They supply our dwellings with furniture of every kind, from the plain deal table, to the handsome cabinet of satin or rose-wood; they afford rich perfumes to the toilette, and luscious fruits and wines to the desert; they charm the eye of the child in the daisied field; they adorn the brow of the bride; they are laid in the coffin with the dead; and, as the cypress or the willow bend over our graves, they become the emblems of our grief. [Verse: "The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works."--PSALM CIV.] 1190. _What is mahogany?_ Mahogany is the wood of trees brought chiefly from South America and Spain. The finest kind is imported from St. Domingo, and an inferior kind from Honduras. We all know the beauty of mahogany wood. But we do not all know that mahogany was first employed in the repair of some of Sir Walter Raleigh's ships at Trinidad in 1597. The discovery of the beauty of its grain for furniture and cabinet work was accidental. Dr. Gibbons, a physician of eminence, was building a house in King-street, Covent-garden; his brother, captain of a West Indiaman, had brought over some planks of mahogany as ballast, and he thought that the wood might be used up in his brother's building, but the carpenters found the wood too hard for their tools, and objected to use it. Mrs. Gibbons shortly afterwards wanted a small box made, so the doctor called upon his cabinet-maker, and ordered him to make a box out of some wood that lay in his garden. The cabinet-maker also complained that the wood was too hard. But the doctor insisted upon its being used, as he wished to preserve it as a memento of his brother. When the box was completed, its fine colour and polish attracted much attention; and he, therefore, ordered a bureau to be made of it. This was done, and it presented so fine an appearance that the cabinet-maker invited numerous persons to see it, before it was sent home. Among the visitors was her Grace the Duchess of Buckingham, who immediately begged some of the wood from Mr. Gibbons, and employed the cabinet-maker to make her a bureau also. Mahogany from this time became a fashionable wood, and the cabinet-maker, who at first objected to use it, made a great success by its introduction. 1191. _What is rose-wood?_ Rosewood is the wood of a tree which grows in Brazil. It is, generally speaking, too dark for large articles of furniture, but is admirably adapted for smaller ones. It is expensive, and the hardness of the wood renders the cost of making articles of it very high. [Verse: "I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof."--II. KINGS XXIII.]