re of another room at Knole is said to have
been presented by King James to the first Earl of Middlesex, who had
married into the Dorset family. The author has been furnished with a
photograph of this room; and the illustration prepared from this will give
the reader a better idea than a lengthy description.

[Illustration: The "Spangle" Bedroom At Knole. The Furniture of this room
was presented by James I. to the Earl of Middlesex. (_Front a Photo by Mr.
Corke, of Sevenoaks._)]

It seems from the Knole furniture, and a comparison of the designs with
those of some of the tables and other woodwork produced during the same
reign, bearing the impress of the more severe style of Inigo Jones, that
there were then in England two styles of decorative furniture. One of
these, simple and severe, showing a reaction from the grotesque freedom of
Elizabethan carving, and the other, copied from Venetian ornamental
woodwork, with cupids on scrolls forming the supports of stools, having
these ornamental legs connected by stretchers the design of which is, in
the case of those in the King's Bedchamber at Knole, a couple of cupids in
a flying attitude holding up a crown. This kind of furniture was generally
gilt, and under the black paint of those at Knole are still to be seen
traces of the gold.

Mr. Eastlake visited Knole and made careful examination and sketches of
the Jacobean furniture there, and has well described and illustrated it in
his book just referred to; he mentions that he found a slip of paper
tucked beneath the webbing of a settle there, with an inscription in Old
English characters which fixed the date of some of the furniture at 1620.
In a letter to the writer on this subject, Mr. Lionel Sackville West
confirms this date by referring to the heirloom book, which also bears out
the writer's opinion that some of the more richly-carved furniture of this
time was imported from Italy.

In the Lady Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral there is a monument of Dean
Boys, who died in 1625. This represents the Dean seated in his library, at
a table with turned legs, over which there is a tapestry cover. Books line
the walls of the section of the room shown in the stone carving; it
differs little from the sanctum of a literary man of the present day.
There are many other monuments which represent furniture of this period,
and amongst the more curious is that of a child of King James I., in
Westminster Abbey, close to the monument of