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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest
+Ages, 3rd ed., by Elizabeth Stone
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages, 3rd ed.
+       Including Some Notices of the Ancient Historical Tapestries
+
+Author: Elizabeth Stone
+
+Editor: Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton Wilton
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2010 [EBook #31714]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART OF NEEDLE-WORK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller, Sam W. and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+Words in {curly brackets} were abbreviated in the original text, and
+have been expanded for this etext. Greek is indicated with plus
+symbols, +like this+.
+
+
+
+
+             THE ART
+                OF
+           NEEDLE-WORK,
+     FROM THE EARLIEST AGES;
+
+            INCLUDING
+       SOME NOTICES OF THE
+  ANCIENT HISTORICAL TAPESTRIES
+
+
+            EDITED BY
+       THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
+     THE COUNTESS OF WILTON.
+
+
+  "I WRITE THE NEEDLE'S PRAYSE."
+
+         _THIRD EDITION._
+
+
+             LONDON:
+    HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
+    GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
+              1841.
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+
+    HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY
+
+    THE QUEEN DOWAGER
+
+    THIS LITTLE WORK,
+
+    INTENDED TO ILLUSTRATE THE HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF AN ART
+    ENNOBLED BY HER MAJESTY'S PRACTICE, AND BY HER EXAMPLE
+    RECOMMENDED TO THE
+
+    WOMEN OF ENGLAND,
+
+    IS,
+    BY HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS PERMISSION,
+
+    INSCRIBED,
+
+    WITH THE UTMOST RESPECT,
+    BY HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRATEFUL
+    AND MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,
+
+                        THE AUTHORESS.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+If there be one mechanical art of more universal application than all
+others, and therefore of more universal interest, it is that which is
+practised with the NEEDLE. From the stateliest denizen of the proudest
+palace, to the humblest dweller in the poorest cottage, all more or
+less ply the busy needle; from the crying infant of a span long and an
+hour's life, to the silent tenant of "the narrow house," all need its
+practical services.
+
+Yet have the NEEDLE and its beautiful and useful creations hitherto
+remained without their due meed of praise and record, either in sober
+prose or sounding rhyme,--while their glittering antithesis, the
+scathing and destroying sword, has been the theme of admiring and
+exulting record, without limit and without end!
+
+The progress of real civilization is rapidly putting an end to this
+false _prestige_ in favour of the "Destructive" weapon, and as rapidly
+raising the "Conservative" one in public estimation; and the time
+seems at length arrived when that triumph of female ingenuity and
+industry, "THE ART OF NEEDLEWORK" may be treated as a fitting subject
+of historical and social record--fitting at least for a female hand.
+
+The chief aim of this volume is that of affording a comprehensive
+record of the most noticeable facts, and an entertaining and
+instructive gathering together of the most curious and pleasing
+associations, connected with "THE ART OF NEEDLEWORK," from the
+earliest ages to the present day; avoiding entirely the dry
+technicalities of the art, yet furnishing an acceptable accessory to
+every work-table--a fitting tenant of every boudoir.
+
+The Authoress thinks thus much necessary in explanation of the objects
+of a work on what may be called a maiden topic, and she trusts that
+that leniency in criticism which is usually accorded to the adventurer
+on an unexplored track will not be withheld from her.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    CHAPTER I.
+                                                        Page
+      Introductory                                         1
+
+    CHAPTER II.
+
+      Early Needlework                                    11
+
+    CHAPTER III.
+
+      Needlework of the Tabernacle                        23
+
+    CHAPTER IV.
+
+      Needlework of the Egyptians                         32
+
+    CHAPTER V.
+
+      Needlework of the Greeks and Romans                 41
+
+    CHAPTER VI.
+
+      The Dark Ages.--"Shee-Schools"                      56
+
+    CHAPTER VII.
+
+      Needlework of the Dark Ages                         64
+
+    CHAPTER VIII.
+
+      The Bayeux Tapestry.--Part I.                       84
+
+    CHAPTER IX.
+
+      The Bayeux Tapestry.--Part II.                     103
+
+    CHAPTER X.
+
+      Needlework of the Times of Romance and Chivalry    117
+
+    CHAPTER XI.
+
+      Tapestry                                           148
+
+    CHAPTER XII.
+
+      Romances worked in Tapestry                        165
+
+    CHAPTER XIII.
+
+      Needlework in Costume.--Part I.                    186
+
+    CHAPTER XIV.
+
+      Needlework in Costume.--Part II.                   209
+
+    CHAPTER XV.
+
+      "The Field of the Cloth of Gold"                   231
+
+    CHAPTER XVI.
+
+      The Needle                                         252
+
+    CHAPTER XVII.
+
+      Tapestry from the Cartoons                         273
+
+    CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+      The Days of "Good Queen Bess"                      282
+
+    CHAPTER XIX.
+
+      The Tapestry of the Spanish Armada; better
+        known as the Tapestry of the House of Lords      301
+
+    CHAPTER XX.
+
+      On Stitchery                                       312
+
+    CHAPTER XXI.
+
+      "Les Anciennes Tapisseries." Tapestry of St.
+        Mary Hall, Coventry. Tapestry of Hampton Court   329
+
+    CHAPTER XXII.
+
+      Embroidery                                         342
+
+    CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+      Needlework on Books                                355
+
+    CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+      Needlework of Royal Ladies                         374
+
+    CHAPTER XXV.
+
+      Modern Needlework                                  395
+
+
+
+
+THE ART
+
+OF
+
+NEEDLEWORK.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+    "Le donne son venute in eccellenza
+    Di ciascun'arte, ove hanno posto cura;
+    E qualunque all'istorie abbia avvertenza,
+    Ne sente ancor la fama non oscura.
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+    E forse ascosi han lor debiti onori
+    L'invidia, o il non saper degli scrittori."
+
+                        Ariosto.
+
+
+In all ages woman may lament the ungallant silence of the historian.
+His pen is the record of sterner actions than are usually the vocation
+of the gentler sex, and it is only when fair individuals have been by
+extraneous circumstances thrown out, as it were, on the canvas of
+human affairs--when they have been forced into a publicity little
+consistent with their natural sphere--that they have become his theme.
+Consequently those domestic virtues which are woman's greatest pride,
+those retiring characteristics which are her most becoming ornament,
+those gentle occupations which are her best employment, find no record
+on pages whose chief aim and end is the blazoning of manly heroism, of
+royal disputations, or of trumpet-stirring records. And if this is the
+case even with historians of enlightened times, who have the gallantry
+to allow woman to be a component part of creation, we can hardly
+wonder that in darker days she should be utterly and entirely
+overlooked.
+
+Mohammed asserted that women had no souls; and moreover, that, setting
+aside the "diviner part," there had only existed _four_ of whom the
+mundane qualifications entitled them to any degree of approbation.
+Before him, Aristotle had asserted that Nature only formed women when
+and because she found that the imperfection of matter did not permit
+her to carry on the world without them.
+
+This complimentary doctrine has not wanted supporters. "Des hommes
+très sages ont écrit que la Nature, dont l'intention et le dessein est
+toujours de tendre à la perfection, ne produirait s'il était possible,
+jamais que des hommes, et que quand il naît une femme c'est un monstre
+dans l'ordre de ses productions, né expressément contre sa volonté:
+ils ajoutent, que, comme on voit naître un homme aveugle, boiteux, ou
+avec quelqu'autre défaut nature; et comme on voit à certains arbres
+des fruits qui ne mûrissent jamais; ainsi l'on peut dire que la femme
+est un animal produit par accident et par le hasard."[1]
+
+Without touching upon this extreme assertion that woman is but "un
+monstre," an animal produced by chance, we may observe briefly, that
+women have ever, with some few exceptions,[2] been considered as a
+degraded and humiliated race, until the promulgation of the Christian
+religion elevated them in society: and that this distinction still
+exists is evident from the difference at this moment exhibited between
+the countries professing Mohammedanism and those professing
+Christianity.
+
+Still, though in our happy country it is now pretty generally allowed
+that women are "des créatures humaines," it is no new remark that they
+are comparatively lightly thought of by the "nobler" gender. This is
+absolutely the case even in those countries where civilization and
+refinement have elevated the sex to a higher grade in society than
+they ever before reached. Women are courted, flattered, caressed,
+extolled; but still the difference is there, and the "lords of the
+creation" take care that it shall be understood. Their own
+pursuits--public, are the theme of the historian--private, of the
+biographer; nay, the every-day circumstances of life--their
+dinners--their speeches--their toasts--and their _post coenam_
+eloquence, are noted down for immortality: whilst a woman with as much
+sense, with more eloquence, with lofty principles, enthusiastic
+feelings, and pure conduct--with sterling virtue to command respect,
+and the self-denying conduct of a martyr--steals noiselessly through
+her appointed path in life; and if she excite a passing comment during
+her pilgrimage, is quickly lost in oblivion when that pilgrimage hath
+reached its appointed goal.
+
+And this is but as it should be. Woe to that nation whose women, as a
+habit, as a custom, as a matter of course, seek to intrude on the
+attributes of the other sex, and in a vain, a foolish, and surely a
+most unsuccessful pursuit of publicity, or power, or fame, forget the
+distinguishing, the high, the noble, the lofty, the pure and
+_unearthly_ vocation of their sex. Every earthly charity, every
+unearthly virtue, are the legitimate object of woman's pursuit. It is
+hers to soothe pain, to alleviate suffering, to soften discord, to
+solace the time-worn spirit on earth, to train the youthful one for
+heaven. Such is woman's magnificent vocation; and in the peaceful
+discharge of such duties as these she may be content to steal
+noiselessly on to her appointed bourne, "the world forgetting, by the
+world forgot."
+
+But these splendid results are not the effect of great exertions--of
+sudden, and uncertain, and enthusiastic efforts. They are the effect
+of a course, of a system of minor actions and of occupations,
+_individually_ insignificant in their appearance, and noiseless in
+their approach. They are like "the gentle dew from heaven" in their
+silent unnoted progress, and, like that, are known only by their
+blessed results.
+
+They involve a routine of minor duties which often appear, at first
+view, little if at all connected with such mighty ends. But such an
+inference would lead to a false conclusion. It is entirely of
+insignificant details that the sum of human life is made up; and any
+one of those details, how insignificant soever _apparently_ in itself,
+as a link in the chain of human life is of _definite_ relative value.
+The preparing of a spoonful of gruel may seem a very insignificant
+matter; yet who that stands by the sick-bed of one near and dear to
+him, and sees the fevered palate relieved, the exhausted frame
+refreshed by it, but will bless the hand that made it? It is not the
+independent intrinsic worth of each isolated action of woman which
+stamps its value--it is their bearing and effect on the mass. It is
+the daily and hourly accumulation of minute particles which form the
+vast amount.
+
+And if we look for that feminine employment which adds most absolutely
+to the comforts and the elegancies of life, to what other shall we
+refer than to NEEDLEWORK? The hemming of a pocket-handkerchief is a
+trivial thing in itself, yet it is a branch of an art which furnishes
+a useful, a graceful, and an agreeable occupation to one-half of the
+human race, and adds very materially to the comforts of the other
+half.
+
+How sings our own especial Bard?--
+
+    "So long as garments shall be made or worne;
+    So long as hemp, or flax, or sheep shall bear
+    Their linnen wollen fleeces yeare by yeare;
+    So long as silkwormes, with exhausted spoile
+    Of their own entrailes, for mans gaine shall toyle:
+    Yea, till the world be quite dissolv'd and past,
+    So long, at least, the NEEDLE'S use shall last."
+
+'Tis true, indeed, that as far as _necessity_, rigidly speaking, is
+concerned, a very small portion of needlework would suffice; but it is
+also true that the very signification of the word necessity is lost,
+buried amidst the accumulations of ages. We talk habitually of _mere
+necessaries_, but the fact is, that we have hardly an idea of what
+merely necessities are.
+
+St. Paul, the hermit, when abiding in the wilderness, might be reduced
+to necessities; and in that noble and exalted instance of high
+principle referred to by Mr. Wesley,[3] where a person unknown to
+others, seeking no praise, and looking to no reward but the
+applaudings of his own conscience, bought a pennyworth of parsnips
+weekly, and on them, and them alone, with the water in which they were
+boiled, lived, that he might save money to pay his debts.--Surely a
+man of such incorruptible integrity as this would spend nothing
+intentionally in superfluities of dress--and yet, mark how many he
+would have. His shirt would be "curiously wrought," his neckcloth
+neatly hemmed; his coat and waistcoat and trousers would have
+undergone the usual mysteries of shaping and seaming; his hat would be
+neatly bound round the edge; his stockings woven or knitted; his
+shoes soled and stitched and tied; neither must we debar him a
+pocket-handkerchief and a pair of gloves. And see what this man--as
+great, nay, a greater anchoret in his way than St. Paul, for he had
+the world and its temptations all around, while the saint had fled
+from both--yet see what _he_ thought absolutely requisite in lieu of
+the sheepskin which was St. Paul's wardrobe. See what was required "to
+cover and keep warm" in the eighteenth century,--nay, not even to
+"keep warm," for we did not allow either great-coat or comforter. See
+then what was required merely to "cover," and then say whether the art
+of needlework is a trivial one.
+
+Could we, as in days of yore, when sylphs and fairies deigned to
+mingle with mortals, and shed their gracious influence on the scenes
+and actions of every-day life--could we, by some potent spell or by
+some fitting oblation, propitiate the Genius of Needlework, induce her
+to descend from her hidden shrine, and indulge her votaries with a
+glimpse of her radiant SELF--what a host of varied reminiscences would
+that glimpse conjure up in our minds, as--
+
+    "----guided by historic truth,
+    We _trod_ the long extent of backward time!"
+
+SHE was twin born with necessity, the first necessity the world had
+ever known, but she quickly left this stern and unattractive
+companion, and followed many leaders in her wide and varied range. She
+became the handmaiden of Fancy; she adorned the train of Magnificence;
+she waited upon Pomp; she decorated Religion; she obeyed Charity; she
+served Utility; she aided Pleasure; she pranked out Fun; and she
+mingled with all and every circumstance of life.
+
+Many changes and chances has it been her lot to behold. At one time
+honoured and courted, she was the acknowledged and cherished guest of
+the royal and noble. Then in gorgeous drapery, begemmed with
+brilliants, bedropped with gold, she reigned supreme in hall and
+palace; or in silken tissue girt she adorned the high-born maiden's
+bower what time the "deeds of knighthood" were "in solemn canto" told.
+In still more rich array, in kingly purple, in regal tissue, in royal
+magnificence, she stood within the altar's sacred pale; and her robes,
+rich in Tyrian dye, and glittering with Ophir's gold, swept the
+hallowed pavement. When battle aroused the land she inspirited the
+host. When the banner was unfurled she pointed to the device which
+sent its message home to every heart; she displayed the cipher on the
+hero's pennon which nerved him sooner to relinquish life than it; she
+entwined those initials in the scarf, the sight of which struck fresh
+ardour into his breast.
+
+But she fell into disrepute, and was rejected from the halls of the
+noble. Still was she ever busy, ever occupied, and not only were her
+services freely given to all who required them, but given with such
+winning grace that she required but to be once known to be ever
+loved--so exquisitely did she adapt herself to the peculiarities of
+all.
+
+With flowing ringlets and silken robe, carolling gaily as she worked,
+you would see her pinking the ruffles of the Cavalier, and ever and
+anon adding to their piquancy by some new and dainty device: then you
+would behold her with smoothly plaited hair, and sad-coloured garment
+of serge, and looks like a November day, hemming the bands of a
+Roundhead, and withal adding numerous layers of starch. With grave and
+sedate aspect she would shape and sew the uncomely raiment of a
+Genevan divine; with neat-handed alacrity she would prepare the grave
+and becoming garments of the Anglican Church, though perhaps a gentle
+sigh would escape, a sigh of regret for the stately and glowing
+vestments of old: for they did honour to the house of God, not because
+they were stately and glowing, but because they were offerings of _our
+best_.
+
+In all the sweet charities of domestic life she has ever been a
+participant. Often and again has she fled the splendid court, the
+glittering ball-room, and taken her station at the quiet hearth of the
+gentle and home-loving matron. She has lightened the weariness of many
+a solitary vigil, and she has heightened the enjoyment of many a
+social gossip.
+
+Nor even while courted and caressed in courts and palaces did
+Needlework absent herself from the habitations of the poor. Oh no, she
+was their familiar friend, the daily and hourly companion of their
+firesides. And when she experienced, as all do experience, the
+fickleness of court favour, she was cherished and sheltered there. And
+there she remained, happy in her utility, till again summoned by royal
+mandate to resume her station near the throne. The illustrious and
+excellent lady who lately filled the British throne, and who reigned
+still more surely in the hearts of Englishwomen, and who has most
+graciously permitted us to place her honoured name on these pages,
+allured Needlework from her long seclusion, and reinstated her in her
+once familiar place among the great and noble.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fair reader! you see that this gentle dame NEEDLEWORK is of ancient
+lineage, of high descent, of courtly habits: will you not permit me to
+make you somewhat better acquainted? Pray travel onward with me to her
+shrine. The way is not toilsome, nor is the track rugged; but,
+
+    "Where the silver fountains wander,
+    Where the golden streams meander,"
+
+amid the sunny meads and flower-bestrewn paths of fancy and
+taste--there will she beguile us. Do not then, pray do not, forsake
+me.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] On aurait de la peine à se persuader qu'une pareille opinion eût
+été mise gravement en question dans un concile, et qu'on n'eût décidé
+en faveur des femmes qu'après un assez long examen. Cependant le fait
+est très véritable, et ce fut dans le Concile de Macon.
+
+    Problème sur les Femmes, où l'on essaye de prouver que
+    les femmes ne sont point des créatures
+    humaines.--_Amsterdam, 1744._
+
+[2] As, for instance, the ancient Germans, and their offshoots, the
+Saxons, &c.
