and fashion of this important article of domestic
furniture are interesting, and to explain them a slight retrospect is
necessary. The word "Buffet," sometimes translated "Sideboard," which was
used to describe continental pieces of furniture of the 15th and 16th
centuries, does not designate our Sideboard, which may be said to have
been introduced by William III.; and of which kind there is a fair
specimen in the South Kensington Museum; an illustration of it has been
given in the chapter dealing with that period.

The term "stately sideboard" occurs in Milton's "Paradise Regained," which
was published in 1671, and Dryden, in his translation of Juvenal,
published in 1693, when contrasting the furniture of the classical period
of which he was writing with that of his own time, uses the following
line:--

"No sideboards then with gilded plate were dressed."

The fashion in those days of having symmetrical doors in a room, that is,
false doors to correspond with the door used for exit, which one still
finds in many old houses in the neighbourhood of Portland Place, and
particularly in the palaces of St. James' and of Kensington, enabled our
ancestors to have good cupboards for the storage of glass, crockery, and
reserve wine. After the middle of the eighteenth century, however, these
extra doors and the enclosed cupboard gradually disappeared, and soon
after the mahogany side table came into fashion it became the custom to
supplement this article of furniture by a pedestal cupboard on either side
(instead of the cupboards alluded to), one for hot plates and the other
for wine. Then, as the thin legs gave the table rather a lanky appearance,
the _garde de vin_, or cellaret, was added in the form of an oval tub of
mahogany with bands of brass, sometimes raised on low feet with castors
for convenience, which was used as a wine cooler. A pair of urn-shaped
mahogany vases stood on the pedestals, and these contained--the one hot
water for the servants' use in washing the knives, forks and spoons, which
being then much more valuable were limited in quantity, and the other held
iced water for the guests' use.

A brass rail at the back of the side table with ornamental pillars and
branches for candles was used, partly to enrich the furniture, and partly
to form a support to the handsome pair of knife and spoon cases, which
completed the garniture of a gentleman's sideboard of this period.

The full page illustrations will