There is a species much used formerly in Somersetshire and Devon, and perhaps elsewhere. It was a _multum-in-parvo_. The back opened and disclosed a place in which sides of bacon were hung. Above was a long narrow cupboard for the groceries. The seat lifted--for what think you? As a place where the baby could be placed in greatest security whilst the mother was engaged at the fire. I believe that dealers now call them monks' seats. Monks' seats! they belonged to women and babies. But a dealer knows how to humbug his customers. [Illustration: THE SETTLE] I was once in a certain county, I will not say which, and visited a gentleman who had bought and built a fine house, very modern, but very handsome. Then the fancy took him to be possessed of old oak, so he went to a dealer. "My dear sir," said Lazarus, "I have the very thing for you--a superb antique oak mantelpiece and sideboard--the finest in England of the date of Henry VIII. But they are all in an ancient mansion, a black-timbered hall in Cheshire or Shropshire--I forget which. Would you care to go down and see it? The house is to be pulled down, and I must remove the contents." Of course Mr. Greenhorn went, bought all at a fabulous price, and brought them to his mansion. Well, anyone with the smallest knowledge of old oak would see at a glance that this was all Belgian stuff, made up of bits from old churches, put together higgledy-piggledy without any unity of design--stuff that no ancient would have designed, for there was no design in it. And the dealer kept this Cheshire or Shropshire black-timbered house regularly supplied with this detestable rubbish, and regularly took greenhorns to it to pay down heavy gold for what was worth nothing but a few Belgian francs. At the risk of branching away from my topic, I must have another word relative to dealers. There is still in England a good deal of good plain old oak; old cradles, old standing clock cases, old bureaus, etc., without any carving on them, but fine in their lines and in their simplicity. These wretches buy them up and give them into the hands of mechanical carvers to adorn in "Elizabethan style," and then they sell these good old articles of furniture--defaced and spoiled and rendered all but worthless. "Good heavens!" said I to one of these gentry; "you have utterly, irrevocably ruined that noble wardrobe." "Well, sir, I couldn't sell it for one-tenth of the price hadn't I done this. The buyers like this, and I have to suit their taste." To return to the hearth and to the settle.