+
+[3] Southey's Life; vol. ii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+EARLY NEEDLEWORK.
+
+    "The use of sewing is exceeding old,
+    As in the sacred text it is enrold:
+    Our parents first in Paradise began."
+
+                        John Taylor.
+
+    "The rose was in rich bloom on Sharon's plain,
+    When a young mother, with her first-born, thence
+    Went up to Sion; for the boy was vow'd
+    Unto the Temple service. By the hand
+    She led him; and her silent soul the while,
+    Oft as the dewy laughter of his eye
+    Met her sweet serious glance, rejoic'd to think
+    That aught so pure, so beautiful, was hers,
+    To bring before her God."
+
+                        Hemans.
+
+
+In speaking of the origin of needlework it will be necessary to define
+accurately what we mean by the term "needlework;" or else, when we
+assert that Eve was the first sempstress, we may be taken to task by
+some critical antiquarian, because we may not be able precisely to
+prove that the frail and beautiful mother of mankind made use of a
+little weapon of polished steel, finely pointed at one end and bored
+at the other, and "warranted not to cut in the eye." Assuredly we do
+not mean to assert that she did use such an instrument; most
+probably--we would _almost_ venture to say most _certainly_--she did
+not. But then again the cynical critic would attack us:--"You say that
+Eve was the first professor of _needle_work, and yet you disclaim the
+use of a needle for her."
+
+No, good sir, we do not. Like other profound investigators and
+original commentators, we do not annihilate one hypothesis ere we are
+prepared with another, "ready cut and dried," to rise, like any fabled
+phoenix, on the ashes of its predecessor. It is not long since we were
+edified by a conversation which we heard, or rather overheard, between
+two sexagenarians--both well versed in antiquarian lore, and neither
+of them deficient in antiquarian tenacity of opinion--respecting some
+theory which one of them wanted to establish about some aborigines.
+The concluding remark of the conversation--and we opined that it might
+as well have formed the commencement--was--
+
+"If you want to lay down _facts_, you must follow history; if you want
+to establish a system, it is quite easy to place the people where you
+like."
+
+So, if I wished to "establish a system," I could easily make Eve work
+with a "superfine drill-eyed needle:" but this is not my object.
+
+It seems most probable that Eve's first needle was a thorn:
+
+    "Before man's fall the rose was born,
+    St. Ambrose sayes, without the thorn;
+    But, for man's fault, then was the thorn,
+    Without the fragrant rosebud, born."
+
+Why thorns should spring up at the precise moment of the fall is
+difficult to account for in a world where everything has its use,
+except we suppose that they were meant for needles: and general
+analogy leads us to this conclusion; for in almost all existing
+records of people in what we are pleased to call a "savage" state, we
+find that women make use of this primitive instrument, or a fish-bone.
+"Avant l'invention des aiguilles d'acier, on a dû se servir, à leur
+défaut, d'épines, ou d'arêtes de poissons, ou d'os d'animaux." And as
+Eve's first specimen of needlework was certainly completed before the
+sacrifice of any living thing, we may safely infer that the latter
+implements were not familiar to her. The Cimbrian inhabitants of
+Britain passed their time in weaving baskets, or in sewing together
+for garments the skins of animals taken in the chase, while they used
+as needles for uniting these simple habiliments small bones of fish or
+animals rudely sharpened at one end; and needles just of the same sort
+were used by the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, when the
+celebrated Captain Cook first visited them.
+
+Proceed we to the material of the first needlework.
+
+"They sewed themselves fig-leaves together, and made themselves
+aprons."
+
+Thus the earliest historical record; and thus the most esteemed
+poetical commentator.
+
+                  "Those leaves
+    They gather'd, broad as Amazonian targe,
+    And, with what skill they had, together sew'd,
+    To gird their waist."
+
+It is supposed that the leaves alluded to here were those of the
+banian-tree, of which the leaves, says Sir James Forbes, are large,
+soft, and of a lively green; the fruit a small bright scarlet fig. The
+Hindoos are peculiarly fond of this tree; they consider its long
+duration, its outstretching arms, and overshadowing beneficence, as
+emblems of the Deity, and almost pay it divine honours. The Brahmins,
+who thus "find a fane in every sacred grove," spend much of their time
+in religious solitude, under the shade of the banian-tree; they plant
+it near the dewals, or Hindoo temples; and in those villages where
+there is no structure for public worship, they place an image under
+one of these trees, and there perform morning and evening sacrifice.
+The size of some of these trees is stupendous. Sir James Forbes
+mentions one which has three hundred and fifty _large_ trunks, the
+smaller ones exceeding three thousand; and another, whereunder the
+chief of the neighbourhood used to encamp in magnificent style; having
+a saloon, dining room, drawing-room, bedchambers, bath, kitchen, and
+every other accommodation, all in separate tents; yet did this noble
+tree cover the whole, together with his carriages, horses, camels,
+guards, and attendants; while its spreading branches afforded shady
+spots for the tents of his friends, with their servants and cattle.
+And in the march of an army it has been known to shelter seven
+thousand men.
+
+Such is the banian-tree, the pride of Hindûstan: which Milton refers
+to as the one which served "our general mother" for her first essay in
+the art of needlework.
+
+                "Both together went
+    Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose
+    The fig-tree; not that tree for fruit renown'd,
+    But such as at this day, to Indians known,
+    In Malabar or Deccan spreads her arms,
+    Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
+    The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
+    About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade
+    High overarch'd, and echoing walks between:
+    There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
+    Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
+    At loopholes cut through thickest shade: Those leaves
+    They gather'd, broad as Amazonian targe;
+    And, with what skill they had, together sew'd,
+    To gird their waist."
+
+Some of the most interesting incidents in Holy Writ turn on the
+occupation of needlework; slight sketches, nay, hardly so much, but
+mere touches which engage all the gentler, and purer, and holier
+emotions of our nature. For instance: the beloved child of the
+beautiful mother of Israel, for whom Jacob toiled fourteen years,
+which were but as one day for the love he bare her--this child, so
+eagerly coveted by his mother, so devotedly loved by his father, and
+who was destined hereafter to wield the destinies of such a mighty
+empire--had a token, a peculiar token, bestowed on him of his father's
+overwhelming love and affection. And what was it? "A coat of many
+colours;" probably including some not in general use, and obtained by
+an elaborate process. Entering himself into the minutiæ of a concern,
+which, however insignificant in itself, was valuable in his eyes as
+giving pleasure to his boy, the fond father selects pieces of
+various-coloured cloth, and sets female hands, the most expert of his
+household, to join them together in the form of a coat.
+
+But, alas! to whom should he intrust the task? She whose fingers
+would have revelled in it, Rachel the mother, was no more; her warm
+heart was cold, her busy fingers rested in the tomb. Would his sister,
+would Dinah execute the work? No; it was but too probable that she
+shared in the jealousy of her brothers. No matter. The father
+apportions the task to his handmaidens, and himself superintends the
+performance. With pleased eye he watches its progress, and with
+benignant smile he invests the happy and gratified child with the
+glowing raiment.
+
+This elaborate piece of work, the offering of paternal affection to
+please a darling child, was probably the simple and somewhat clumsy
+original of those which were afterwards embroidered and subsequently
+woven in various colours, and which came to be regarded as garments of
+dignity and appropriated to royalty; as it is said of Tamar that "she
+had a garment of divers colours upon her: for with such robes were the
+king's daughters that were virgins apparelled." It is even now
+customary in India to dress a favourite or beautiful child in a coat
+of various colours tastefully _sewed together_; and it may not perhaps
+be very absurd to refer even to so ancient an origin as Joseph's coat
+of many colours the superstition now prevalent in some countries,
+which teaches that a child clothed in a garment of many colours is
+safe from the blasting of malicious tongues or the machinations of
+evil spirits.
+
+In the Book of Samuel we read, "And Hannah his mother, made him a
+little coat." This seems a trivial incident enough, yet how
+interesting is the scene which this simple mention conjures up! With
+all the earnest fervour of that separated race who hoped each one to
+be the honoured instrument of bringing a Saviour into the world,
+Hannah, then childless, prayed that this reproach might be taken from
+her. Her prayer was heard, her son was born; and in holy gratitude she
+reared him, not for wealth, for fame, for worldly honour, or even for
+her own domestic comfort,--but, from his birth, and before his birth
+she devoted him as the servant of the Most High. She indulged herself
+with his presence only till her maternal cares had fitted him for
+duty; and then, with a tearful eye it might be, and a faltering
+footstep, but an unflinching resolution, she devoted him to the altar
+of her God.
+
+But never did his image leave her mind: never amid the fair scions
+which sprang up and bloomed around her hearth did her thoughts forsake
+her first-born; and yearly, when she went up to the Tabernacle with
+Elkanah her husband, did she take him "a little coat" which she had
+made. We may fancy her quiet happy thoughts when at this employment;
+we may fancy the eager earnest questionings of the little group by
+whom she was surrounded; the wondering about their absent brother; the
+anxious catechisings respecting his whereabouts; and, above all, the
+admiration of the new garment itself, and the earnest criticisms on
+it; especially if in form and fashion it should somewhat differ from
+their own. And then arrives the moment when the garment is committed
+to its envelope; and the mother, weeping to part from her little ones,
+yet longing to see her absent boy, receives their adieux and their
+thousand reminiscences, and sets forth on her journey.
+
+Again she treads the hallowed courts, again she meekly renews her
+vows, and again a mother's longings, a mother's hopes are quenched in
+the full enjoyment of a mother's love. Beautiful and good, the
+blessing of Heaven attending him, and throwing a beam of light on his
+fair brow, the pure and holy child appears like a seraph administering
+at that altar to which he had been consecrated a babe, and at which
+his ministry was sanctioned even by the voice of the Most High
+himself, when in the solemn stillness of midnight he breathed his
+wishes into the heart of the child, and made him, infant as he was,
+the medium of his communications to one grown hoary in the service of
+the altar.
+
+The solemn duties ended, Hannah invests her hopeful boy with the
+little coat, whilst her willing fingers lingeringly perform their
+office, as if loth to quit a task in which they so much delight. And
+then with meek step and grateful heart she wends her homeward way, and
+meditates tranquilly on the past interview, till the return of another
+year finds her again on her pilgrimage of love--the joyful bearer of
+another "little coat."
+
+And a high tribute is paid to needlework in the history of Dorcas, who
+was restored to life by the apostle St. Peter, by whom "all the widows
+stood weeping, and showing the coats and garments which Dorcas made
+while she was with them."
+
+        "In these were read
+    The monuments of Dorcas dead:
+    These were thy acts, and thou shalt have
+    These hung as honours o'er thy grave:
+    And after us, distressed,
+      Should fame be dumb,
+      Thy very tomb
+    Would cry out, Thou art blessed!"
+
+But it is not merely as an object of private and domestic utility that
+needlework is referred to in the Bible. It was applied early to the
+service of the Tabernacle, and the directions concerning it are very
+clear and specific; but before this time, and most probably as early
+as the time of Abraham, rich and valuable raiment of needlework was
+accounted of as part of the _bonâ fide_ property of a wealthy man.
+When the patriarch's steward sought Rebekah for the wife of Isaac, he
+"brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and _raiment_."
+This "raiment" consisted, in all likelihood, of garments embroidered
+with gold, the handiwork, it may be, of the female slaves of the
+patriarch; such garments being in very great esteem from the earliest
+ages, and being then, as now, a component portion of those presents or
+offerings without which one personage hardly thought of approaching
+another.
+
+Fashion in those days was not quite the chameleon-hued creature that
+she is at present; nor were the fabrics on which her fancy was
+displayed quite so light and airy: their gold _was_ gold--not silk
+covered with gilded silver; and consequently the raiment of those
+days, inwrought with slips of gold beaten thin and cut into spangles
+or strips, and sewed on in various patterns, sometimes intermingled
+with precious stones, would carry its own intrinsic value with it.
+
+This "raiment" descended from father to son, as a chased goblet and a
+massy wrought urn does now; and was naturally and necessarily
+inventoried as a portion of the property. The practice of making
+presents of garments is still quite usual amongst the eastern nations;
+and to such an excess was it carried with regard to those who, from
+their calling or any other circumstance, were in public favour, that,
+so late as the ninth century, Bokteri, an illustrious poet of Cufah,
+had so many presents made him, that at his death he was found
+possessed of a hundred complete suits of clothes, two hundred shirts,
+and five hundred turbans.
+
+Horace, speaking of Lucullus (who had pillaged Asia, and first
+introduced Asiatic[4] refinements among the Romans), says that, some
+persons having waited on him to request the loan of a hundred suits
+out of his wardrobe for the Roman stage, he exclaimed--"A hundred
+suits! how is it possible for me to furnish such a number? However, I
+will look over them and send you what I have."--After some time he
+writes a note and tells them he had _five thousand_, to the whole or
+part of which they were welcome.
+
+In all the eastern world formerly, and to a great extent now, the
+arraying a person in a rich dress is considered a very high
+compliment, and it was one of the ancient modes of investing with the
+highest degree of subordinate power. Thus was Joseph arrayed by
+Pharaoh, and Mordecai by Ahasueras.
+
+We all remember what important effects are produced by splendid robes
+in "The Tale of the Wonderful Lamp," and in many other of those
+fascinating tales (which are allowed to be rigidly correct in the
+delineations of eastern life). They were doubtless esteemed the
+richest part of the spoil after a battle, as we find the mother of
+Sisera apportioning them as his share, and reiterating her delighted
+anticipations of the "raiment of needlework" which should be his: "a
+prey of divers colours, of divers colours of needlework, of divers
+colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that
+take the spoil."
+
+Job has many allusions to raiment as an essential part of "treasures"
+in the East; and our Saviour refers to the same when he desires his
+hearers not to lay up for themselves "treasures" on earth, where
+_moth_ and rust corrupt. St. James even more explicitly: "Go to now,
+ye rich men; weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
+Your gold and silver is cankered, and your GARMENTS are moth-eaten."
+
+The first notice we have of gold-wire or thread being used in
+embroidery is in Exodus, in the directions given for the embroidery of
+the priests' garments: from this it appears that the metal was still
+used alone, being beaten fine and then rounded. This art the Hebrews
+probably learnt from the Egyptians, by whom it was carried to such an
+astonishing degree of nicety, that they could either weave it in or
+work it on their finest linen. And doubtless the productions of the
+Hebrews now must have equalled the most costly and intricate of those
+of Egypt. This the adornments of the Tabernacle testify.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[4] Persia had great wardrobes, where there were always many hundred
+habits, sorted, ready for presents, and the intendant of the wardrobe
+sent them to those persons for whom they were designed by the
+sovereign; more than forty tailors were always employed in this
+service. In Turkey they do not attend so much to the richness as to
+the number of the dresses, giving more or fewer according to the
+dignity of the persons to whom they are presented, or the marks of
+favour the prince would confer on his guests.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+NEEDLEWORK OF THE TABERNACLE.
+
+    "The cedars wave on Lebanon,
+    But Judah's statelier maids are gone."
+
+                        Byron.
+
+
+Gorgeous and magnificent must have been the spectacle presented by
+that ancient multitude of Israel, as they tabernacled in the
+wilderness of Sinai. These steril solitudes are now seldom trodden by
+the foot of man, and the adventurous traveller who toils up their
+rugged steeps can scarce picture to himself a host sojourning there,
+so wild, so barren is the place, so fearful are the precipices, so
+dismal the ravines. On the spot where "Moses talked with God" the grey
+and mouldering remnants of a convent attest the religious veneration
+and zeal of some of whom these ruins are the only memorial; and near
+them is a small chapel dedicated to the Virgin, while religious hands
+have crowned even the summit of the steep ascent by "a house of
+prayer;" and at the foot of the sister peak, Horeb, is an ancient
+Greek convent, founded by the Emperor Justinian 1400 years ago, which
+is occupied still by some harmless recluses, the monotony of whose
+lives is only broken by the few and far between visits of the
+adventurous traveller, or the more frequent and startling
+interruptions of the wild Arabs on their predatory expeditions.
+
+But neither church nor temple of any sort, nor inquiring traveller,
+nor prowling Arab, varied the tremendous grandeur of the scene, when
+the Israelitish host encamped there. Weary and toilsome had been the
+pilgrimage from the base of the mountain where the desolation was
+unrelieved by a trace of vegetation, to the upper country or
+wilderness, called more particularly, "the Desert of Sinai," where
+narrow intersecting valleys, not destitute of verdure, cherished
+perhaps the lofty and refreshing palm. Here in the ravines, in the
+valleys, and amid the clefts of the rocks, clustered the hosts of
+Israel, while around them on every side arose lofty summits and
+towering precipices, where the eye that sought to scan their fearful
+heights was lost in the far-off dimness. Far, far around, spread this
+savage wilderness, so frowning, and dreary, and desolate, that any
+curious explorer beyond the precincts of the camp would quickly return
+to the _home_ which its vicinity afforded even there.
+
+Clustered closely as bees in a hive were the tents of the wandering
+race, yet with an order and a uniformity which even the unpropitious
+nature of the locality was not permitted to break; for, separated into
+tribes, each one, though sufficiently connected for any object of
+kindness or brotherhood, for public worship, or social intercourse,
+was inalienably distinct.
+
+And in the midst, extending from east to west, a length of fifty-five
+feet, was reared the splendid Tabernacle. For God had said, "Let them
+make me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell among them;" and behold, "they
+came, both men and women, as many as were willing-hearted, and brought
+bracelets, and earrings, and rings, and tablets, all jewels of gold;
+and every man that offered, offered an offering of gold unto the Lord.
