A cabinet maker named A. Heppelwhite published in 1789 a large set of designs for every sort of reception room and bedroom furniture. We see in these the mahogany chairs with pierced strapwork backs, library and pedestal tables, mechanical desks and bureaux, which continued in fashion during the early years of this century. Fanciful sashed glass doors closed in the bookcases; interrupted pediments and pedestals provided space for busts round the tops of these cases. Fluted legs, and occasionally lion-headed supports, uphold the tables and chairs. Knife cases to set on the sideboard, and urn stools for the breakfast table, are among these designs. Tea chests and tea caddies indicate that tea was then coming into general use. Thomas Sheraton, another cabinet-maker, published towards the end of the century an extensive "Dictionary" of his trade. His designs, like those just mentioned, embrace beds, sofas, &c. Mechanical dressing and washing tables, very ingeniously contrived, were among his productions. We meet with these still; of Spanish mahogany, and admirable workmanship. The structure of all these pieces was light and strong. Time has had little effect on wood so well seasoned and on pieces put together in so workmanlike a manner. The French revolution put a complete stop to the old arts of domestic life in France. As in the sixteenth century, so in the eighteenth the new ideas rushed extravagantly in the direction of republican antiquity and Roman taste and sentiment. It was under the empire, after the Italian wars and the Egyptian expedition, that the means and taste for expenditure upon civil furniture and decorations revived, with an assumption of classicalism. The art of the time however, inspired by the hard paintings of David, is but a dry and affected attempt at a fresh renaissance. In furniture mounts, chairs, &c., of supposed classical designs, it is known as the art of the "empire." This country copied the fashion as soon as the return of peace opened the continent to English travellers. Furniture and room decorations were designed after classical ideals, and we see chairs and tables imitating bas-reliefs and the drawings on antique vases. It is probable that collectors, such as Sir William Hamilton and the members of the Dilettanti society, sensibly influenced the prevailing style. James Wyatt the architect, about the end of the last century, rebuilt or cleared out many of our mediæval churches and houses, and took to designing what he called Gothic for room decoration and furniture. Sir Jeffrey Wyatt or Sir Jeffrey Wyattville (as he became) made great changes at Windsor castle, under George the fourth. Pugin designed some flimsy Gothic furniture for the same palace. At a later period of his life, however, he did much, both as a designer and a writer upon art, to turn attention to the principles on which mediæval designs of all kinds were based.