The skill of the eastern embroiderer has_The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages, 3rd ed. Including Some Notices of the Ancient Historical Tapestries

display in the decoration of the _tents_, which were in such request

in hot countries, among Nomadic tribes, or on military excursions.

The covering of tents among the Arabs is usually black goats' hair, so

compactly woven as to be impervious to rain. But there is, besides

this, always an inner one, on which the skill and industry of the fair

artisan--for both outer and inner are woven and wrought by women--is

displayed. This is often white woollen stuff, on which flowers are

usually embroidered. Curious hangings too are frequently hung over the

entrances, when the means of the possessors do not admit of more

general decoration. Magnificent _perdahs_, or hangings of needlework,

are always suspended in the tents of persons of rank and fashion, who

assume a more ambitious decoration; and there are accounts in various

travellers of tents which must have been gorgeous in the extreme.

Nadir Shah, out of the abundance of his spoils, caused a tent or

tabernacle to be made of such beauty and magnificence as were almost

beyond description. The outside was covered with fine scarlet broad

cloth, the lining was of violet coloured satin, on which were

representations of all the birds and beasts in the creation, with

trees and flowers; the whole made of pearls, diamonds, rubies,

emeralds, amethysts, and other precious stones; and the tent-poles

were decorated in like manner. On both sides of the peacock throne was

a screen, on which were the figures of two angels in precious stones.

The roof of the tent consisted of seven pieces; and when it was

transported to any place, two of these pieces packed in cotton were

put into a wooden chest, two of which chests were a sufficient load

for an elephant: the screen filled another chest. The walls of the

tent--tent-poles and tent-pins, which were of massy gold, loaded five

more elephants; so that for the carriage of the whole were required

seven elephants. This magnificent tent was displayed on all festivals

in the public hall at Herat, during the remainder of Nadir Shah's

reign.

Sir J. Chardin tells us that the late King of Persia caused a tent to

be made which cost 2,000,000_l._ They called it the House of Gold,

because gold glittered everywhere about it. He adds, that there was an

inscription wrought upon the cornice of the antechamber, which gave it

the appellation of the Throne of the second Solomon, and at the same

time marked out the year of its construction. The following

description of Antar's tent from the Bedouin romance of that name has

been often quoted:--

"When spread out it occupied half the land of Shurebah, for it was the

load of forty camels; and there was an awning at the door of the

pavilion under which 4000 of the Absian horse could skirmish. It was

embroidered with burnished gold, studded with precious stones and

diamonds, interspersed with rubies and emeralds, set with rows of

pearls; and there was painted thereon a specimen of every created

thing, birds and trees, and towns, and cities, and seas, and

continents, and beasts, and reptiles; and whoever looked at it was

confounded by the variety of the representations, and by the

brilliancy of the silver and gold: and so magnificent was the whole,

that when the pavilion was pitched, the land of Shurebah and Mount

Saadi were illuminated by its splendour."

Extravagant as seems this description, we are told that it is not so

much exaggerated as we might imagine. "Poetical license" has indeed

been indulged in to the fullest extent, especially as to the size of

the pavilion; yet Marco Polo in sober earnest describes one under

which 10,000 soldiers might be drawn up _without incommoding the

nobles at the audience_.

It is well known that Mohammed forbade his followers to imitate any

animal or insect in their embroideries or ornamental work of any sort.

Hence the origin of the term _arabesque_, which we now use to express

all odd combinations of patterns from which human and animal forms are

excluded. That portion of the race which merged in the Moors of Spain

were especially remarked for their magnificent and beautiful

decorative work; and from them did we borrow, as before alluded to,

the custom of using tapestry for curtains.

At the present day none are perhaps more patient and laborious

embroiderers than the Chinese; their regularity and neatness are

supposed to be unequalled, and the extreme care with which they work

preserves their shades bright and shining.

The Indians excel in variety of embroidery. They embroider with cotton

on muslin, but they employ on gauze, rushes, skins of insects, nails

and claws of animals, of walnuts, and dry fruits, and above all, the

feathers of birds. They mingle their colours without harmony as

without taste; it is only a species of wild mosaic, which announces no

plan, and represents no object. The women of the wandering tribes of

Persia weave those rich carpets which are called Turkey carpets, from

the place of their immediate importation. But this country was

formerly celebrated for magnificent embroideries, and also for

tapestries composed of silk and wool embellished with gold. This

latter beautiful art, though not entirely lost, is nearly so for want

of encouragement. But of all eastern nations the Moguls were the most

celebrated for their splendid embroideries; walls, couches, and even

floors were covered with silk or cotton fabrics richly worked with

gold, and often, as in ancient times, with gems inwrought. But this

empire has ever been proverbial for its splendour; at one time the

throne of the Mogul was estimated at 4,000,000_l._ sterling, made up

by diamonds and other jewels, received in gifts during a long

succession of ages.

We have, in a former chapter, alluded to the custom of embroidery in

imitation of feathers, and also for using real feathers for ornamental

work. This is much the custom in many countries. Some of the

inhabitants of New Holland make artificial flowers with feathers, with

consummate skill; and they are not uncommon, though vastly inferior,

here. Various articles of dress are frequently seen made of them, as

feather muffs, feather tippets, &c.; and we have seen within the last

few months a bonnet covered with _peacock's_ feathers. This, however,

is certainly the _extreme_ of fancy. The celebrated Mrs. Montague had

hangings ornamented with feathers: the hangings doubtless are gone:

the name of the accomplished lady who displayed them in her

fashionable halls is sinking into oblivion, but the poet, who

perchance merely glanced at them, lives for ever.

ON MRS. MONTAGUE'S FEATHER HANGINGS.

"The birds put off their ev'ry hue,

To dress a room for Montague.

The peacock sends his heavenly dyes,

His _rainbows_ and his _starry eyes_;

The pheasant plumes, which round infold

His mantling neck with downy gold;

The cock his arch'd tail's azure shew;

And, river blanch'd, the swan his snow.

All tribes beside of Indian name,

That glossy shine, or vivid flame,

Where rises, and where sets the day,

Whate'er they boast of rich and gay,

Contribute to the gorgeous plan,

Proud to advance it all they can.

This plumage, neither dashing shower,

Nor blasts that shape the dripping bow'r,

Shall drench again or discompose--

But screen'd from ev'ry storm that blows

It boasts a splendour ever new,

Safe with protecting Montague."

Some Canadian women embroider with their own hair and that of animals;

they copy beautifully the ramifications of moss-agates, and of several

plants. They insinuate in their works skins of serpents and morsels of

fur patiently smoothed. If their embroidery is not so brilliant as

that of the Chinese, it is not less industrious.

The negresses of Senegal embroider the skin of different animals of

flowers and figures of all colours.

The Turks and Georgians embroider marvellously the lightest gauze or

most delicate crape. They use gold thread with inconceivable

delicacy; they represent the most minute objects on morocco without

varying the form, or fraying the finest gold, by a proceeding quite

unknown to us. They frequently ornament their embroidery with pieces

of money of different nations, and travellers who are aware of this

circumstance often find in their old garments valuable and interesting

coins.

The Saxons imitate the designs of the most accomplished work-people;

their embroidery with untwisted thread on muslin is the most delicate

and correct we are acquainted with of that kind.

The embroidery of Venice and Milan has long been celebrated, but its

excessive dearness prevents the use of it. There is also much

beautiful embroidery in France, but the palm for precedence is ably

disputed by the Germans, especially those of Vienna.

This progress and variations of this luxury amongst various nations

would be a subject of curious research, but too intricate and

lengthened for our pages. We have intimations of it at the earliest

period, and there is no age in which it appears to have been totally

laid aside, no nation in which it was in utter disrepute. Some of its

most beautiful patterns have been, as in architecture, the adaptation

of the moment from natural objects, for one of the first ornaments in

Roman embroidery, when they departed from their primitive simplicity

in dress, was the imitation of the leaf of the acanthus--the same leaf

which imparted grace and ornament to the Corinthian capital.

But it would be endless to enter into the subject of patterns, which

doubtless were everywhere originally simple enough, with

"here and there a tuft of crimson yarn,

Or scarlet crewel."

And patient minds must often have planned, and assiduous fingers must

long have wrought, ere such an achievement was perfected, as even the

covering of the joint stool described by Cowper:--

"At length a generation more refin'd

Improved the simple plan; made three legs four,

Gave them a twisted form vermicular,

And o'er the seat with plenteous wadding stuff'd,

Induc'd a splendid cover, green and blue,

Yellow and red, of tapestry richly wrought

And woven close, or needlework sublime.

There might ye see the piony spread wide,

The full-blown rose, the shepherd and his lass,

Lapdog and lambkin with black staring eyes,

And parrots with twin cherries in their beak."

But from the days of Elizabeth the practice of ornamental needlework,

of embroidery, had gradually declined in England: the literary and

scholastic pursuits which in her day had superseded the use of the

needle, did not indeed continue the fashion of later times; still the

needle was not resumed, nor perhaps has embroidery and tapestry ever

from the days of Elizabeth been so much practised as it is now. Many

_individuals_ have indeed been celebrated, as one thus:--

"She wrought all needleworks that women exercise,

With pen, frame, or stoole; all pictures artificial,

Curious knots or trailes, what fancy could devise;

Beasts, birds, or flowers, even as things natural."

But still embroidery had ceased to be looked upon as a necessary

accomplishment, or taught as an important part of education. In the

early part of the last century women had become so mischievous from

the lack of this employment, that the "Spectator" seriously recommends

it to the attention of the community at large.

"Mr. Spectator,

"I have a couple of nieces under my direction who so

often run gadding abroad, that I do not know where to

have them. Their dress, their tea, and their visits,

take up all their time, and they go to bed as tired

doing nothing, as I am often after quilting a whole

under-petticoat. The only time they are not idle is

while they read your Spectator, which being dedicated to

the interests of virtue, I desire you to recommend the

long-neglected art of needlework. Those hours which in

this age are thrown away in dress, play, visits, and the

like, were employed in my time in writing out receipts,

or working beds, chairs, and hangings for the family.

For my part I have plied my needle these fifty years,

and by my good will would never have it out of my hand.

It grieves my heart to see a couple of idle flirts

sipping their tea, for a whole afternoon, in a room hung

round with the industry of their great-grandmother.

Pray, Sir, take the laudable mystery of embroidery into

your serious consideration; and as you have a great deal

of the virtue of the last age in you, continue your

endeavours to reform the present.