+And every man with whom was found blue, and purple, and scarlet, and
+fine linen, and goats' hair, and red skins of rams, and badgers'
+skins, brought them. Every one that did offer an offering of silver
+and brass brought the Lord's offering: and every man with whom was
+found shittim-wood for any work of the service brought it. And all the
+women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought
+that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet,
+and of fine linen. And all the women whose hearts stirred them up in
+wisdom spun goats' hair. And the rulers brought onyx-stones, and
+stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate; and spice,
+and oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the sweet
+incense."
+
+And all these materials, which the "willing-hearted" offered in such
+abundance that proclamation was obliged to be made through the camp to
+stop their influx, had been wrought under the superintendence of
+Bezaleel and Aholiab, who were divinely inspired for the task; and the
+Tabernacle was now completed, with the exception of some of the finest
+needlework, which had not yet received the finishing touches.
+
+But what was already done bore ample testimony to the skill, the
+taste, and the industry of the "wise-hearted" daughters of Israel. The
+outer covering of the Tabernacle, or that which lay directly over the
+framework of boards of which it was constructed, and hung from the
+roof down the sides and west end, was formed of tabash skins; over
+this was another covering of ram-skins dyed red; a hanging made of
+goats' hair, such as is still used in the tents of the Bedouin Arabs,
+had been spun and woven by the matrons of the congregation, to hang
+over the skins; and these substantial draperies were beautifully
+concealed by a first or inner covering of fine linen. On this the more
+youthful women had embroidered figures of cherubim in scarlet, purple,
+and light blue, entwined with gold. They had made also sacerdotal
+vestments, the "coats of fine linen" worn by all the priests, which,
+when old, were unravelled, and made into wicks burnt in the feast of
+tabernacles. They had made the "girdles of needlework," which were
+long, very long pieces of fine twined linen (carried several times
+round the body), and were embroidered with flowers in blue, and
+purple, and scarlet: the "robe of the ephod" also for the high priest,
+of light blue, and elaborately wrought round the bottom in
+pomegranates; and the plain ephods for the priests.
+
+But now the sun was declining in the western sky, and the busy
+artificers of all sorts were relaxing from the toil of the day.
+
+In a retired spot, apart from the noise of the camp, paced one in
+solitary meditation. Stalwart he was in frame, majestic in bearing; he
+trod the earth like one of her princes; but the loftiness of his
+demeanour was forgotten when you looked on the surpassing benignity of
+his countenance. Each accidental passer hushed his footstep and
+lowered his voice as he approached; more, as it should seem, from
+involuntary awe and reverence than from any understood prohibition.
+
+But with some of these loiterers a child of some four or five summers,
+in earnest chase after a brilliant fly, whose golden wings glittered
+in the sunlight, heedlessly pursued it even to the very path of the
+Solitary, and to the interruption of his walk. Hastily, and somewhat
+peremptorily, the father calls him away. The stranger looks up, and
+casting a glance around, from an eye to whose brilliance that of the
+eagle would look dim, he for the first time sees the little intruder.
+Gently placing a hand on the child's head, "Bless thee," he said, in a
+voice whose every tone was melody: "Bless thee, little one; the
+blessing of the God of Israel be upon thee," and calmly resumed his
+walk. The child, as if awed, mutely returned to his friends, who,
+after casting a glance of reverence and admiration, returned to the
+camp.
+
+Here, scattered all around, are groups occupied in those varied kinds
+of busy idleness which will naturally engage the moments of an
+intelligent multitude at the close of an active day. Here a knot of
+men in the pride of manhood, whose flashing eyes have lost none of
+their fire, whose raven locks are yet not varied by a single silver
+line, are talking politics--such politics as the warlike men of Israel
+would talk, when discoursing of the promised land and the hostile
+hosts through whose serried ranks they must cut their intrepid way
+thither, and whom, impatient of all delay, they burn to engage. Here
+were elder ones, "whose natural force" was in some degree "abated,"
+and who were lamenting the decree, however justly incurred, which
+forbade them to lay their bones in the land of their lifelong hope;
+and here was a patriarch, bowed down with the weight of years, whose
+silver hairs lay on his shoulders, whose snow-white beard flowed upon
+his breast, who as he leaned upon his staff was recounting to his rapt
+auditors the dealing of Jehovah with his people in ancient days; how
+the Most High visited his father Abraham, and had sworn unto Jacob
+that his seed should be brought out of captivity, and revisit the
+promised land. "And behold," said the old man, "it will now come to
+pass."
+
+But what is passing in that detached portion of the camp? who sojourn
+in yonder tents which attract more general attention than all the
+others, and in which all ages and degrees seem interested? Now a group
+of females are there, eagerly conversing; anon a Hebrew mother leads
+her youthful and beautiful daughter, and seems to incite her to remain
+there; now a hoary priest enters, and in a few moments returns
+pondering; and anon a trio of more youthful Levites with pleased and
+animated countenances return from the same spot.
+
+On a sudden is every eye turned thitherward; for he who just now paced
+the solitary glade--none other than the chosen leader of God's host,
+the majestic lawgiver, the meekest and the mightiest of all created
+beings--he likewise wends his way to these attractive tents. With him
+enters Aaron, a venerable man, with hoary beard and flowing white
+robes; and follow him a majestic-looking female who was wont to lead
+the solemn dance--Miriam the sister of Aaron; and a youth of heroic
+bearing, in the springtime of that life whose maturity was spent in
+leading the chosen race to conquest in the promised land.
+
+With proud and pleased humility did the fair inmates of those tents,
+the most accomplished of Israel's daughters, display to their
+illustrious visitors the "fine needlework" to which their time and
+talents had been for a long season devoted, and which was now on the
+eve of completion. The "holy garments" which God had commanded to be
+made "for glory and for beauty;" the pomegranates on the hem of the
+high priest's robe, wrought in blue and purple and scarlet; the
+flowers on his "girdle of needlework," glowing as in life; the border
+on the ephod, in which every varied colour was shaded off into a rich
+and delicate tracery of gold; and above all, that exquisite work, the
+most beautiful of all their productions--the veil which separated the
+"Holy of Holies," the place where the Most High vouchsafed his
+especial presence, where none but the high priest might presume to
+enter, and he but once a year, from the remaining portions of the
+Tabernacle. This beautiful hanging was of fine white linen, but the
+original fabric was hardly discernible amid the gorgeous tracery with
+which it was inwrought. The whole surface was covered with a profusion
+of flowers, intermixed with fanciful devices of every sort, except
+such as might represent the forms of animals--these were rigidly
+excluded. Cherubims seemed to be hovering around and grasping its
+gorgeous folds; and if tradition and history be to be credited, this
+drapery merited, if ever the production of the needle did merit, the
+epithet which English talent has since rendered classical,
+"_Needlework Sublime_."
+
+Long, despite the advancing shades of evening, would the visitors have
+lingered untired to comment upon this beautiful production, but one
+said, "Behold!" and immediately all, following the direction of his
+outstretched arm, looked towards the Tabernacle. There a thin spiral
+flame is seen to gleam palely through the pillar of smoke; but
+perceptibly it increases, and even while the eye is fixed it waxes
+stronger and brighter, and quickly though gradually the smoke has
+melted away, and a tall vivid flame of fire is in its place. Higher
+and taller it aspires: its spiral flame waxes broader and broader,
+ascends higher and higher, gleams brighter and brighter, till it
+mingles in the very vault of heaven, with the beams of the setting sun
+which bathe in crimson fire the summits of Sinai.
+
+In the eastern sky the stars gleam brightly in the pure transparent
+atmosphere; and ere long the moon casts pale radiant beams adown the
+dark ravines, and utters her wondrous lore to the silent hills and the
+gloomy waste. The sounds of toil are hushed; the weary labourer seeks
+repose; the toil-worn wanderer is at rest: the murmuring sounds of
+domestic life sink lower and lower; the breath of prayer becomes
+fainter and fainter; the voice of praise, the evensong of Israel,
+comes stealing through the calm of evening, and now dies softly away.
+Nought is heard but the password of the sentinels; the far-off shriek
+of the bat as it flaps its wings beneath the shadow of some fearful
+precipice; or the scream of the eagle, which, wheeling round the lofty
+summits of the mountain, closes in less and lesser circles, till, as
+the last faint gleam of evening is lost in the dark horizon, it drops
+into its eyrie.
+
+The moon and the stars keep their eternal watch; the beacon-light of
+God's immediate presence flames unchanged by time or chance. It may be
+that the appointed earthly shepherd of that chosen flock passes the
+still hours of night and solitude in communion with his God; but
+silence is over the wilderness, and the children of Israel are at
+rest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+NEEDLEWORK OF THE EGYPTIANS.
+
+    "How is thy glory, Egypt, pass'd away!
+      Weep, child of ruin, o'er thy humbled name!
+    The wreck alone that marks thy deep decay
+      Now tells the story of thy former fame!"
+
+
+There can be little doubt that the Jewish maidens were beholden to
+their residence in Egypt for that perfectness of finish in embroidery
+which was displayed so worthily in the service of the Tabernacle.
+Egypt was at this time the seat of science, of art, and learning; for
+it was thought the highest summary which could be given of Moses'
+acquirements to say that he was skilled in all the learning of the
+Egyptians. By the researches of the curious, new proofs are still
+being brought to light of the perfection of their skill in various
+arts, and we are not without testimony that the practice of the
+lighter and more ornamental bore progress with that of the stupendous
+and magnificent. Of these lighter pursuits we at present refer only to
+the art of needlework.
+
+The Egyptian women were treated with courtesy, with honour, and even
+with deference: indeed, some historians have gone so far as to say
+that the women transacted public business, to the exclusion of the
+men, who were engaged in domestic occupations. This misapprehension
+may have arisen from the fact of men being at times engaged at the
+loom, which in all other countries was then considered as exclusively
+a feminine occupation; spinning, however, was principally, if not
+entirely, confined to women, who had attained to such perfection in
+the pretty and valuable art, that, though the Egyptian yarn was all
+spun by the hand, some of the linen made from it was so exquisitely
+fine as to be called "woven air." And there are some instances
+recorded by historians which seem fully to bear out the appellation.
+For example: so delicate were the threads used for nets, that some of
+these nets would pass through a man's ring, and one person could carry
+a sufficient number of them to surround a whole wood. Amasis king of
+Egypt presented a linen corslet to the Rhodians of which the threads
+were each composed of 365 fibres; and he presented another to the
+Lacedemonians, richly wrought with gold; and each thread of this
+corslet, though itself very fine, was composed of 360 other threads
+all distinct.
+
+Nor did these beautiful manufactures lack the addition of equally
+beautiful needlework. Though the gold thread used at this time was, as
+we have intimated, solid metal, still the Egyptians had attained to
+such perfection in the art of moulding it, that it was fine enough not
+merely to embroider, but even to interweave with the linen. The linen
+corslet of Amasis, presented, as we have remarked, to the
+Lacedemonians, surpassingly fine as was the material, was worked with
+a needle in figures of animals in gold thread, and from the
+description given of the texture of the linen we may form some idea of
+the exquisite tenuity of the gold wire which was used to ornament it.
+
+Corslets of linen of a somewhat stronger texture than this one, which
+was doubtless meant for merely ornamental wear, were not uncommon
+amongst the ancients. The Greeks made thoraces of hide, hemp, linen,
+or twisted cord. Of the latter there are some curious specimens in the
+interesting museum of the United Service Club. Alexander had a double
+thorax of linen; and Iphicrates ordered his soldiers to lay aside
+their heavy metal cuirass, and go to battle in hempen armour. And
+among the arms painted in the tomb of Rameses III. at Thebes is a
+piece of defensive armour, a sort of coat or covering for the body,
+made of rich stuff, and richly embroidered with the figures of lions
+and other animals.
+
+The dress of the Egyptian ladies of rank was rich and somewhat gay: in
+its general appearance not very dissimilar from the gay chintzes of
+the present day, but of more value as the material was usually linen;
+and though sometimes stamped in patterns, and sometimes interwoven
+with gold threads, was much more usually worked with the needle. The
+richest and most elegant of these were of course selected to adorn the
+person of the queen; and when in the holy book the royal Psalmist is
+describing the dress of a bride, supposed to have been Pharaoh's
+daughter, and that she shall be brought to the king "in raiment of
+needlework," he says, as proof of the gorgeousness of her attire, "her
+clothing is of wrought gold." This is supposed to mean a garment
+richly embroidered with the needle in figures in gold thread, after
+the manner of Egyptian stitchery.
+
+Perhaps no royal lady was ever more magnificently dowered than the
+queen of Egypt; her apparel might well be gorgeous. Diodorus says that
+when Moeris, from whom the lake derived its name, and who was
+supposed to have made the canal, had arranged the sluices for the
+introduction of the water, and established everything connected with
+it, he assigned the sum annually derived from this source as a dowry
+to the queen for the purchase of jewels, ointments, and other objects
+connected with the toilette. The provision was certainly very liberal,
+being a talent every day, or upwards of £70,700 a year; and when this
+formed only a portion of the pin-money of the Egyptian queens, to whom
+the revenues of the city of Anthylla, famous for its wines, were given
+for their dress, it is certain they had no reason to complain of the
+allowance they enjoyed.
+
+The Egyptian needlewomen were not solely occupied in the decoration of
+their persons. The deities were robed in rich vestments, in the
+preparation of which the proudest in the land felt that they were
+worthily occupied. This was a source of great gain to the priests,
+both in this and other countries, as, after decorating the idol gods
+for a time, these rich offerings were their perquisites, who of course
+encouraged this notable sort of devotion. We are told that it was
+carried so far that some idols had both winter and summer garments.
+
+Tokens of friendship consisting of richly embroidered veils,
+handkerchiefs, &c., were then, as now, passing from one fair hand to
+another, as pledges of affection; and as the last holy office of love,
+the bereaved mother, the desolate widow, or the maiden whose budding
+hopes were blighted by her lover's untimely death, might find a
+fanciful relief to her sorrows by decorating the garment which was to
+enshroud the spiritless but undecaying form. The chief proportion of
+the mummy-cloths which have been so ruthlessly torn from these
+outraged relics of humanity are coarse; but some few have been found
+delicately and beautifully embroidered; and it is not unnatural to
+suppose that this difference was the result of feminine solicitude and
+undying affection.
+
+The embroidering of the sails of vessels too was pursued as an article
+of commerce, as well as for the decoration of native pleasure-boats.
+The ordinary sails were white; but the king and his grandees on all
+gala occasions made use of sails richly embroidered with the
+phoenix, with flowers, and various other emblems and fanciful
+devices. Many also were painted, and some interwoven in checks and
+stripes. The boats used in sacred festivals upon the Nile were
+decorated with appropriate symbols, according to the nature of the
+ceremony or the deity in whose service they were engaged; and the
+edges of the sails were finished with a coloured hem or border, which
+would occasionally be variegated with slight embroidery.
+
+Shakspeare's description of the barge of Cleopatra when she embarked
+on the river Cydnus to meet Antony, poetical as it is, seems to be
+rigidly correct in detail.
+
+      Enobarbus.--I will tell you.
+    The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
+    Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
+    Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
+    The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver;
+    Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
+    The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
+    As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
+    It beggar'd all description: she did lie
+    In her pavilion (cloth of gold, of tissue),
+    O'erpicturing that Venus, where we see
+    The fancy outwork nature; on each side her
+    Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
+    With diverse-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
+    To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
+    And what they undid, did.
+
+      Agrippa.--             O, rare for Antony!
+
+      Enobarbus.--Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
+    So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,
+    And made their bends adornings; at the helm
+    A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
+    Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
+    That yarely frame the office. From the barge
+    A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
+    Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
+    Her people out upon her; and Antony,
+    Bethroned in the market-place, did sit alone,
+    Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
+    Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
+    And made a gap in nature.
+
+It is said that the silver oars, "which to the tune of flutes kept
+stroke," were pierced with holes of different sizes, so mechanically
+contrived, that the water, as it flowed through them at every stroke,
+produced a harmony in concord with that of the flutes and lyres on
+board.
+
+Such a description as the foregoing gives a more vivid idea than any
+grave declaration, of the elegant luxury of the Egyptians.
+
+It were easy to collect instances from the Bible in which mention is
+made of Egyptian embroidery, but one verse (Ezek. xxvii. 7), when the
+prophet is addressing the Tyrians, specifically points to the subject
+on which we are speaking: "Fine linen, with broidered work from Egypt,
+was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail," &c.
+
+A common but beautiful style of embroidery was to draw out entirely
+the threads of linen which formed the weft, and to re-form the body of
+the material, and vary its appearance, by working in various stitches
+and with different colours on the warp alone.
+
+Chairs and fauteuils of the most elegant form, made of ebony and other
+rare woods, inlaid with ivory, were in common use amongst the ancient
+Egyptians. These were covered, as is the fashion in the present day,
+with every variety of rich stuff, stamped leather, &c.: but many were
+likewise embroidered with different coloured wools, with silk and gold
+thread. The couches too, which in the daytime had a rich covering
+substituted for the night bedding, gave ample scope for the display of
+the inventive genius and persevering industry of the busy-fingered
+Egyptian ladies.
