Sheraton's "Drawing Book" was the best of those he published. It was sold chiefly to other cabinet-makers and did not bring in many orders, as Chippendale's and Hepplewhite's did. His other books showed his decline, and his "Encyclopedia," on which he was working at the time of his death, had many subjects in it beside furniture and cabinet-making. His sideboards, card-tables, sewing-tables, tables of every kind, chairs--in fact, everything he made during his best period--have a sureness and beauty of line that makes it doubly sad that through the stress of circumstances he should have deserted it for the style of the Empire that was then the fashion in France. One or two of his Empire designs have beauty, but most of them are too dreadful, but it was the beginning of the end, and the eighteenth century saw the beautiful principles of the eighteenth century lost in a bog of ugliness. There were many other cabinet-makers of merit that space does not allow me to mention, but the great four who stood head and shoulders above them all were Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. They, being human, did much work that is best forgotten, but the heights to which they all rose have set a standard for English furniture in beauty and construction that it would be well to keep in mind. The nineteenth century passed away without any especial genius, and in fact, with a very black mark against its name in the hideous early Victorian era. The twentieth century is moving along without anything we can really call a beautiful and worthy style being born. There are many working their way towards it, but there is apt to be too much of the bizarre in the attempts to make them satisfactory, and so we turn to the past for our models and are thankful for the legacy of beauty it has left to the world. _A General Talk_ When one faces the momentous question of furnishing a house, there are numerous things which must be looked into and thoroughly understood if success is to be assured. If one is building in the country the first question is the placing of the house in regard to the view, but in town there is not much choice. The architect being chosen with due regard to the style of house one wishes, the planning can go merrily on. The architect should be told if there are any especially large and beautiful pieces of furniture or tapestry to be planned for, so they shall receive their rightful setting. After all, architects are but human, and cannot tell by intuition what furniture is in storage.