"I am, &c., ------"

"In obedience to the commands of my venerable

correspondent, I have duly weighed this important

subject, and promise myself from the arguments here laid

down, that all the fine ladies of England will be ready,

as soon as the mourning is over (for Queen Anne) to

appear covered with the work of their own hands.

"What a delightful entertainment must it be to the fair

sex whom their native modesty, and the tenderness of men

towards them exempt from public business, to pass their

hours in imitating fruits and flowers, and transplanting

all the beauties of nature into their own dress, or

raising a new creation in their closets and apartments!

How pleasing is the amusement of walking among the

shades and groves planted by themselves, in surveying

heroes slain by the needle, or little Cupids which they

have brought into the world without pain!

"This is, methinks, the most proper way wherein a lady

can show a fine genius; and I cannot forbear wishing

that several writers of that sex had chosen to apply

themselves rather to tapestry than rhyme. Your pastoral

poetesses may vent their fancy in great landscapes, and

place despairing shepherds under silken willows, or

drown them in a stream of mohair. The heroic writers may

work of battles as successfully, and inflame them with

gold, or stain them with crimson. Even those who have

only a turn to a song or an epigram, may put many

valuable stitches into a purse, and crowd a thousand

graces into a pair of garters.

"If I may, without breach of good manners, imagine that

any pretty creature is void of genius, and would

perform her part herein but very awkwardly, I must

nevertheless insist upon her working, if it be only to

keep her out of harm's way.

"Another argument for busying good women in works of

fancy is, because it takes them off from scandal, the

usual attendant of tea-tables and all other inactive

scenes of life. While they are forming their birds and

beasts, their neighbours will be allowed to be the

fathers of their own children, and Whig and Tory will be

but seldom mentioned where the great dispute is, whether

blue or red is now the proper colour. How much greater

glory would Sophronia do the general if she would choose

rather to work the battle of Blenheim in tapestry than

signalise herself with so much vehemence against those

who are Frenchmen in their hearts!

"A third reason I shall mention is, the profit that is

brought to the family when these pretty arts are

encouraged. It is manifest that this way of life not

only keeps fair ladies from running out into expenses,

but is at the same time an actual improvement.

"How memorable would that matron be, who shall have it

subscribed upon her monument, 'She that wrought out the

whole Bible in tapestry, and died in a good old age,

after having covered 300 yards of wall in the Mansion

House!'

"The premises being considered, I humbly submit the

following proposals to all mothers in Great Britain:--

"1. That no young virgin whatsoever be allowed to

receive the addresses of her first lover, but in a suit

of her own embroidering.

"2. That before every fresh humble servant she shall be

obliged to appear with a new stomacher at the least.

"3. That no one be actually married until she hath the

child-bed pillows, &c., ready stitched, as likewise the

mantle for the boy quite finished.

"These laws, if I mistake not, would effectually restore

the decayed art of needlework, and make the virgins of

Great Britain exceedingly nimble-fingered in their

business."

CHAPTER XXIII.

NEEDLEWORK ON BOOKS.

"And often did she look

On that which in her hand she bore,

In velvet bound and broider'd o'er--

Her breviary book."

Marmion.

"Books are ours,

Within whose silent chambers treasure lies

Preserved from age to age--

These hoards of truth we can unlock at will."

Wordsworth.

Deep indeed are our obligations for those treasures which "we can

unlock at will:" treasures of far more value than gold or gems, for

they oftentimes bestow that which gold cannot purchase--even

forgetfulness of sorrow and pain. Happy are those who have a taste for

reading and leisure to indulge it. It is the most beguiling solace of

life: it is its most ennobling pursuit. It is a magnificent thing to

converse with the master spirits of past ages, to behold them as they

were; to mingle thought with thought and mind with mind; to let the

imagination rove--based however on the authentic record of the

past--through dim and distant ages; to behold the fathers and prophets

of the ancient earth; to hold communion with martyrs and prophets,

and kings; to kneel at the feet of the mighty lawgiver; to bend at the

shrine of the eternal poet; to imbibe inspiration from the eloquent,

to gather instruction from the wise, and pleasure from the gifted; to

behold, as in a glass, all the majesty and all the beauty of the

mighty PAST, to revel in all the accumulated treasures of Time--and

this, all this, we have by reading the privilege to do. Imagination

indeed, the gift of heaven, may soar elate, unchecked, though

untutored through time and space, through Time to Eternity, and may

people worlds at will; but that truthful basis which can alone give

permanence to her visions, that knowledge which ennobles and purifies

and elevates them is acquired from books, whether

"Song of the Muses, says historic tale,

Science severe, or word of Holy Writ,

Announcing immortality and joy."

The "word of Holy Writ," the BIBLE--we pass over its hopes, its

promises, its consolations--these themes are too sacred even for

reference on our light page--but here, we may remark, we see the world

in its freshness, its prime, its glory. We converse truly with godlike

men and angelic women. We see the mighty and majestic fathers of the

human race ere sin had corrupted all their godlike seeming; ere

sorrow--the bequeathed and inherited sorrows of ages--had quite seared

the "human face divine;" ere sloth, and luxury, and corruption, and

decay, had altered features formed in the similitude of heaven to the

gross semblance of earth; and we walk step by step over the new fresh

earth as yet untrodden by foot of man, and behold the ancient

solitudes gradually invaded by his advancing steps.

Most gentle, most soothing, most faithful companions are books. They

afford amusement for the lonely hour; solace perchance for the

sorrowful one: they offer recreation to the light-hearted; instruction

to the inquiring; inspiration to the aspiring mind; food for the

thirsty one. They are inexhaustible in extent as in variety: and oh!

in the silent vigil by the suffering couch, or during the languor of

indisposition, who can too highly praise those silent friends--silent

indeed to the ear, but speaking eloquently to the heart--which

beguile, even transiently, the mind from present depressing care,

strengthen and elevate it by communion with the past, or solace it by

hopes of the future!

Listen how sweetly one of the first of modern men apostrophises his

books:--

"My days among the dead are past;

Around me I behold,

Where'er these casual eyes are cast,

The mighty minds of old;

My never-failing friends are they,

With whom I converse day by day.

"With them I take delight in weal,

And seek relief in woe;

And while I understand and feel

How much to them I owe,

My cheeks have often been bedew'd,

With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

"My thoughts are with the dead; with them

I live in long past years;

Their virtues love, their faults condemn,

Partake their hopes and fears,

And from their lessons seek and find

Instruction with a humble mind.

"My hopes are with the dead; anon

My place with them will be,

And I with them shall travel on

Through all futurity;

Yet leaving here a name, I trust,

That will not perish in the dust."[126]

Yet how little are we of the present day, who have books poured into

our laps, able to estimate their real value! Nor is it possible that

they can ever again be estimated as they once were. The universal

diffusion of them, the incalculable multiplication of them, seems to

render it impossible that the world can ever be deprived of them. No.

We must call up some of the spirits of the "pious and painful"

amanuenses of those days when the fourth estate of the realm, the

public press--WAS NOT--to tell us the real value of the literary

treasures we now esteem so lightly. He will tell us that in his day

the donation of a single book to a religious house was thought to give

the donor a claim to eternal salvation; and that an offering so

valued, so cherished, would be laid on the high altar amid pomp and

pageantry. He might perhaps personally remember the prior and convent

of Rochester pronouncing an irrevocable sentence of damnation on him

who should purloin or conceal their treasured Latin translation of

Aristotle's physics. He would tell us that the holiest and wisest of

men would forego ease and luxury and spend laborious years in

transcribing books for the good of others; he will tell us that

amongst many others, Osmond, Bishop of Salisbury, did this, and

perchance he will name that Guido de Jars, in his fortieth year, began

to copy the Bible on vellum, with rich and elegant decorations, and

that the suns of half a century had risen and set, ere, with

unintermitting labour and unwearied zeal, he finished it in his

ninetieth. He will also tell us, that when a book was to be sold, it

was customary to assemble all persons of consequence and character in

the neighbourhood, and to make a formal record that they were present

on this occasion. Thus, amongst the royal MSS. is a book thus

described:--

"This book of the Sentences belongs to Master Robert, archdeacon of

Lincoln, which he bought of Geoffrey the chaplain, brother of Henry

vicar of Northelkingston, in the presence of Master Robert de Lee,

Master John of Lirling, Richard of Luda, clerk, Richard the Almoner,

the said Henry the vicar and his clerk, and others: and the said

archdeacon gave the said book to God and saint Oswald, and to Peter

abbot of Barton, and the convent of Barden."

These are a few, a very few of such instances as a spirit of the

fourteenth century might allude to--to testify the value of books.

Indeed, even so late as the reign of Henry the VI., when the invention

of paper greatly facilitated the multiplication of MSS. the

impediments to study, from the scarcity of books, must have been very

great, for in the statutes of St. Mary's College, Oxford, is this

order--"Let no scholar occupy a book in the library above one hour, or

two hours at the most; lest others shall be hindered from the use of

the same."

The scarcity of parchment seems indeed at times to have been a greater

hindrance to the promulgation of literature than even the laborious

and tedious transcription of the books. About 1120, one Master Hugh,

being appointed by the convent of St. Edmondsbury to write a copy of

the Bible, for their library, could procure no parchment in England.

The following particulars of the scarcity of books before the era of

printing, gathered chiefly by Warton, are interesting.

In 855, Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres in France, sent two of his monks to

Pope Benedict the third, to beg a copy of Cicero de Oratore, and

Quintilian's Institutes, and some other books: for, says the abbot,

although we have part of these books, yet there is no whole or

complete copy of them in all France.

Albert, abbot of Gemblours, who with incredible labour and immense

expense had collected a hundred volumes on theological, and fifty on

general subjects, imagined he had formed a splendid library.

About 790, Charlemagne granted an unlimited right to hunting to the

abbot and monks of Sithin, for making their gloves and girdles of the

skins of the deer they killed, and covers for their books.

At the beginning of the tenth century, books were so scarce in Spain,

that one and the same copy of the Bible, St. Jerome's Epistles, and

some volumes of ecclesiastical offices and martyrologies, often served

several different monasteries.

Amongst the constitutions given to the monks of England by Archbishop

Lanfranc, in 1072, the following injunction occurs: At the beginning

of Lent, the librarian is ordered to deliver a book to each of the

religious; a whole year was allowed for the perusal of this book! and

at the returning Lent, those monks who had neglected to read the

books they had respectively received, are commanded to prostrate

themselves before the abbot to supplicate his indulgence. This

regulation was partly occasioned by the low state of literature in

which Lanfranc found the English monasteries to be; but at the same

time it was a matter of necessity, and partly to be referred to the

scarcity of copies of useful and suitable authors.

