The elegance of form and perfection of detail, which are noticeable in the furniture of the 16th century, declined during the 17th all over Europe. The framework became bulky and heavy, and the details coarse. Silver furniture was made in considerable quantities by the Spaniards in Spain and Italy, and it was used in the courts of the French and English kings. A few examples of silver tables, mirrors, &c., now in Windsor Castle and at Knole, in Kent, are reproduced in electrotype in the South Kensington Museum. To this period belongs the name of André Charles Boule, who furnished the palace of Versailles. He Invented or perfected a beautiful system of veneering with brass and tortoiseshell, brass and ebony, occasionally using white metal besides. Examples of this buhl or boule are shown in the Apollo gallery of the Louvre.

The system of veneering, or coating common wood with slices of rare and costly woods, fastened down with glue by screw presses made to fit the surface to be covered, came into general use in the 18th century. Marquetry is veneer of different woods, forming a mosaic of pictorial or ornamental designs. In Italy, in Spain, and throughout the dominions of Charles V. and his successors, figure subjects, architectural views, and quaint interiors were represented in these materials. Usually two or three woods were employed; they were tinted by means of heated sand in iron frames, and the tints graduated to the utmost nicety. Sometimes these effects were produced by splitting and laying slices of the same wood with the grain running in different directions. The fine marquetry of the last century was made of tulip wood or mahogany, with lime, pear, holly, beech, and other light-coloured woods; sometimes in ebony and ory, in Italy particularly; or ebony and mother-❘ of-pearl, the latter in Holland. Woods were occasionally stained green, blue, and othor colours, but these tints were sparingly employed by the more fainous makers. Curiously grained specimens of mahogany, known as letter wood and by other names, were used for veneering late in the century by the ciseleurs or makers of rich brass and gilt metal edgings, which that wood shows off to perfection. The golden-coloured satin wood, which was imported towards the end of the last century, was much used as a ground in English marquetry.

Looking-glasses in large sheets began to be exported from Venice at the end of the 17th century; some were engraved with figures on the backs The manufacture was established at Tourlaville, then in Paris, and about the same time at Battersea on the Thames-under Government protection in both countries. The light fantastic frames which came into fashion in France were called rococo (from roquaille, coquaille, rock and shell work). Carved and gilt furniture was made in Italy, where it was best designed, and all over Europe till late in the 18th century. Robert Martin, who used fine lac polish, gave the name of "Vernis Martin” to painted and polished furniture of all kinds, from carriages and wardrobes

A return has been made during recent years to mediaval designs. In England there is a going back to the fashions prevalent during the first fifty years of the last century. The elegant Louis XVI. style is more popular in France. As regards furniture of the day, and the proprieties which ought to be observed in form and decoration, it is a matter of regret that no definite style is recognized in Europe; there cannot but be some consequent waste of power and uncertainty of aim. A few general principles, however, are held to be applicable to the shape and arrangements of furniture of whatever style.

Bedsteads are now very generally made of iron in most countries of Europe. They are plain; the portions not covered with hangings are made in brass, or coated with enamelled paint. In most cases no attempt is made to decorate them. They are clean, and easily taken to pieces and moved. They need no criticism. Bedroom furniture is no longer as rich or costly as when it was the fashion to include state bed-chambers among suites of rooms thrown open for the entertainment of guests. Wardrobes, chests of drawers, toilet tables, aro only required to be of suitable size, and as conveniently arranged inside as possible, in order that light and heavy objects may be put away so as to be got at with the least possible exertion. Such pieces of furni ture should have no projections of cornices or ornaments which do but take up space. Light-coloured woods, with the simplest decorations, are preferred, on account of their freshness and cheerfulness. Common timber, such as pine, ash, oak, maple, &c., French polished, with coloured lines sparingly employed, are much used by London makers for bedroom furniture; but they are less durable than mahogany. Imitations of graining are general—indeed the practice was common even in ancient Rome. But the Japanes methods of staining, powdering with gold dust, and polishing common timber without hiding the grain, deserve adoption; and efforts have latterly been made in London to bring them into use.