+
+We have given sufficient proof that the Egyptian females were
+accomplished in the art of needlework, and we may naturally infer that
+they were fond of it. It is a gentle and a social occupation, and
+usefully employs the time, whilst it does not interfere with the
+current of the thoughts or the flow of conversation. The Egyptians
+were an intelligent and an animated race; and the sprightly jest or
+the lively sally would be interspersed with the graver details of
+thoughtful and reflective conversation, or would give some point to
+the dull routine of mere womanish chatter. It seems almost impossible
+to have lived amidst the stupendous magnificence of Egypt in days of
+yore, without the mind assimilating itself in some degree to the
+greatness with which it was surrounded. The vast deserts, the
+stupendous mountains, the river Nile--the single and solitary river
+which in itself sufficed the needs of a mighty empire--these majestic
+monuments of nature seemed as emblems to which the people should
+fashion, as they did fashion, their pyramids, their tombs, their
+sphynxes, their mighty reservoirs, and their colossal statues. And we
+can hardly suppose that such ever-visible objects should not, during
+the time of their creation, have some elevating influence on the
+weakest mind; and that therefore frivolity of conversation amongst the
+Egyptian ladies was rather the exception than the rule. But a modern
+author has amused himself, and exercised some ingenuity in attempting
+to prove the contrary:--
+
+"Many similar instances of a talent for caricature are observable in
+the compositions of Egyptian artists who executed the paintings on the
+tombs; and the ladies are not spared. We are led to infer that they
+were not deficient in the talent of conversation; and the numerous
+subjects they proposed are shown to have been examined with great
+animation. Among these the question of dress was not forgotten, and
+the patterns or the value of trinkets were discussed with
+proportionate interest. The maker of an earring, or the shop where it
+was purchased, were anxiously inquired; each compared the workmanship,
+the style, and the materials of those she wore, coveted her
+neighbour's, or preferred her own; and women of every class vied with
+each other in the display of 'jewels of silver and jewels of gold,' in
+the texture of their 'raiment,' the neatness of their sandals, and the
+arrangement or beauty of their plaited hair."
+
+We are too much indebted to this author's interesting volumes to
+quarrel with him for his ungallant exposition of a very simple
+painting; but we beg to place in juxta-position with the above (though
+otherwise somewhat out of its place) an extract from a work by no
+means characterised by unnecessary complacency to the fair sex.
+
+"'Cet homme passe sa vie à forger des nouvelles,' me dit alors un gros
+Athénien qui était assis auprès de moi. 'Il ne s'occupe que de choses
+qui ne le touchent point. Pour moi, mon intérieur me suffit. J'ai une
+femme que j'aime beaucoup;' et il me fit l'éloge de sa femme. 'Hier je
+ne pus pas souper avec elle, j'étais prié chez un de mes amis;' et il
+me fit la description du repas. 'Je me retirai chez moi assez content.
+Mais j'ai fait cette nuit un rêve qui m'inquiète;' et il me raconta
+son rêve. Ensuite il me dit pesamment que la ville fourmillait
+d'étrangers; que les hommes d'aujourd'hui ne valaient pas ceux
+d'autrefois; que les denrées étaient à bas prix; qu'on pourrait
+espérer une bonne récolte, s'il venait à pleuvoir. Après m'avoir
+demandé le quantième du mois, il se leva pour aller souper avec sa
+femme."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+NEEDLEWORK OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.
+
+                    "------Supreme
+                Sits the virtuous housewife,
+                  The tender mother--
+                O'er the circle presiding,
+                And prudently guiding;
+                The girls gravely schooling,
+                The boys wisely ruling;
+                Her hands never ceasing
+                From labours increasing;
+                And doubling his gains
+                With her orderly pains.
+    With piles of rich treasure the storehouse she spreads,
+    And winds round the loud-whirring spindle her threads:
+    She winds--till the bright-polish'd presses are full
+    Of the snow-white linen and glittering wool:
+    Blends the brilliant and solid in constant endeavour,
+               And resteth never."
+
+                        J. H. Merivale.
+
+
+It was an admitted opinion amongst the classical nations of antiquity,
+that no less a personage than Minerva herself, "a maiden affecting old
+fashions and formality," visited earth to teach her favourite nation
+the mysteries of those implements which are called "the arms of every
+virtuous woman;" viz. the distaff and spindle. In the use of these the
+Grecian dames were particularly skilled; in fact, spinning, weaving,
+needlework, and embroidery, formed the chief occupation of those whose
+rank exonerated them, even in more primitive days, from the menial
+drudgery of a household.
+
+The Greek females led exceedingly retired lives, being far more
+charily admitted to a share of the recreations of the nobler sex than
+we of these privileged days. The ancient Greeks were very
+magnificent--very: magnificent senators, magnificent warriors,
+magnificent men; but they were a people trained from the cradle for
+exhibition and publicity; domestic life was quite cast into the shade.
+Consequently and necessarily their women were thrown to greater
+distance, till it happened, naturally enough, that they seemed to form
+a distinct community; and apartments the most distant and secluded
+that the mansion afforded were usually assigned to them. Of these, in
+large establishments, certain ones were always appropriated to the
+labours of the needle.
+
+"Je ne dirai" (says the sarcastic author of Anacharsis) "qu'un mot sur
+l'éducation des filles. Suivant la différence des états, elles
+apprennent à lire, écrire, coudre, filer, préparer la laine dont on
+fait les vêtemens, et veiller aux soins du ménage. En général, les
+mères exhortent leurs filles à se conduire avec sagesse; mais elles
+insistent beaucoup plus sur la nécessité de se tenir droites,
+d'effacer leurs épaules, de serrer leur sein avec un large ruban,
+d'être extrêmement sobres, et de prévenir, par toutes sortes de
+moyens, un embonpoint qui nuirait à l'élégance de la taille et à la
+grâce des mouvemens."
+
+Homer, the great fountain of ancient lore, scarcely throughout his
+whole work names a female, Greek or Trojan, but as connected naturally
+and indissolubly with this feminine occupation--needlework. Thus, when
+Chryses implores permission to ransome his daughter, Agamemnon
+wrathfully replies--
+
+    "I will not loose thy daughter, till old age
+    Find her far distant from her native soil,
+    Beneath my roof in Argos, at her task
+    Of tissue-work."
+
+And Iris, the "ambassadress of Heaven," finds Helen in her own
+recess--
+
+    "----weaving there a gorgeous web,
+    Inwrought with fiery conflicts, for her sake
+    Wag'd by contending nations."
+
+Hector foreseeing the miseries consequent upon the destruction of
+Troy, says to Andromache--
+
+              "But no grief
+    So moves me as my grief for thee alone,
+    Doom'd then to follow some imperious Greek,
+    A weeping captive, to the distant shores
+    Of Argos; there to labour at the loom
+    For a taskmistress."
+
+And again he says to her--
+
+    "Hence, then, to our abode; there weave or spin,
+    And task thy maidens."
+
+And afterwards--
+
+            "Andromache, the while,
+    Knew nought, nor even by report had learn'd
+    Her Hector's absence in the field alone.
+    She in her chamber at the palace-top
+    A splendid texture wrought, on either side
+    All dazzling bright with flow'rs of various hues."
+
+Though "Penelope's web" is become a proverb, it would be unpardonable
+here to omit specific mention of it. Antinoüs thus complains of her:--
+
+    "Elusive of the bridal day, she gives
+    Fond hope to all, and all with hope deceives.
+    Did not the Sun, through heaven's wide azure roll'd,
+    For three long years the royal fraud behold?
+    While she, laborious in delusion, spread
+    The spacious loom, and mix'd the various thread;
+    Where, as to life the wondrous figures rise,
+    Thus spoke th' inventive queen with artful sighs:--
+    'Though cold in death Ulysses breathes no more,
+    Cease yet a while to urge the bridal hour;
+    Cease, till to great Laertes I bequeath
+    A task of grief, his ornaments of death.
+    Lest, when the Fates his royal ashes claim,
+    The Grecian matrons taint my spotless fame:
+    When he, whom living mighty realms obey'd,
+    Shall want in death a shroud to grace his shade.'
+    Thus she: At once the generous train complies,
+    Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue's fair disguise.
+    The work she plied; but, studious of delay,
+    By night revers'd the labours of the day.
+    While thrice the Sun his annual journey made,
+    The conscious lamp the midnight fraud survey'd;
+    Unheard, unseen, three years her arts prevail;
+    The fourth, her maid unfolds th' amazing tale.
+    We saw, as unperceiv'd we took our stand,
+    The backward labours of her faithless hand.
+    Then urg'd, she perfects her illustrious toils;
+    A wondrous monument of female wiles."
+
+The Greek costume was rich and elegant; and though, from our
+familiarity with colourless statues, we are apt to suppose it gravely
+uniform in its hue, such was not the fact; for the tunic was often
+adorned with ornamental embroidery of all sorts. The toga was the
+characteristic of Roman costume: this gradually assumed variations
+from its primitive simplicity of hue, until at length the triumphant
+general considered even the royal purple too unpretending, unless set
+off by a rich embroidery of gold. The first embroideries of the Romans
+were but bands of stuff, cut or twisted, which they put on the
+dresses: the more modest used only one band; others two, three, four,
+up to seven; and from the number of these the dresses took their
+names, always drawn from the Greek: molores, dilores, trilores,
+tetralores, &c.
+
+Pliny seems to be the authority whence most writers derive their
+accounts of ancient garments and needlework.
+
+"The coarse rough wool with the round great haire hath been of ancient
+time highly commended and accounted of in tapestrie worke: for even
+Homer himself witnesseth that they of the old world used the same
+much, and tooke great delight therein. But this tapestrie is set out
+with colours in France after one sort, and among the Parthians after
+another. M. Varro writeth that within the temple of Sangus there
+continued unto the time that he wrote his booke the wooll that lady
+Tanaquil, otherwise named Caia Cecilia, spun; together with her
+distaff and spindle: as also within the chapel of Fortune, the very
+roiall robe or mantle of estate, made in her own hands after the
+manner of water chamlot in wave worke, which Servius Tullius used to
+weare. And from hence came the fashion and custome at Rome, that when
+maidens were to be wedded, there attended upon them a distaffe,
+dressed and trimmed with kombed wooll, as also a spindle and yearne
+upon it. The said Tanaquil was the first that made the coat or
+cassocke woven right out all through; such as new beginners (namely
+young souldiers, barristers, and fresh brides) put on under their
+white plaine gowns, without any guard of purple. The waved water
+chamelot was from the beginning esteemed the richest and bravest
+wearing. And from thence came the branched damaske in broad workes.
+Fenestella writeth that in the latter time of Augustus Cæsar they
+began at Rome to use their gownes of cloth shorne, as also with a
+curled nap.--As for those robes which are called crebræ and
+papaveratæ, wrought thicke with floure worke, resembling poppies, or
+pressed even and smooth, they be of greater antiquitie: for even in
+the time of Lucilius the poet Torquatus was noted and reproved for
+wearing them. The long robes embrodered before, called prætextæ, were
+devised first by the Tuscanes. The Trabeæ were roiall robes, and I
+find that kings and princes only ware them. In Homer's time also they
+used garments embrodered with imagerie and floure, work, and from
+thence came the triumphant robes. As for embroderie itselfe and
+needle-worke, it was the Phrygians invention: and hereupon embroderers
+in Latine bee called phrygiones. And in the same Asia king Attalus was
+the first that devised cloth of gold: and thence come such colours to
+be called Attalica. In Babylon they used much to weave their cloth of
+divers colours, and this was a great wearing amongst them, and cloths
+so wrought were called Babylonica. To weave cloth of tissue with
+twisted threeds both in woofe and warpe, and the same of sundrie
+colours, was the invention of Alexandria; and such clothes and
+garments were called Polymita, But Fraunce devised the scutchion,
+square, or lozenge damaske worke. Metellus Scipio, among other
+challenges and imputations laid against Capito, reproached and accused
+him for this:--'That his hangings and furniture of his dining chamber,
+being Babylonian work or cloth of Arras, were sold for 800,000
+sesterces; and such like of late days stood Prince Nero in 400,000
+sesterces, _i.e._ forty millions.' The embrodered long robes of
+Servius Tullius, wherewith he covered and arraied all over the image
+of Fortune, by him dedicated, remained whole and sound until the end
+of Sejanus. And a wonder it was that they neither fell from the image
+nor were motheaten in 560 yeares."[5]
+
+It was long before silk was in general use, even for patrician
+garments. It has been supposed that the famous Median vest, invented
+by Semiramis, was silken, which might account for its great fame in
+the west. Be this as it may, it was so very graceful, that the Medes
+adopted it after they had conquered Asia; and the Persians followed
+their example. In the time of the Romans the price of silk was weight
+for weight with gold, and the first persons who brought silk into
+Europe were the Greeks of Alexander's army. Under Tiberius it was
+forbidden to be worn by men; and it is said that the Emperor Aurelian
+even refused the earnest request of his empress for a silken dress, on
+the plea of its extravagant cost. Heliogabalus was the first man that
+ever wore a robe entirely of silk. He had also a tunic woven of gold
+threads; such gold thread as we referred to in a prior chapter, as
+consisting of the metal alone beaten out and rounded, without any
+intermixture of silk or woollen. Tarquinius Priscus had also a vest of
+this gorgeous description, as had likewise Agrippina. Gold thread and
+wire continued to be made entirely of metal probably until the time of
+Aurelian, nor have there been any instances found in Herculaneum and
+Pompeii of the silken thread with a gold coating.
+
+These examples will suffice to show that it was not usually the
+_material_ of the ancient garments which gave them so high a value,
+but the ornamental embellishments with which they were afterwards
+invested by the needle.
+
+The Medes and Babylonians seem to have been most highly celebrated for
+their stuffs and tapestries of various sorts which were figured by the
+needle; the Egyptians certainly rivalled, though they did not surpass
+them; and the Greeks seem also to have attained a high degree of
+excellence in this pretty art. The epoch of embroidery amongst the
+Romans went as far back as Tarquin, to whom the Etruscans presented a
+tunic of purple enriched with gold, and a mantle of purple and other
+colours, "tels qu'en portoient les rois de Perse et de Lydie." But
+soon luxury banished the wonted austerity of Rome; and when Cæsar
+first showed himself in a habit embroidered and fringed, this
+innovation appeared scandalous to those who had not been alarmed at
+any of his real and important innovations.
+
+We have referred in a former chapter to the practice of sending
+garments as presents, as marks of respect and friendship, or as
+propitiatory or deprecatory offerings. And the illustrious ladies of
+the classical times had such a prophetical talent of preparation, that
+they were ever found possessed, when occasion required, of store of
+garments richly embroidered by their own fair fingers, or under their
+auspices. Of this there are numerous examples in Homer.
+
+When Priam wishes to redeem the body of Hector, after preparing other
+propitiatory gifts,
+
+    "----he open'd wide the sculptur'd lids
+    Of various chests, whence mantles twelve he took
+    Of texture beautiful; twelve single cloaks;
+    As many carpets, with as many robes;
+    To which he added vests an equal store."
+
+When Telemachus is about to leave Menelaus--
+
+    "The beauteous queen revolv'd with careful eyes
+    Her various textures of unnumber'd dyes,
+    And chose the largest; with no vulgar art
+    Her own fair hands embroider'd every part;
+    Beneath the rest it lay divinely bright,
+    Like radiant Hesper o'er the gems of night."
+
+That much of this work was highly beautiful may be inferred from the
+description of the robe of Ulysses:--
+
+    "In the rich woof a hound, Mosaic drawn,
+    Bore on full stretch, and seiz'd a dappled fawn;
+    Deep in the neck his fangs indent their hold;
+    They pant and struggle in the moving gold."
+
+And this robe, Penelope says,
+
+    "In happier hours her artful hand employ'd."
+
+To invest a visitor with an embroidered robe was considered the very
+highest mark of honour and regard.
+
+When Telemachus is at the magnificent court of Menelaus--
+
+    "----a bright damsel train attend the guests
+    With liquid odours and _embroider'd vests_."
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+    "Give to the stranger guest a stranger's dues:
+    Bring gold, a pledge of love; a talent bring,
+    A _vest_, a _robe_."
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+    "--------in order roll'd
+    The robes, the vests are rang'd, and heaps of gold:
+    And adding _a rich dress inwrought with art_,
+    A gift expressive of her bounteous heart,
+    Thus spoke (the queen) to Ithacus."
+
+When Cambyses wished to attain some point from an Ethiopian prince, he
+forwarded, amongst other presents, a rich vest. The Ethiopian, taking
+the garment, inquired what it was, and how it was made; but its
+glittering tracery did not decoy the unsophisticated prince. When
+Xerxes arrived at Acanthos, he interchanged the rites of hospitality
+with the people, and presented several with Median vests. Probably our
+readers will remember the circumstance of Alexander making the mother
+of Darius a present of some rich vestures, probably of woollen
+fabrics, and telling her that she might make her grandchildren learn
+the art of weaving them; at which the royal lady felt insulted and
+deeply hurt, as it was considered ignominious by the Persian women to
+work in wool. Hearing of her misapprehension, Alexander himself waited
+on her, and in the gentlest and most respectful terms told the
+illustrious captive that, far from meaning any offence, the custom of
+his own country had misled him; and that the vestments he had offered
+were not only a present from his royal sisters, but wrought by their
+own hands.
+
+Outré as appear some of the flaring patterns of the present day, the
+boldest of them must be _quiet_ and unattractive compared with those
+we read of formerly, when not only human figures, but birds and
+animals, were wrought not merely on hangings and carpets but on
+wearing apparel. Ciampini gives various instances.[6]
+
+What changes, says he, do not a long course of years produce! Who now,
+except in the theatre, or at a carnival or masquerade (spectaculis ac
+rebus ludiciis), would endure garments inscribed with verses and
+titles, and painted with various figures? Nevertheless, it is plain
+that such garments were constantly used in ancient times. To say
+nothing of Homer, who assigns to Ulysses a tunic variegated with
+figures of animals; to say nothing of the Massagetæ, whom Herodotus
+relates painted animals on their garments with the juice of herbs; we
+also read of these garments (though then considered very antiquated)
+being used under the Cæsars of Rome.
+
+They say that Alcisthenes the Sybarite had a garment of such
+magnificence that when he exhibited it in the Temple of Juno at
+Lacinium, where all Italy was congregated, it attracted universal
+attention. It was purchased from the Carthaginians, by Dionysius the
+elder, for 120 talents. It was twenty-two feet in breadth, of a purple
+ground, with animals wrought all over, except in the middle, where
+were Jupiter, Juno, Themis, Minerva, Apollo, Venus: on one sleeve it
+had a figure of Alcisthenes, on the other of his city Sybaris.
