It will be seen that these three chairs, each in varying manner, evade the difficulties of the light cane-back by the substitution of thin rails, and, as will be seen from the illustration of three other chairs (p. 209), the next stage of walnut design with fiddle-shaped splat offered equal problems to the makers of cottage furniture. Sometimes they eliminated the splat altogether, while adopting other points of design found in chairs with the Queen Anne splat of 1710. In every case the fondness for old established styles is exhibited in the fact that the country cabinet-maker clings doggedly to these and appears too conservative or too timid to break wholly away from tradition. In consequence, his work, with patches of newer design welded on to the old, is quaintly incongruous. There is thus an absence of "thinking out" the design as a whole. The minor maker thought out the parts as he went along. Some of his results are extraordinary in their characteristics: they resemble that freak of fashion termed "harlequin" tea services, where the cups are of one pattern and the saucers of another. Bearing in mind these unfailing proclivities of the maker of cottage and farmhouse furniture, the collector should not find it difficult to recognise the country hand at once. Now and again one is struck with the extraordinary ingenuity of some of the work, or one is charmed with the faithfulness with which designs have been translated from the golden bowl to the silver, or, to be literal, from walnut and mahogany to oak and elm and beech. But one is never amazed at the delicacy of proportion, the balanced symmetry, or the fertility of invention--these attributes belong to cabinet-makers on a higher plane. Of three chairs illustrated on p. 209, that on the left in the legs and seat shows the moribund Jacobean style. The stretcher indicates the oncoming of the newer styles, and the back with its cresting rail is of the Charles II. period. Its retention is curious, and the perforated arched centre is peculiar to designs found in walnut; its use in oak by the maker of this chair was a blunder, as oak is too hard a wood to employ for such a design. [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE CHAIR. Entirely oak form except back and splat.] [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE CHAIR. In oak, with strong inclinations towards walnut styles.] Illustration: QUEEN ANNE CHAIR. Walnut design made in oak for farmhouse use.] [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE ARM-CHAIR. With shaped front, walnut design executed in oak. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE CHAIR, STYLE MERGING INTO HEPPLEWHITE. Less pronounced Cupid's bow top.] [Illustration: TWO CHAIRS COUNTRY HEPPLEWHITE STYLE MADE ENTIRELY IN OAK. Left-hand chair with Prince of Wales's feathers.] [Illustration: TYPES OF COTTAGE CHAIRS IN OAK. Having features of the three styles--Queen Anne, Chippendale, and Sheraton.