nd "_Le style
de l'Empire_" was condemned. In its place came a revival of the Louis
Quinze scrolls and curves, but with less character and restraint, until
the style we know as "baroque," [19] or debased "rococo," came in. Ornament
of a florid and incongruous character was lavished on decorative
furniture, indicative of a taste for display rather than for appropriate
enrichment.

It had been our English custom for some long period to take our fashions
from France, and, therefore, about the time of William IV. and during the
early part of the present Queen's reign, the furniture for our best houses
was designed and made in the French style. In the "Music" Room at
Chatsworth are some chairs and footstools used at the time of the
Coronation of William IV. and Queen Adelaide, which have quite the
appearance of French furniture.

The old fashion of lining rooms with oak panelling, which has been noticed
in an earlier chapter, had undergone a change which is worth recording. If
the illustration of the Elizabethan oak panelling, as given in the English
section of Chapter III., be referred to, it will be seen that the oak
lining reaches from the floor to within about two or three feet of the
cornice. Subsequently this panelling was divided into an upper and a lower
part, the former commencing about the height of the back of an ordinary
chair, a moulding or chair-rail forming a capping to the lower part. Then
pictures came to be let into the panelling; and presently the upper part
was discarded and the lower wainscoting remained, properly termed the
Dado,[20] which we have seen revived both in wood and in various
decorative materials of the present day. During the period we are now
discussing, this arrangement lost favour in the eyes of our grandfathers,
and the lowest member only was retained, which is now termed the "skirting
board."

As we approach a period that our older contemporaries can remember, it is
very interesting to turn over the leaves of the back numbers of such
magazines and newspapers as treated of the Industrial Arts. The _Art
Union_, which changed its title to the _Art Journal_ in 1849, had then
been in existence for about ten years, and had done good work in promoting
the encouragement of Art and manufactures. The "Society of Arts" had been
formed in London as long ago as 1756, and had given prizes for designs and
methods of improving different processes of manufacture. Exhibitions of
the specimens sent in