symmetrical design. These cradles have long been familiar objects in cottagers' homes, but are now being displaced by modern wicker cradles. The picture A Flood (1870), by Sir John E. Millais, shows one of these cradles floating in a flooded meadow. The baby is crowing with delight, and a black cat sits at the foot of the cradle.

The holes in the example illustrated (p. 149) are intended to receive a cord stretched across the cradle to protect the occupant.

The use of the spinning-wheel was not confined exclusively to the farmer's wife. In early days great ladies were adepts at spinning. By the time of George III. it was employed by the ladies of titled families. Mrs. Delany, when staying with the Duchess of Portland at Bulstrode, writes: "The Queen came about twelve o'clock, and caught me at my spinning-wheel, and made me spin on and give her a lesson afterwards; and I must say she did it tolerably for a queen." This letter, dated 1781, goes to prove two things, that spinning was a real task still undertaken by great ladies, and not a fashionable amusement. Had it been the latter Mrs. Delany would not have used the expression "caught me at my spinning-wheel," wherein she indicates that the occupation was somewhat of a menial one.

In regard to the Buckinghamshire bobbins, sometimes finely carved in bone, those illustrated (p 151.) indicate the character of the cottagers' treasures in the pillow-lace-making districts. The patterns of these bobbins are not repeated. Individual touches are given to these bobbins by the village turners which are not duplicated. In use, the bobbin has to be identified by some mark, and beads of different colours are employed, which are affixed by means of a wire to the bobbin, as is shown in the illustration.

The Bacon-cupboard.—Another class which it is convenient to place among miscellaneous objects is the bacon-cupboard. The illustration (p. 231) shows the type of bacon-cupboard with seat and arms and drawers beneath. The position held by the bacon-cupboard in the farmhouse is shown by the growing dignity in the character of these cupboards. The gradual growth and development are shown in many specimens of the Queen Anne period, frequently of Lancashire origin. Such pieces, with classic pilasters, broken cornice, and bevelled panels and drawers beneath, are typified in wardrobes and dressers belonging to eighteenth-century farmhouse furniture. The development of capacious cupboards for various domestic uses is noticeable in this class of furniture up to early nineteenth-century days.

CHAPTER VI
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES

The advent of the cabriole leg—The so-called Queen Anne style—The survival of oak in the provinces—The influence of walnut on cabinet-making—The early-Georgian types—Chippendale and his contemporaries.

The dawn of the eighteenth century practically commenced with the reign of Queen Anne. The times were troublous. As princess, in the days of William the Dutchman and her sister Mary, she was forbidden the Court as John Churchill, then Earl of Marlborough, designed to overthrow William and place Anne on the throne. "Were I and my Lord Marlborough private persons," William exclaimed, "the sword would have to settle between us."

At the death of Mary the Princess Anne, together with the Marlboroughs, was recalled to St. James's. At the death of William, in 1702, Anne came to the throne. Only just in her thirty-seventh year, she was so corpulent and gouty that she could not walk from Westminster Hall to the Abbey, and was carried in an open chair. During the Coronation ceremony she was too infirm to support herself in a standing position without assistance.

The age of Anne is remarkable for its restless intrigues. Court plots were rife when Queen Anne "Mrs. Morley" in her private letters to the Duchess of Marlborough, who was "Mrs. Freeman," finally broke with the overbearing Duchess and made Abigail Hill, one of the Marlborough creatures, her chief confidant. The Protestant Whig party favoured the long war in the Low Countries and in Spain, although conducted by a Tory general, Marlborough, who, by the way, did not take the field in Flanders till he was fifty-two, a remarkable achievement for so great a military career, wherein he never fought a battle in which he was not victorious.

The greatness of Marlborough is indisputable. His fond love for his wife runs like a gold thread through the dark web of his life. His wife had, during a large part of Anne's reign, despotic empire over Anne's feeble mind. "History exhibits to us few spectacles more remarkable," says Lord Macaulay, "than that of a great and wise man who, when he had contrived vast and profound schemes of policy, could carry them into effect only by inducing one foolish woman, who was often unmanageable, to manage another woman who was more foolish still."

To us now, with the secret springs of history laid bare, there is much to marvel at, much to deplore as trivial. In regard to matters of high state and the suppleness of time-servers, memoirs and private journals have exposed many a skeleton carefully hidden from public gaze. But of the life of the people, especially the life in the country districts, the picture is somewhat blurred. Men of letters flocked to the town—the town was London. Provincial life lies behind a curtain. There were Spanish doubloons coming up from Bristol and prize-money from the wars was scattered inland from the ports. Scotland was united to England by the Act of Union. "I desire," said the Queen, "and expect from my subjects of both nations that from henceforth they act with all possible respect and kindness to one another, and so that it may appear to all the world they have hearts disposed to become one people." This wish has been amply fulfilled and the union has become something more than a name. Never have two peoples different in thought, in tradition, and in established law become so completely welded together.

