We may say that in Elizabeth's time the decorative arts had reached their apogee. The luxury of great houses was unsurpassed, with porphyry chimneypieces, and silver firedogs designed by Cellini; painted windows from Germany or Flanders, ceilings and cornices a mass of colour and rich carving, the walls alight with Cordovan leather of surpassing magnificence, gold, silver, and colour, or tapestry from Genoa, Fontainebleau, Arras. The tables were loaded with Venetian glass, Limoges enamels, and fine linen; the cupboard 1 with superb plate, and bronze as beautiful; then there were the boldly coloured earthenware of Italy, and embroideries on every chair and bench, whether of filigree carving or gauffered delicate leather - embroideries designed by artists of calibre such as Giuliano d'Agnolo, Vasari, Giulio Romano, and worked amid the leisurely concentration of convents.

An anonymous author quoted by Mr. Waring wrote to Catherine de' Medici in 1587 anent the excessive magnificence of luxury: 'It is only about thirty or forty years ago that this excessive and splendid manner of building has come into France; till then our fathers were content with a good compact house, a 'pavilion' or a round tower, a lower court for domestic purposes, and other rooms necessary to lodge themselves and their families, without making superb buildings, great masses of houses, pavilions, courts, back-courts, yards, galleries, halls, porticoes, staircases, and other things. They did not think so much of the geometrical proportions and architecture of the exterior, which in many buildings has destroyed internal convenience. ... In short, they knew nothing of these antique fashions in architecture, which cause so much money to be spent, and which most frequently, in order to make a fine outside, render the interior ugly. They did not know what it was to have marble or porphyry for their chimney-pieces nor at the doors of their houses, nor to gild ridges, girders, and joists.

They did not make fine galleries adorned with paintings and rich pictures; they did not spend such sums as they do now in the purchase of one painting, nor buy so much precious and costly furniture to fit up the house. . . .' Iachimo, in 'Cymbeline,' alludes to the splendid firedogs or andirons:

1 This word is used for the buffet, or side-table, even by Evelyn, when speaking of Charles II.'s dining hall.

Her andirons (I had forgot them) were two winking Cupids Of silver as elaborate as sixteenth-century genius could make them; and silver framed the mirrors on the wall, and mounted the ivory cabinets, the ebony or richly painted spinet, with its keys of precious stones, the inlaid and begemmed tables, the enamelled or embossed bellows set with 'a large pearl' or the 'Dauphin's arms,' the lanterns made of delicate bronze plates lighted with rock crystals.

Massinger, writing early in 1600, describes the luxury used by accoiichees, and fixes the date of various forms of furnishing:

I well remember it, as you had been

An absolute princess, since they have no more,

Three several chambers hung, the first with arras

And that for waiters; the second crimson satin

For the meaner sort of guests; the third of scarlet

Of the rich Tyrian die: a canopy

To cover the brat's cradle; you in state

Like Pompey's Julia

Again, he speaks of a rich bedchamber:

The silver bathing tub, the cambric rubbers, The embroidered quilt, the bed of gossamer And damask roses.

Comfort as well as grandeur was then thoroughly well understood - the beds of embroidered velvet suited well the velvet nightgown of the maiden Queen; the open fireplace cast its heat across a ' fringed rug ' on the hearth; the heavy chairs were softly cushioned; and rich canopies and curtains protected from draughts of door or blazoned window the still more blazoned and jewel-laden fair ones in ruff and farthingale.

There is no scene more elaborately rich than such a chamber as Elizabeth may have sate in, watching the dances of the pageantry of gods and goddesses that loyalty had prepared for her diversion; for all that genius, skill, wealth, knowledge, and love of ease could do had then been done. There is an interesting relic of contemporary, nay, earlier work, a commode once belonging to Bishop Ridley, martyred under Mary, now in the possession of Cotsford Dick, Esq. The workmanship, and the contrasting colours of the woods it is made of, are equally beautiful. Such a commode Shakespeare may have leaned on in the chambers of the great in London where he walked, and spoke, and caught his shrewdest thoughts; though the rude provincial chambers, crooked, dark, low pitched, wherein he was bred up or wooed his Anne, did not boast of inlaid slabs or bronzes, nor doors that a girl could pass through without stooping.

We have not yet found the period in Early England when colour was repugnant; for up to the Renascence, if not throughout it, brilliancy of effect within doors was held so far from inconsistent with the grey weather outside, that no effort or cost was neglected to enhance it, as a kind of compensation or apology. The gayest and richest costume, and colouring as bright and ubiquitous as that which adorns the Alhambra, were cherished wherever they could be obtained within doors. Without doors, of course, the rain soon reduced all colours to one.

There was a time - brief, happily - when a reaction against colour occurred; but this was hardly an English reaction; it took place about 1620. But we may as well realise clearly that, whatever be the charms of dingy hues and uninteresting ornaments, curved or angular, they are by no means 'Early English,' or indeed English at all.