SHOULD any one with a taste for antique furniture also find interest in old-fashioned verse, he might some day come across Cowper’s lay which elegantly hints at the evolution of lounging-furniture, culminating in the development of the delectable sofa. I suppose few read old Cowper nowadays. I myself confess to no propensity in this direction beyond a liking for the ballad of “John Gilpin.” Poor, gentle, melancholy Cowper, who tamed hares for diversion and gave to English poetry of the late eighteenth century a cast more earnest and more simple than had come to be its wont before his pen expressed his gift! But Cowper, mild and quiet though he was, had yet a keen sense of humor. This crept into certain lines that the lover of antique furniture may enjoy having brought to his notice:

The couch has an ancient and classical ancestry. The Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans utilized it extensively. The settee evolved from the double chair—love-seat, it was often called—while the “accomplished” sofa combined, or was supposed to combine, all the advantages and virtues of couch and settee, not omitting the attractiveness of the love-seat! An understanding of these relationship adds not a little to the interest of collecting.

The collector will not concern himself with the couches of the ancients, but will come within the early English forms of this article of furniture. The name “day-bed” was earlier used for English couch furniture of the Jacobean period (1603-1688). The seventeenth-century day-bed allowed a person to recline comfortably at full length. It was either laced or caned for cushioning. At one end the head-piece sloped back. At first this head-piece appears to have been stationary, but no doubt comfort soon suggested the later movable head-piece—a device more popular with the English than with the continental makers of day-beds or couches, as far as I have been able to discover.

In height the best day-beds were slightly lower than chair seats. The Jacobean pieces have the characteristic carved or turned legs. Undoubtedly many of these couches found their way to the colonies during the early period of American history. Captain William Tinge (1653) had inventoried such a couch, and a cane-bottomed one belonged to the Bulkelys and is now in the Antiquarian Society, Concord, Massachusetts. John Cotton (1652) was another early colonial couch-owner, and one might call attention to many others who made mention of such household objects in their carefully drawn inventories now preserved to us by the various antiquarian societies throughout the country.

The couches of the William and Mary period (1688-1702) conformed to the simpler forms that succeeded the Jacobean carved furniture. Not only

were the rarer woods employed in their manufacture, but as the couch had come to be looked upon as a necessity in the cottage as well as in the mansion, the more ordinary woods were utilized also. Many of these couches were exported to the American colonies, which, in their turn copied their forms and otherwise adopted them. Upholstered couches now began to come more commonly into use than the earlier couches, which were designed to be fitted with cushioned seats.

During the period of Queen Anne (1702-1714) the houses of the rich were, as a rule, beset by ultra-decorative fashions and in them luxury was expressed in much of the furniture as well as in other furnishings. However, such delightful specimens of the walnut furniture of the period exist—simple, elegant, and truly beautiful in line—that we may rest assured that good taste was enjoyed in the homes of the middle classes. Couches of this period will therefore be found to reflect the extremes.

The cabriole leg, the leading characteristic of Queen Anne furniture, soon made its appearance in the couch support.

Upholstery became more popular than ever, as enormous quantities of silks and velvets were being produced during Anne’s reign. Chintzes, and printed cottons, too, were in demand for couch covers. Lacquered couches and marqueterie couches were also in vogue during this reign, but few of these appear to have survived, and such as have are treasured accordingly.

About 1720—two years after Anne’s death—mahogany came into general use in furniture-making. Cabinet-makers lost no time in employing this wood in the making of couches. Seven years after this, Thomas Chippendale and his father were established in London. In 1749 Chippendale opened his conduit Street shop in the Longacre section. Here he worked until his removal to St. Martin’s Lane. A year after, in 1754, he brought out his famous book, “The Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers’ Director.”

The couches were being supplanted to great extent by the sofa during the time of the Georges, in which Chippendale lived, but such couches as remain show the various Chippendale lines. The brothers Adam (1672-1792), following their taste for Italian things, and designing for lighter woods and forms, gave more attention to the couch, perhaps, than Chippendale had done. Unlike the Chippendale couches, the Adam couches were without the end supports. George Hepplewhite, who died in 1786, gave to English furniture a well-defined style. The first edition of “The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide” was published by his widow, Alice Hepplewhite, in 1788. Hepplewhite, as had the brothers Adam, came strongly under the influence of the classic. Hepplewhite couches employ an end such as that which upholstered sofas had suggested. They also received inspiration from the French furniture of the time. In his book Hepplewhite gives on Plate XXXII, “Two designs of couches or what the French call PÉchÉ Mortel.” It has not been my good fortune to come across a Sheraton couch in the strict sense of the word, though I presume such were made by Thomas Sheraton (1750-1806). His “Cabinet-maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book” first appeared in 1791; but it concerned itself more with settees than with dwelling particularly on true couch designs.