+
+That this description is not exaggerated may be inferred from the
+following passage from a homily on Dives and Lazarus by a Bishop of
+Amuasan in Pontus, given by Ciampini.
+
+"They have here no bounds to this foolish art, for no sooner was
+invented the useless art of weaving in figures in a kind of picture,
+such as animals of all sorts, than (rich persons) procure flowered
+garments, and also those variegated with an infinite number of images,
+both for themselves, their wives, and children. . . . . . . Whensoever
+thus clothed they go abroad, they go, as it were, painted all over,
+and pointing out to one another with the finger the pictures on their
+garments.
+
+"For there are lions and panthers, and bears and bulls, and dogs and
+woods, and rocks and huntsmen; and, in a word, everything that can be
+thought of, all drawn to the life: for it was necessary, forsooth,
+that not only the walls of their houses should be painted, but their
+coats (tunica) also, and likewise the cloak (pallium) which covers it.
+
+"The more pious of these gentry take their subjects from the Gospel
+history: _e.g._ Christ himself with his disciples, or one of the
+miracles, is depicted. In this manner you shall see the marriage of
+Cana and the waterpots; the paralytic carrying his bed on his
+shoulders; the blind man cured by clay; the woman with the issue of
+blood taking hold of the border (of Christ's garment); the harlot
+falling at the feet of Jesus; Lazarus coming from the tomb: and they
+fancy there is great piety in all this, and that putting on such
+garments must be pleasing to God."
+
+The palmated garment was figured with palm-leaves, and was a triumphal
+or festive garment. It is referred to in an epistle of Gratian to
+Augustus: "I have sent thee a palmated garment, in which the name of
+our divine parent Constantine is interwoven."
+
+In allusion to these lettered garments Ausonius celebrates Sabina
+(textrice simul ac poetria), whose name thus lives when those of more
+important personages are forgotten:--
+
+    They who both webs and verses weave,
+    The first to thee, O chaste Minerva, leave;
+        The latter to the Muses they devote:
+    To me, Sabina, it appears a sin
+    To separate two things so near akin,
+        So I have wrote thy verses on my coat.[7]
+
+And again:
+
+    Whether the Tyrian robe your praise demand,
+      Or the neat verse upon the edge descried,
+    Know both proceed from the same skilful hand:
+      In both these arts Sabina takes a pride.[8]
+
+It is imagined that the embroidered vestments worn in Homer's time
+bore a strong resemblance to those now worn by the Moguls; and the
+custom of making presents, so discernible through his work, still
+prevails throughout Asia. It is not (says Sir James Forbes) so much
+the custom in India to present dresses ready made to the visitors as
+to offer the materials, especially to Europeans. In Turkey, Persia,
+and Arabia, it is generally the reverse. We find in Chardin that the
+kings of Persia had great wardrobes, where there were always many
+hundred habits, sorted, ready for presents, and that more than forty
+tailors were always employed in this service.
+
+It is not improbable that this ancient custom of presenting a visitor
+with a new dress as a token of welcome, a symbol of rejoicing at his
+presence, may have led to many of the general customs which have
+prevailed, and do still, of having new clothes at any season of joy or
+festivity. New clothes are thought by the people of the East
+_requisite_ for the due solemnization of a time of rejoicing. The
+Turks, even the poorest of them, would submit to any privation rather
+than be without new clothes at the Bairam or Great Festival. There is
+an anecdote recorded of the Caliph Montanser Billah, that going one
+day to the upper roof of his palace he saw a number of clothes spread
+out on the flat roofs of the houses of Bagdat. He asked the reason,
+and was told that the inhabitants of Bagdat were drying their clothes,
+which they had newly washed, on account of the approach of the Bairam.
+The caliph was so concerned that any should be so poor as to be
+obliged to wash their old clothes for want of new ones with which to
+celebrate this festival, that he ordered a great quantity of gold to
+be instantly made into bullets, proper to be shot out of crossbows,
+which he and his courtiers threw, by this means, upon every terrace of
+the city where he saw garments spread to dry.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] Book viii. chap. 48.
+
+[6] Ciampini, Vetera Monimenta, cap. xiii.
+
+[7] "Licia qui texunt, et Carmina; Carmina Musis,
+      Licia contribuunt, casta Minerva, tibi.
+    Ast ego rem sociam non dissociabo, Sabina,
+      Versibus inscripsi, quæ mea texta meis."
+
+[8] "Sive probas Tyrio textam sub tegmine vestem,
+      Seu placet inscripti commoditas tituli.
+    Ipsius hæc Dominæ concennat utrumque venustas:
+      Has geminas artes una Sabina colet."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE DARK AGES.--"SHEE-SCHOOLS."
+
+    "There was an auncient house not far away,
+      Renown'd throughout the world for sacred lore
+    And pure unspotted life: so well they say
+      It govern'd was, and guided evermore
+      Through wisedome of a matrone grave and hore,
+    Whose onely joy was to relieve the needes
+      Of wretched soules, and helpe the helplesse pore:
+    All night she spent in bidding of her bedes,
+    And all the day in doing good and godly dedes."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+    "Meantime, whilst monks' _pens_ were thus employed, nuns
+    with their _needles_ wrote histories also: that of
+    _Christ his passion_ for their altar-clothes; and other
+    Scripture- (and more legend-) stories in hangings to
+    adorn their houses."--Fuller, Ch. Hist., B. 6.
+
+
+Needlework is an art so indissolubly connected with the convenience
+and comfort of mankind at large, that it is impossible to suppose any
+state of society in which it has not existed. Its modes varied, of
+course, according to the lesser or greater degrees of refinement in
+other matters with which it was connected; and when we find from
+Muratori that "nulla s'è detto fin qui dell'Arte del Tessere dopo la
+declinazione del Romano Imperio; e solo in fuggire s'è parlato di
+alcune vesti degli antichi," we may fairly infer that the _ornamental_
+needlework of the time was not extensively encouraged, although never
+entirely laid aside.
+
+The desolation that overran the world was found alike in its greatest
+or most insignificant concerns; and the same torrent that swept
+monarchs from their thrones and peers from their halls did away with
+the necessity for professors of the decorative arts. There needed not
+the embroiderer of gold and purple to blazon the triumph of a
+conqueror who disdained other habiliment than the skin of some
+slaughtered beast.[9]
+
+The matron who yet retained the principle of Roman virtue, or the fair
+and refined maiden of the eastern capital, far from seeking personal
+adornment, rather shunned any decoration which might attract the eyes
+and inflame the passions of untamed and ruthless conquerors. All usual
+habits were subverted, and for long years the history of the European
+world is but a bloody record of war and tumult, of bloodshed and
+strife. Few are the cases of peace and tranquillity in this desert of
+tumult and blood-guiltiness; but those few "isles of the blessed" in
+this ocean of discord, those few sunny spots in the gloomy landscape,
+are intimately connected with our theme. The use of the needle for the
+daily necessities of life could never, as we have remarked, be
+superseded; but the practice of ornamental needlework, in common with
+every ennobling science and improving art, was kept alive during this
+period of desolation by the church, and by the individual labours and
+collective zeal of the despised and contemned monks.
+
+Sharing that hallowed influence which hovered over and protected the
+church at this fearful season--for, from the carelessness or
+superstition of the barbarians, the ministers of religion were
+spared--nunneries, with some few exceptions, were now like refuges
+pointed out by Heaven itself. They were originally founded by the
+sister of St. Anthony, the hermit of the Egyptian desert, and in their
+primitive institution were meant solely for those who, abjuring the
+world for religious motives, were desirous to spend their whole time
+in devotional exercises. But their sphere of utility became afterwards
+widely extended. They became safe and peaceable asylums for all those
+to whom life's pilgrimage had been too thorny. The frail but repentant
+maiden was here sheltered from the scorn of an uncharitable world; the
+virtuous but suffering female, whose earthly hopes had, from whatever
+cause, been crushed, could here weep and pray in peace: while she to
+whom the more tangible trouble of poverty had descended might here,
+without the galling yoke of charity and dependence, look to a refuge
+for those evil days when the breaking of the golden bowl, the loosing
+of the silver cord, should disable her from the exertions necessary
+for her maintenance.
+
+Have we any--ay, with all their faults and imperfections on their
+heads--have we, in these days of enlightenment, any sort of substitute
+for the blessings they held out to dependent and suffering woman of
+whatever rank?
+
+Convents became also schools for the education of young women of rank,
+who here imbibed in early youth principles of religion which might
+enable them to endure with patience and fortitude those after-trials
+of life from which no station or wealth could exempt them; and they
+acquired here those accomplishments, and were taught here those
+lighter occupations, amongst which fine needlework and embroidery
+occupied a conspicuous position, which would qualify them to beguile
+in a becoming manner the many hours of leisure which their elevated
+rank would confer on them.
+
+"Nunneries," says Fuller, "also were good shee-schools, wherein the
+girles and maids of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work;
+and sometimes a little Latine was taught them therein. Yea, give me
+leave to say, if such feminine foundations had still continued,
+provided no _vow_ were obtruded upon them (virginity is least kept
+where it is most constrained), haply the weaker sex (besides the
+avoiding modern inconveniences) might be heightened to an higher
+perfection than hitherto hath been attained. That sharpnesse of their
+wits and suddenness of their conceits (which their enemies must allow
+unto them) might by education be improved into a judicious solidity,
+and that adorned with arts which now they want, not because they
+cannot learn, but are not taught them. I say, if such feminine
+foundations were extant now of dayes, haply some virgins of highest
+birth would be glad of such places, and I am sure their fathers and
+elder brothers would not be sorry for the same."
+
+Miss Lawrance gives a more detailed account of the duties taught in
+them. "In consequence of convents being considered as establishments
+exclusively belonging to the Latin church, Protestant writers, as by
+common consent, have joined in censuring them, forgetful of the many
+benefits which, without any reference to their peculiar creed, they
+were calculated to confer. Although providing instruction for the
+young, the convent was a large establishment for various orders of
+women. There were the nuns, the lay sisters, always a numerous class,
+and a large body of domestics; while in those higher convents, where
+the abbess exercised manorial jurisdiction, there were seneschal,
+esquires, gentlemen, yeomen, grooms, indeed the whole establishment of
+a baronial castle, except the men-at-arms and the archer-band. Thus
+within the convent walls the pupil saw nearly the same domestic
+arrangement to which she had been accustomed in her father's castle;
+while, instead of being constantly surrounded with children, well born
+and intelligent women might be her occasional companions. And then the
+most important functions were exercised by women. The abbess presided
+in her manorial court, the cellaress performed the extensive offices
+of steward, the præcentrix led the singing and superintended the
+library, and the infirmaress watched over the sick, affording them
+alike spiritual and medical aid. Thus, from her first admission, the
+pupil was taught to respect and to emulate the talents of women. But
+a yet more important peculiarity did the convent school present. It
+was a noble, a well-endowed, and an independent institution; and it
+proffered education as a boon. Here was no eager canvassing for
+scholars, no promises of unattainable advantages; for the convent
+school was not a mercantile establishment, nor was education a trade.
+The female teachers of the middle ages were looked up to alike by
+parent and child, and the instruction so willingly offered was
+willingly and gratefully received; the character of the teacher was
+elevated, and as a necessary consequence so was the character of the
+pupil."
+
+But in addition to those inmates who had dedicated their lives to
+religion, and those who were placed there specifically for education,
+convents afforded shelter to numbers who sought only temporary
+retirement from the world under the influence of sorrow, or temporary
+protection under the apprehension of danger. And this was the case not
+merely through the very dark era with which our chapter commences, but
+for centuries afterwards, and when the world was comparatively
+civilized. Our own "good Queen Maude" assumed the veil in the convent
+of Romsey, without however taking the vows, as the only means of
+escaping from a forced marriage; and in the subsequent reign, that of
+Stephen, so little regard was paid to law or decorum, that a convent
+was the only place where a maiden, even of gentle birth, if she had
+riches, could have a chance of shelter and safety from the
+machinations of those who resorted to any sort of brutality or
+violence to compel her to a marriage which would secure her
+possessions to her ravisher.
+
+It was then in the convents, and in them alone, that, during the
+barbarism and confusion consequent upon the overthrow of the ancient
+empire, and the irruption of the untamed hordes who overran southern
+Europe from the north and west,--it was in the convents that some
+remnants of the ancient art of embroidery were still preserved. The
+nuns considered it an acceptable service to employ their time and
+talents in the construction of vestments which, being intended for the
+service of the church, were rich and sumptuous even at the time when
+richness and elegance of apparel were unknown elsewhere.[10] It was no
+proof of either the ignorance or the bad taste or the irreligion of
+the "_dark_" ages, that the religious edifices were fitted up with a
+rich and gorgeous solemnity which are unheard of in these days of
+light and knowledge and economy. And besides the construction of rich
+and elaborately ornamented vestments for the priests, and hangings for
+the altars, shrines, &c., besides these being peculiarly the
+occupation of the professed sisters of religious houses, it was
+likewise the pride and the delight of ladies of rank to devote both
+their money to the purchase and their time to the embroidering of
+sacerdotal garments as offerings to the church. And whether
+temporarily sheltering within the walls of a convent, or happily
+presiding in her own lofty halls, it was oftentime the pride and
+pleasure of the high-born dame to embroider a splendid cope, a rich
+vest, or a gorgeous hanging, as a votive and grateful offering to that
+holy altar where perhaps she had prayed in sorrow, and found
+consolation and peace.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[9] "In the most inclement winter the hardy German was satisfied with
+a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal."--Gibbon.
+
+[10] Muratori (Diss. 25), speaking of the mean habiliments usual in
+Italy even so late as the 13th century, adds, "Ma non per questo
+s'hanno a credere così rozzi e nemici del Lusso que' Secoli. A buon
+conto anche in Italia qui non era cieco, sovente potea mirare i più
+delicati lavori di Seta, che _servivano di ornamenti alle Chiese e
+alle sacre funzioni_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+NEEDLEWORK OF THE DARK AGES.
+
+    "Last night I dreamt a dream; behold!
+    I saw a church was fret with gold,
+                With arras richly dight:
+    There saw I altar, pall, and pix,
+    Chalice, and font, and crucifix,
+                And tapers burning bright."
+
+                        W. S. Rose.
+
+
+Over those memorials of the past which chance and mischance have left
+us, time hath drawn a thick curtain, obliterating all soft and gentle
+touches, which connected harmoniously the bolder features of the
+landscape, and leaving these but as landmarks to intimate what had
+been there. We would fain linger on those times, and call up the
+gentle spirits of the long departed to describe scenes of quiet but
+useful retirement at which we now only dimly guess. We would witness
+the hour of recreation in the convent, when the severer duties of the
+cloister gave place to the cheerful one of companionship; and the
+"pale votary" quitted the lonely cell and the solitary vigil, to
+instruct the blooming novice in the art of embroidery, or to ply her
+own accustomed and accomplished fingers in its fairy creations. The
+younger ones would be ecstatic in their commendations, and eager in
+their exertions to rival the fair sempstress; whilst a gratified
+though sad smile would brighten her own pale cheek as the lady abbess
+laid aside the richly illuminated volume by which her own attention
+had been engrossed, and from which she had from time to time read
+short and instructive passages aloud, commenting on and enforcing the
+principles they inculcated; and holding the work towards the casement,
+so that the bright slanting rays of the setting sun which fell through
+the richly carved lattice might illumine the varied tints of the
+stitchery, she would utter some kind and encouraging words of
+admiration and praise.
+
+Perhaps the work was a broidered scarf for some spiritual father, a
+testimony of gratitude and esteem from the convent at large; perhaps
+it was a tunic or a girdle which some high and wealthy lady had
+bespoken for an offering, and which the meek and pious sisterhood were
+happy to do for hire, bestowing the proceeds on the necessities of the
+convent; or, if those were provided, on charity. Perhaps it was a pair
+of sandals, so magnificently wrought as to be destined as a present by
+some lofty abbot to the pope himself, like those which Robert, Abbot
+of St. Alban's, sent to the Pope Adrian the Fourth; and which alone,
+out of a multitude of the richest offerings, the pope retained;[11]
+or if it were in England (for our domestic scene will apply to all the
+Christian world) it might be a magnificent covering for the high
+altar, with a scripture history embroidered in the centre, and the
+border, of regal purple, inwrought with gold and precious stones. We
+say, _if in England_, because so celebrated was the English work, the
+Opus Anglicum,[12] that other nations eagerly desired to possess it.
+The embroidered vestments of some English clergymen were so much
+admired at the Papal Court, that the Pope, asking where they had been
+made, and being told "in England," despatched bulls to several English
+abbots, commanding them to procure similar ones for him. Some of the
+vestments of these days were almost covered with gold and precious
+stones.
+
+Or it might be a magnificent pall, in the days in which this garment
+had lost its primitive character, that taxed the skill and the
+patience of the fair needlewoman. It was about the year A.D. 601 that
+Pope Gregory sent two archbishop's palls into England; the one for
+London, which see was afterwards removed to Canterbury, and the other
+to York. Fuller gives the following account of this garment
+primitively:--
+
+"The pall is a pontificall vestment, considerable for the matter,
+making, and mysteries thereof. For the matter, it is made of
+lamb's-wooll and superstition. I say, _of lamb's-wooll, as it comes
+from the sheep's back, without any other artificiall colour_, spun
+(say some) by a peculiar order of nunnes, _first cast into the tombe
+of St. Peter_, taken from his body (say others); surely most sacred if
+from both; and (superstitiously) adorned with little black crosses.