John de Pontissara, Bishop of Winchester, borrowed of his cathedral

convent of St. Swithin at Winchester, in 1299, BIBLIAM BENE GLOSSATAM,

or the Bible, with marginal annotations, in two large folio volumes;

but he gives a bond for due return of the loan, drawn up with great

solemnity. This Bible had been bequeathed to the Convent the same year

by his predecessor, Bishop Nicholas de Ely: and in consideration of so

important a bequest, and 100 marks in money, the monks founded a daily

mass for the soul of the donor.

About 1225 Roger de Tusula, dean of York, gave several Latin Bibles to

the University of Oxford, with a condition that the students who

perused them should deposit a cautionary pledge.

The Library of that University, before the year 1300, consisted only

of a few tracts, chained or kept in chests in the choir of St. Mary's

Church.

Books often brought excessive prices in the middle ages. In 1174,

Walter, Prior of St. Swithin's at Winchester, and afterwards abbot of

Westminster, purchased of the monks of Dorchester in Oxfordshire

Bede's Homilies and St. Austin's Psalter, for twelve measures of

barley, and a pall on which was embroidered in silver the history of

Birinus converting a Saxon king.

About 1400, a copy of John de Meun's Roman de la Rose was sold before

the palace-gate at Paris for forty crowns, or 33_l._ 6_s._ 6_d._

In Edward the Third's reign, one hundred marks (equal to 1000_l._)

were paid to Isabella de Lancaster, a nun of Ambresbury, for a book of

romance, purchased from her for the king's use.

Warton mentions a book of the Gospels, in the Cotton Library, as a

fine specimen of Saxon calligraphy and decorations. It is written by

Eadfrid, Bishop of Durham, in the most exquisite manner. Ethelwold his

successor did the illuminations, the capital letters, the picture of

the cross, and the Evangelists, with infinite labour and elegance; and

Bilfred, the anchorite, covered the book, thus written and adorned,

with silver plates and precious stones. It was finished about 720.

The encouragement given in the English monasteries for transcribing

books was very considerable. In every great abbey there was an

apartment called "The Scriptorium;" where many writers were constantly

busied in transcribing not only the Service Books for the choir, but

books for the Library. The Scriptorium of St. Alban's Abbey was built

by Abbot Paulin, a Norman, who ordered many volumes to be written

there, about 1080. Archbishop Lanfranc furnished the copies. Estates

were often granted for the support of the Scriptorium. That at St.

Edmundsbury was endowed with two mills. The tithes of a rectory were

appropriated to the Cathedral convent of St. Swithin, at Winchester,

_ad libros transcribendos_, in the year 1171.

Nigel in the year 1160 gave the monks of Ely two churches, ad libros

faciendos.

When the library at Croyland Abbey was burnt in 1091, seven hundred

volumes were consumed which must have been thus laboriously produced.

Fifty-eight volumes were transcribed at Glastonbury during the

government of one Abbot, about the year 1300. And in the library of

this monastery, the richest in England, there were upwards of four

hundred volumes in the year 1248.

But whilst there is sufficient cause to admire the penmen of former

days, in the mere transcription of books, shall we not marvel at the

beauty with which they were invested; the rich and brilliant

illuminations, the finely tinted paintings, the magnificent and

laborious ornament with which not merely every page, but in many

manuscripts almost every line was decorated! They, such as have been

preserved, form a valuable proportion of the riches of the principal

European libraries: of the Vatican of Rome; the Imperial at Vienna;

St. Mark's at Venice; the Escurial in Spain; and the principal public

libraries in England.

The art of thus illuminating MSS., now entirely lost, had attained the

highest degree of perfection, and is, indeed, of ancient origin. In

the remotest times the common colours of black and white have been

varied by luxury and taste. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus mention

purple and yellow skins, on which MSS. were written in gold and

silver; and amongst the eastern nations rolls of this kind (that is

gold and silver on purple), exquisitely executed, are found in

abundance, but of a later date. Still they appear to have been

familiar with the practice at a much more remote period; and it is

probable that the Greeks acquired this art from Egypt or India. From

the Greeks it would naturally pass to the Latins, who appear to have

been acquainted with it early in the second century. The earliest

specimen of purple or rose-coloured vellum is recorded in the life of

the Emperor Maximinus the younger, to whom, in the commencement of the

third century, his mother made a present of the poems of Homer,

written on purple vellum in gold letters. Such productions were,

however, at this time very rare. The celebrated Codex Argenteus of

Ulphilas, written in silver and gold letters on a purple ground, about

360, is probably the most ancient existing specimen of this

magnificent mode of calligraphy. In the fourth century it had become

more common: many ecclesiastical writers allude to it, and St. Jerome

especially does so; and the following spirited dialogue has reference

to his somewhat condemnatory allusions.

"Purple vellum Greek MSS.," says Breitinger, "if I remember rightly,

are scarcer than white crows!"

BELINDA. "Pray tell us 'all about them,' as the children say."

PHILEMON. "Well, then, at your next court visit, let your gown rival

the emblazoned aspect of these old purple vellums, and let stars of

silver, thickly 'powdered' thereupon, emulate, if they dare, the

silver capital Greek letters upon the purple membranaceous fragments

which have survived the desolations of time! You see, I do not speak

_coldly_ upon this picturesque subject!"

ALIMANSA. "Nor do I feel precisely as if I were in the _frigid_ zone!

But proceed and expatiate."

PHILEMON. "The field for expatiating is unluckily very limited. The

fact of the more ancient MSS. before noticed, the _Pentateuch_ at

_Vienna_, the fragment of the Gospels in the British Museum, with a

Psalter or two in a few libraries abroad, are all the MSS. which just

now occur to me as being distinguished by a _purple tint_, for I

apprehend little more than a _tint_ remains. Whether the white or the

purple vellum be the more ancient, I cannot take upon me to determine;

but it is right you should be informed that St. Jerom denounces as

_coxcombs_, all those who, in his own time, were so violently attached

to your favourite purple colour."

LISARDO. "I have a great respect for the literary attainments of St.

Jerom; and although in the absence of the old Italic version of the

Greek Bible, I am willing to subscribe to the excellence of his own,

or what is now called the _Vulgate_, yet in matters of taste,

connected with the harmony of colour, you must excuse me if I choose

to enter my protest against that venerable father's decision."

PHILEMON. "You appear to mistake the matter St. Jerom imagined that

this appetite for purple MSS. was rather artificial and voluptuous;

requiring regulation and correction--and that, in the end, men would

prefer the former colour to the intrinsic worth of their vellum

treasures."

* * * * *

We must not omit the note appended to this colloquy.

"The general idea seems to be that PURPLE VELLUM MSS. were intended

only for 'choice blades,' let us rather say, tasteful bibliomaniacs--in

book collecting. St. Jerom, as Philemon above observes, is very biting

in his sarcasm upon these 'purple leaves covered with letters of gold

and silver.'--'For myself and my friends (adds that father), let us

have lower priced books, and distinguished not so much for beauty as

for accuracy.'

"Mabillon remarks that these purple treasures were for the 'princes'

and 'noblemen' of the times.

"And we learn from the twelfth volume of the Specileginum of Theonas,

that it is rather somewhat unseemly 'to write upon purple vellum in

letters of gold and silver, unless at the particular desire of a

prince.'"

"The _subject_ also of MSS. frequently regulated the mode of executing

it. Thus we learn from the 28th Epistle of Boniface (Bishop and

Martyr) to the abbess Eadburga, that this latter is entreated 'to

write the Epistles of St. Peter, the master and Apostle of Boniface,

in letters of gold, for the greater reverence to be paid towards the

Sacred Scriptures, when the Abbess preaches before her carnally-minded

auditors.'"

About the close of the seventh century the Archbishop of York procured

for his church a copy of the Gospels thus adorned; and that this

magnificent calligraphy was then new in England may be inferred from a

remark made on it that "inauditam ante seculis nostris quoddam

miraculam."

This art, however, shortly after declined everywhere; and in England

the art of writing in gold letters, even without the rich addition of

the purple-tinted material, seems to have been but imperfectly

understood. The only remarkable instance of it is said to be the

charter of King Edgar, in the new Minster at Winchester, in 966. In

the fourteenth century it seems to have been more customary than in

those immediately preceding it.

But we have been beguiled too long from that which alone is connected

with our subject, viz., the _binding_ of books. Probably this was

originally a plain and unadorned oaken cover; though as books were

found only in monastic establishments, or in the mansions of the rich,

even the cover soon became emblematic of its valuable contents.

The early ornaments of the back were chiefly of a religious

character--a representation of the Virgin, of the infant Saviour, of

the Crucifixion. Dibdin mentions a Latin Psalter of the ninth century

in this primitive and substantial binding, and on the oaken board was

riveted a large brass crucifix, originally, probably, washed with

silver; and also a MS. of the Latin Gospels of the twelfth or

thirteenth century, in oaken covers, inlaid with pieces of carved

ivory, representing our Saviour with an angel above him, and the

Virgin and Child.

The carved ivory may probably be a subsequent interpolation, but it

does not the less exemplify the practice. But as the taste for luxury

and ornament increased, and the bindings, even the clumsy wooden ones,

became more gorgeously decorated--the most costly gems and precious

stones being frequently inlaid with the golden ornaments--the shape

and form of them was altogether altered. With a view to the

preservation and the safety of the riches lavished on them, the

bindings were made double, each side being perhaps two inches thick;

and on a spring being touched, or a secret lock opened, it divided,

almost like the opening of a cupboard-door, and displayed the rich

ornament and treasure within; whilst, when closed, the outside had

only the appearance of a plain, somewhat clumsy binding.

At that time, too, books were ranged on shelves with the leaves in

front; therefore great pains were taken, both in the decoration of the

edges, and also in the rich and ornamental clasps and strings which

united the wooden sides. These clasps were frequently of gold, inlaid

with jewels.

The wooden sides were afterwards covered with leather, with vellum,

with velvet,--though probably there is no specimen of velvet binding

before the fourteenth century; and, indeed, as time advanced, there is

scarcely any substance which was not applied to this purpose. Queen

Elizabeth had a little volume of prayers bound in solid gold, which at

prayer-time she suspended by a gold chain at her side; and we saw, a

few years ago, a small devotional book which belonged to the

Martyr-King, Charles, and which was given by him to the ancestress of

the friend who showed it to us, beautifully bound in tortoise-shell

and finely-carved silver.

