CAST-IRON GRATE BACK.
Before we leave the chimney corner I might mention another bit of metal, important before the days of kitchen ranges as the chief cooking apparatus, I mean the iron crane that is sometimes found still suspended in the wide chimneys of old farmhouses, made of wrought iron, twisted and curled, and with bright bosses of steel upon it, and great in hooks and hinges. Here is a sketch of a typical example in an Essex farmhouse.
FIREPLACE WITH WROUGHT IRON CRANE, CHURCH FARM, HEMPSTEAD, ESSEX.
Considerations of use, again, very evidently control design in lamps and candlesticks. A lamp necessitates: (1) a reservoir for the oil, and (2) a neck and mouth to hold the wick, and (3) a firm and steady stand. All these requisites are combined, with addition of handle, in the oldest and simplest form of lamp—the portable antique lamp to be carried in the hand. The reservoir is there, though small, and needing re-filling from a larger vessel (as was the case in the parable of the ten virgins).
These lamps were often placed upon the top of slender fluted tripod stands, to give light in the house, or hung in clusters by chains from a branched stand like a tree. A combination of many of the characteristics of the antique lamp is found in the comparatively modern brass Roman lamp (now called antique, but till within a few years, and I believe still, commonly used by the people): we have the small reservoir, with four necks for the wicks, closely resembling in form the antique hand lamps. This is pierced by the shaft of the stand, which finishes in a ring handle at the top and terminates in a broad moulded stand, so that the lamp can be used for carrying or standing with equal facility. The little implements for trimming, snuffing, and extinguishing are suspended by small chains from the neck of the standard and add to the ornamental effect. Each part is made separately and screws together.
With the modern powerful lamps of mineral oil and circular wicks, much larger reservoirs are required, and modern lamps have tended to take the urn shape owing to this necessity, and they lose in beauty of line generally as they gain in body (much like people). A satisfactory type has been introduced by Mr. W. A. S. Benson, of copper, with a copper fan-like shade, which is generally a difficulty with a modern lamp; and the glasses also, while necessary, complicate the design and cannot be said to add to the beauty, as a rule. (See Illustration, p. 77.)
However, a lamp design can never get away from the primitive triple conditions of lamp structure with which we saw in its earliest form reservoir, neck for the wick, and stand—possibly handle—but within these demands of utility there is scope for very great variations, and unlimited taste and invention.