Chairs.-The good construction of chairs is a test of workmanship. If the wood is well seasoned, the tenons and mortices cut with exactness, the glue hot and good, and proper pressure used in putting them together, the various parts of chairs should be as perfectly united as if the wood had grown in the form required. Sir G. Wilkinson speaks of the admirable skill of the makers of Egyptian chairs, which required no cross bars to the legs. Lightness is another requisite. Very light chairs made of white wood with plaited grass seats are made at Chiavati in Italy. Large manufactories of chairs are carried on at High Wycombe, and other places where beech timber is easily obtained. If chairs are carved, the carving should be so subordinate to the outline and the comfort of the sitter as not to interfere with the dress, or be liable to breakage from having salient points, masses, or ornaments. The IX. -307

mahogany carved chairs of Chippendale and Sheraton are often copied, but the repetitions have not the spirit of the originals. The slight irregularities and variations made by carvers, who never absolutely repeat themselves in a series or set of such pieces, save them from the monotony so often seen in copies.

Couches. In ancient times couches were used as actual beds. A cast of an antique bronze couch can be seen in the South Kensington Museum. The general shape has not changed in modern times. It is the chair without arms elongated or the arm chair widened. The proprieties observed in such furniture are such as are applicable to chairs. If parts of the furniture of state rooms, they are generally framed in wood, carved and gilt or painted. The seats, backs, and ends are stuffed and upholstered with rich materials, like the chairs, -the most costly material being tapestry, formerly woven in fanciful designs after Boucher, Fragonard, and other "genre" painters, in the looms of Beauvais, or, in England, of Mortlake and Soho. Such tapestries can seldom be procured now. Inferior imitations of these designs are still produced. Couches or sofas of this kind are made for conversation rather than repose, and admit of the backs being shaped in curves or carved at the top, provided that the inequalities are but slight (a rule often violated in cheap modern furniture), and the carvings so arranged as not to interfere with the comfort of sitters, or of those who may occasionally lean on them. The ends should generally be square. In rooms not intended for receptions shallow couches, with rounded ends, and awkward showy carvings on the backs, are out of place. Another kind of couch, thickly stuffed on the back, ends, and seat, may be considered as the Oriental divan raised on legs. It is practically a framework of fixed cushions, intended for repose. Its excellence depends on the upholstery, as does that of the modern stuffed arm chair.

as not to interfere with their general outlines or surfaces. An example of flat carving may also be seen in a Flemish 17th century ebony cabinet in the same collection (No. 1651.56). As to the proper arrangements and colours of marquetry decoration, there also the masses of the design should be symmetrical, or balanced by compensating parts where absolute symmetrical arrangement is not suitable. In marquetry, as in carving, there ought to be agreeable dispositions of lines and masses of ornament, such as will look in proportion at distances at which details are not distinguishable. The colours should be few and harmonious, even when the materials are contrasted as decidedly as ebony with ivory, or satin wood with mahogany. We may compare the crowded patterns and the garish contrasts of colour of much modern marquetry with the work of Riesener. His marquetry is laid out with diapers of two woods, or with medallions and pattern work,—much space being left plain. A good example is in the large secrétaire now in the Louvre, signed and dated 1769. The same may be said of Chippendale's furniture, and of that in satin wood designed by the brothers Adam in the last century. The manufacture of furniture is, to a great extent, in the hands of large factories both in England and on the Continent. Owing to the necessary subdivision of labour in these establishments, each piece of furniture passes through numerous distinct workshops. The master and a few work. men formerly superintended each piece of work, which, therefore, was never far removed from the designer's eye. Though accomplished artists are retained by the manufacturers of London, Paris, and other capitals, there can no longer be the same relation between the designer and his work. Many operations in these modern factories are carried on by steam. Even the carving of copies and repetitions of busts, figures, and ornaments is done in some instances by a special machine. This, though an economy of labour, entails loss of artistic effect. The chisel and the knife are no longer in such cases guided and controlled by the sensitive touch of a human hand.

Collections of Furniture.-1. Antique.-British Museum; Louvre; Vatican; Royal Museum, Naples. 2. Mediaval and 16th century.— Musée de Cluny, Paris; S. Kensington Museum; Sauvageot Collection, Louvre; National Museum, Nuremberg; Museum of Madrid. 3. 18th century.-Louvre Galleries; collection of Sir R. Wallace, Manchester Square, London. Fine examples have been exhibited from Windsor Castle. Carriages, in the royal palaces at Lisbon and Vienna.

