were much influenced by the
models of northern Italy, but retained to a late date some of the
characteristics of domestic Gothic work such as elaborately fashioned
wrought-iron handles and polished steel hinges. Often, indeed, 17th-century
South Germany work is a curious blend of Flemish and Italian ideas executed
in oak and Hungarian ash. Such work, however interesting, necessarily lacks
simplicity and repose. A curious little detail of Flemish and Italian, and
sometimes of French later 17th-century cabinets, is that the interiors of
the drawers are often lined with stamped gold or silver paper, or marbled
ones somewhat similar to the "end papers" of old books. The great English
cabinet-makers of the 18th century were very various in their cabinets,
which did not always answer strictly to their name; but as a rule they will
not bear comparison with the native work of the preceding century, which
was most commonly executed in richly marked walnut, frequently enriched
with excellent marquetry of woods. Mahogany was the dominating timber in
English furniture from the accession of George II. almost to the time of
the Napoleonic wars; but many cabinets were made in lacquer or in the
bright-hued foreign woods which did so much to give lightness and grace to
the British style. The glass-fronted cabinet for China or glass was in high
favour in the Georgian period, and for pieces of that type, for which
massiveness would have been inappropriate, satin and tulip woods, and other
timbers with a handsome grain taking a high polish were much used.

(J. P.-B.)

_The Political Cabinet._--Among English political institutions, the
"Cabinet" is a conventional but not a legal term employed to describe those
members of the privy council who fill the highest executive offices in the
state, and by their concerted policy direct the government, and are
responsible for all the acts of the crown. The cabinet now always includes
the persons filling the following offices, who are therefore called
"cabinet ministers," viz.:--the first lord of the treasury, the lord
chancellor of England, the lord president of the council, the lord privy
seal, the five secretaries of state, the chancellor of the exchequer [v.04
p.0919] and the first lord of the admiralty. The chancellor of the duchy of
Lancaster, the postmaster-general, the first commissioner of works, the
president of the board of trade, the chief secretary for Ireland, the lord
chancellor of Ire