CHANGES OF TASTE AND STYLE.
It is interesting to trace the changes that the more common and necessary pieces of furniture have undergone during successive historic ages. The social life of ancient times, even of the middle ages which come so much nearer to us in point of years, differs from that of our own in its whole aspect. Yet though personal habits have so greatly altered the general wants of men remain much the same. Hence such objects as beds, chairs, tables, chests, dressers, wardrobes or cabinets, carriages or litters, have been always used and maintained a certain identity. With a summary of the changes of form and methods of decoration of a few of the principal objects of personal use we shall conclude.
Bedsteads and Couches.
Beds served often in antiquity and in the middle ages, and have served at all times, almost as much for sitting or reclining by day as for sleeping on at night.
To what has been already said on the subject of antique beds little need be added. The Egyptian bed and the pillow or crutch, of wood or more valuable materials, have been described. Examples of the crutch are numerous in the British museum and in the Louvre. "The Egyptians had couches," says Sir G. Wilkinson, "but they do not appear to have reclined upon them more frequently than modern Europeans, in whose houses they are equally common. The ottomans were simple square sofas without backs, raised from the ground nearly to the same level as the chair. The upper part was of leather, or of cotton stuff, richly coloured, like the cushions of the fauteuils, and the box was of wood painted with various devices and ornamented with the figures of captives, who were supposed to be degraded by holding so humiliating a position. And the same idea gave them a place on the footstools of a royal throne."
The bed, λέχος, of the Greeks was covered with skins, over the skins with woollen blankets; sometimes a linen cloth or sheet was added. The finest coverlids were from Miletus, Carthage, and Corinth. These varied in the softness of their woollen texture and the delicate disposition of the colours. Later Greek beds had girths of leather or string; a mattress; and a pillow.
The Roman bed had the side by which it was entered open, the other was protected by a shelf. The mattresses were stuffed with herbs, in later times with wool or feathers. Precious counterpanes embroidered with gold were occasionally used. Canopies or frames for curtains, in one form or another, have always been necessary adjuncts to beds. Testers were placed on cradles, with gauze curtains to keep off flies. Beds on wheels were in use for the sick in classical and mediæval times: as also a low and portable bed, grabatum, with mats for bedding. This is the word used in St. John's gospel, translated "take up thy bed and walk."
Besides beds, couches, and stools, used in antiquity, as in our own times, we find amongst the ancients the habit, unknown since, of reclining on the left elbow at meals. The Romans called the conventional arrangement the triclinium. The accompanying woodcut represents the plan of a triclinium, the guest reclining on the left elbow and the faces of each directed from 1 to 3, 4 to 6, and so on. These numbers and positions indicated a sort of superiority, or a highest, middle, and lowest to every table. A passage from Horace, often quoted, enumerates the guests in this order. Fundanius, who was at the top, giving an account of a dinner to his friends, says: "I sat at the top, Viscus Thurinus next to me; Varius, if my memory serves me, below him; Vibidius along with Servilius Balatro, whom Mæcenas brought as humble companions. Nomentanus was above, and Porcius below the host himself."
