FANCY WOODS. 169 



for being used solid; and it began to be employed as 

 the staple timber in veneering. Other foreign woods, 

 some of them lighter and others darker, were em- 

 ployed for borders and ornaments: but mahogany 

 was used for the body of the work; and when it came 

 to be so used, a great revolution was effected in the 

 art of cabinet-making. On the first introduction of 

 mahogany, the same process was resorted to, that had 

 before been practised with the walnut and other 

 woods, and effect was sought to be produced by 

 quartering pannels, forming them of gyrony* of sec- 

 tors, with the grain in opposite directions, and other 

 fantastic and unnatural arrangements: but in course 

 of time, a better taste was introduced, and the object 

 was to make the whole surface have the same ap- 

 pearance as if the work had been made solid out of 

 the rich timber. This was one step toward the at- 

 tainment of a purer style; but the continuity of the 

 surface was still interrupted by ill-sorted additions. 

 The breadth of the mahogany, which would in itself 

 have been beautiful, was broken by bands and strings 

 of other wood, without much regard to the harmony 

 of the colours; and thus that which, with the veneer 

 alone, would have been chaste and classical, was re- 

 duced to a piece of patch work. 



The veneering, whether done in mahogany or 

 any other wood, was at first very expensive. The 

 veneers were cut by the hand; and thus the piece cut 

 off was of unequal thickness in the different parts, 

 the wood was mangled by the operation of cutting, 

 and the finest pieces, which, as has been said, are 

 cross-grained, or have the fibres across their thick- 

 ness, were always in danger of being broken. It had 

 been found that veneers laid upon good bodies of tim- 

 ber, whether of the more coarse mahoganies, or of 



* A term of heraldry, in which a shield is formed in sectors 

 from the centre. 



VOL. II. 15 



