In 1803 came out The Cabinet Dictionary: an Explanation of all Terms used in the Cabinet, Chair, and Upholstery Branches, one volume in fifteen parts. In 1804 Sheraton began The Cabinet-Maker and General Artist's Encyclopaedia, a folio to be completed in 125 parts, of which the author only lived to publish thirty. The non-completion of this work is not much to be regretted. It contained a large amount of information of a general character, but it was being produced at a time when Sheraton was following the fashion, and doing his very worst furniture designs. There are coloured plates, very crude, of beds with their drapery; sofas, chairs (all of his worst type), and window hangings. Symbolism has him by the throat. One of the windows, 'To the Memory of Lord Nelson, 1806,' has a medallion of the warrior at the top.1 The curtains, blue in colour, are looped up with anchors, and there are tridents placed about. Through the glass the Victory may be seen riding at anchor. We would gladly forget that ever Sheraton had put his hand to such fantasies as this.

In excuse it can be urged that the pinch of poverty and the needs of a considerable family must have impelled him towards inventions of which, if he had been a prosperous cabinetmaker such as Chippendale and Heppelwhite were, he would never have had such nightmare dreams. There is a parallel instance to be found. Few would have suspected that the inimitable Clodion, sculptor of those groups of satyrs and nymphs which abound in grace and suppleness and life, would have outdone the ' patriot' artists of the French Revolution with a pompous 'Deluge' in their own Davidian style. Yet these two tragedies of art were being enactea almost at the self-same time. A page of botanical drawings of all kinds of small details in the Encyclopaedia shows what a minute and careful draughtsman Sheraton was. In this respect he is certainly the king of the furniture designers proper.

1 Mr. Percy Willett, of Brighton, possesses a very beautiful Sheraton sideboard, the brass drop handles of which are stamped with the design of a funeral monument, and the words ' Sacred to Nelson' - a proof of the extent to which patriotic pride was evinced in cabinetmaking.

All these books were published by subscription, supporters being found in Ireland as well as England and Scotland, but none were financially successful. Sheraton eked out his income by teaching drawing, and was still true to his religious leanings if poverty compelled him to be faithless to true art. All his life he was an occasional preacher in Baptist chapels, and wrote upon religious subjects. He died October 22, 1806, leaving his family but ill provided for. There is a touching reference to his want of worldly success to be found at the end of an important passage in the Cabinet Dictionary. The whole is worth quoting, as illustrative at once of the naivete' and the patriotism of Sheraton's character - that characteristic which was to be expressed 'upholsterously' later in the Nelson window I Speaking of French cabinetmaking, he says, it 'is more strikingly improved than any other branch of mechanical trade whatever. Yet I pretend not to say that this is the surest symptom of the future flourishing state of that kingdom.' He goes on to praise the French system of artistic direction (such as that of Lebrun under Louis XIV. at the Gobelins), ' so that the work may not be executed in a bad style,' but he advises English craftsmen not to be led away by French fashions, but to improve their own. 'After all,' he asserts, ' I am of opinion that if our noblemen and gentry would contribute .. to the encouragement of a national brass foundry, .. we might have as elegant brass-work for cabinets cast in London as they have in Paris. It is in this article they excel us, and by which they set off their cabinet work, which without it would not bear a comparison with ours, neither in design nor in neatness of execution.' Sheraton himself made excellently refined use of unambitious brass-work, and his most famous inlaid pieces show that he had absolutely nothing to learn from France, so we may acquit him of too great a measure of insular pride.

But here is the pathetic ending. - 'I mention these things with a view to national credit and benefit of trade, and not from my own desire to recommend any extravagant steps in the purchase of grand furniture; for I can assure the reader, though I am thus employed in racking my invention to design fine and pleasing cabinet-work, I can be well content to sit on a wooden bottom chair provided I can but have common food and raiment wherewith to pass through life in peace.' References to him in the Memoirs of Adam, Black, who in his youth was employed by Sheraton, and became Lord Provost of Edinburgh, seem to show that want of business faculty was Sheraton's undoing. 'Sheraton lived in a poor street in London, his house half shop, half dwelling-house; and looked himself like a Methodist preacher worn out, with threadbare black coat. I took tea with them one afternoon. There was a cup and saucer for the host, and another for his wife, and a little porringer for their daughter. The wife's cup and saucer were given to me, and she had to put up with another little porringer. My host seemed a good man, with some talent.

He had been a cabinetmaker, and was now author, publisher, and teacher of drawing, and, I believe, occasionally preacher.' When Black got to know Sheraton better, he thus describes him: 'This many-sided, worn-out encyclopaedist and preacher is an interesting character. . . . He is a man of talent, and, I believe, of genuine piety. He understands the cabinet business - I believe was bred to it. He is a scholar, writes well, and, in my -opinion, draws masterly; is author, bookseller, and teacher. I believe his abilities and resources are his ruin in this respect - by attempting to do everything he does nothing.'