which numbers, amongst its committee and supporters, a great many influential names.  As suggested in the design of the cover of their Exhibition Catalogue, drawn by the President, one chief aim of the society is to link arm in arm “Design and Handicraft,” by exhibiting only such articles as bear the names of individuals who (1) drew the design and (2) carried it out:  each craftsman thus has the credit and responsibility of his own part of the work, instead of the whole appearing as the production of Messrs. A.B. or C.D., who may have known nothing personally of the matter, beyond generally directing the affairs of a large manufacturing or furnishing business.

In the catalogue published by this Society there are several short and useful essays in which furniture is treated, generally and specifically, by capable writers, amongst whom are Mr. Walter Crane, Mr. Edward Prior, Mr. Halsey Ricardo, Mr. Reginald T. Blomfield, Mr. W.R.  Letharby, Mr. J.H.  Pollen, Mr. Stephen Webb, and Mr. T.G.  Jackson, A.R.A., the order of names being that in which the several essays are arranged.  This small but valuable contribution to the subject of design and manufacture of furniture is full of interest, and points out the defects of our present system.  Amongst other regrets, one of the writers (Mr. Halsey Ricardo) complains, that the “transient tenure that most of us have in our dwellings, and the absorbing nature of the struggle that most of us have to make to win the necessary provisions of life, prevent our encouraging the manufacture of well wrought furniture.  We mean to outgrow our houses—­our lease expires after so many years, and then we shall want an entirely different class of furniture—­consequently we purchase articles that have only sufficient life in them to last the brief period of our occupation, and are content to abide by the want of appropriateness or beauty, in the clear intention of some day surrounding ourselves with objects that shall be joys to us for the remainder of our life.”

Many other societies, guilds, and art schools have been established with more or less success, with the view of improving the design and manufacture of furniture, and providing suitable models for our young wood carvers to copy.  The Ellesmere Cabinet (illustrated) was one of the productions of the “Home Arts and Industries Association,” founded by the late Lady Marian Alford in 1883, a well known connoisseur and Art patron.  It will be seen that this is virtually a Jacobean design.

In the earlier chapters of this book, it has been observed that as Architecture became a settled Art or Science, it was accompanied by a corresponding development in the design of the room and its furniture, under, as it were, one impulse of design, and this appropriate concord may be said to have obtained in England until nearly the middle of the present century, when, after the artificial Greek style in furniture and woodwork which had been attempted by Wilkins,