It is, however, the style which came between the two that now demands our attention, and it is not in any respect one which can be dismissed with brief comment. On the contrary, it is entitled to a respect equal to, if not greater than, that accorded to "Chippendale" itself, though it is generally set aside by most writers with but scant courtesy.

To retrace our steps momentarily a number of years; the reader may be reminded that comparative lightness and grace commenced to make themselves felt in the designs of our household gods with the advent of the "Queen-Anne," and appeared in a still greater measure when Chippendale seriously turned his attention to their reformation; but it was lightness only when judged in comparison with the proportions of most of the furniture of the old Elizabethan and Stuart times.

It is in "Heppelwhite" really that we find the first actual attainment of that true, and altogether exceptional, delicacy and refinement which constituted the peculiar charm of the adornments of the home designed and produced in this country during the late Georgeian period, and in the earlier years of the last century.

It will doubtless be remembered that Chippendale's epoch-making book, "The Gentleman's and Cabinet Maker's Director," appeared in the year 1754, when George the Second was still on the throne of England. "The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, or Repository of Designs for every Article of Household Furniture in the Newest and most Approved Taste," by Messrs. A. Heppelwhite & Co., did not see the light until thirty-five years later, when George the Third had reigned nearly thirty years, and when that awful storm was brewing in France which burst with such terrific violence only four years later.

When the brevity of this lapse of time is borne in mind, we cannot but experience a feeling of astonishment at the extent of the difference which distinguishes the respective designs illustrated in the two works named. The latter firm, it is true, to a certain degree, followed the lead of their great forerunner in respect of borrowing from across the Channel (I have noted that Sheraton did the same); but, on the one hand, they seldom descended to mere slavish copying; while, on the other, they endowed their creations with a far greater measure of originality than did any of their contemporaries, not excepting even the rarely gifted Sheraton himself.

In their preface to "The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Guide," Messrs. Heppelwhite & Co. proffer the following "apology" for the publication of their ideas: "To unite elegance and utility, and blend the useful with the agreeable, has ever been considered a difficult, but an honourable, task. How far we have succeeded in the following work it becomes us not to say, but rather to leave it, with all due deference, to the determination of the public at large."

The task attempted was, truly, in no respect an easy one to accomplish successfully, but they went bravely and conscientiously to work, and with rare spirit and no small spice of genius to aid them in their endeavours. In the end, the verdict of the "public at large" was an extremely favourable one, and has continually been verified and confirmed during the course of nearly a century-and-a-half; nor could it by any possibility have been otherwise.

The grandiloquent introductions with which nearly all these old-fashioned design books are prefaced furnish most amusing reading nowadays; for it appears to have been the recognised custom, from the observance of which few ever dreamed of departing, for each new authority, or soi-disant authority, to "run-down," with all his might, the efforts of his predecessors and contemporaries, and, so far as lay within his power, cover them with ridicule, no matter how successful they may have proved nor how great their popularity.

In the introduction of the particular work with which we are at present occupied, for instance, we find it gravely set forth that: "The mutability of all things, but more especially of fashions, has rendered the labours of our predecessors in this line of little use; nay, at this day, they can only tend to mislead those foreigners who seek a knowledge of English taste in the various articles of household furniture." That was sweeping enough, indeed. Poor old Chippendale! Still, he has been avenged, and time has proved the futility of that wholesale condemnation couched in so superior a tone.

We must judge these men by their works and not their words; and we must recognise to the full that Messrs. Heppelwhite & Co. undoubtedly did succeed in a remarkable degree in blending "elegance and utility." How they contrived to accomplish that task will become apparent upon a careful examination Of the plates accompanying these notes, in conjunction with such explanatory remarks as I may be able to offer. And it may be as well here to emphasise the fact that the examples reproduced are, in every instance, absolutely authentic, having been taken direct from "The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Guide" itself; from which source they have been selected with the most scrupulous care, in order that they may convey an absolutely complete idea of the style which they represent.

At the outset I may say that, though Messrs. Heppelwhite worked during the earlier years of their career almost contemporaneously with Chippendale, whose days were then rapidly drawing to a close, the style or styles founded by the old "upholder" of Saint Martin's Lane seem to have possessed little or no charm in their eyes; they appropriated but very slightly from them - a really remarkable fact, considering all things. As I have before insisted, it is a very simple matter, therefore, to distinguish between the respective styles. While, as we have seen, the earlier designer drew so largely for inspiration from the "Louis-Quatorze" and the "Louis-Quinze" (as Sheraton did from the "Louis-Seize"), Heppelwhite struck upon the "happy medium"; and, though indebted in some degree to all those modes for ideas, he sedulously refrained from following too closely upon the exact lines of any one of them.