+For the form thereof, the _breadth exceeded not three fingers_ (one of
+our bachelor's lamb-skin hoods in Cambridge would make three of them),
+_having two labells hanging down before and behind_, which the
+archbishops onely, when going to the altar, put about their necks,
+above their other pontificall ornaments. Three mysteries were couched
+therein. First, humility, which beautifies the clergy above all their
+costly copes; secondly, innocency, to imitate lamb-like simplicitie;
+and thirdly, industry, to follow him who fetched his wandering sheep
+home on his shoulders. But to speak plainly, the mystery of mysteries
+in this pall was, that the archbishops receiving it showed therein
+their dependence on Rome; and a mote in this manner ceremoniously
+taken was a sufficient acknowledgment of their subjection. And, as it
+owned Rome's power, so in after ages it increased their profit. For,
+though now such palls were freely given to archbishops, whose places
+in Britain for the present were rather cumbersome than commodious,
+having little more than their paines for their labour; yet in after
+ages the archbishop of Canterburie's pall was sold for five thousand
+florenes:[13] so that the Pope might well have the Golden Fleece, if
+he could sell all his lamb's-wooll at that rate."[14]
+
+The accounts of the rich embroidered ecclesiastical vestments--robes,
+sandals, girdles, tunics, vests, palls, cloaks, altar-cloths, and
+veils or hangings of various descriptions, common in churches in the
+dark ages--would almost surpass belief, if the minuteness with which
+they are enumerated in some few ancient authors did not attest the
+fact. Still these in the most diffuse writers are a mere catalogue of
+church properties, and, as such, would, in the dry detail, be but
+little interesting to our readers. There is enough said of them,
+however, to attest their variety, their beauty, their magnificence;
+and to impress one with a very favourable idea of the female ingenuity
+and perseverance of those days. The cost of many of these garments was
+enormous, for pearls and precious jewels were literally interwrought,
+and the time and labour bestowed on them was almost incredible. It was
+no uncommon circumstance for three years to be spent even by these
+assiduous and indefatigable votaries of the needle on one garment. But
+it is only casually, in the pages of the antiquarian, that there is
+any record of them:--
+
+                      "With their names
+    No bard embalms and sanctifies his song:
+    And history, so warm on meaner themes,
+    Is cold on this."
+
+"Noi" (says Muratori) "che ammiriamo, e con ragione, la beltà e
+varietà di tante drapperie dei nostri tempi, abbiam nondimeno da
+confessare un obbligo non lieve agli antichi, che ci hanno prima
+spianata la via, e senza i lumi loro non potremmo oggidì vantare un sì
+gran progresso nell'Arti."
+
+And that this was the case a few instances may suffice to show; and it
+may not be quite out of place here to refer to one out of a thousand
+articles of value and beauty which were lost in the great
+conflagration ("which so cruelly laid waste the habitations of the
+servants of God") of the doomed and often suffering, but always
+magnificent, Croyland Abbey. It was "that beautiful and costly sphere,
+most curiously constructed of different metals, according to the
+different planets. Saturn was of copper, Jupiter of gold, Mars of
+iron, the Sun of brass, Mercury of amber, Venus of tin, and the Moon
+of silver: the colours of all the signs of the Zodiac had their
+several figures and colours variously finished, and adorned with such
+a mixture of precious stones and metals as amused the eye, while it
+informed the mind of every beholder. Such another sphere was not known
+or heard of in England; and it was a present from the King of France."
+
+No insignificant proof this of the mechanical skill of the eleventh
+century.
+
+We are told that Pope Eutychianus, who lived in the reign of the
+Emperor Aurelian, buried in different places 342 martyrs with his own
+hands; and he ordained that a faithful martyr should on no account be
+interred without a dalmatic robe or a purple colobio. This is perhaps
+one of the earliest notices of ecclesiastical pomp or pride in
+vestments. But some forty years afterwards Pope Silvester was
+invested by the hands of his attendants with a Phrygian robe of snowy
+white, on which was traced in sparkling threads by busy female hands
+the resurrection of our Lord; and so magnificent was this garment
+considered that it was ordained to be worn by his successors on state
+occasions: and to pass at once to the seventh century, there are
+records of various church hangings which had become injured by old age
+being carefully repaired at considerable expense; which expense and
+trouble would not, we may fairly infer, have been incurred if the
+articles in question, even at this more advanced period, had not been
+considered of value and of beauty.
+
+Leo the Third, in the eighth century, was a magnificent benefactor to
+the church. With the vessels of rich plate and jewels of various
+descriptions which were in all ages offering to the church we have
+nothing to do: amongst various other vestments, Leo gave to the high
+altar of the blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, a covering
+spangled with gold (_chrysoclabam_) and adorned with precious stones;
+having the histories both of our Saviour giving to the blessed Apostle
+Peter the power of binding and loosing, and also representing the
+suffering of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and Paul. It was of
+great size, and exhibited on St. Peter and St. Paul's days.[15]
+
+Pope Paschal, early in the ninth century, had some magnificent
+garments wrought, which he presented to different churches. One of
+these was an altar-cloth of Tyrian purple, having in the middle a
+picture of golden emblems, with the countenance of our Lord, and of
+the blessed martyrs Cosman and Damian, with three other brothers. The
+cross was wrought in gold, and had round it a border of olive-leaves
+most beautifully worked. Another had golden emblems, with our Saviour,
+surrounded with archangels and apostles, of wonderful beauty and
+richness, being ornamented with pearls.
+
+In these ages robes and hangings with crimson or purple borders,
+called _blatta_, from the name of the insect from which the dye was
+obtained, were much in use. An insect, supposed to be the one so often
+referred to by this name in the writings of the ancients, is found now
+on the coasts of Guayaquil and Guatima. The dye is very beautiful, and
+is easily transferred. The royal purple so much esteemed of old was of
+very different shades, for the terms purple, red, crimson, scarlet,
+are often used indiscriminately; and a pretty correct conception may
+be acquired of the value of this imperial tint formerly from the
+circumstance that, when Alexander took possession of the city of Susa
+and of its enormous treasures, among other things there were found
+five thousand quintals of Hermione purple, the finest in the world,
+which had been treasured up there during the space of 190 years;
+notwithstanding which, its beauty and lustre were no way diminished.
+Some idea may be formed of the prodigious value of this store from the
+fact that this purple was sold at the rate of 100 crowns a pound, and
+the quintal is a hundredweight of Paris.
+
+Pope Paschal had a robe worked with gold and gems, having the history
+of the Virgins with lighted torches beautifully related: he had
+another of Byzantine scarlet with a worked border of olive-leaves.
+This was a very usual decoration of ecclesiastical robes, and a very
+suitable one; for, from the time when in the beak of Noah's dove it
+was first an emblem of comfort, it has ever, in all ages, in all
+nations, at all times, been symbolical of plenty and peace. This pope
+had also a robe of woven gold, worn over a cassock of scarlet silk; a
+dress certainly worth the naming, though not so much as others
+indebted to our useful little implement which Cowper calls the
+"threaded steel." But he had another rich and peculiar garment, which
+was entirely indebted to the needlewoman for its varied and radiant
+hues. This was a robe of an amber colour,[16] _having peacocks_.
+
+Pope Leo the Fourth had a hanging worked with the needle, having the
+portrait of a man seated upon a peacock. Pope Stefano the Fifth had
+four magnificent hangings for the great altar, one of which was
+wrought in peacocks. We find in romance that there was a high
+emblematical value attached to peacocks; not so high, however, as to
+prevent our ancestors from eating them; but it is difficult to account
+for their being so frequently introduced in designs professedly
+religious. In romance and chivalry they were supereminent. "To mention
+the peacock (says M. Le Grand) is to write its panegyrick." Many noble
+families bore the peacock as their crest; and in the Provençal Courts
+of Love the successful poet was crowned with a wreath formed of them.
+The coronation present given to the Queen of our Henry the Third, by
+her sister, the Queen of France, was a large silver peacock, whose
+train was set with sapphires and pearls, and other precious jewels,
+wrought with silver. This elegant piece of jewellery was used as a
+reservoir for sweet waters, which were forced out of its beak into a
+basin of white silver chased.
+
+As the knights associated these birds with all their ideas of fame,
+and made their most solemn vows over them, the highest honours were
+conferred on them. Their flesh is celebrated as the "nutriment of
+lovers," and the "viand of worthies;" and a peacock was always the
+most distinguished dish at the solemn banquets of princes or nobles.
+On these occasions it was served up on a golden dish, and carried to
+table by a lady of rank, attended by a train of high-born dames and
+damsels, and accompanied by music. If it was on the occasion of a
+tournament, the successful knight always carved it, so regulating his
+portions that each individual, be the company ever so numerous, might
+taste. For the oath, the knight rising from his seat and extending his
+hand over the bird, vowed some daring enterprise of arms or love:--"I
+vow to God, to the blessed Virgin, to the dames, and to the _peacock_,
+&c. &c."
+
+In later and less imaginative times, the peacock, though still a
+favourite dish at a banquet, seems to have been regarded more from its
+affording "good eating" than from any more refined attribute.
+Massinger speaks of
+
+                            "the carcases
+    Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to
+    Make sauce for a single peacock."
+
+In Shakspeare's time the bird was usually put into a pie, the head,
+richly gilt, being placed at one end of the dish, and the tail, spread
+out in its full circumference, at the other. And alas! for the
+degeneracy of those days. The solemn and knightly adjuration of former
+times had even then dwindled into the absurd oath which Shakspeare
+puts into the mouth of Justice Shallow:--
+
+    "By _cock_ and _pye_, Sir, you shall not away to night."
+
+In some of the French tapestries birds of all shapes, natural and
+unnatural, of all sizes and in all positions, form very important
+parts of the subjects themselves; though this remark is hardly in
+place here, as the tapestries are of later date, and not solely
+needlework. To return, however: mention is made in an old chronicle of
+_antiquitas Congregatio Ancilarum, quæ opere plumario ornamenta
+ecclesiam laborabant_. It has been a subject of much discussion
+whether this Opus Plumarium signified some arrangement of real
+feathers, or merely fanciful embroidery in imitation of them.
+Lytlyngton, Abbot of Croyland, in Edward the Fourth's time, gave to
+his church nine copes of cloth of gold, exquisitely feathered.[17]
+This was perhaps embroidered imitation. A vestment which Cnute the
+Great presented to this abbey was made of silk embroidered with eagles
+of gold. Richard Upton, elected abbot in 1417, gave silk embroidered
+with falcons for copes; and about the same time John Freston gave a
+rich robe of Venetian blue embroidered with golden eagles. These were
+positively imitations merely; yet they evince the prevailing taste for
+feathered work, and, as we have shown, feathers themselves were much
+used. It is recorded that Pope Paul the Third sent King Pepin a
+present of a mantle interwoven with peacocks' feathers.
+
+And from whatever circumstance the reverence for peacocks' feathers
+originated,[18] it is not, even yet, quite exploded. There are some
+lingering remnants of a superstitious regard for them which may have
+had their origin in these very times and circumstances. For how
+surely, where they are rigidly traced, are our country customs, our
+vulgar ceremonies, our apparently absurd and senseless usages, found
+to emanate from some principle or superstition of general and
+prevailing adoption. In some counties we cannot enter a farm-house
+where the mantel-piece in the parlour is not decorated with a diadem
+of peacock feathers, which are carefully dusted and preserved. And in
+houses of more assuming pretensions the same custom frequently
+prevails; and we knew a lady who carefully preserved some peacock
+feathers in a drawer long after her association with people in a
+higher station than that to which she originally belonged had made her
+ashamed to display them in her parlour. _This_ could not be for _mere_
+ornament: there is some idea of _luck_ attached to them, which seems
+not improbably to have arisen from circumstances connected originally
+with the "Vow of the Peacock." At any rate, the religious care with
+which peacocks' feathers are preserved by many who care not for them
+as ornaments, is not a whit more ridiculous than to see people gravely
+turn over the money in their pockets when they first hear the cuckoo,
+or joyfully fasten a dropped horse-shoe on their threshold, or
+shudderingly turn aside if two straws lie across in their path, or
+thankfully seize an old shoe accidentally met with, heedless of the
+probable state of the beggared foot that may unconsciously have left
+it there, or any other of the million unaccountable customs which
+diversify and enliven country life, and which still prevail and
+flourish, notwithstanding the extensive travels and sweeping
+devastations of the modern "schoolmaster."
+
+Do not our readers recollect Cowper's thanksgiving "on finding the
+heel of a shoe?"--
+
+    "Fortune! I thank thee, gentle goddess! thanks!
+    Not that my muse, though bashful, shall deny
+    She would have thanked thee rather, hadst thou cast
+    A treasure in her way; for neither meed
+    Of early breakfast, to dispel the fumes
+    And bowel-raking pains of emptiness,
+    Nor noontide feast, nor ev'ning's cool repast,
+    Hopes she from this--presumptuous, though perhaps
+    The cobbler, leather-carving artist, might.
+    Nathless she thanks thee, and accepts thy boon,
+    Whatever; not as erst the fabled cock,
+    Vain-glorious fool! unknowing what he found,
+    Spurned the rich gem thou gavest him. Wherefore, ah!
+    Why not on me that favour, (worthier sure!)
+    Conferr'dst, goddess! thou art blind, thou sayest:
+    Enough! thy blindness shall excuse the deed."
+
+Return we to our needlework.
+
+We have clear proof that, before the end of the seventh century, our
+fair countrywomen were skilled not merely in the use of the needle as
+applied to necessary purposes, but also in its application to the
+varied and elegant embroidered garments to which we have so frequently
+alluded, as forming properties of value and consideration. They were
+chiefly executed by ladies of the highest rank and greatest
+piety--very frequently, indeed, by those of royal blood--and were
+usually (as we have before observed) devoted to the embellishment of
+the church, or the decoration of its ministers. It was not unusual to
+bequeath such properties. "I give," said the wife of the Conqueror, in
+her will, "to the Abbey of the Holy Trinity, my tunic worked at
+Winchester by Alderet's wife, and the mantle embroidered with gold,
+which is in my chamber, to make a cope. Of my two golden girdles, I
+give that which is ornamented with emblems for the purpose of
+suspending the lamp before the great altar."[19] Amongst some costly
+presents sent by Isabella, Queen of Edward the Second, to the Pope,
+was a magnificent cope, embroidered and studded with large white
+pearls, and purchased of the executors of Catherine Lincoln, for a sum
+equivalent to between two and three thousand pounds of present money.
+Another cope, thought worthy to accompany it, was also the work of an
+Englishwoman, Rose de Bureford, wife of John de Bureford, citizen and
+merchant of London.
+
+Anciently, banners, either from being made of some relic, or from the
+representation on them of holy things, were held sacred, and much
+superstitious faith placed in them; consequently the pious and
+industrious finger was much occupied in working them. King Arthur,
+when he fought the eighth battle against the Saxons, carried the
+"image of Christ and of the blessed Mary (always a virgin) upon his
+shoulders." Over the tomb of Oswald, the great Christian hero, was
+laid a banner of purple wrought with gold. When St. Augustine first
+came to preach to the Saxons, he had a cross borne before him, with a
+banner, on which was the image of our Saviour Christ. The celebrated
+standard of the Danes had the sacred raven worked on it; and the
+ill-fated Harold bore to the field of Hastings a banner with the
+figure of an armed man worked in gold thread: to the same field
+William bore a standard, a gift from the Pope, and blessed by his
+Holiness.
+
+It is recorded of St. Dunstan, who, as our readers well know, excelled
+in many pursuits, and especially in painting, for which he frequently
+forsook his peculiar occupation of goldsmith, that on one occasion, at
+the earnest request of a lady, he _tinted_ a sacerdotal vestment for
+her, which she afterwards embroidered in gold thread in an exquisitely
+beautiful style. Most of these embroidered works were first tinted,
+very probably in the way in which they now are, or until the freer
+influx of the more beautiful German patterns, they lately were; and it
+is from this previous tinting that they are so frequently described in
+the old books as _painted_ garments, _pictured_ vestments, &c., this
+term by no means seeming usually to imply that the use of the needle
+had been neglected or superseded in them. The garments of Edward the
+Confessor, which he wore upon occasions of great solemnity, were
+sumptuously embroidered with gold by the hands of Edgitha, his Queen.
+The four princesses, daughters of King Edward the Elder, were most
+carefully educated: their early years were chiefly devoted to literary
+pursuits, but they were nevertheless most assiduously instructed in
+the use of the needle, and are highly celebrated by historians for
+their assiduity and skill in spinning, weaving, and needlework. This
+was so far, says the historian, from spoiling the fortunes of those
+royal spinsters, that it procured them the addresses of the greatest
+princes then in Europe, and one, "in whom the whole essence of beauty
+had centered, was demanded from her brother by Hugh, King of the
+Franks."
+
+Our fair readers may take some interest in knowing what were the
+propitiatory offerings of a noble suitor of those days.
+
+"Perfumes, such as never had been seen in England before; jewels, but
+more especially emeralds, the greenness of which, reflected by the
+sun, illumined the countenances of the bystanders with agreeable
+light; many fleet horses, with their trappings, and, as Virgil says,
+'champing their golden bits;' an alabaster vase, so exquisitely
+chased, that the corn-fields really seemed to wave, the vines to bud,
+the figures of men actually to move, and so clear and polished, that
+it reflected the features like a mirror; the sword of Constantine the
+Great, on which the name of its original possessor was read in golden
+letters; on the pommel, upon thick plates of gold, might be seen fixed
+an iron spike, one of the four which the Jewish faction prepared for
+the crucifixion of our Lord; the spear of Charles the Great, which,
+whenever that invincible Emperor hurled in his expeditions against the
+Saracens, he always came off conqueror; it was reported to be the same
+which, driven into the side of our Saviour by the hand of the
+centurion, opened, by that precious wound, the joys of paradise to
+wretched mortals; the banner of the most blessed martyr Maurice, chief
+of the Theban legion, with which the same King, in the Spanish war,
+used to break through the battalions of the enemy, however fierce and
+wedged together, and put them to flight; a diadem, precious from its
+quantity of gold, but more so for its jewels, the splendour of which
+threw the sparks of light so strongly on the beholders, that the more
+steadfastly any person endeavoured to gaze, so much the more dazzled
+he was--compelled to avert his eyes; part of the holy and adorable
+cross enclosed in crystal, where the eye, piercing through the
+substance of the stone, might discern the colour and size of the wood;
+a small portion of the crown of thorns enclosed in a similar manner,
+which, in derision of his government, the madness of the soldiers
+placed on Christ's sacred head.