Cabinets.-Cabinet fronts are flat, with metal edgings, or shallow and delicate carvings; or they are subdivided by architectonic members, columns, deep mouldings, &c. In divisions protected by these salient features carvings of regular figure compositions are in place. The interiors may be subdivided into any varieties of quaint and ingenious drawers and receptacles. It is to cabinets that the greatest skill is devoted. The perfect fitting of small interior drawers, &c., is a test of excellence in workmanship. On cornices, brackets, and other projections, busts, figures, and carving of the finest kind can be placed effectively,-great sare being taken not to break up running mouldings, cornices, and other members that mark the structure, or form lines of division. The French, and after them the Italians, are the first masters of this kind of carving. London cabinetmakers rarely attempt the figure. A cabinet by Fourdinois (No. 721-69) in the South Kensington Museum, purchased from the exhibition of 1867, may be referred to for careful observation of these proprieties; even the mouldings of the panelling are covered with carving, but so delicate

FURRUCKABAD. See FARRAKHABÁD. FÜRST, JULIUS (1805-1873), Orientalist, was born of Jewish parents at Zerkowo in Posen, 12th May 1805. His friends designed him for the rabbinical profession, and at a very early age he had gained an extensive acquaintance both with Biblical and with Talmudical Hebrew. In his fifteenth year he entered the Berlin gymnasium, whence he passed to the university in 1825; but straitened circumstances compelled his return to Posen, long before the completion of his studies. He then taught for some time in the Jewish school at his native place, with the result that he experienced a growing feeling of repugnance to what was then regarded as rabbinical orthodoxy. In 1827 he was able to resume a university career at Breslau, where he studied theology and Oriental philology; and in 1831 he removed to Halle, where he heard the lectures of Gesenius, Wegscheider, and Tholuck. He ultimately fixed his residence in Leipsic, where, after having taught privately for some vears, he obtained an appointment as lecturer in the

Linn., is found on heaths and commons in western Europe from Denmark to Italy, and in the Canaries and Azores, and is abundant in nearly all parts of the British Isles. It grows to a height of 2-6 feet; it has hairy stems, and the smaller branches end each in a spine; the leaves, sometimes lanceolate on the lowermost branches, are mostly represented by spines from 2 to 6 lines long, and branching at their base; and the flowers, about 4-inch in length, have a shaggy, yellowish-olive calyx, with two small ovate bracts at its base, and appear in early spring and late autumn. This species comprises the varieties U. vulgaris, or U. europæus proper, which has spreading branches, and strong, many-ridged spines, and U. strictus (Irish furze), with erect branches, and slender 4-edged spines. Its seeds, according to Babington (Man. Brit. Bot., p. 80, 6th ed., 1867), produce either U. europaus or U. strictus. The other British species of furze is U. nanus, Forst., an inmate of Belgium, Spain, and the west of France; it is a procumbent plant, less hairy than U. europaus, with smaller and more orangecoloured flowers, which spring from the primary spines, and have a nearly smooth calyx, with minute basal bracts. From U. nanus have been formed the subspecies U. eunanus (Dwarf Furze), common in the south of England, and U. Galli, of Planchon, confined in Britain to the western counties, with the exception of Northumberland. During the winter of 1837-38 the furze perished wholly above ground, not only around London, but even in South Wales, Cornwall, and Devonshire; the double U. europaeus was observed to be more hardy than the wild species, and U. strictus suffered more than either. (See Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond., 2d ser., ii. p. 225.) Furze, or gorse, is sometimes employed for fences. On its use as a forage-plant see AGRICULTURE, vol. i. p. 378. In various parts of England it is cut for fuel. The ashes contain a large proportion of alkali, and are a good manure, especially for peaty land.

See Morton, Cyclopædia of Agriculture, 1855; J. T. Boswell Syme, Sowerby's English Botany, vol. iii. pp. 3-7, 1864; Bentham, Handbook of British Flora, vol. i., 1865; J. D. Hooker, The Stu

dent's Flora.

