CHAPTER VIII 



VARIOUS ARTICLES FOUND IN COTTAGES 



Though not originally belonging to the buildings they were 

 found in, many articles of furniture or ornament, that had 

 been in houses of a better class, had found their way into 

 cottages, and had remained there for generations. 



Any one who has attended sales at cottages and farm- 

 houses within the last thirty years must have seen many 

 such things pass through the auctioneer's hands. 



In the case of pieces of furniture they are necessarily in 

 bad order, but were so excellently made in the beginning, 

 that, as to their main structure, they have withstood all 

 the hard wear and tear and ill treatment they have had 

 to endure, and, after careful restoration, are good to live 

 another two centuries. For instance, it is hard on a fine 

 old dining-room chair of the time of the Commonwealth to 

 have the weekly wash done in a large red-ware pan, standing 

 on a bit of board laid across its empty seat ; but such was 

 the intermediate experience which had befallen the one 

 shown. If chairs can feel, it must be glad to be restored 

 to its ancient use, and to have its seat and back renewed in 

 strong cow-hide, matching, as nearly as might be, the ragged 

 piece of leather, that, seamed and torn and scarred, still 

 remained fixed to the back by its time-blackened, broad- 

 headed brass nails. 



What had been the treatment of the mahogany chairs I 

 cannot say, but the front rail of the one without arms shows 



169 y 



