The work of Mr. Bruce J. Talbert deserves mention here, and should not have been omitted in the first edition. His designs for furniture, conceived on the basis of modified Gothic, adapted to modern requirements, were appreciated by a considerable following; and the dining room and library furniture especially, made from his drawings, stand the test of time. He published a book of designs in 1868, entitled "Gothic Forms applied to Furniture, Metal Work, and Decoration for Domestic Purposes," and, subsequently, in 1876, "Examples of Ancient and Modern Furniture, Tapestries, Metal Work, Decoration, &c." In this latter work he reproduced several of his drawings, which had been exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1870 and five following years; and he compiled a reference table of the dates when the various periods of architecture came in, with marginal notes, which will be found very useful to the reader in connection with our subject. We have, by permission of Mr. Talbert's publisher (Mr. Batsford, of Holborn), been able to give here a full-page illustration of part of a design for a dining room, from his Academy drawing of 1870, which will convey a fair idea of the character of his work. Talbert made designs for furniture exhibited in Paris in 1867, one of which, that of a Sideboard, made by Gillows, was purchased for the South Kensington Museum. Shortly before his death he turned his attention to Renaissance designs. One noticeable feature of modern design in furniture, is the revival of marquetry. Like all mosaic work, to which branch of Industrial Art it properly belongs, this kind of decoration should be quite subordinate to the general design; but, with a rage for novelty which seized public attention some forty years ago, it developed into the production of all kinds of fantastic patterns in different veneers. A kind of minute mosaic work in wood, which was called "Tunbridge Wells work," became fashionable for small articles. Within the last twenty-five years, the reproductions of what is termed "Chippendale," and also of Adam, and Sheraton, designs in marqueterie furniture, have been manufactured to an enormous extent. Partly on account of the difficulty in obtaining the richly-marked and figured old mahogany and satin-wood, of a hundred years ago, which needed little or no inlay as ornament, and partly to meet the public fancy, by covering up bad construction with veneers of marquetry decoration, a great deal more inlay has been given to these reproductions than ever appeared in the original work of the eighteenth century cabinet makers. Simplicity was sacrificed, and veneers, thus used and abused, came to be a term of contempt, implying sham or superficial ornament. Dickens, in one of his novels, has introduced the "Veneer" family, thus stamping the term more strongly on the popular imagination.