The series of illustrations of the various types of Sheffield plated table candlesticks do little more than approximately indicate the rapidly changing styles in a period so richly inventive in decorative ornament. In the group illustrated (p. 127) the example on the left, in date 1765, is on a square base with cluster columns and leaf capitals. The example on the right is in date 1770. The base is round. It is here that the plater has exercised his ingenuity in fine reticent die work, and the edging is delicately beaded. The candlestick in the centre has a square base, with fine batswing fluting, and square-shaped columns ornamented with classic medallions. The nozzle has a character of its own in having a rim which is pierced. The illustrations (p. 129) show other forms in process of evolution. The tall Corinthian column made a handsome table ornament. The example on left is one of a set of four, twelve and a half inches high. The bases are square and are decorated in clever die work with rosettes and festoons carried around the pyramidal base. This type has cluster columns terminating in capitals decorated with formal leaf design. The adjacent candlestick is a form found about 1790. The base is square and fluted, and the column is in classic style terminating in a capital in Ionic style, with volutes springing out of twisted leaves and husks. The third example in the upper row is about 1795 in date. The base is square and follows the same classic suggestions of previous types. The capital is square and fluted, and is decorated with conventional floral ornament. The nozzle is urn shaped. The three lower examples of the period from 1810 to 1830 show signs of debasement in form. The bases have now become circular. Each candlestick has certain beauties in it, little touches which invite respect and regard, but each also contains blemishes detracting from the exact symmetry which was the character of the earlier types. The floriate decoration as an ornament to the lower half of the column in the first example may be passed. In the second it has grown into an unpleasing excrescence, and the base is decorated in a florid manner disturbing to the eye. The last example has lost that fine feeling dependent on the easy flow of simple line. It is composite in character, it betrays a lack of inspiration. It is a very poor relation to the fine table candlesticks of the earlier period, where the beauty wins and fascinates. There is no such grace and distinction in these late examples, but they doubtless reflected the silver fashions then prevalent, which were in the main execrable in taste. [Illustration: OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED CANDLESTICK. With broken fluted column on square base with ball ornament. Nozzle richly decorated with acanthus leaf design. Date 1765. Height 10 in. (_By courtesy of Walter H. Willson, Esq._)] [Illustration: OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED CANDLESTICKS.