But it was not to gold and precious stones alone that the bindings of

former days were indebted for their beauty. The richest and rarest

devices of the needlewoman were often wrought on the velvet, or

brocade, which became more exclusively the fashionable material for

binding. This seems to have been a favourite occupation of the

high-born dames about Elizabeth's day; and, indeed, if we remember the

new-born passion for books, which was at its height about that time,

we shall not wonder at their industry being displayed on the covers as

well as the insides[127]. But very probably this had been a favourite

object for the needle long before this time, though unhappily the

fragility of the work was equal to its beauty, and these needleworked

covers have doubtless, in very many instances, been replaced by more

substantial binding.

The earliest specimen of this description of binding remaining in the

British Museum is "Fichetus (Guil.) Rhetoricum, Libri tres. (Impr. in

Membranis) 4to. Paris ad Sorbonae, 1471." It has an illuminated

title-page, showing the author presenting, on his knees, his book to

the Pope; and it is decorated throughout with illuminated letters and

other ornaments; for long after the invention of printing, blank

spaces were left, for the capitals and headings to be filled up by the

pencil. Hence it is that we find some books quite incomplete; these

spaces having been left, and not filled up.

When the art of illuminating still more failed, the red ink was used

as a substitute, and everybody is acquainted with books of this style.

The binding of Fitchet's 'Rhetoric' is covered with crimson satin, on

which is wrought with the needle a coat-of-arms: a lion rampant in

gold thread, in a blue field, with a transverse badge in scarlet silk;

the minor ornaments are all wrought in fine gold thread.

The next in date which I have seen there is a description of the Holy

Land, in French, written in Henry VII.'s time, and illuminated. It is

bound in rich maroon velvet, with the royal arms: the garter and motto

embroidered in blue; the ground crimson; and the fleurs-de-lys,

leopards, and letters of the motto in gold thread. A coronet, or

crown, of gold thread, is inwrought with pearls; the roses at the

corners are in red silk and gold; and there is a narrow border round

the whole in burnished gold thread.

There is an edition of Petrarch's Sonnets, printed at Venice in 1544.

It is in beautiful preservation. The back is of dark crimson velvet,

and on each side is wrought a large royal coat-of-arms, in silk and

gold, highly raised. The book belonged to Edward VI., but the arms are

not his.

Queen Mary's Psalter, containing also the history of the Old Testament

in a series of small paintings, and the work richly illuminated

throughout, had once an exterior worthy of it. The crimson velvet, of

which only small particles remain to attest its pristine richness, is

literally thread-bare; and the highly-raised embroidery of a massy

fleur-de-lys is also worn to the canvas on which it was wrought. On

one side scarcely a gold thread remains, which enables one, however,

to perceive that the embroidery was done on fine canvas, or, perhaps,

rather coarse linen, twofold: that then it was laid on the velvet,

seamed to it, and the edges cut away, the stitches round the edge

being covered with a kind of cordon, or golden thread, sewed

over;--just, indeed, as we sew muslin on net.

There are three, in the same depository, of the date of Queen

Elizabeth. One a book of prayers, copied out by herself before she

ascended the throne. The back is covered with canvas, wrought all over

in a kind of tentstitch of rich crimson silk, and silver thread

intermixed. This groundwork may or may not be the work of the needle,

but there is little doubt that Elizabeth's own needle wrought the

ornaments thereon, viz., H. K. intertwined in the middle; a smaller H.

above and below, and roses in the corners; all raised high, and worked

in blue silk and silver. This is the dedication of the book:

"Illustrissimo ac potentissimo Henrico octavo, Angliae, Franciae,

Hiberniaeq. regi, fidei defensori, et secundum Christum ecclesiae

Anglicanae et Hibernicae supremo capiti. Elizabeta Majest. S. humillima

filia omne felicitatem precatur, et benedictionem suam suplex petit."

There is in the Bodleian library among the MSS. the epistles of St.

Paul, printed in old black letter, the binding of which was also queen

Elizabeth's work; and her handwriting appears at the beginning, viz.

"August.--I walk many times into the pleasant fields of the Holy

Scriptures, where I plucke up the goodliesome herbes of sentences by

pruning: eate them by reading: chawe them by musing: and laie them up

at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together: that

so having tasted thy sweeteness I may the less perceive the bitterness

of this miserable life."

The covering is done in needlework by the queen (then princess)

herself: on one side an embroidered star, on the other a heart, and

round each, as borders, Latin sentences are wrought, such as "Beatus

qui Divitias scripturae legens verba vertit in opera."--"Vicit omnia

pertinax virtus." &c., &c.[128]

There is a book in the British Museum, very _petite_, a MS containing

a French Pastoral--date 1587--of which the satin or brocade back is

loaded with needlework in gold and silver, which now, however, looks

heavy and tasteless.

But the most beautiful is Archbishop Parker's, "De Antiquitate

Britannicae Ecclesiae:" A.D. 1572.

The material of the back is rich green velvet, but it is thickly

covered with embroidery: there has not indeed, originally, been space

to lay a fourpenny-piece. It is entirely covered with animals and

flowers, in green, crimson, lilac, and yellow silk, and gold thread.

Round the edge is a border about an inch broad, of gold thread.

Of the date of 1624 is a book of magnificent penmanship, by the hand

of a female, of emblems and inscriptions. It is bound in crimson silk,

having in the centre a Prince's Feather worked in gold-thread, with

the feathers bound together with large pearls, and round it a wreath

of leaves and flowers. Round the edge there is a broader wreath, with

corner sprigs all in gold thread, thickly interspersed with spangles

and gold leaves.

All these books, with the exception of the one quoted from Ballard's

Memoirs, were most obligingly sought out and brought to me by the

gentlemen at the British Museum. Probably there are more; but as,

unfortunately for my purpose, the books there are catalogued according

to their authors, their contents, or their intrinsic value, instead of

their outward seeming, it is not easy, amidst three or four hundred

thousand volumes, to pick out each insignificant book which may happen

to be--

"In velvet bound and broider'd o'er."

FOOTNOTES:

[126] Southey.

[127] We have seen cartouche-boxes embroidered precisely in the same

style, and probably therefore of the same period as some of the

embroidered books here referred to.

[128] Ballard's Memoirs.

CHAPTER XXIV.

NEEDLEWORK OF ROYAL LADIES.

"Thus is a Needle prov'd an Instrument

Of profit, pleasure, and of ornament,

Which mighty Queenes have grac'd in hand to take."

John Taylor.

Needlework is an art so attractive in itself; it is capable of such

infinite variety, and is such a beguiler of lonely, as of social

hours, and offers such scope to the indulgence of fancy, and the

display of taste; it is withal--in its lighter branches--accompanied

with so little bodily exertion, not deranging the most _recherche_

dress, nor incommoding the most elaborate and exquisite costume, that

we cannot wonder that it has been practised with ardour even by those

the farthest removed from any necessity for its exercise. Therefore

has it been from the earliest ages a favourite employment of the high

and nobly born.

The father of song hardly refers at all to the noble dames of Greece

and Troy but as occupied in "painting with the needle." Some, the

heroic achievements of their countrymen on curtains and draperies,

others various rich and rare devices on banners, on robes and mantles,

destined for festival days, for costly presents to ambassadors, or for

offerings to friends. And there are scattered notices at all periods

of the prevalence of this custom. In all ages until this of

"inventions rare

Steam towns and towers."

the preparation of apparel has fallen to woman's share, the spinning,

the weaving, and the manufacture of the material itself from which

garments were made. But, though we read frequently of high-born dames

spinning in the midst of their maids, it is probable that this

drudgery was performed by inferiors and menials, whilst enough, and

more than enough of arduous employment was left for the ladies

themselves in the rich tapestries and embroideries which have ever

been coveted and valued, either as articles of furniture, or more

usually for the decoration of the person.

Rich and rare garments used to be infinitely more the attribute of

high rank than they now are; and in more primitive times a princess

was not ashamed to employ herself in the construction of her own

apparel or that of her relatives. Of this we have an intimation in the

old ballad of 'Hardyknute'--beginning

"Stately stept he east the wa',

And stately stept he west."

"Farewell, my dame, sae peerless good,

(And took her by the hand,)

Fairer to me in age you seem,

Than maids for beauty fam'd.

My youngest son shall here remain

To guard these lonely towers,

And shut the silver bolt that keeps

Sae fast your painted bowers.

"And first she wet her comely cheeks,

And then her boddice green,

Her silken cords of twisted twist,

Well plett with silver sheen;

And apron set with mony a dice

Of needlewark sae rare,

Wove by nae hand, as ye may guess,

Save that of Fairly fair."

But it harmonises better with our ideas of high or royal life to hear

of some trophy for the warrior, some ornament for the knightly bower,

or some decorative offering for the church, emanating from the taper

fingers of the courtly fair, than those kirtles and boddices which, be

they ever so magnificent, seem to appertain more naturally to the

"milliner's practice." Therefore, though we give the gentle Fairly

fair all possible praise for notability in the

"Apron set with mony a dice

Of needlework sae rare,"

we certainly look with more regard on such work as that of the Danish

princesses who wrought a standard with the national device, the

Raven,[129] on it, and which was long the emblem of terror to those

opposed to it on the battle-field. Of a gentler character was the

stupendous labour of Queen Matilda--the Bayeux tapestry--on which we

have dwelt too long elsewhere to linger here, and which was wrought by

her and under her superintendence.

Queen Adelicia, the second wife of Henry I., was a lady of

distinguished beauty and high talent: she was remarkable for her love

of needlework, and the skill with which she executed it. One peculiar

production of her needle has recently been described by her

accomplished biographer; it was a standard which she embroidered in

silk and gold for her father, during the memorable contest in which he

was engaged for the recovery of his patrimony, and which was

celebrated throughout Europe for the exquisite taste and skill

displayed by the royal Adelicia in the design and execution of her

patriotic achievement. This standard was unfortunately captured at a

battle near the castle of Duras, in 1129, by the Bishop of Liege and

the Earl of Limbourg, the old competitor of Godfrey for Lower

Lorraine, and was by them placed as a memorial of their triumph in the

great church of St. Lambert, at Liege, and was for centuries carried

in procession on Rogation days through the streets of that city. The

church of St. Lambert was destroyed during the French Revolution. The

plain where this memorable trophy was taken is still called the "Field

of the Standard."

