That the styles of Chippendale and Sheraton represent two distinct schools is borne out by what Sheraton himself thought of his great predecessor. Speaking in his own book of Chippendale's previous work he says: "As for the designs themselves they are wholly antiquated, and laid aside, though possessed of great merit according to the times in which they were executed." From this it would appear that the Chippendale style, at the time of Sheraton's "Cabinetmaker's and Upholsterer's Drawing Book," published in 1793, had gone out of fashion. The woods mostly employed by Sheraton were satinwood, tulip-wood, rosewood, and apple-wood, and occasionally mahogany. In place of carved scrollwork he used marquetry, and on the cabinets and larger pieces panels were painted by Cipriani and Angelica Kauffman. There is a fine example of the latter's work in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Sheraton borrowed largely from the French style under Louis XVI., when the lines had become severer; he came, too, under the influence of the Adam designs. He commonly used turned legs, and often turned backs, in his chairs. His later examples had a hollowed or spoon back to fit the body of the sitter. When he used mahogany he realised the beauty of effect the dark wood would give to inlay of lighter coloured woods, or even of brass. The splats and balusters, and even the legs of some of his chairs, are inlaid with delicate marquetry work. Ornament for its own sake was scrupulously eschewed by Sheraton. The essential supports and uprights and stretcher-rails and other component parts of a piece of furniture were only decorated as portions of a preconceived whole. The legs were tapered, the plain surfaces were inlaid with marquetry, but nothing meaningless was added. In France Sheraton's style was termed "_Louis Seize a l'Anglaise_." [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton &. Sons._ OLD ENGLISH SECRETAIRE. Rosewood and satinwood. Drop-down front.] It was the firm of Heppelwhite that first introduced the painted furniture into England, and under Sheraton it developed into an emulation of the fine work done by Watteau and Greuze in the days of Marie Antoinette. Among the varied pieces that Sheraton produced are a number of ingenious inventions in furniture, such as the library-steps he made for George III. to rise perpendicularly from the top of a table frame, and when folded up to be concealed within it. His bureau-bookcases and writing-cabinets have sliding flaps and secret drawers and devices intended to make them serve a number of purposes. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Harold G. Lancaster & Co._ SHIELD-BACK CHAIR. MAHOGANY. LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.] On the front of his chairs is frequently found the inverted bell flower, and another of his favourite forms of decoration is the acanthus ornament, which he puts to graceful use.