CHAPTER IV: CHAIRS AND TABLES

In volume one we left the chair at the time of King James II. when it was composed of tall and straight lines, generally cane-backed and cane-seated, with a carved stretcher fixed rather higher than midway between the two front legs. Such pieces would not, of course, have been found in the homes of the poor. Historical books, for the most part, concern themselves very much with the affairs of courts and the practice of battles, but very little with the habits and surroundings of the bulk of the people. We know that the amount of poverty and crime at the beginning of the eighteenth century was enormous, and the social condition of the people being such, it is unlikely that their homes could have been either comfortable or decently furnished. Very little of the wealth of the country percolated through the middle class to the poor; but there is no doubt that as regards the middle-class homes, they had by the beginning of the eighteenth century reached a very tolerable standard of social comfort and convenience.

It is probable that a good deal of this standard of comfort was attributable to Dutch influence. The sense of home comfort seems to have been developed in Holland in early times. In the picture of John Arnolfini and his wife in the National Gallery, London, painted by Jan van Eyck, who lived between 1390 and 1440, there is a vivid and interesting glimpse of the furniture of this period. This picture should be studied by all interested in furniture. In the bedroom shown in the picture we find, in addition to the bed with its heavy red stuff hangings, a coffer, probably for clothes; a tall chair with a Gothic traceried top and a red cushion; a smaller chair with a red cushion; a carpet of Persian pattern; a brass chandelier; and a mirror reflecting the room and its two occupants. The mirror is in a round wooden frame decorated with small medallion panels, with paintings illustrative of the Passion of our Lord. The room is lighted by casement windows, and the whole effect suggests a degree of comfort creditable to the taste of the fifteenth century.

A very notable feature in the male costume of the time of William and Mary was the enormous periwig, which was considered a sign of social importance. A man would not wear his hat (a _chapeau-bras_), but in order that his wig might not be disarranged would carry his hat under his arm. It is rather strange that a hard-headed business man like William should have countenanced such a fashion by wearing a great periwig himself. It appears to have been a custom to comb these wigs in the coffee-houses, for which purpose each gallant carried an elegant comb. The men's hats were adorned with feathers, and they also wore full-skirted coats decorated with lace and embroidery, stockings, breeches, buckled shoes, and huge cuffs garnished with lace.

The ladies also wore a heavy head-gear, the hair being brushed away from the forehead and surmounted by ribbons and rows of lace, over which was thrown a lace scarf which hung nearly to the waist, giving the general impression of a great mob-cap. "Stiff stays," writes Mr. Dillon, "tightly laced over the stomacher and very long in the waist, became fashionable; and to so great an extent was this pernicious fashion carried that a lady's body from the shoulders to the hip looked like the