FUSELI, HENRY (1741-1825), an eminent painter and writer on art, was born at Zurich in Switzerland on the 7th February 1741; he himself asserted, in 1745, but this appears to have been a mere whim. He was the second child in a family of eighteen. His father was John Caspar Füssli, of some note as a painter of portraits and landscapes, and author of Lives of the Helvetic Painters. This parent destined his son for the church, and with this view sent him to the Caroline college of his native town, where he received an excellent classical education. One of his schoolmates there was Lavater, with whom he formed an intimate friendship. After taking orders in 1761, Fuseli was obliged to leave his country for a while in consequence of having aided Lavater to expose an unjust magistrate, whose family was still powerful enough to make its vengeance felt. He first travelled through Germany, and then, in 1763, visited England, where he supported himself for some time by miscellaneous writing; there was a sort of project of promoting through his means a regular literary communication between England and Germany. He became in course of time acquainted with Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom he showed his drawings. By Sir Joshua's advice he then devoted himself wholly to art. In 1770 he made an art-pilgrimage to Italy, where he remained till 1778, changing his name from Füssli to Fuseli, as more Italian-sounding. Early in 1779 he returned to England, taking Zurich on his way. He found a commission awaiting him from Alderman Boydell, who was then organizing his celebrated Shakespeare gallery. Fuseli painted a number of pieces for this patron, and about this time published English edition of Lavater's work on physiognomy. He

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likewise gave Cowper some valuable assistance in preparing the translation of Homer. In 1788 Fuseli married Miss Sophia Rawlins (who it appears was originally one of his models, and who proved an affectionate wife), and he soon after became an Associate of the Royal Academy. Two years later he was promoted to the grade of Academician. In 1799 he exhibited a series of paintings from subjects furnished by the works of Milton, with a view to forming a Milton gallery corresponding to Boydell's Shakespeare gallery. The number of the Milton paintings was fortyseven, many of them very large; they were executed at intervals within nine years. This exhibition, which closed in 1800, proved a failure as regards profit. In 1799 also he was appointed professor of painting to the Academy. Four years afterwards he was chosen keeper, and resigned his professorship; but he resumed it in 1810, and continued to hold both offices till his death. In 1805 he brought out an edition of Pilkington's Lives of the Painters, which however, did not add much to his reputation. Canova, when on his visit to England, was much taken with Fuseli's works, and on returning to Rome in 1817 caused him to be elected a member of the first class in the Academy of St Luke. Fuseli, after a life of uninterrupted good health, died at Putney Hill, 16th April 1825, at the advanced age of eighty-four, and was buried in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral. He was comparatively rich at his death, though his professional gains had always appeared to be meagre As a painter, Fuseli had a daring invention, was original, fertile in resource, and ever aspiring after the highest forms of excellence. His mind was capable of grasping and realizing the loftiest conceptions, which, however, he often spoiled on the canvas by exaggerating the due proportions of the parts, and throwing his figures into attitudes of fantastic and over-strained contortion. He delighted to select from the region of the supernatural, and pitched everything upon an ideal scale, believing a certain amount of exaggeration necessary in the higher branches of historical painting. "Damn Nature! she always puts me out," was his characteristic exclamation. In this theory he was confirmed by the study of Michelangelo's works and the marble statues of the Monte Cavallo, which, when at Rome, he used often to contemplate in the evening, relieved against a murky sky or illuminated by lightning. But this idea was by him carried out to an excess, not only in the forms, but also in the attitudes of his figures; and the violent and intemperate action which he often displays destroys the grand effect which many of his pieces would otherwise produce. A striking illustration of this occurs in his famous picture of Hamlet breaking from his Attendants to follow the Ghost: Hamlet, it has been said, looks as though he would burst his clothes with convulsive cramps in all his muscles. This intemperance is the grand defect of nearly all Fuseli's compositions. On the other hand, his paintings are never either languid or cold. His figures are full of life and earnestness, and seem to have an object in view which they follow with rigid intensity. Like Rubens he excelled in the art of setting his figures in motion. Though the lofty and terrible was his proper sphere, Fuseli had a fine perception of the ludicrous. The grotesque humour of his fairy scenes, especially those taken from the Midsummer Night's Dream, is in its way not less remarkable than the poetic power of his more ambitious works. As a colourist Fuseli has but small claims to distinction. He scorued to set a palette as most artists do; he merely dashed his tints recklessly over it. Not unfrequently he used his paints in the form of a dry powder, which he rubbed up with his pencil with oil, or turpentine, or gold size, regardless of the quantity, and depending for accident on the general effect. This recklessness may perhaps be explained by the fact that he did not paint in