Page:Arts & Crafts Essays.djvu/337

 up, resuming proper rigidity toties quoties.

To look at the subject historically, it seems that the cabinet, dresser, or sideboard is a chest set on legs, and that the "press," or cupboard (closet, not proper cup-board), takes the place of the panelled recess closed by doors, generally contrived, and sometimes ingeniously hidden, in the construction of a panelled room. The front of the elevated chest is hinged, and flaps down, while the lid is a fixture; the interior is more complicated than that of the chest, as its subdivisions are more conveniently reached.

Before leaving this part of the subject, it is worth notice that the architectural, or rather architectonic, character seems to have deeply impressed the makers of cabinets when the chest-type had gradually been lost. Italian, German, English, 313