The couches of the French periods—Louis XIV (1643-1715), Louis XV (1715-1774), Louis XVI (1774-1793), and the Empire (1792-1830)—all follow the well-known lines of these Louis Quatorze, Louis Quinze, Louis Seize, and Empire styles, and it will not be necessary here to go into detail concerning them. The English and American cabinet-makers of the years 1792 to 1830 adapted French Empire styles and as a result produced furniture which we may designate as English Empire or American Empire, as the case may be.

The settee of the Jacobean period was a development of the double chair or love-seat. It followed the general styles of the period in legs and stretchers. The back usually was upholstered. It was not in general use until walnut had come to supersede oak. For this reason the Jacobean settees are for greater part of walnut.

The William and Mary period settees found the double chair back in favor, and comfortable indeed were these settees, many of them being provided with squab cushions in addition to their upholstered seats, backs, and ends. The William and Mary settees were somewhat shorter than the generously long settees of the Jacobean period.

Queen Anne settees were designed with straight backs, these backs doing away with the double-hoop backs of the settees of the reign that preceded Anne’s. These backs were considerably lower, and, as with the couches, the cabriole leg formed a distinctive characteristic. In the Queen Anne settees of a later time the double back without upholstery came in again. The seats of these settees were depended upon for occasional use at the back.

Chippendale’s settees followed the lines of his designs for chairs. His window-seats did likewise. Colonel Wentworth’s “Chinese Settee” of the Chippendale style is now in the Ladd House at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Very elegant indeed were the settees and the window-seats of the brothers Adam. Both coincided in lines with Adam chairs. The window-seats, though so often following Chippendale forms, were a refinement of these latter. They were supported by four or by six legs, usually, though several window-seats of Adam style have eight legs. These settees bear the characteristic fluting on the front rail.

The Hepplewhite settees are, for the most part, double backs or triple backs and follow in design the chair styles of this type. A Hepplewhite settee of 1780 upholstered in silk brocade has the vase detail in the arm-post and the legs are turned and reeded. Other Hepplewhite settees were cane-seated and cushioned, and with these squab cushions were used.

Sheraton himself tells us that cane-work as applied to furniture again came into favor with cabinet-makers about the year 1773. A very fine Sheraton two-back settee painted with medallions by Angelica Kauffmann is extant to test the skill of the eighteenth-century furniture-maker in the reintroduction of the use of cane for seating, and for the backs. Some of the Sheraton settees were upholstered and some were designed for cushion coverings.

The settees of the various French periods followed the general chair-furniture lines in their styles, as did the settees of the English and the American Empire styles.

“Ingenious fancy” now brings us again to the “accomplished sofa.” The settees and love-seats of the Jacobeans, and the couches that had long preceded even them, united in the achievement that Cowper immortalizes and which no early Victorian novelist could have dispensed with in creating his “atmosphere.” The sofas of William and Mary and of Queen Anne were expanded and upholstered settees in effect. Chippendale devoted much attention to the sofa and came to use rolled-over arms in the larger one. Several of these are illustrated in his “Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers’ Director,” already referred to. Plate XXX shows two such sofas, and that on Plate XXXI is described by him as follows:

The Adam sofas closely fall in with the general features of the Adam style, and the same may be said of the sofas of Hepplewhite and Sheraton. Hepplewhite in his book tells us that the dimensions of sofas “should vary according to the size of the room, but the proportion in general use is, length between 6 and 7 feet; depth about 30 inches; heighth of the seat frame 14 inches; total in the back, 3 feet 1 inch. The woodwork should be either Mahogany or japanned to suit the chairs in the room, and the covering must match that of the chairs.” Four designs of sofas appear in Hepplewhite’s book. Plate 27 therein shows a confidante. Of this he says:

Of the Duchesse sofa Hepplewhite says:

In the rooms of the Antiquarian Society, Concord, Massachusetts, is a sofa which once belonged to Samuel Barron and which shows mixed Hepplewhite and Sheraton characteristics.

In Girard College, Philadelphia, one may see a Sheraton sofa that once belonged to Stephen Girard, the founder. Sheraton himself describes one of his own sofas as follows:

Sheraton also tells of the Turkey sofa “introduced into the most fashionable homes as a novelty, an invention of the Turkish mode of sitting. They are, therefore, made very low, scarcely exceeding a foot to the upper side of the cushion. The frame may be made of beach, and must be webbed and strained with canvas to support the cushions.”

It would be interesting to go on dwelling upon a subject so rich in lore, but I fear, so little studied. The author has generously refrained from the harrowing mention of haircloth, as he imagines there is little he could add to a subject that all readers are probably too familiar with already.