SAMPLERS
Before the age of machine-made things, and of attire much more
conventional than in many of the earlier periods, there was, of course,
great need of skilled needlewomen, not only professionally but at home
as well, for it was in the home that most of the “finery” of our
forefathers originated. Stubbes’s “Anatomy of Abuses,” which appeared in
1583, tells of the raiment of the men of the author’s time who were
“decked out in the fineries even to their shirts, which are wrought with
needlework of silks,” etc. The good Stubbes also complains that it was
difficult to tell who were gentlefolk, because all men of that time
affected silks, velvets, “taffeties,” and the like, regardless of
station. Thus we may see how important it was that the little misses of
the days of long ago should be taught stitchery at the early age of nine
or ten years.
Samplers are among the most intimate of collectable old things.
...Bookless and pictureless
Save the inevitable sampler hung
Over the fireplace.
How patiently the little fingers toiled over these records of their
wonderful (even if enforced) application! Truly, samplers are the
needle-craft primers of yesterday. We have only to recall an old English
play, “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” probably the very first of the earlier
English folk comedies, to understand the great importance attached to
the needle. This play, written about 1560 (and attributed to John Still,
Bishop of Wells, and formerly Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge,
where it was first produced) shows how, during the period of its
conception, a steel needle was treasured as few family treasures of
to-day, and so when Gammer Gurton lost hers--the only one she
possessed--the misfortune took on the importance of genuine calamity. As
collectors of samplers and writers on the subject of samplers have been
baffled in trying to discover why no samplers dated or positively known
to have been worked before the middle of the eighteenth century are
extant, this clue to the probable reason which we find in “Gammer
Gurton’s Needle” is of interest; the fact is that as needles were so
uncommon and such treasured possessions they were not to be entrusted
to tiny fingers. Later, when invention turned its attention to
needle-making, needles became common enough. I imagine many a little
girl of the eighteenth century wished that needles had never been
“born”!
Very fine samplers containing both names and dates prior to 1800 are not
to be found at every turn. Notwithstanding this, the sampler-collector
need anticipate no discouraging difficulty in getting together examples
for a fairly representative collection. It is only in comparatively
recent years that we have discovered the value of old samplers as
excellent decorative accessories on the walls of a room in which old
pieces of furniture are placed. Samplers may be mounted and framed for
hanging on a wall as a picture might be, and I know of few objects in
the line of antiques that seem so appropriate for use in this manner for
adorning the walls of a bedchamber.
While it is not always an easy matter to assign undated samplers to
their exact periods, approximate dates may without great trouble be
determined. Naturally, the earliest examples were more utilitarian than
ornamental in conception, more like a mere example of stitchery of
various sorts--a leaf from the scrap-book of needlework, as it were.
Later, pattern and design and pictorial composition were evolved.
Likewise, the earlier samplers seem to have been longer and narrower in
proportion than later ones. Threads of gold and silver are to be found
in needle-work of the Elizabethan and the Jacobean period, where we
should not look for them in the Georgian. Again, there are
characteristics of pattern that clearly denote the embroiderer’s time.
The design of the letters of the alphabet embroidered on a sampler also
forms a clue, inasmuch as it shares in common with contemporary dated,
printed, and engraved lettering the more distinctive period
characteristics of the latter. The earliest date of an alphabet sampler
is, I believe, 1643; of a sampler with a motto, 1651; of a sampler
having a border, 1726; of a representation of a house, 1763; of
numerals, 1655; of a verse, 1696; 1728 has been suggested as the
approximate date of the introduction of mustard-colored canvases on
which the samplers were worked.
“Sad sewers made bad samplers,” said Lord de Tabley in “The Soldier of
Fortune,” but the wonder is that the little fingers of yesterday should
have acquired skill not only in one sort of embroidery but in the varied
stitches often seen in a single sampler remarkable for its perfect and
exquisite handiwork. One is almost aghast, for instance, at the task
suggested by John Taylor’s “The Needles Excellency,” where one reads:
Tent-worke, Raised-worke, Laid-worke, Frost-worke, Net-worke,
Most curious purles or rare Italian Cut-worke,
Fine Ferne-stitch, Finny-stitch, Hew-stitch and China-stitch,
Brave Bred-stitch, Fisher-stitch, Irish-stitch and Queen-stitch,
The Spanish-stitch, Rosemary-stitch and Morose-stitch,
The Smarting Whip-stitch, Back-stitch and the Cross-stitch.
All these are good and these we must allow,
And these are everywhere in practice now.
With the infinitude of stitches it is not necessary here to be
concerned, although the enthusiast in sampler-collecting will find the
study of stitches helpful just as the expert will find it highly
necessary. As there is much confusion in the nomenclature, there will be
many stumbling-blocks, but the pursuit will be worth while. The earliest
seventeenth-century samplers of lace-like appearance were worked in
cut-and-drawn embroidery, with various additional lace stitches. Then
there was the eyelet-stitch, damask-stitch, the backstitch (these three
were used for alphabets), darning-stitches, tent-stitches, and
tapestry-stitch (unusual) and so on.
The foundation of early samplers was the hand-woven linen, either
unbleached or bleached. Sometimes this was almost as coarse as canvas
and again of closely woven texture. Linen thread or silk (somewhat
loosely twisted) was employed for the stitchery. The harsh yellow linen
of early eighteenth-century samplers came into vogue toward the end of
the first quarter of the century, but was soon discarded. Unfortunately,
tannery cloth was much in vogue at the end of the eighteenth century.
This unattractive material seemed especially devised to satiate the
appetites of moths! Most of the tannery-cloth samplers are worked in
silk. The muslin-like tiffany cloth was occasionally used before 1800
for small and fine samplers. Later the coarse linens came into fashion.
The crudely dyed threads marked the decline of the sampler from about
1800. Then cotton canvas and Berlin wool completed the fall of this one
of the gentlest arts.
The early American samplers had, of course, their ancestry and
inspiration in English samplers, with which I think they vie in interest
and attractiveness. Surely there could be no more delightful wall
decoration for a colonial house than one of the early American samplers!
These are less commonly found than English samplers and American
collectors naturally give them preference.
That the little misses of olden times managed at so tender an age to
produce such handiwork seems almost amazing. Little girls of five and
six years achieved marvels in sampler stitchery as extant examples
abundantly proves.
Poetry and samplers seem to have been good friends. In the second scene
of the third act of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and in the fourth scene
of the second act of “Titus Andronicus,” Shakspere alludes to samplers.
So does Milton in “Comus,” and Sir Philip Sidney in “Arcadia.” If those
blest bards could but scan the verse of some of the sampler-makers! Here
is one which, in its way, is a gem typical of task and talent:
Sarah Bonney is
My Name, England is
My Nation; See How Good
My Parents is to Give
Me Education
There is rhyming for you! And may we not imagine that beneath those
sentiments lurked a fine humor?