Among the room decorations of the century we may notice the shelves for holding Chinese porcelain and imitations of Chinese designs in delft pottery, a taste imported by William the third and the members of his court who had lived in Holland. The chimney pieces at Hampton court and elsewhere are provided with woodwork to hold these ornaments. Hogarth paints them in his interiors, and the rage for purchasing such objects at sales became a popular subject of ridicule. To the early eighteenth century belongs a class of furniture of which the decorations consisted of panels of old Chinese and Japanese lac work; fitted, as the marquetry of the day was, with rich gilt metal mounts. In England it was the fashion to imitate the Japan work, and such old furniture is occasionally met with: black, with raised figure decorations of Chinese character done in gold dust. A great change is observable in the French furniture, panel carving and such decorations from the period of Louis the sixteenth. Several causes at the time combined to give art of this kind a new as well as a healthier direction. Amongst these we may mention the discoveries made at Herculaneum and Pompeii. It is needless to say that the peculiar cause of the destruction of both those towns had preserved in them perfect memorials, in many forms, of the social life of antiquity. Decorations, utensils and furniture of all kinds that were made of metal, and had resisted the action of damp and time, were recovered in fair condition. One result, both in France and England, was a return to a better feeling for classical style.