Perhaps, second only to Queen Matilda's work, or indeed superior to

it, as being entirely the production of her own hand, were the

needlework pieces of Joan D'Albert, who ascended the throne of

Navarre in 1555. Though her own career was varied and eventful, she is

best known to posterity as the mother of the great Henry IV. She

adopted the reformed religion, of which she became, not without some

risk to her crown thereby, the zealous protectress, and on

Christmas-day, 1562, she made a public profession of the Protestant

faith; she prohibited the offices of the Catholic religion to be

performed in her domains, and suffered in consequence many alarms from

her Catholic subjects. But she possessed great courage and fortitude,

and baffled all open attacks. Against concealed treachery she could

not contend. She died suddenly at the court of France in 1572, as it

was strongly suspected, by poison.

This queen possessed a vigorous and cultivated understanding; was

acquainted with several languages, and composed with facility both in

prose and verse. Her needlework, the amusement and solace of her

leisure hours, was designed by her as "a commemoration of her love

for, and steadiness to, the reformed faith." It is thus described by

Boyle: "She very much loved devices, and she wrought with her own hand

fine and large pieces of tapestry, among which was a suit of hangings

of a dozen or fifteen pieces, which were called THE PRISONS OPENED; by

which she gave us to understand that she had broken the pope's bonds,

and shook off his yoke of captivity. In the middle of every piece is a

story of the Old Testament which savours of liberty--as the

deliverance of Susannah; the departure of the children of Israel out

of Egypt; the setting Joseph at liberty, &c. And at all the corners

are broken chains, shackles, racks, and gibbets; and over them in

great letters, these words of the third chapter of the second Epistle

to the Corinthians, UBI SPIRITUS IBI LIBERTAS.

"To show yet more fully the aversion she had conceived against the

Catholic religion, and particularly against the sacrifice of the mass,

having a fine and excellent piece of tapestry, made by her mother,

Margaret, before she had suffered herself to be cajoled by the

ministers, in which was perfectly well wrought the sacrifice of the

mass, and a priest who held out the holy host to the people, she took

out the square in which was this history, and, instead of the priest,

with her own hand substituted a fox, who turning to the people, and

making a horrible grimace with his paws and throat, delivered these

words, DOMINUS VOBISCUM."

We are told that Anne of Brittany, the good Queen of France, assembled

three hundred of the children of the nobility at her court, where,

under her personal superintendence, they were instructed in such

accomplishments as became their rank and sex, but the girls, most

especially, made accomplished needlewomen. Embroidery was their

occupation during some specified hours of every day, and they wrought

much tapestry, which was presented by their royal protectress to

different churches.

Her daughter Claude, the queen of Francis I., formed her court on the

same model and maintained the same practice; Queen Anne Boleyn was

educated in her court, and was doomed to consume a large portion of

her time in the occupation of the needle. It was an employment little

suited to her lively disposition and coquettish habits, and we do not

hear, during her short occupation of the throne, that she resorted to

it as an amusement.

"Ai lavori d'Aracne, all'ago, ai fusi

Inchinar non degno la man superba."

The practice of devoting some hours to embroidery seems to have

continued in the French court. When the young Queen of Scots was

there, the French princesses assembled every afternoon in the queen's

(Catherine of Medici's) private apartment, where "she usually spent

two or three hours in embroidery with her female attendants."

It is also said, that Katharine of Arragon was in the habit of

employing the ladies of her court in needlework, in which she was

herself extremely assiduous, working with them and encouraging them by

her example. Burnet records, that when two legates requested once to

speak with her, she came out to them with a skein of silk about her

neck, and told them she had been within at work with her women. An

anecdote, as far as regards the skein of silk, somewhat more

housewifely than queenly.

In this she differed much from her successor, Queen Catherine Parr,

for having had her nativity cast when a child, and being told, from

the disposition of the stars and planets in her house, that she was

born to sit in the highest seat of imperial majesty; child as she was,

she was so impressed by the prediction, that when her mother required

her to work she would say, "My hands are ordained to touch crowns and

sceptres, not needles and spindles."

When the orphaned daughter of this lady, by the lord admiral, was

consigned to the care of the Duchess of Suffolk, the furniture of "her

former nursery" was to be sent with her. The list is rather curious,

and we subjoin it.

"Two pots, three goblets, one salt parcel gilt, a maser with a band of

silver and parcel gilt, and eleven spoons; a quilt for the cradle,

three pillows, three feather-beds, three quilts, a testor of scarlet

embroidered with a counterpoint of silk say belonging to the same, and

curtains of crimson taffeta; two counterpoints of imagery for the

nurse's bed, six pair of sheets, six fair pieces of hangings within

the inner chamber; four carpets for windows, ten pieces of hangings of

the twelve months within the outer chamber, two quishions of cloth of

gold, one chair of cloth of gold, two wrought stools, a bedstead gilt,

with a testor and counterpoint, with curtains belonging to the same."

Return we to Katharine of Arragon: her needlework labours have been

celebrated both in Latin and English verse. The following sonnet

refers to specimens in the Tower, which now indeed are swept away,

having left not "a wreck behind."

"I read that in the seventh King Henrie's reigne,

Fair Katharine, daughter to the Castile king,

Came into England with a pompous traine

Of Spanish ladies which shee thence did bring.

She to the eighth King Henry married was,

And afterwards divorc'd, where virtuously

(Although a Queene), yet she her days did pass

In working with the _needle_ curiously,

As in the Tower, and places more beside,

Her excellent memorials may be seen;

Whereby the _needle's_ prayse is dignifide

By her faire ladies, and herselfe, a Queene.

Thus far her paines, here her reward is just,

Her works proclaim her prayse, though she be dust."

The same pen also celebrated her daughter's skill in this feminine

occupation.

Mary was skilled in all sorts of embroidery; and when her mother's

divorce consigned her to a private life, she beguiled the intervals of

those severer studies in which she peaceably and laudably occupied her

time in various branches of needlework. It is not unlikely the Psalter

we have alluded to elsewhere was embroidered by herself; and a

reference to the fashionable occupations of the day will bring to our

minds various trifling articles, the embroidery of which beguiled her

time, though they have long since passed away.

"Her daughter Mary here the sceptre swaid,

And though she were a Queene of mighty power,

Her memory will never be decaid,

Which by her works are likewise in the Tower,

In Windsor Castle, and in Hampton Court,

In that most pompous roome called Paradise;

Who ever pleaseth thither to resort,

May see some workes of hers, of wondrous price.

Her greatness held it no disreputation

To take the needle in her royal hand;

Which was a good example to our nation

To banish idleness from out her land:

And thus this Queene, in wisdom thought it fit,

The needle's worke pleas'd her, and she grac'd it."

We extract the following notice of the gentle and excellent Lady Jane

Grey, from the 'Court Magazine.'

"Ten days' royalty! Alas, how deeply fraught with tragic interest is

the historic page recording the events of that brief period! and how

immeasurable the results proceeding therefrom. Love, beauty, religious

constancy, genius, and learning, were seen in early womanhood

intermingling their glorious halo with the dark shadowings of

despotism, imprisonment, and violent death upon the scaffold!

"In the most sequestered part of Leicestershire, backed by rude

eminences, and skirted by lowly and romantic valleys, stands Bradgate,

the birth-place and abode of Lady Jane Grey. The approach to Bradgate

from the village of Cropston is striking. On the left stands a group

of venerable trees, at the extremity of which rise the remains of the

once magnificent mansion of the Greys of Groby. On the right is a

hill, known by the name of 'The Coppice,' covered with slate, but so

intermixed with fern and forest-flowers as to form a beautiful

contrast to the deep shades of the surrounding woods. To add to the

loveliness of the scene, a winding trout-stream finds its way from

rock to rock, washing the walls of Bradgate until it reaches the

fertile meadows of Swithland.

"In the distance, situate upon a hill, is a tower, called by the

country-people Old John, commanding a magnificent view of the

adjoining country, including the distant castles of Nottingham and

Belvoir. With the exception of the chapel and kitchen, the princely

mansion has now become a ruin; but a tower still stands, which

tradition points out as her birth-place. Traces of the tilt-yard are

visible, with the garden-walls, and a noble terrace whereon Jane often

walked and sported in her childhood; and the rose and lily still

spring in favourable nooks of that wilderness, once the pleasance, or

pleasure-garden of Bradgate. Near the brook is a beautiful group of

old chestnut-trees.

"'This was thy home then, gentle Jane,

This thy green solitude; and here

At evening from the gleaming pane,

Thine eye oft watched the dappled deer

(While the soft sun was in its wane)

Browsing beside the brooklet clear;

The brook runs still, the sun sets now,

The deer yet browseth--where art thou?'

"Instead of skill in drawing she cultivated the art of painting with

the needle, and at Zurich is still to be seen, together with the

original MS. of her Latin letters to the reformer Bullinger, a toilet

beautifully ornamented by her own hands, which had been presented by

her to her learned correspondent."

In the court of Catherine de Medicis Mary Queen of Scots was

habituated to the daily practice of needlework, and thus fostered her

natural taste for the art which she had acquired in the

convent--supposed to have been St. Germaine-en-Laye, where she was

placed during the early part of her residence in France. She left this

convent with the utmost regret, revisited it whenever she was

permitted, and gladly employed her needle in embroidering an

altarpiece for its church.

This predilection for needlework never forsook her, but proved a

beguilement and a solace during the weary years of her subsequent

imprisonment, especially after she was separated from the female

friends who at first accompanied her. During a part of her

confinement, while she was still on comparatively friendly terms with

Elizabeth, she transmitted several elegant pieces of her own

needlework to this princess. She wrought a canopy, which was placed

in the presence-chamber at Whitehall, consisting of an empalement of

the arms of France and Scotland, embroidered under an imperial crown.

It does not appear at what period of her life she worked it. During

the early part of her confinement she was asked how, in unfavourable

weather, she passed the time within. She said that all that day she

wrought with her needle, and that the diversity of the colours made

the work seem less tedious; and she continued so long at it till very

pain made her to give over.

"Upon this occasion she entered into a pretty disputable comparison

between carving, painting, and working with the needle; affirming

painting, in her own opinion, for the most commendable quality. No

doubt it was during her confinement in England that she worked the bed

still preserved at Chatsworth."