It is little wonder that the war was unpopular in the country, where the Spanish Succession and the "balance of power" were only symbols for so much pressure on the needs of the labouring classes. Bonfires might be lit for Blenheim, but many a village mourned those who would never return.

In spite of this intermingling of England with European politics, the general life of the people remained untouched from outside influence in regard to arts and manufacture. Cut off from intercourse with France, the grandeur of the art of Louis Quatorze was as far removed from early eighteenth-century England as though Boulle and Jean Bérain and Lepaute were in another continent and the château of Versailles in the fastnesses of the Urals. It is true that Louis XIV. presented two wonderful cabinets to the Duke of Monmouth, exquisite examples of metal inlay and coloured marquetry, but such pieces were beyond the capabilities of any English craftsman to emulate.

The chief innovations of the early eighteenth century followed the Dutch lines familiarised in the preceding days of William and Mary. Oak remained in farmhouse and country furniture, but in the fashionable world walnut was extensively used, and occasionally mahogany. Corner cupboards were introduced early in the reign of Anne, and hooped chairs, familiar in engravings of Flemish interiors, came into general use. Fiddle-splat chairs were also common in the first half of the eighteenth century. In regard to feet, the ball-and-claw, and club foot were introduced. Caning of chairs went out of fashion till the end of the century. Shell and pendant ornament on knees of chair-legs became marked features, and, above all, the cabriole leg to chairs and tables is associated with the early years of the reign, and the term "Queen Anne" is always applied to such pieces.

Examples of the cabriole leg appear as illustrations to various types of furniture in this chapter. At first its use did not interfere with the employment of the stretcher, but about 1710 the stretcher disappeared. The Lancashire Queen Anne settle illustrated (p. 159) shows the stretcher joining the front leg to the back. In the settle illustrated above, in date 1760, it will be seen the stretchers have vanished.

The So-called Queen Anne Style.—Fashions slowly adopted in cabinet design do not readily arrange themselves in exact periods coinciding with the reigns of individual sovereigns. But it is convenient to affix a label to certain marked changes and attribute their general use to a particular reign. The innovation of the square panel with broken corners and ornamental curves at top is found in Queen Anne settles. The departure from the square panel and line of the curved and broken top is exhibited in the second Great Seal of Anne, commemorating the Union with Scotland. It is reminiscent of the Dutch influence, and is found in Sussex firebacks of an earlier period. The straight lines of early-Jacobean cabinet-work were rapidly undergoing a change; the square wooden back of the chair was shortly to be replaced by fiddle splats, which in their turn, in late-Georgian days, became pierced and fretted and carved under the genius of Chippendale's hand.

The two settles illustrated (p. 159) show several interesting points. The panels are typical of the love of the curved line, which Hogarth defined as the line of beauty. In the upper one the arms still retain the old Jacobean form in this farmhouse example. The ball foot still clings to the earlier form. The seat is sunk to receive a long cushion. In the adjacent specimen the seat with its cushion and the curved S arms upholstered show the transition into the later type of modern settee.

The curved outline finds similar expression in the hood of grandfather clock-cases and in the shape of metal dials. A cupboard with drawers illustrated (p. 163) has what is known as a "swan head." The panels to the doors have similarly novel features in their structure. It will be observed that there is a square pedestal at the top of this piece, which was intended as a stand for a delft or Chinese jar. The drawers of this cupboard have round beadings.

The typical instance of curved design with not a single straight line, not even the back legs, which are bowed, is the grandfather chair with the high back, upholstered all over. The cabriole legs with ball-and claw-feet, the C-shaped arms, the scroll upholstered wings, and the oval back, depart from the rectilinear; even the underframing of the seat is bow-shaped. Similarly, the walnut arm-chairs of the period from 1690 to 1715 had bold curves. The arms always possessed a curious scroll, the backs had broad splats with curling shoulders, and often a broad bold ribbon pattern making two loops to fill up the top of the hoop at the back, with a carved shell at the point of intersection. Big pieces of furniture, such as bureaus, had the broken arch pediment, and smaller objects, such as mirrors, had the arched or broken top; and when these dressing mirrors had small drawers, these disdained the straight front and became convex.