+
+"The King (Athelstan), delighted with such great and exquisite
+presents, made an equal return of good offices, and gratified the soul
+of the longing suitor by a union with his sister. With some of these
+presents he enriched succeeding kings; but to Malmesbury he gave part
+of the cross and crown; by the support of which, I believe, that place
+even now flourishes, though it has suffered so many shipwrecks of its
+liberty, so many attacks of its enemies."[20]
+
+It is not to be supposed that at a time when the "whole island" was
+said to "blaze" with devotion, and when, moreover, her own fair
+daughters surpassed the whole world in needlework, that the English
+churches were deficient in its beautiful adornments. Far otherwise,
+indeed. We forbear to enumerate many, because our chapter has already
+exceeded its prescribed limits; but we may particularize a golden veil
+or hanging (vellum), embroidered with the destruction of Troy, which
+Witlaf, King of Mercia, gave to the abbey of Croyland; and the
+coronation mantle of Harold Harefoot, son of Cnute, which he gave to
+the same abbey, made of silk, and embroidered with "Hesperian apples."
+Richard, who was abbot of St. Alban's from 1088 to 1119, made a
+present to his monastery of a suit of hangings which contained the
+whole history of the primitive martyr of England, Alban.
+
+Croyland Abbey possessed many hangings for the altars, embroidered
+with golden birds; and a garment, which seems to have been a peculiar,
+and considered a valuable one, being a black gown wrought with gold
+letters, to officiate in at funerals. The enigmatical letters which
+were worked on ecclesiastical vestments in those days, were various
+and peculiar, and have given abundant scope for antiquarian research.
+We have heard it surmised that they took their rise in times of
+persecution, being indications (then, doubtless, slight and
+unostentatious ones) by which the Christians might know each other.
+But they came into more general use, not merely as symbolical
+characters, but individual names were wrought, and that not on
+personal garments alone, for Pope Leo the Fourth placed a cloth on the
+altar woven with gold, and spangled all over with pearls. It had on
+each side (right and left) a circle bounded with gold, within which
+the name of his Holiness was written in precious stones. In many old
+paintings a letter or letters have been noticed on the garment of the
+principal figure, and they have been taken for private marks of the
+painter, but it is more probable, says Ciampini,[21] that they are
+either copied from old garments, or are intended to denote the dignity
+of the character to which they are attached.
+
+We will conclude the present chapter by remarking that one of the most
+magnificent specimens of ancient needlework in existence, and which is
+in excellent preservation, is the State Pall belonging to the
+Fishmongers Company. The end pieces are similar, and consist of a
+picture, wrought in gold and silk, of the patron, St. Peter, in
+pontificial robes, seated on a superb throne, and crowned with the
+papal tiara. Holding in one hand the keys, the other is in the posture
+of giving the benediction, and on each side is an angel, bearing a
+golden vase, from which he scatters incense over the Saint. The
+angel's wings, according to old custom, are composed of peacocks'
+feathers in all their natural vivid colours; their outer robes are
+gold raised with crimson; their under vests white, shaded with sky
+blue; the faces are finely worked in satin, after nature, and they
+have long yellow hair.
+
+There are various designs on the side pieces; the most important and
+conspicuous is Christ delivering the keys to Peter. Among other
+decorations are, of course, the arms of the company, richly
+emblazoned, the supporters of which, the merman and mermaid, are
+beautifully worked, the merman in gold armour, the mermaid in white
+silk, with long tresses in golden thread.
+
+This magnificent piece of needlework has probably no parallel in this
+country.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] When Robert, Abbot of St. Alban's, visited his countryman Pope
+Adrian the Fourth, he made him several valuable presents, and amongst
+other things three mitres and a pair of sandals of most admirable
+workmanship. His holiness refused his other presents, but thankfully
+accepted of the mitres and sandals, being charmed with their exquisite
+beauty. These admired pieces of embroidery were the work of Christina,
+Abbess of Markgate.
+
+[12] "Anglicæ nationis feminæ multum acu et auri textura, egregie viri
+in omni valeant artificio. Però fu renomato Opus Anglicum."--From
+Muratori.
+
+[13] A florene is 4_s._ 6_d._
+
+[14] "The pall was a bishop's vestment, going over the shoulders, made
+of sheep-skin, in memory of him who sought the lost sheep, and when he
+had found it laid it on his shoulders; and it was embroidered with
+crosses, and taken off the body or coffin of St. Peter."--Camden.
+
+[15] Anastasius Bibliothecarius. De Vitis Romanorum Pontificum.
+
+As this work is the fountain whence subsequent writers have chiefly
+obtained their information with regard to church vestments, that is to
+say, decorative ones, it may not be amiss to transcribe a passage,
+taken literally at random from scores of similar ones. It will give
+the reader some idea of the profusion with which the expensive
+garnitures were supplied:--
+
+"Sed et super altare majus fecit tetra vela holoserica alithina
+quatuor, cum astillis, et rosis chrysoclabis. Et in eodem altare fecit
+cum historiis crucifixi Domini vestem tyriam. Et in Ecclesia Doctoris
+Mundi beati Pauli Apostoli tetra vela holoserica alithyna quatuor, et
+vestem super altare albam chrysoclabam, habentem historiam Sanctæ
+Resurrectionis, et aliam vestem chrysoclabam, habentem historiam
+nativitatis Domini, et Sanctorum Innocentium. Immo et aliam vestem
+tyriam, habentem historiam cæci illuminati, et Resurrectionem. Idem
+autem sanctissimus Præsul fecit in basilica beatæ Mariæ ad Præsepe
+vestem albam chrysoclabam, habentem historiam sanctæ Resurrectionis.
+Sed et aliam vestem in orbiculis chrysoclabis, habentem historias
+Annunciationis, et sanctorum Joachim, et Annæ. Fecit in Ecclesia beati
+Laurentii foris muros eidem Præsul vestem albam rosatam cum
+chrysoclabo. Sed et aliam vestem super sanctum corpus ejus albam de
+stauraci chrysoclabam, cum margaritis. Et in titulo Calixti vestem
+chrysoclabam ex blattin Byzanteo, habentem historiam nativitatis
+Domini, et sancti Simeonis. Item in Ecclesia sancti Pancratii vestem
+tyriam, habentem historiam Ascencionis Domini, seu et in sancta Maria
+ad Martyres fecit vestem tyriam ut supra. Et in basilica sanctorum
+Cosmæ et Damiani fecit vestem de blatti Byzanteo, cum periclysin de
+chrysoclabo, et margaritis."--i. 285.
+
+[16] "De staurace."
+
+[17] "Opere plumario exquitissime præparatas."
+
+[18] In the classical ages, they were in high repute. Juno's chariot
+is drawn by peacocks; and Olympian Jove himself invests his royal
+limbs with a mantle formed of their feathers.
+
+[19] The name of Dame Leviet has descended to posterity as an
+embroiderer to the Conqueror and his Queen.
+
+[20] Will. of Malmesbury, 156.
+
+[21] Vet. Mon. cap. 13.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.--PART I.
+
+    "Needlework sublime."
+
+                        Cowper.
+
+
+Great discussion has taken place amongst the learned with regard to
+the exact time at which the Bayeux tapestry was wrought. The question,
+except as a matter of curiosity, is, perhaps, of little account--fifty
+years earlier or later, nearly eight hundred years ago. It had always
+been considered as the work of Matilda, the wife of the conquering
+Duke of Normandy until a few years ago, when the Abbé de la Rue
+started and endeavoured to maintain the hypothesis that it was worked
+by or under the direction of the Empress Matilda, the daughter of
+Henry the First.[22] But his positions, as Dibdin observes,[23] are
+all of a _negative_ character, and, "according to the strict rules of
+logic, it must not be admitted, that because such and such writers
+have _not_ noticed a circumstance, therefore that circumstance or
+event cannot have taken place." Hudson Gurney, Charles A. Stothard,
+and Thos. Amyot, Esqrs. have all published essays on the subject,[24]
+which establish almost to certainty the fact of the production of this
+tapestry at the earlier of the two periods contended for, viz. from
+1066 to 1068.
+
+In this we rejoice, because this Herculean labour has a halo of deep
+interest thrown round it, from the circumstance of its being the proud
+tribute of a fond and affectionate wife, glorying in her husband's
+glory, and proud of emblazoning his deeds. As the work of the Empress
+Matilda it would still be a magnificent production of industry and of
+skill; as the work of "Duke William's" wife these qualities merge in
+others of a more interesting character.[25]
+
+This excellent and amiable princess was a most highly accomplished
+woman, and remarkable for her learning; she was the affectionate
+mother of a large family, the faithful wife of an enterprising
+monarch, with whom she lived for thirty-three years so harmoniously
+that her death had such an effect on her husband as to cause him to
+relinquish, never again to resume, his usual amusements.[26]
+
+Little did the affectionate wife think, whilst employed over this
+task, that her domestic tribute of regard should become an historical
+memento of her country, and blazon forth her illustrious husband's
+deeds, and her own unwearying affection, to ages upon ages hereafter
+to be born. For independently of the interest which may be attached to
+this tapestry as a pledge of feminine affection, a token of
+housewifely industry, and a specimen of ancient stitchery, it derives
+more historic value as the work of the Conqueror's wife, than if it
+were the production of a later time. For it holds good with these
+historical tapestries as with the written histories and romances of
+the middle ages;--authors wrote and ladies wrought (we mean no pun)
+their characters, _not_ in the costume of the times in which the
+action or event celebrated took place, but in that in which they were
+at the time engaged; and thus, had Matilda the Empress worked this
+tapestry, it is more than probable that she would have introduced the
+armorial bearings which were in her time becoming common, and
+especially the Norman leopards, of which in the tapestry there is not
+the slightest trace. In her time too the hair was worn so long as to
+excite the censures of the church, whilst at the time of the Conquest
+the Normans almost shaved their heads; and this circumstance, more
+than the want of beards, is supposed by Mr. Stothard[27] to have led
+to the surmise of the Anglo-Saxon spies that the Normans were all
+priests. This circumstance is faithfully depicted in the tapestry,
+where also the chief weapon seen is a lance, which was little used
+after the Conquest. These peculiarities, with several others which
+have been commented on by antiquarian writers, seem to establish the
+date of this production as coeval with the action which it represents,
+and therefore invaluable as an historical document.
+
+"It is, perhaps," says one of the learned writers on the Bayeux
+tapestry, "a characteristic of the literature of the present age to
+deduce history from sources of second-rate authority; from ballads and
+pictures rather than from graver and severer records. Unquestionably
+this is the preferable course, if amusement, not truth, be the object
+sought for. Nothing can be more delightful than to read the reigns of
+the Plantagenets in the dramas of Shakspeare, or the tales of later
+times in the ingenious fictions of the author of Waverley. But those
+who would draw historical facts from their hiding-places must be
+content to plod through many a ponderous worm-eaten folio, and many a
+half-legible and still less intelligible manuscript.
+
+"Yet," continues he, "if the Bayeux tapestry be not history of the
+first class, it is, perhaps, something better. It exhibits genuine
+traits, elsewhere sought in vain, of the costume and manners of that
+age which, of all others, if we except the period of the Reformation,
+ought to be the most interesting to us; that age which gave us a new
+race of monarchs, bringing with them new landholders, new laws, and
+almost a new language.
+
+"As in the magic pages of Froissart, we here behold our ancestors of
+each race in most of the occupations of life, in courts and camps, in
+pastime and in battle, at feasts and on the bed of sickness. These
+are characteristics which of themselves would call forth a lively
+interest; but their value is greatly enhanced by their connection with
+one of the most important events in history, the main subject of the
+whole design."
+
+This magnificent piece of work is 227 feet in length by 20 inches in
+width, is now usually kept at the Town-hall in Rouen, and is treasured
+as the most precious relic. It was formerly the theme of some long and
+learned dissertations of antiquarian historians, amongst whom
+Montfaucon, perhaps, ranks most conspicuous.
+
+Still so little _local_ interest does it excite, that Mr. Gurney, in
+1814, was nearly leaving Bayeux without seeing it because he did not
+happen to ask for it by the title of "Toile de St. Jean," and so his
+request was not understood; and Ducarel, in his "Tour," says, "The
+priests of this cathedral to whom we addressed ourselves for a sight
+of this remarkable piece of antiquity, knew nothing of it; the
+circumstance only of its being annually hung up in their church led
+them to understand what we wanted; no person there knowing that the
+object of our inquiry any ways related to William the Conqueror, whom
+to this day they call Duke William."
+
+During the French Revolution its surrender was demanded for the
+purpose of covering the guns; fortunately, however, a priest succeeded
+in concealing it until that storm was overpast.
+
+Bonaparte better knew its value. It was displayed for some time in
+Paris, and afterwards at some seaport towns. M. Denon had the charge
+of it committed to him by Bonaparte, but it was afterwards restored
+to Bayeux. It was at the time of the usurper's threatened invasion of
+our country that so much value was attached to, and so much pains
+taken to exhibit this roll. "Whether," says Dibdin, "at such a sight
+the soldiers shouted, and, drawing their glittering swords,
+
+    "Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,--"
+
+confident of a second representation of the same subject by a second
+subjugation of our country--is a point which has not been exactly
+detailed to me! But the supposition may not be considered very violent
+when I inform you that I was told by a casual French visitor of the
+tapestry, that '_pour cela, si Bonaparte avait eu le courage, le
+résultat auroit été comme autrefois_.' Matters, however, have taken
+_rather_ a different turn."
+
+The tapestry is coiled round a machine like that which lets down the
+buckets to a well, and a female unrols and explains it. It is worked
+in different coloured worsteds on white cloth, to which time has given
+the tinge of brown holland; the parts intended to represent flesh are
+left untouched by the needle. The colours are somewhat faded, and not
+very multitudinous. Perhaps it is the little variety of colours which
+Matilda and her ladies had at their disposal which has caused them to
+depict the horses of any colour--"blue, green, red, or yellow." The
+outline, too, is of course stiff and rude.[28] At the top and bottom
+of the main work is a narrow allegorical border; and each division or
+different action or event is marked by a branch or tree extending the
+whole depth of the tapestry; and most frequently each tableau is so
+arranged that the figures at the end of one and the beginning of the
+next are turned from each other, whilst above each the subject of the
+scene and the names of the principal actors are wrought in large
+letters. The subjects of the border vary; some of Æsop's fables are
+depicted on it, sometimes instruments of agriculture, sometimes
+fanciful and grotesque figures and borders; and during the heat of the
+battle of Hastings, when, as Montfaucon says, "le carnage est grand,"
+the appropriate device of the border is a _layer of dead men_.
+
+"From the fury of the Normans, good Lord deliver us," was, we are
+told, in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries a petition in the
+Litanies of all nations.[29] For long did England sorrow under their
+"fury," though _in time_ the Conquest produced advantageous results to
+the kingdom at large. Whether this Norman subjugation was in
+accordance with the will of the monarch Edward, or whether it was
+entirely the result of Duke William's ambition, must now ever remain
+in doubt. Harold asserted that Edward the Confessor appointed him his
+successor (of which, however, he could not produce proof); to this
+must be opposed the improbability of Edward thus ennobling a family of
+whom he felt, and with such abundant cause, so jealous.
+
+Probably the old chronicler (Fabyan) has hit the mark when he says,
+"This Edgarre (the rightful heir) was yonge, and specyally for
+Harolde was stronge of knyghtes and rychesse, he wanne the reygne." Be
+this as it may, however, Harold on the very day of Edward's interment,
+and that was only the day subsequent to his death, was crowned king in
+St. Paul's; apparently with the concurrence of all concerned, for he
+was powerful and popular. And his government during the chief part of
+his short kingly career was such as to increase his popularity: he was
+wise, and just, and gracious. "Anone as he was crowned, he began to
+fordoo euyll lawes and customes before vsed, and stablysshed the good
+lawes, and specyally whiche (suche) as were for the defence of holy
+churche, and punysshed the euyll doers, to the fere and example of
+other."[30]
+
+But uncontrolled authority early began to produce its wonted results.
+He "waxyd so prowd, and for couetouse wold not deuyde the prayes that
+he took to hys knyghtys, that had well deseruyd it, but kepte it to
+hymself, that he therby lost the fauour of many of his knyghtys and
+people."[31] This defection from his party doubtless made itself felt
+in the mortal struggle with the Norman duke which issued in Harold's
+discomfiture and death.
+
+Proceed we to the tapestry.
+
+The first scene which the needlewoman has depicted is a conference
+between a person who, from his white flowing beard and regal costume,
+is easily recognized as the "sainted Edward," and another, who, from
+his subsequent embarkation, is supposed to be Harold. The subject of
+the conference is, of course, only conjectured. Harold's visit to
+Normandy is well known; but whether, as some suppose, he was driven
+thither by a tempest when on a cruise of pleasure; whether he went as
+ambassador from Edward to communicate the intentions of the Confessor
+in William's behoof; or whether, as the tapestry is supposed more
+strongly to indicate, he obtained Edward's reluctant consent to his
+visit to reclaim his brother who, a hostage for his own good conduct,
+had been sent to William by Edward; these are points which now defy
+investigation, even if they were of sufficient importance to claim it.
+Harold is then seen on his journey attended by cavaliers on horseback,
+surrounded by dogs, and, an emblem of his own high dignity, a hawk on
+his fist.
