Before entering upon the last phase of Stuart furniture, and leaving the days of Jacobean oak with its fine carving and handsome appearance--the careful result of selecting the timber and splitting it to show the fine figure of the wood--the attention of the reader should be drawn to the fact that the appearance of the surface of furniture made subsequent to this period begins to approach the results of the modern cabinetmaker with his polishes and spirit varnishes and highly glazed panels and table tops. The lover of old oak abominates varnish. The Elizabethan and Jacobean carved oak furniture received only a preliminary coat of dark varnish in its early days, mixed with oil and not spirit, which sank into the wood and was not a surface polish, and was probably used to preserve the wood. These old pieces, which have received centuries of rubbing with beeswax and oil, have resulted in producing a rich, warm tone which it is impossible to copy by any of the subtle arts known to the modern forger. The collector should make himself thoroughly familiar with the appearance of this old oak by a careful examination of museum pieces, which, when once seen, cannot easily be forgotten. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Waring._ CHEST OF DRAWERS. PANELLED FRONT; LATE JACOBEAN. (Height, 3 ft. 4 in.; width, 3 ft. 10 in.; depth, 1 ft. 10 in.)] The Italian Renaissance furniture probably received an oil varnish, the composition of which, like the varnish employed for old violins, has been lost, but after centuries of careful usage and polishing, the result, as seen in the fine specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is to give to them the appearance of bronze. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Sons._ CHARLES II. OAK CHAIR. Open back carved with shell and scrolled foliage. Stuffed seat covered with old damask.] There is little doubt that the Great Fire, which did such immense destruction in London in 1666, in which some eighty-nine churches and thirteen thousand houses were demolished, gave a considerable impetus to the manufacture of furniture in the new style. It is not a pleasing reflection to think how many fine pieces of Elizabethan and early Jacobean furniture were consumed in the flames, including much of Inigo Jones's work. Under the genius of Sir Christopher Wren many of the city churches were rebuilt, including St. Paul's Cathedral; and Greenwich Hospital and Hampton Court were enlarged according to Wren's designs, with the co-operation of the master woodcarver, Grinling Gibbons. In later Jacobean days a splendour of style and an excellence of workmanship were the outcome of the fine achievements in interior woodwork by Grinling Gibbons and the school he founded.