76 History of the English Landed Interest. 



cheered tlie mind, and, unlike the Continental stove, afforded 

 ventilation, and therefore health ; ^ bnt, from Kalm's stand- 

 point, made one side of the apartment too hot and the other 

 too cold,- and (he supposed) originated the custom of toasting 

 bread for breakfast during the colder months of our inclement 

 climate. 



The furniture of the English country house was as con- 

 venient and luxurious as that of the Victorian reign. The 

 hideous shapes of the so-called classical style, introduced after 

 the French Revolution, had nat yet replaced those beautiful 

 forms and colouring known as a la Louis Quatorze and Quinze ; 

 and a china mania raged, only equalled in intensity by that of 

 this present day. 



Many, however, of the lesser gentry were too old-fashioned 

 and homely to follow the lead of their more enlightened 

 betters. These, especially in the "West Country, still clung to 

 the stiff, heavy furniture of an earlier period ; sat on the high- 

 backed lofty chairs which had been intended to raise their 

 mothers' feet above the bracken-strewn stone floors, and 

 slept in the huge bedsteads, designed by their forefathers to 

 keep out the draughts which pierced the frequent cracks in 

 the ill-built walls. AVhen the rich tapestries and arras of a 

 wealthier age wore out, they replaced them with those wall 

 hangings made of cloth or canvas, painted in oil, and scribbled 

 over with witticisms, which so amused John Taylor when, 

 during his travels in 1653, he lay at the Star in Eye.^ On the 



' The New State, of England, Part II. ch. iii. p. 32. 



- Kalni'n Visit to England, p. 126. 



* "Two miles from thence, upon a hill stands Rye, 

 And there I, at the Star, did Iodide and lie ; 

 More odds there is 'twixt singing sounds and crying 

 Than was betwixt my lodging and my lying. 

 I lodg'd by night, and I did lie by day, 

 And as upon my bed I musingly lay, 

 The chamber hang'd with painted cloth, I found 

 Myself with sentences beleaguered around. 

 There was Philosophy and History, 

 Poetry, enigmatic mystery." 



— "The certain Travailes of an uncertain Journe3\" The Old Book- 

 Collector's Miscellany, vol. iv. Chas. Hindley. 



