The Queen Anne period was a drinking, gambling, duelling, dice-throwing age. In fact, it is said that loaded dice could be purchased at the toy shops in Fleet Street. The spirit of speculation was about. The nation had accumulated wealth a trifle too quickly, and trustee securities, as we now understand them, had small attraction for any one. Every one wanted to grow rich at once. The wildest schemes were launched. These culminated in 1720 in the South Sea Bubble. Companies, as is well known, were formed with the most extraordinary objects, such as "for the invention of melting down sawdust and chips and casting them into clean deal boards without cracks or flaws"; "for the importing of a number of large jackasses from Spain"; and "for an undertaking which shall in due time be revealed." All classes were affected; and the Prince of Wales became governor of a copper company which had an unfortunate end.
The gambling spirit was continued in private, and to this fact we probably owe the existence of the many interesting card-tables of the late Queen Anne period. These were, of course, only found in the houses of the richer classes, and are often beautiful pieces of furniture.
Table legs developed similarly to chair legs. The ubiquitous cabriole, which has already been dealt with at length, was applied generally to tables, with, later, the escallop-shell decoration and the claw-and-ball foot. The fine example, [Fig. 49], possesses all these decorations, together with a pendant under the shell. This specimen was purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1904 for the sum of twelve pounds, which figure has, of course, little relation to its present value. These tables are generally built with a flap and covered with cloth, except at the four corners, where round or square places are left to take candlesticks or glasses; cups are also shaped in the tables to hold money, and they are sometimes provided with secret drawers. We have read extraordinary stories of great sums being discovered in these drawers—the proceeds of a night when "the old home was gambled away"; but personally we have not chanced on such a find.
Tables with two flaps were also used as breakfast-and small dining-tables. They were generally oval, but sometimes round, and occasionally square. These types were repeated later in mahogany with added decorative details, and later still Sheraton adopted the folding-table, converting it to his own style.
Tables in great variety were made in this period, but the heavy type of table of the previous century went out with the banqueting-hall and has never returned. The gate-leg table, which originated in the oaken period, is dealt with in Volume I.; and no doubt in many parts of the country it continued to be made in oak, but it does not appear ever to have become popular in walnut, which, after all, was never a wood in general use in country districts. Fashion has a strong controlling influence over furniture, as it has over so many other matters of taste. The table with cabriole legs came into fashion, and immediately cabriole legs in some form or other became de rigueur. The slender-legged gate-leg table did not offer sufficient opportunity to the wood-carver, and was also rather unsuitable for card-playing. Its perfect plainness, moreover, was not to the taste of an age which inclined towards richness and colour in its household surroundings.