The following notices from her own letters, though trifling, are

interesting memorials of this melancholy part of her life:--

"July 9, 1574.--I pray you send me some pigeons, red partridges, and

Barbary fowls. I mean to try to rear them in this country, or keep

them in cages: it is an amusement for a prisoner, and I do so with all

the little birds I can obtain.

"July 18, 1574.--Always bear in mind that my will in all things be

strictly followed; and send me, if it be possible, some one with my

accounts. He must bring me patterns of dresses and samples of cloths,

gold and silver, stuffs and silks, the most costly and new now worn at

court. Order for me at Poissy a couple of coifs, with gold and silver

crowns, such as they have made for me before. Remind Breton of his

promise to send me from Italy the newest kind of head-dress, veils,

and ribands, wrought with gold and silver, and I will repay him.

"September 22.--Deliver to my uncle the cardinal the two cushions of

my work which I send herewith. Should he be gone to Lyons, he will

doubtless send me a couple of beautiful little dogs; and you likewise

may procure a couple for me; for, except in reading and working, I

take pleasure solely in all the little animals I can obtain. You must

send them hither very comfortably put up in baskets.

"February 12, 1576.--I send the king of France some poodle-dogs

(barbets), but can only answer for the beauty of the dogs, as I am not

allowed either to hunt or to ride."[130]

It is said that one of the articles which in its preparation beguiled

her, perchance, of some melancholy thoughts, was a waistcoat which,

having richly and beautifully embroidered, she sent to her son; and

that this selfish prince was heartless enough to reject the offering

because his mother (still surely Queen of Scotland in his eyes)

addressed it to him as prince.

The poet so often quoted wrote the subjoined sonnet in Queen

Elizabeth's praise, whose skill with her needle was remarkable. She

was especially an adept in the embroidering with gold and silver, and

practised it much in the early part of her life, though perhaps few

specimens of her notability now exist:--

"When this great queene, whose memory shall not

By any terme of time be overcast;

For when the world and all therein shall rot,

Yet shall her glorious fame for ever last.

When she a maid had many troubles past,

From jayle to jayle by Maries angry spleene:

And Woodstocke, and the Tower in prison fast,

And after all was England's peerelesse queene.

Yet howsoever sorrow came or went,

She made the needle her companion still,

And in that exercise her time she spent,

As many living yet doe know her skill.

Thus shee was still, a captive, or else crown'd,

A needlewoman royall and renown'd."

Of Mary II., the wife of the Prince of Orange, Bishop Fowler writes

thus:--"What an enemy she was to idleness! even in ladies, those who

had the honour to serve her are living instances. It is well known how

great a part of the day they were employed at their needles and

several ingenuities; the queen herself, when more important business

would give her leave, working with them. And, that their minds might

be well employed at the same time, it was her custom to order one to

read to them, while they were at work, either divinity or some

profitable history."

And Burnet thus:--"When her eyes were endangered by reading too much,

she found out the amusement of work; and in all those hours that were

not given to better employment she wrought with her own hands, and

that sometimes with so constant a diligence as if she had been to earn

her bread by it. It was a new thing, and looked like a sight, to see

a queen working so many hours a day."

Her taste and industry in embroidery are testified by chairs yet

remaining at Hampton Court.

The beautiful and unfortunate Marie Antoinette, lively as was her

disposition, and fond as she was of gaiety, did not find either the

duties or gaieties of a court inconsistent with the labours of the

needle. She was extremely fond of needlework, and during her happiest

and gayest years was daily to be found at her embroidery-frame. Her

approach to this was a signal that other ladies might equally amuse

themselves with their various occupations of embroidery, of knitting,

or of _untwisting_--the profitable occupation of that day; and which

was so fashionable, such a "rage," that the ladies of the court hardly

stirred anywhere without two little workbags each--one filled with

gold fringes, laces, tassels, or any _golden_ trumpery they could pick

up, the other to contain the gold they unravelled, which they sold to

Jews.

It is said to be a fact that duchesses--nay, princesses--have been

known to go about from Jew to Jew in order to obtain the highest price

for their gold. Dolls and all sorts of toys were made and covered with

gold brocades; and the gentlemen never failed rendering themselves

agreeable to their fair acquaintance by presenting them with these

toys!

Every one knows that the court costume of the French noblemen at that

period was most expensive; this absurd custom rendered it doubly,

trebly so; and was carried to such an excess, that frequently the

moment a gentleman appeared in a new coat the ladies crowded round him

and soon divested it of all its gold ornaments.

The following is an instance:--"The Duke de Coigny one night appeared

in a new and most expensive coat: suddenly a lady in the company

remarked that its gold bindings would be excellent for untwisting. In

an instant he was surrounded--all the scissors in the room were at

work; in short, in a few moments the coat was stripped of its laces,

its galoons, its tassels, its fringes; and the poor duke,

notwithstanding his vexation, was forced by _politeness_ to laugh and

praise the dexterity of the fair hands that robbed him."

But what a solace did that passion for needlework, which the queen

indulged in herself and encouraged in others, become to her during her

fearful captivity. This unhappy princess was born on the day of the

Lisbon earthquake, which seemed to stamp a fatal mark on the era of

her birth; and many circumstances occurred during her life which have

since been considered as portentous.

"'Tis certain that the soul hath oft foretaste

Of matters which beyond its ken are placed."

One circumstance, simple in itself and easily explained, is recorded

by Madame Campan as having impressed Marie with shuddering

anticipations of evil:--

"One evening, about the latter end of May, she was sitting in the

middle of her room, relating several remarkable occurrences of the

day. Four wax candles were placed upon her toilet; the first went out

of itself--I relighted it; shortly afterwards the second, and then the

third, went out also: upon which the queen, squeezing my hand with an

emotion of terror, said to me, 'Misfortune has power to make us

superstitious; if the fourth taper go out like the first, nothing can

prevent my looking upon it as a fatal omen!'--The fourth taper went

out."

At an earlier period Goethe seems, with somewhat of a poet's

inspiration, to have read a melancholy fate for her. When young he was

completing his studies at Strasburg. In an isle in the middle of the

Rhine a pavilion had been erected, intended to receive Marie

Antoinette and her suite, on her way to the French court.

"I was admitted into it," says Goethe, in his Memoirs: "on my entrance

I was struck with the subject depicted in the tapestry with which the

principal pavilion was hung, in which were seen Jason, Creusa, and

Medea; that is to say, a representation of the most fatal union

commemorated in history. On the left of the throne the bride,

surrounded by friends and distracted attendants, was struggling with a

dreadful death; Jason, on the other side, was starting back, struck

with horror at the sight of his murdered children; and the Fury was

soaring into the air in her chariot drawn by dragons. Superstition

apart, this strange coincidence was really striking. The husband, the

bride, and the children, were victims in both cases: the fatal omen

seemed accomplished in every point."

The following notices of her imprisonment would but be spoiled by any

alteration of language. We shall perceive that one of her greatest

troubles in prison, before her separation from the king and the

dauphin, was the being deprived of her sewing implements.

"During the early part of Louis XVI.'s imprisonment, and while the

treatment of him and his family was still human, his majesty employed

himself in educating his son; while the queen, on her part, educated

her daughter. Then they passed some time in needlework, knitting, or

tapestry-work.

"At this time the royal family were in great want of clothes, insomuch

that the princesses were employed in mending them every day; and

Madame Elizabeth was often obliged to wait till the king was gone to

bed, in order to have his to repair. The linen they brought to the

Tower had been lent them by friends, some by the Countess of

Sutherland, who found means to convey linen and other things for the

use of the dauphin. The queen wished to write a letter to the countess

expressive of her thanks, and to return some of these articles, but

her majesty was debarred from pen and ink; and the clothes she

returned were stolen by her jailors, and never found their way to

their right owner.

"After many applications a little new linen was obtained; but the

sempstress having marked it with crowns, the municipal officers

insisted on the princesses picking the marks _out_, and they were

forced to obey.

"_Dec. 7._--An officer, at the head of a deputation from the commune,

came to the king and read a decree, ordering that the persons in

confinement should be deprived of all scissors, razors,

knives--instruments usually taken from criminals; and that the

strictest search should be made for the same, as well on their persons

as in their apartments. The king took out of his pocket a knife and a

small morocco pocket-book, from which he gave the pen-knife and

scissors. The officer searched every corner of the apartments, and

carried off the razors, the curling-irons, the powder-scraper,

instruments for the teeth, and many articles of gold and silver. They

took away from the princesses their knitting-needles and all the

little articles they used for their embroidery. The unhappy queen and

princesses were the more sensible of the loss of the little

instruments taken from them, as they were in consequence forced to

give up all the feminine handiworks which till then had served to

beguile prison hours. At this time the king's coat became ragged, and

as the Princess Elizabeth, his sister, was mending it, as she had no

scissors, the king observed that she had to bite off the thread with

her teeth--'What a reverse!' said the king, looking tenderly upon her;

'you were in want of nothing at your pretty house at Montreuil.' 'Ah,

brother!' she replied, 'can I feel a regret of any kind while I share

your misfortunes?'"

The Empress Josephine is said to have played and sung with exquisite

feeling: her dancing is said to have been perfect. She exercised her

pencil, and--though such be not now antiquated for an _elegante_--her

needle and embroidery-frame, with beautiful address.

Towards the close of her eventful career, when, after her divorce

from Bonaparte, she kept a sort of domestic court at Navarre or

Malmaison, she and her ladies worked daily at tapestry or

embroidery--one reading aloud whilst the others were thus occupied;

and the hangings of the saloon at Malmaison were entirely her own

work. They must have been elegant; the material was white silk, the

embroidery roses, in which at intervals were entwined her own

initials.

An interesting circumstance is related of a conversation between one

of those ministering spirits a _soeur de la charite_ and Josephine,

in a time of peculiar excitement and trouble. At the conclusion of it,

the _soeur_, having discovered with whom she was conversing, added,

"Since I am addressing the mother of the afflicted, I no longer fear

my being indiscreet in any demand I may make for suffering humanity.

We are in great want of lint; if your majesty would condescend"----"I

promise you shall have some; we will make it ourselves."

From that moment the evenings were employed at Malmaison in making

lint, and the empress yielded to none in activity at this work.

