s Chippendale in 1754.
This book, the most important collection of furniture designs issued up
to that time in England, contains one hundred and sixty engraved plates,
and the list of subscribers indicates that the author had acquired a
large and distinguished body of customers. The book is of folio size;
there was a second edition in 1759, and a third in 1762.

In the rather bombastic introduction Chippendale says that he has been
encouraged to produce the book "by persons of distinction and taste, who
have regretted that an art capable of so much perfection and refinement
should be executed with so little propriety and elegance." He has some
severe remarks upon critics, from which we may assume that he had
already suffered at their hands. Perhaps, indeed, Chippendale may have
been hinted at in the caustic remarks of Isaac Ware, surveyor to the
king, who bewailed that it was the misfortune of the world in his day
"to see an unmeaning scrawl of C's inverted and looped together, taking
the place of Greek and Roman elegance even in our most expensive
decorations. It is called French, and let them have the praise of it!
The Gothic shaft and Chinese bell are not beyond nor below it in
poorness of imitation." It is the more likely that these barbs were
intended for Chippendale, since he was guilty not only of many essays in
Gothic, but of a vast amount of work in the Chinese fashion, as well as
in the flamboyant style of Louis XV. The _Director_ contains examples of
each of the manners which aroused the scorn of the king's surveyor.
Chippendale has even shared with Sir William Chambers the obloquy of
introducing the Chinese style, but he appears to have done nothing worse
than "conquer," as Alexandre Dumas used to call it, the ideas of other
people. Nor would it be fair to the man who, whatever his occasional
extravagances and absurdities, was yet a great designer and a great
transmuter, to pretend that all his Chinese designs were contemptible.
Many of them, with their geometrical lattice-work and carved tracery,
are distinctly elegant and effective. Occasionally we find in one piece
of furniture a combination of the three styles which Chippendale most
affected at different periods--Louis XV., Chinese and Gothic--and it
cannot honestly be said that the result is as incongruous as might have
been expected. Some of his most elegant and attractive work is derived
directly from the French, and we cannot doubt that the inspiratio