They share this peculiarity with objects of Oriental art of the highest type. Old blue Nankin and old lac cabinets, although anachronisms amid furniture of a later date, possess the property of being in sympathy with their new environment, much in the same manner as an old Persian rug becomes a restful acquisition in a luxurious Western home. Some of the forms are so rare as to be almost unique. It is seldom that so interesting a piece is found as the Table illustrated (p. 105) with the scroll feet in Spanish style. It has only one gate, and the top of the table lifts up, forming a box. The lock is shown at the front in the photograph. The adjacent table has a corrupted form of the Spanish foot, doubled under in cramped fashion like the flapper of a seal. This also has one gate; in date this piece is about 1680. [Illustration: EARLY GATE TABLE. With square top and pillar leg. Stretcher: Old trestle form. Top, 2 ft. 4 ins. × 1 ft. 10 ins. WILLIAM AND MARY GATE TABLE. Fine character deep-turning "barley sugar" pattern with only one gate. Top, 2 ft. 6 ins. × 2 ft. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)] [Illustration: GATE TABLE WITH SQUARE TOP. _C._ 1680 Having one gate and corrupted form of carved Spanish foot.] [Illustration: GATE-LEG TABLE. _C._ 1660. With one gate. Top lifts up to form box. The feet are in Spanish style.] The days of mahogany, with Chippendale in his prime and Hepplewhite, Ince and Mayhew, Robert Manwaring, Matthias Lock, William Shearer, and a crowd of others, brought intricate carving in mahogany into intense prominence. This was the golden age of furniture design. An outburst of enthusiasm, following the architectural triumphs of the Brothers Adam, wherein they raised interior decoration to a level as high as that in France, had swept over the country. In spite of the rich profusion of new design being poured out in illustrated volumes and in executed furniture, the old gate-leg table still survived. In form it was the same, but the richness of the new wood was too enticing for the cabinet-maker not to employ. Accordingly we find examples in mahogany. In the Chippendale period =X=-shaped, cluster-leg, gate tables are found, and turning was used in this cluster-leg form. The ripe inventiveness of such a design as the gate-leg table was too evident to escape the adoption by famous makers. When ingenuity of construction was at its zenith the gate-leg was not likely to be discarded in fashionable furniture. On p. 109 two specimens of this period are shown. The upper one is of somewhat unusual type, having a Cupid's bow underframing. It is seen that the Spanish foot has still survived into the eighteenth century. The lower table is again a rare form. It is probably early in date for mahogany, being about 1740. The Spanish foot is employed, but in a coarsened form, unusually inelegant, and suggestive of a golf club.