Few of my readers will have accompanied me to this point without

anticipating the name with which these slight notices of royal

needlewomen must conclude--a name which all know, and which, knowing,

all reverence as that of a dignified princess, a noble and admirable

matron--Adelaide, our Dowager Queen. It was hers to reform the morals

of a court which, to our shame, had become licentious; it was hers to

render its charmed circle as pure and virtuous as the domestic hearth

of the most scrupulous British matron; it was hers to combine with

the chilling etiquette of regal state the winning virtues of private

life, and to weave a wreath of domestic virtues, social charities, and

beguiling though simple occupations, round the stately majesty of

England's throne.

The days are past when it would be either pleasurable or profitable

for the Queen of the British empire to spend her days, like Matilda or

Katharine, "in poring over the interminable mazes of tapestry;" but it

is well known that Queen Adelaide, and, in consequence of her

Majesty's example, those around her, habitually occupied their leisure

moments in ornamental needlework; and there have been, of late years,

few Bazaars throughout the kingdom, for really beneficent purposes,

which have not been enriched by the contributions of the Queen

Dowager--contributions ever gladly purchased at a high price, not for

their intrinsic worth, but because they had been wrought by a hand

which every Englishwoman had learnt to respect and love.

FOOTNOTES:

[129] This sacred standard was taken by the Saxons in Devonshire, in a

fortunate onset, in which they slew one of the Sea-kings with eight

hundred of his followers. So superstitious a reverence was attached to

this ensign that its loss is said to have broken the spirit of even

these ruthless plunderers. It was woven by the sisters of Inguar and

Ubba, who divined by it. If the Raven (which was worked on it) moved

briskly in the wind, it was a sign of victory, but if it drooped and

hung heavily, it was supposed to prognosticate discomfiture.

[130] Von Raumer's Contributions.

CHAPTER XXV.

ON MODERN NEEDLEWORK.

"Our Country everywhere is fild

With Ladies, and with Gentlewomen, skild

In this rare Art."

Taylor.

"For here the needle plies its busy task,

The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower

Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn,

Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs,

And curling tendrils gracefully dispos'd,

Follow the nimble fingers of the fair;

A wreath that cannot fade."

Cowper.

"The great variety of needleworks which the ingenious

women of other countries, as well as of our own, have

invented, will furnish us with constant and amusing

employment; and though our labours may not equal a

Mineron's or an Aylesbury's, yet, if they unbend the

mind, by fixing its attention on the progress of any

elegant or imitative art, they answer the purpose of

domestic amusement; and, when the higher duties of our

station do not call forth our exertions, we may feel the

satisfaction of knowing that we are, at least,

innocently employed."--Mrs. Griffiths.

The triumph of modern art in needlework is probably within our own

shores, achieved by our own countrywoman,--Miss Linwood. "Miss

Linwood's Exhibition" used to be one of the lions of London, and fully

deserves to be so now. To women it must always be an interesting

sight; and the "nobler gender" cannot but consider it as a curious

one, and not unworthy even of their notice as an achievement of art.

Many of these pictures are most beautiful; and it is not without great

difficulty that you can assure yourself that they are _bona fide_

needlework. Full demonstration, however, is given you by the facility

of close approach to some of the pieces.

Perhaps the most beautiful of the whole collection--a collection

consisting of nearly a hundred pieces of all sizes--is the picture of

Miss Linwood herself, copied from a painting by Russell, taken in

about her nineteenth year. She must have been a beautiful creature;

and as to this copy being done with a needle and worsted,--nobody

would suppose such a thing. It is a perfect painting. In the catalogue

which accompanies these works she refers to her own portrait with the

somewhat touching expression, (from Shakspeare,)

"Have I lived thus long----"

This lady is now in her eighty-fifth year. Her life has been devoted

to the pursuit of which she has given so many beautiful testimonies.

She had wrought two or three pieces before she reached her twentieth

year; and her last piece, "The Judgment of Cain," which occupied her

ten years, was finished in her seventy-fifth year; since when, the

failure of her eyesight has put an end to her labours.

The pieces are worked not on canvas, nor, we are told, on linen, but

on some peculiar fabric made purposely for her. Her worsteds have all

been dyed under her own superintendence, and it is said the only

relief she has ever had in the manual labour was in having an

assistant to thread her needles.

Some of the pieces after Gainsborough are admirable; but perhaps Miss

Linwood will consider her greatest triumph to be in her copy of Carlo

Dolci's "Salvator Mundi," for which she has been offered, and has

refused, three thousand guineas.

The style of modern embroidery, now so fashionable, from the Berlin

patterns, dates from the commencement of the present century. About

the year 1804-5, a print-seller in Berlin, named Philipson, published

the first coloured design, on checked paper, for needlework. In 1810,

Madame Wittich, who, being a very accomplished embroideress, perceived

the great extension of which this branch of trade was capable, induced

her husband, a book and print-seller of Berlin, to engage in it with

spirit. From that period the trade has gone on rapidly increasing,

though within the last six years the progression has been infinitely

more rapid than it had previously been, owing to the number of new

publishers who have engaged in the trade. By leading houses up to the

commencement of the year 1840, there have been no less than fourteen

thousand copper-plate designs published.

In the scale of consumption, and, consequently, by a fair inference in

the quantity of needlework done, Germany stands first; then Russia,

England, France, America, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, &c., the three

first names on the list being by far the largest consumers. It is

difficult to state with precision the number of persons employed to

_colour_ these plates, but a principal manufacturer estimates them as

upwards of twelve hundred, chiefly women.

At first these patterns were chiefly copied in silk, then in beads,

and lastly in dyed wools; the latter more especially, since the

Germans have themselves succeeded in producing those beautiful

"Zephyr" yarns known in this country as the "Berlin wools." These

yarns, however, are only dyed in Berlin, being manufactured at Gotha.

It is not many years since the Germans drew all their fine woollen

yarns from this country: now they are the _exporters_, and probably

will so remain, whatever be the _quality_ of the wool produced in

England, until the art of _dyeing_ be as well understood and as

scientifically practised.

Of the fourteen thousand Berlin patterns which have been published,

scarcely one-half are moderately good; and all the best which they

have produced latterly are copied from English and French prints.

Contemplating the improvement that will probably ere long take place

in these patterns, needlework may be said to be yet in its infancy.

The improvement, however, must not be confined to the Berlin

designers: the taste of the consumer, the public taste must also

advance before needlework shall assume that approximation to art which

is so desirable, and not perhaps now, with modern facilities,

difficult of attainment. Hitherto the chief anxiety seems to have been

to produce a glare of colour rather than that subdued but beautiful

effect which makes of every piece issuing from the Gobelins a perfect

picture, wrought by different means, it is true, but with the very

same materials.

The Berlin publishers cannot be made to understand this; for, when

they have a good design to copy from, they mar all by the introduction

of some adventitious frippery, as in the "Bolton Abbey," where the

repose and beautiful effect of the picture is destroyed by the

introduction of a bright sky, and straggling bushes of lively green,

just where the Artist had thought it necessary to depict the stillness

of the inner court of the Monastery, with its solemn grey walls, as a

relief to the figures in the foreground.

Many ladies of rank in Germany add to their pin-money by executing

needlework for the warehouses.

France consumes comparatively but few Berlin patterns. The French

ladies persevere in the practice of working on drawings previously

traced on the canvas: the consequence is that, notwithstanding their

general skill and assiduity, good work is often wasted on that which

cannot produce an artist-like effect. They are, however, by far the

best embroideresses in chenille,--silk and gold. By embroidery we mean

that which is done on a solid ground, as silk or cloth.

The tapestry or canvas-work is now thoroughly understood in this

country; and by the help of the Berlin patterns more _good_ things are

produced here as articles of furniture than in France.

The present mode of furnishing houses is favourable to needlework. At

a time when fashion enacted that all the sofas and chairs of an

apartment should match, the completely furnishing it with needlework

(as so many in France have been) was the constant occupation of a

whole family--mother, daughters, cousins, and servants--for years, and

must indeed have been completely wearisome; but a cushion, a screen,

or an odd chair, is soon accomplished, and at once takes its place

among the many odd-shaped articles of furniture which are now found in

a fashionable saloon.

Francfort-on-the-Maine is much busying itself just now with

needlework. The commenced works imported from this city are made up

partly from Berlin patterns, and partly from fanciful combinations;

but although generally speaking _well worked_, they are too

complicated to be easy of execution, and very few indeed of those

brought to this country are ever _finished_ by the purchaser.

The history of the progress of the modern tapestry-needlework in this

country is brief. Until the year 1831, the Berlin patterns were known

to very few persons, and used by fewer persons still. They had for

some time been imported by Ackermann and some others, but in very

small numbers indeed. In the year 1831, they, for the first time, fell

under the notice of Mr. Wilks, Regent-street, (to whose kindness I am

indebted for the valuable information on the Berlin patterns given

above,) and he immediately purchased all the good designs he could

procure, and also made large purchases both of patterns and working

materials direct from Berlin, and thus laid the foundation of the

trade in England. He also imported from Paris a large selection of

their best examples in tapestry, and also an assortment of silks of

those exquisite tints which, as yet, France only can produce; and by

inducing French artists, educated for this peculiar branch of design,

to accompany him to England, he succeeded in establishing in England

this elegant art.

This fashionable tapestry-work, certainly the most useful kind of

ornamental needlework, seems quite to have usurped the place of the

various other embroideries which have from time to time engrossed the

leisure moments of the fair. It may be called mechanical, and so in a

degree it certainly is; but there is infinitely more scope for fancy,

taste, and even genius here, than in any other of the large family of

"satin sketches" and embroideries.

Yes, there is certainly room in worsted work for genius to exert

itself--the genius of a painter--in the selection, arrangement, and

combination of colours, of light and shade, &c.; we do not mean in

glaring arabesques, but in the landscape and the portrait. There is an

instance given by Pennant,[131] where the skill and taste of the

needlewoman imparted a grace to her picture which was wanting in the

original.

"In one of the apartments of the palace (Lambeth) is a performance

that does great honour to the ingenious wife of a modern dignitary--a

copy in needlework of a Madonna and Child, after a most capital

performance of the Spanish Murillo. There is most admirable grace in

the original, which was sold last winter at the price of 800 guineas.

It made me lament that this excellent master had wasted so much time

on beggars and ragged boys. Beautiful as it is, the copy came improved

out of the hand of our skilful countrywoman: a judicious change of

colour of part of the drapery has had a most happy effect, and given

new excellence to the admired original."

Whilst recording the triumphs of modern needlework, we must not omit

to mention a school for the education of the daughters of clergy and

decayed tradesmen, in which the art of silk-embroidery was

particularly cultivated. This school was under the especial patronage

of Queen Charlotte; and a bed of lilac satin, which was there

embroidered for her, is now exhibited at Hampton Court, and is really

magnificent.

