SETTLE  , a wooden

bench, usually with arms and a high back, long enough to accommodate three or four sitters . It is most commonly movable, but occasionally fixed as in the " boxes " of those old coffee-houses of which a few examples still remain in London, and perhaps elsewhere . It shares with the chest and the chair the distinction of great antiquity . Its high back was a protection from the draughts of medieval buildings—a, protection which was sometimes increased by the addition of winged ends or a wooden canopy . It was most frequently placed near the fire in the common sitting-room . Constructed of oak, or other hard wood, it was extremely heavy, solid and durable . Few English examples of earlier date than the middle of the 16th century have come down to us; survivals from the Jacobean period are more numerous . Settles • of the more expensive type were often elaborately carved or incised; others were divided into plain panels . A well-preserved specimen, with its richly polished oak, darkened by time and beeswax, is a handsome piece of furniture often still to be found in its original environment--the farm-house kitchen or the manorial hall . Its vogue did not long outlast the first half of the 18th century, to which period most of the existing specimens belong .