Under the Dutch influence, in the first period of English veneer work, from about 1675 to 1715, very fine cabinets and bureaus and chests of drawers were made. Walnut was the wood employed, with the panels inlaid with pollard elm, boxwood, ebony, mahogany, sycamore, and other coloured woods. Figured walnut was beloved by the cabinet-maker beginning to feel his way in colour schemes of decoration. Bandings of herring-bone inlay and rounded mouldings to drawers are very characteristic. Bureaus and important pieces had birds and flowers and trees or feather marquetry after fine Dutch models. Picked walnut, especially exhibiting a fine feathered figure, was used as veneer, and with these and other glorious creations of the walnut school of cabinet-workers the age of walnut may be said to have been in full swing.

The Survival of Oak in the Provinces.—The foregoing descriptions apply to fashionable folks' furniture. Such fashions did not come into usage in the farmhouses and in the cottages. Oak was still employed without being displaced by the walnut of the town maker. Oak was in the main more suitable for the particular class of furniture which was likely to receive less delicate care than the writing-cabinets and bureaus and the china-cupboards of more fastidious people. Tea-drinking had become the luxury of the great world of society, and had hardly come into general use in the country till late in the reign of Anne, though by 1690 it had gained considerable favour in London. Coffee was introduced slightly earlier, and many invectives in broadsides and in poetical satires appear in the late seventeenth century against coffee and coffee-houses. In 1674 the "Women's Petition against Coffee" complained that "it made men as unfruitful as the deserts whence that unhappy berry is said to be brought; that the offspring of our mighty ancestors would dwindle into a succession of apes and pigmies, and on a domestic message a husband would stop by the way to drink a couple of cups of coffee." The prejudice against coffee, and especially against coffee-houses, was lasting, and coffee failed to establish itself as a national beverage. The labouring classes declined to be weaned from their ale and other stronger drinks. The Spaniards brought chocolate from Mexico; Roger North, Attorney-General to James II., uttered a violent polemic against chocolate houses, perhaps more on account of the political clubs gathered there than against the beverage itself. "The use of coffee-houses," says he, "seems much improved by a new invention called chocolate-houses, for the benefit of rooks and cullies of quality, where gaming is added to the rest, as if the Devil had erected a new university, and those were the colleges of its professors."

The Influence of Walnut on Cabinet-making.—If oak was the wood which the country joiner loved best, he was not without some sympathetic leaning towards the effects which could be produced in the softer walnut. Such styles accordingly began slowly to have a marked influence upon the farmhouse furniture in early-Georgian days. It was not easy to produce curved lines in the refractory oak, tough and brittle, but the village craftsman essayed his best to please his patrons whose taste had been caught by the newer fashions observed in the squire's parlour when paying rare visits.

In the two examples illustrated of farmhouse cupboard and bureau bookcase (p. 163) it will be seen that here is the country maker definitely trying his skill in his native wood to emulate the finer walnut examples of town cabinet-makers. This is even more noticeable in regard to some of the tables actually found in farmhouses belonging to as early as the first quarter of the eighteenth century. The two specimens illustrated (p. 165) exemplify this tendency to imitate the designs of trained workers. The country touch always betrays itself in the cabriole leg, whether in chair or in table. The upper table has less naïveté than most examples found. There is a balance in its construction rarely found in provincial work. The legs, always the stumbling-block to the less experienced artificer, are here of exceptionally fine proportions, terminating in club feet. The lower table shows a less capable treatment of the cabriole leg. The hoof foot and the carved knee have obviously been copied from a fine Queen Anne model. In the underframing of both tables there is an experiment in ornament and form rarely attempted except in the highest flights of the country maker, and as such these two fine examples must be regarded.

Among more important pieces, though still falling under the category of farmhouse styles, may be mentioned the Queen Anne glass or china cupboard, and the Georgian corner cupboard, illustrated p. 171.

The former has heavy bars, which mark the early type prior to tracery, and it has spun-glass doors. Porcelain factories at Bow, Worcester, and Derby brought such cupboards into more general use after the middle of the century. Staffordshire earthenware tea and coffee services were found in great numbers in farmhouses and cottages. After the days of delft and stoneware came the prized china services of the housewife. Pewter was largely used, but the number of ale-jugs of Toby form, or cider-mugs with rural subjects to suit the tastes of the users, indicate that more modern ideas and taste, once exclusive to the world of fashion, had penetrated the country districts.

The Georgian corner cupboard shows the broken architraves and cushion top. The hinges should be noticed as being original.

Chippendale and his Contemporaries.—At first using the cabriole leg with ball-and-claw foot, not quite as he found it, but reduced to slightly more slender proportions to be in symmetry with his less massive backs to chairs, Chippendale came to the straight line. He employed it in the legs of tables and in the seats of chairs, in the bracket supports, and in the top rail of his chairs. Chippendale in his day, made the first straight top rail to the chair. It is interesting to note the phases of changing design in country-made furniture prior to his time, and the sudden mastery of form which became the common inheritance of all after his and other contemporary design-books were promulgated broadcast.