Could we now take a more extended view of modern needlework, how wide

the range to which we might refer,--from the jewelled and

golden-wrought slippers of the East to the grass-embroidered mocassins

of the West; from the gorgeous and glittering raiment of the courtly

Persian, the voluptuous Turk, or the luxurious Indian, to the simple,

unattractive, yet exquisitely wrought garment made by the Californian

from the entrails of the whale: a range wide as the Antipodes asunder

in every point except one! that is--the equal though very differently

displayed skill, ingenuity, and industry of the needlewoman in almost

every corner of the hearth from the burning equator to the freezing

Pole. This we must now pass.

Finally,--feeling as we do that though ornamental needlework may be a

charming occupation for those ladies whose happy lot relieves them

from the necessity of "darning hose" and "mending nightcaps," yet that

a proficiency in plain sewing is the very life and being of the

comfort and respectability of the poor man's wife,--we cannot close

this book without one earnest remark on the systems of teaching

needlework now in use in the Central, National, and other schools for

the instruction of the poor. There, now, the art is reduced to regular

rule, taught by regular system; and there are books of instruction in

cutting, in shaping, in measuring,--one for the (late) Model School in

Dublin, and another, somewhat similar, for that in the Sanctuary,

Westminster, which would be a most valuable acquisition to the work

table of many a needle-loving and industrious lady of the most

respectable middle classes of society.

Any of our readers who have been accustomed, as we have, to see the

domestic hearths and homes of those who, brought up from infancy in

factories, have married young, borne large families, and perhaps

descended to the grave without ever having learned how to make a

petticoat for themselves, or even a cap for their children,--any who

know the reality of this picture, and have seen the misery consequent

on it, will join us cordially in expressing the earnest and heartfelt

hope that the extension of mental tuition amongst the lower classes

may not supersede, in the smallest iota, that instruction and PRACTICE

in sewing which next, the very next, to the knowledge of their

catechism, is of vital importance to the future well-doing of girls

in the lower stations of life.[132]

* * * * *

And now my task is finished; and to you, my kind readers, who have had

the courtesy to accompany me thus far, I would fain offer a few words

of thanks, of farewell, and, if need be, of apology.

This is, I believe, the first history of needlework ever published. I

have met with no other; I have heard of no other; and I have

experienced no trifling difficulties in obtaining material for this. I

have spared no labour, no exertions, no research. I have toiled

through many hundreds of volumes for the chance of finding even a line

adaptable to my purpose: sometimes I have met with this trifling

success, oftener not.

I do not mention these circumstances with any view to exaggerate my

own exertions, but merely to convince those ladies, who having read

the book, may feel dissatisfied with the amount of information

contained therein, that really no superabundance of material exists.

The subject has in all ages been deemed too trifling to obtain more

than a passing notice from the historical pen. To myself, my exertions

have brought their own "exceeding rich reward;" for if perchance they

were at times productive of fatigue, they yet have winged the flight

of many lonely hours which might otherwise have induced weariness or

even despondency in their lagging transit.

To you, my countrywomen, I offer the book, not as what it _might_ be,

but as the best which, under all circumstances, I could now produce.

The triumphant general is oftentimes deeply indebted for success to

the humble but industrious pioneer; and those who may hereafter pursue

this subject with loftier aims, with more abundant leisure and greater

facilities of research, may not disdain to tread the path which I have

indicated. I offer to you my book in the hope that it will cause

amusement to some, gratification perhaps of a higher order to others,

and offence--as I trust and believe--to none.

FOOTNOTES:

[131] Some account of London.--1793.

[132] It cannot be too generally known that within late years schools

have been attached to the factories, where, for a fixed and certain

proportion of their time, girls are instructed in sewing and reading.

THE END.

London: Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street.

Transcriber's Note

Archaic and variable spelling is preserved as printed. Minor

punctuation errors have been repaired.

Hyphenation and use of accents have been made consistent in the main

text where there was a prevalence of one form over another. However,

inconsistencies are preserved as printed where material originates

from different authors.

The title page contains the word 'needle-work.' The author's text, and

a repeat of the title, uses 'needlework'. This has been preserved as

printed.

The following items were found:

Page viii--the page number for the chapter titled "The

Needle" was omitted from the table of contents.

Reference to the text shows it to be page 252, and this

has been added in the appropriate place.

Page 93--there is some obscured text at the end of the

page. Given the context and the amount of space, it seems

reasonable to assume that the missing words are 'he is'

and these have been added in this etext.

Page 123, third footnote--mentions the word Alner, but

doesn't define it. "An Illustrated Dictionary of Words

Used in Art and Archaeology" by J. W. Mollett defines it

as: "Aulmoniere. The Norman name for the pouch, bag, or

purse appended to the girdle of noble persons, and

derived from the same root as 'alms' and 'almoner'. It

was more or less ornamented and hung from long laces of

silk or gold; it was sometimes called Alner." The

transcriber has added 'pouch, bag or purse' as a

definition.

Page 129--There is an obscured word in the line, "With

steven f-ll- stoute". Comparison with other sources of

the same verse show the word to be fulle, which has been

used in this etext.

Page 175--the footnote marker in the text was missing.

The transcriber has checked the referenced text, and

inserted a marker in what appears to be the correct

place.

Page 257--the speaker of the line "Her neele" was

obscured. It appears that the speaker should be Tib, and

this has been inserted.

The following amendments have been made:

Page 2--certain amended to certains and meurissent

amended to murissent--"... et comme on voit a certains

arbres des fruits qui ne murissent jamais; ..."

Page 27--footsep amended to footstep--"Each accidental

passer hushed his footstep ..."

Page 42--le amended to la--"Suivant la difference des

etats, elles apprennent a lire, ..."

Page 42--elle amended to elles--"... mais elles insistent

beaucoup plus sur la necessite

..."

Page 83--supurb amended to superb--"... seated on a

superb throne, and crowned with the papal tiara."

Page 99, footnote--lvo. amended to vol.--"Archaeologia,

vol. xix."

Page 119--manngement amended to management--"... for on

her wise and prudent management depended not merely the

comfort, ..."

Page 134--macheloires amended to machoires--"... car si

tant ne fait que j'aye la barbe & les dents machoires

sans aucune tromperie ne mensonge, ..."

Page 155--sixteeenth amended to sixteenth--"In the

sixteenth century[79] a sort of hanging was introduced,

..."

Page 175--repeated 'to' deleted--"So she went to bed,

and in the morning she was found stone dead."

Page 175--renowed amended to renowned--"Help me, shades

of renowned slaughterers, whilst I record his

achievements!"

Page 184--Frence amended to French--"At Durham Place

were the Citie of Ladies (a French allegorical Romance);

..."

Page 199--Britions amended to Britons--"... and, as

supposed, of the ancient Britons."

Page 200--eylet-holes amended to eyelet-holes--"... full

of small eyelet-holes, as thickly as they could be put,

..."

Page 207--His amended to Hir--"Hir hat suld be of fair

having ..."

Page 213--meurs amended to moeurs--"... nous n'aurions

que le mepris qu'on a pour les gens sans moeurs, ..."

Page 214--magnificience amended to magnificence--"...

lasting for thrift; and rich for magnificence."

Page 216--marshelling amended to marshalling--"... using

more time in dressing than Caesar took in marshalling his

army, ..."

Page 229--Permittez amended to Permettez--"Permettez que

je vous fasse l'observation, ..."

Page 234--bouyant amended to buoyant--"... so much was

it elevated then by buoyant good humour ..."

Page 242--wtth amended to with--"... mingled with mule

drivers, lacqueys, and peasants, ..."

Page 254--chandellier amended to chandelier--"... de

brodeur, de tapissier, de chandelier, d'emballeur; ..."

Page 261--finalment amended to finalmente--"... et

finalmente far tutte quelle gentillezze et lodevili

opere, ..."

Page 262--repeated 'of' deleted--"It is dedicated to the

Queen of France, ..."

Page 264--Damoiselles amended to Damoyselles--"Aux Dames

et Damoyselles."

Page 266--Baccus amended to Bacchus--"Ce Bacchus

representant l'Autonne."

Page 267--delli amended to delle--"Corona delle Nobili

et virtuose Donne, ..."

Page 267--Mayzette amended to Mazzette--"E molto delle

quali Mostre possono servire ancora per opere a

Mazzette."

Page 269--logg amended to long--"So long as hemp of

flax, or sheep shall bear ..."

Page 273, footnote--al amended to ad--"... e per far

disegni ad altrui o dar gl'indirizzo ..."

Page 273, footnote--della dita amended to delle

dita--"... degli narici, della bocca, delle dita

corrispondono a' primi moti d'ogni passione; ..."

Page 273, footnote--del amended to dal--"... e cio ch'e

piu, essi variano in cento modi senza uscir mai dal

naturale, ..."

Page 273, footnote--ridusce amended to ridusse--"...

tutte comprese con la divinita del suo ingegno, tutto

ridusse piu bello."

Page 276--privat eapartments amended to private

apartments--"These are preserved in one of the private

apartments of the Vatican palace."

Page 307--Closely amended to closely--"... the Spanish

Armada up the channel, closely followed by the English,

..."

Page 331--morte amended to mort--"Prise dans la tente de

Charles le Temeraire, lors de la mort de ce prince, ..."

Page 332--interressant amended to interessant--"... plus

interessant pour les arts, et plus digne d'etre

reproduit par la gravure."

Page 334--destinee amended to destine--"Robert fut

destine de bonne heure aux fonctions du sacerdoce."

Page 335--jusque-la converts amended to jusqu'a-la

couverts--"... il planta la croix du Sauveur dans les

lieux jusqu'a-la couverts de forets et de bruyeres

incultes, ..."

Page 336--emaillees amended to emailles, and

ruisselantes amended to ruisselants--"... les

colonnettes sont emailles, ruisselants de milliers de

pierres fines et de perles, ..."

Page 363--libaries amended to libraries--"... and the

principal public libraries in England."

Page 369--illuminaitng amended to illuminating--"When

the art of illuminating still more failed, ..."

Page 398--scarely amended to scarcely--"... scarcely

one-half are moderately good; ..."

The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages, 3rd ed. Including Some Notices of the Ancient Historical Tapestries · 第 30 / 30 章

The skill of the eastern embroiderer has always had a wide field for