Chairs in England during the mediæval period were sometimes made of turned wood. Sometimes they were cleverly arranged to fold up, as in our own days: the engraving (p. 122) is from a beautiful manuscript of the fifteenth century. The chair known as that of Glastonbury is a square board on two pairs of cross-trestles, with a square board for a back, held to the seat by sloping arm pieces, shaped out to receive the arms of a sitter. On the edges of the seat and back tenons protrude, long enough to pass through mortices in the leg and arm pieces, which are pegged to keep them firm. Like the sixteenth century curule chairs these can easily be taken to pieces for travelling. During the reigns of Elizabeth and James, high-backed chairs, richly cut and pierced, with wooden, afterwards with cane, seats were used and remained in use simplified and lightened during more than a century. The woodcut (p. 123) represents the fashion of chair common in Italy about the year 1620: and from thence introduced into England. The use of marquetry was not confined to tables and cabinets. Rich chairs were made in this material (rarely in boule) during the eighteenth century in France, Italy, and Holland, from whence they came to this country. Light and very elegant yellow satin-wood marquetry chairs were also then in fashion. The use of mahogany for chairs, often delicately carved and admirably constructed, was general during the last century in England. The French carved chairs of the time of Louis the sixteenth covered with silk all but the legs and framework, and painted white or gilt, were made to accord with the sofas and carved woodwork of the rooms. This example was followed in England, with certain national differences. _Tables._ The ancient Egyptian tables were round, square, or oblong; the former were generally used during their repasts, and consisted of a circular flat summit, supported, like the _monopodium_ of the Romans, on a single shaft or leg in the centre or by the figure of a man intended to represent a captive. Large tables had usually three or four legs, but some were made with solid sides; and though generally of wood many were of metal or stone; and they varied in size according to the different purposes for which they were intended. Often they were three-legged, the legs in a concave shape. An antique marble table of Græco-Roman work is preserved at Naples, supported by a centaur in full relief at one end, and a sea monster, Scylla it is supposed, involving a shipwrecked mariner in the folds of her tail, with indications of waves, &c., round her body. Other Roman tables of larger dimensions had three, four, or five supports of sphinxes, lions, and the like. We give representations of three kinds of tables from paintings on vases; and another, on three marble legs, found at Pompeii. [Illustration] [Illustration]