ally
square. This great fireplace construction for burning four-foot logs
projects into the room some eighteen inches, with wood-paneled sides,
the adjoining walls being plastered. Around it are carried the chaste
Ionic cornice with its prominent dentil course; and the paneled wainscot
below corresponds to the pedestal of the order. In the general
arrangement of the design, this chimney piece follows closely that of
the one above, except that top, sides and bottom of the overmantel panel
frame are alike. As at Whitby Hall the familiar Grecian fret very
acceptably occupies the space between the inner and outer moldings of
this frame and obviates the need of any elaborate carved decoration
above the panel. Contrasting pleasingly with this fret and on opposite
sides of it are a plain molded ovolo outlining the panel and a small
floreated torus supplemented by a molded cymatium within. The pilaster
projections tying the panel treatment to the cornice bear three nicely
tooled vertical flower designs in a row, an unusual conception. An ovolo
of conventional egg and dart motive with the customary bead and reel
astragal outlines the black marble facings of the fireplace opening. The
console ornamentation is strongly reminiscent of that at Whitby Hall.

The mantel shelf proper was far too practical and attractive a feature
of the fireplace to be long abandoned, however. It furnished a
convenient place for clocks, candlesticks, china and other ornaments,
and it appealed to the eye because of the homelike, livable appearance
these articles of decoration gave to the room. About the middle of the
eighteenth century the shelf of former times was reinstated and the
overmantel was developed into a single large and elaborately framed
panel over the chimney breast in which often hung a family portrait, a
gilt-framed mirror or girandole.

Such a chimney piece is to be seen in the parlor at Cliveden, its
fireplace opening partly closed up to convert it for use with the coal
grate shown by the accompanying illustration. In this instance the
carved consoles support the shelf rather than the panel of the
overmantel, which engages neither the shelf nor the cornice with its
prominent double denticulated molding. Otherwise, the chimney piece is
essentially the same in arrangement as that in the parlor at Mount
Pleasant. It has the same pleasing breadth and generally good
proportions, but is severely simple in detail, the conventional ovolo of