+
+One great value of this tapestry is the scrupulous regard paid to
+points and circumstances which at first view might appear
+insignificant, but which, as correlative confirmations of usages and
+facts, are of considerable importance. Thus, it is known to
+antiquarians that great personages formerly had two only modes of
+equipment when proceeding on a journey, that of war or the chase.
+Harold is here fully equipped for the chase, and consequently the
+first glimpse obtained of his person would show that his errand was
+one of peace. The hawk on the fist was a mark of high nobility: no
+inferior person is represented with one: Harold and Guy Earl of
+Ponthieu alone bear them.
+
+In former times this bird was esteemed so sacred that it was
+prohibited in the ancient laws for any one to give his hawk even as a
+part of his ransom. In the reign of Edward the Third it was made
+felony to steal a hawk; and to take its eggs, even in a person's own
+ground, was punishable with imprisonment for a year and a day, besides
+a fine at the king's pleasure. Nay, more than this, by the laws of one
+part of the island, and probably of the whole,[32] the price of a
+hawk, or of a greyhound, was once the very same with the price of a
+man; and there was a time when the robbing of a hawk's nest was as
+great a crime in the eye of the law, and as severely punished, as the
+murder of a Christian. And of this high value they were long
+considered. "It is difficult," says Mr. Mills,[33] "to fancy the
+extravagant degree of estimation in which hawks were held during the
+chivalric ages. As symbols of high estate they were constantly carried
+about by the nobility of both sexes. There was even a usage of
+bringing them into places appropriated to public worship; a practice
+which, in the case of some individuals, appears to have been
+recognised as a right. The treasurer of the church of Auxerre enjoyed
+the distinction of assisting at divine service on solemn days with a
+falcon on his fist; and the Lord of Sassai held the privilege of
+perching his upon the altar. Nothing was thought more dishonourable to
+a man of rank than to give up his hawks; and if he were taken prisoner
+he would not resign them even for liberty."
+
+The different positions in which the hawk is placed in our needlework
+are worthy of remark. Here its head is raised, its wings fluttering,
+as if eager and ready for flight; afterwards, when Harold follows the
+Earl of Ponthieu as his captive, he is not, of course, deprived of his
+bird, but by a beautiful fiction the bird is represented depressed,
+and with its head turned towards its master's breast as if trying to
+nestle and shelter itself there. Could sympathy be more poetically
+expressed? Afterwards, on Harold's release, the bird is again depicted
+as fluttering to "soar elate."
+
+The practice very prevalent in these "barbarous times," as we somewhat
+too sweepingly term them, of entering on no expedition of war or
+pastime without imploring the protection of heaven, is intimated by a
+church which Harold is entering previously to his embarkation. That
+this observance might degenerate in many instances into mere form may
+be very true; and the "hunting masses" celebrated in song might, some
+of them, be more honoured in the breach than the observance:
+nevertheless in clearing away the dross of old times, we have, it is
+to be feared, removed some of the gold also; and the abolition of the
+custom of having the churches open at _all times_, so that at any
+moment the heart-prompted prayer might be offered up under the holy
+shelter of a consecrated roof, has tended very much, it is to be
+feared, to abolish the habit of frequent prayer. A habit in itself,
+and regarded even merely as a habit, fraught with inestimable good.
+
+We next see Harold and his companions refreshing themselves prior to
+their departure, pledging each other, and doubtless drinking to the
+success of their enterprise whatever it might be. The horns from which
+they are drinking have been the subject of critical remark. We find
+that horns were used for various purposes, and were of four sorts,
+drinking horns, hunting horns, horns for summoning the people, and of
+a mixed kind.
+
+They were used as modes of investiture, and this manner of endowing
+was usual amongst the Danes in England. King Cnute himself gave lands
+at Pusey in Berkshire to the family of that name, with a horn solemnly
+at that time delivered, as a confirmation of the grant. Edward the
+Confessor made a like donation to the family of Nigel. The celebrated
+horn of Alphus, kept in the sacristy in York Minster, was probably a
+drinking cup belonging to this prince, and was by him given together
+with all his lands and revenues to that church. "When he gave the horn
+that was to convey it (his estate) he filled it with wine, and on his
+knees before the altar, 'Deo et S. Petro omnes terras et redditus
+propinavit.' So that he drank it off, in testimony that thereby he
+gave them his lands."[34] Many instances might be adduced to show that
+this mode of investiture was common in England in the time of the
+Danes, the Anglo-Saxons, and at the close of the reign of the Norman
+conqueror.
+
+The drinking horns had frequently a screw at the end, which being
+taken off at once converted them into hunting horns, which
+circumstance will account for persons of distinction frequently
+carrying their own. Such doubtless were those used of old by the
+Breton hunters about Brecheliant, which is poetically described as a
+forest long and broad, much famed throughout Brittany. The fountain of
+Berenton rises from beneath a stone there. Thither the hunters are
+used to repair in sultry weather, and drawing up water with their
+horns (those horns which had just been used to sound the animated
+warnings of the chase), they sprinkle the stone for the purpose of
+having rain, which is then wont to fall throughout the whole forest
+around. There too fairies are to be seen, and many wonders happen. The
+ground is broken and precipitous, and deer in plenty roam there, but
+the husbandmen have forsaken it. Our author[35] goes on to say that he
+personally visited this enchanted region, but that, though he saw the
+forest and the land, no marvels presented themselves. The reason is
+obvious. He had, before the time, contracted some of the scepticism of
+these matter-of-fact "schoolmaster abroad" days. He wanted faith, and
+therefore he did not _deserve_ to see them.
+
+The use of drinking horns is very ancient. They were usually
+embellished or garnished with silver; they were in very common use
+among our Saxon ancestors, who frequently had them gilded and
+magnificently ornamented. One of those in use amongst Harold's party
+seems to be very richly decorated.
+
+The revellers are, however, obliged to dispatch, as their leader,
+Harold, is already wading through the water to his vessel. The
+character of Harold as displayed throughout this tapestry is a
+magnificent one, and does infinite credit to the generous and noble
+disposition of Matilda the queen, who disdained to depreciate the
+character of a fallen foe. He commences his expedition by an act of
+piety; here, on his embarkation at Bosham, he is kindly carrying his
+dog through the water. In crossing the sands of the river Cosno, which
+are dangerous, so very dangerous as most frequently to cause the
+destruction of those who attempt their transit, his whole concern
+seems to be to assist the passage of others, whose inferior natural
+powers do not enable them to compete with danger so successfully as
+himself; his character for undaunted bravery is such, that William
+condescends to supplicate his assistance in a feud then at issue
+between himself and another nobleman, and so nobly does he bear
+himself that the proud Norman with his own hands invests him with the
+emblems of honour (as seen in the tapestry); and, last scene of all,
+he disdained all submission, he repelled all the entreaties with which
+his brothers assailed him not personally to lead his troops to the
+encounter, and the corpses of 15,000 Normans on this field, and of
+even a greater number on the English monarch's side, told in bloody
+characters that Harold had not quailed in the last great encounter.
+
+Unpropitious winds drive him and his attendants from their intended
+course. Many historians accuse the people of Ponthieu of making
+prisoners all whose ill fortune threw them upon their coast, and of
+treating them with great barbarity, in order to extort the larger
+ransom. Be this as it may, Harold has scarcely set his foot on shore
+ere he is forcibly captured by the vassals of Guy of Ponthieu, who is
+there on horseback to witness the proceeding. The tapestry goes on to
+picture the progress of the captured troop and their captors to Belrem
+or Beurain, and a conference when there between the earl and his
+prisoner, where the fair embroideresses have given a delicate and
+expressive feature by depicting the conquering noble with his sword
+elevated, and the princely captive, wearing indeed his sword, but with
+the point depressed.
+
+It is said that a fisherman of Ponthieu, who had been often in England
+and knew Harold's person, was the cause of his capture. "He went
+privily to Guy, the Count of Pontif, and would speak to no other; and
+he told the Count how he could put a great prize in his way, if he
+would go with him; and that if he would give him only twenty livres he
+should gain a hundred by it, for he would deliver him such a prisoner
+as would pay a hundred livres or more for his ransome." The Count
+agreed to his terms, and then the fisherman showed him Harold.
+
+Hearing of Harold's captivity, William the Norman is anxious on all
+and every account to obtain possession of his person. He consequently
+sends ambassadors to Guy, who is represented on the tapestry as giving
+them audience. The person holding the horses is somewhat remarkable;
+he is a bearded dwarf. Dwarfs were formerly much sought after in the
+houses of great folks, and they were frequently sent as presents from
+one potentate to another. They were petted and indulged somewhat in
+the way of the more modern fool or jester. The custom is very old. The
+Romans were so fond of them, that they often used artificial methods
+to prevent the growth of children designed for dwarfs, by enclosing
+them in boxes, or by the use of tight bandages. The sister of one of
+the Roman emperors had a dwarf who was only two feet and a hand
+breadth in height. Many relations concerning dwarfs we may look upon
+as not less fabulous than those of giants. They are, like the latter,
+indispensable in romances, where their feats, far from being dwarfish,
+are absolutely gigantic, though these diminutive heroes seldom occupy
+any more ostensible post than that of humble attendant.
+
+    "Fill'd with these views th' _attendant dwarf_ she sends:
+    Before the knight the dwarf respectful bends;
+    Kind greetings bears as to his lady's guest,
+    And prays his presence to adorn her feast.
+    The knight delays not."
+
+    "A hugye giaunt stiffe and starke,
+        All foule of limbe and lere;
+    Two goggling eyen like fire farden,
+        A mouthe from eare to eare.
+    Before him came a dwarffe full lowe,
+        That _waited on his knee_."
+
+                        Sir Cauline.
+
+    "Behind her farre away a dwarfe did lag
+    That lasie seem'd, in being ever last,
+    Or wearied with _bearing of her bag_
+    Of needments at his backe."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+The dwarf worked in the tapestry has the name TVROLD placed above him,
+and seems to have been a dependant of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, William
+the Conqueror's brother.[36]
+
+The first negotiations are unsuccessful; more urgent messages are
+forwarded, and in the end Duke William himself proceeds at the head of
+some troops to _compel_ the surrender of the prisoner. Count Guy is
+intimidated, and the object is attained; every stage of these
+proceedings is depicted on the canvas, as well as William's courteous
+reception of Harold at his palace.
+
+The portraiture of a female in a sort of porch, with a clergyman in
+the act of pronouncing a benediction on her, is supposed to have
+reference to the engagement between William and his guest, that the
+latter should marry the daughter of the former. Many other
+circumstances and conditions were tacked to this agreement, one of
+which was that Harold should guard the English throne for William;
+agreements which one and all--under the reasonable plea that they were
+enforced ones--the Anglo-Saxon nobleman broke through. It is said that
+his desertion so affected the mind of the pious young princess,[37]
+that her heart broke on her passage to Spain, whither they were
+conveying her to a forced union with a Spanish prince. As this young
+lady was a mere child at the time of Harold's visit to Normandy, the
+story, though exceedingly pretty, is probably very apocryphal. Ducarel
+gives an entirely different explanation of the scene, and says that it
+is probably meant to represent a secretary or officer coming to
+William's duchess, to acquaint her with the agreement just made
+relative to her daughter.
+
+The Earl of Bretagne is at this moment at war with Duke William, and
+the latter attaching Harold to his party, from whom indeed he receives
+effectual service, arrives at Mount St. Michel, passes the river Cosno
+(to which we have before alluded), and arrives at Dol in Brittany.
+Parties are seen flying towards Rennes. William and his followers
+attack Dinant, of which the keys are delivered up, and the Normans
+come peaceably to Bayeux; William having previously, with his own
+hands, invested Harold with a suit of armour.
+
+Harold shortly returns to England, but not before a very important
+circumstance had taken place. William and Harold had mutually entered
+into an agreement by which the latter had pledged himself to be true
+to William, to acknowledge him as Edward's successor on the English
+throne, and to do all in his power to obtain for him the peaceable
+possession of that throne; and as Harold was, the reigning monarch
+excepted, the first man in England, this promised support was of no
+trifling moment. William resolved therefore to have the oath repeated
+with all possible solemnity. His brother Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux,
+assisted him in this matter. Accordingly we see Harold standing
+between two altars covered with cloth of gold, a hand on each,
+uttering the solemn adjuration, of which William, seated on his
+throne, is a delighted auditor; for he well knew that the oath was
+more fearful than Harold was at all aware of. For "William sent for
+all the holy bodies thither, and put so many of them together as to
+fill a whole chest, and then covered them with a pall; but Harold
+neither saw them, nor knew of their being there, for nought was shown
+or told to him about it; and over all was a phylactery, the best that
+he could select. When Harold placed his hand upon it, the hand
+trembled and the flesh quivered; but he swore, and promised upon his
+oath, to take Ele to wife, and to deliver up England to the duke; and
+thereunto to do all in his power, according to his might and wit,
+after the death of Edward, if he should live, so help him God and the
+holy relics there! (meaning the Gospels, for he had none idea of any
+other). Many cried 'God grant it!' and when Harold had kissed the
+saints, and had risen upon his feet, the duke led him up to the chest,
+and made him stand near it; and took off the chest the pall that had
+covered it, and showed Harold upon what holy relics he had sworn, and
+he was sorely alarmed at the sight."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[22] Archæologia, vol. xvii.
+
+[23] Biblio. Tour, vol. i., 138.
+
+[24] Archæol. vols. xviii., xix.
+
+[25] One writer, Bolton Corney, Esq., maintains that this work was
+provided at the expense of the Chapter of Bayeux, under their
+superintendence, and from their designs. "If it had not (says he) been
+devised within the precincts of a church it could not have escaped
+female influence: it could not have contained such indications of
+_celibatic_ superintendence. It is not without its domestic and
+festive scenes; and comprises, exclusive of the borders, about 530
+figures; but in this number there are only three females."
+
+[26] Henry III., 25.
+
+[27] Archæol. vol. xix.
+
+[28] The attempts to imitate the human figure were, at this period,
+stiff and rude: but arabesque patterns were now _chiefly_ worked; and
+they were rich and varied.
+
+[29] Henry III., 554.
+
+[30] Fabyan's Chron.
+
+[31] Rastell's Chron.
+
+[32] Henry II., 515.
+
+[33] Hist. Chiv.
+
+[34] Archæol. 1 and 3.
+
+[35] Master Wace. Roman de Rou, &c., by Taylor.
+
+[36] Archæologia, vol. xix.
+
+[37] "Her knees were like horn with constant kneeling."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.--PART II.
+
+    "But bloody, bloody was the field,
+        Ere that lang day was done."
+
+                        Hardyknute.
+
+    "King William bithought him alsoe of that
+      Folke that was forlorne,
+    And slayn also thoruz him
+      In the bataile biforne.
+    And ther as the bataile was,
+      An abbey he lite rere
+    Of Seint Martin, for the soules
+      That there slayn were.
+    And the monkes well ynoug
+      Feffed without fayle,
+    That is called in Englonde
+      Abbey of Bataile."
+
+
+Immediately after the solemn ceremony described in the foregoing
+chapter, Harold is depicted as returning to England and presenting
+himself before the king, Edward the Confessor. "But the day came that
+no man can escape, and King Edward drew near to die." His deathbed and
+his funeral procession are both wrought in the tapestry, but by some
+accident have been transposed. His remains are borne in splendid
+procession to the magnificent house which he had builded (_i.e._
+rebuilded), Westminster Abbey; over which, in the sky, a hand is seen
+to point as if in benediction. It is well known that the Abbey was
+barely finished at the time of the pious monarch's death, and this
+circumstance is intimated in an intelligible though homely manner in
+the tapestry by a person occupied in placing a weathercock on the
+summit of the building.
+
+The first pageant seen within its walls was the funeral array of the
+monarch who so beautifully rebuilt and so amply endowed it. Before the
+high altar, in a splendid shrine, where gems and jewelry flashed back
+the gleams of innumerable torches, and amid the solemn chant of the
+monks, whose "Miserere" echoed through the vaulted aisles, interrupted
+but by the subdued wail of the mourners, or the emphatic benediction
+of the poor whose friend he had been, were laid the remains of him who
+was called the Sainted Edward; whose tomb was considered so hallowed a
+spot that the very stones around it were worn down by the knees of the
+pilgrims who resorted thither for prayer; and the very dust of whose
+shrine was carefully swept and collected, exported to the continent,
+and bought by devotees at a high price.
+
+We next see in the tapestry the crown _offered_ to Harold (a
+circumstance to be peculiarly remarked, since thus depicted by his
+opponent's wife), and then Harold shows right royally receiving the
+homage and gratulations of those around.
+
+But the next scene forbodes a change of fortune: "ISTI MIRANT STELLA,"
+is the explanation wrought over it. For there appeared "a blasing
+starre, which was seene not onelie here in England, but also in other
+parts of the world, and continued the space of seven daies. This
+blasing starre might be a prediction of mischeefe imminent and hanging
+over Harold's head; for they never appeare but as prognosticats of
+afterclaps."
+
+Popular belief has generally invested these ill-omened bodies with
+peculiar terrors. "These blasing starres--dreadful to be seene, with
+bloudie haires, and all over rough and shagged at the top." They vary,
+however, in their appearance. Sometimes they are pale, and glitter
+like a sword, without any rays or beams. Such was the one which is
+said to have hung over Jerusalem for near a year before its
+destruction, filling the minds of all who beheld it with awe and
+superstitious dread. A comet resembling a horn appeared when the
+"whole manhood of Greece fought the battaile of Salamis." Comets
+foretold the war between Cæsar and Pompey, the murder of Claudius, and
+the tyranny of Nero. Though _usually_, they were not _invariably_,
+considered as portents of evil omen: for the birth and accession of
+Alexander, of Mithridates, the birth of Charles Martel, and the
+accession of Charlemagne, and the commencement of the Tátár empire,
+were all notified by blazing stars. A very brilliant one which
+appeared for seven consecutive nights soon after the death of Julius
+Cæsar was supposed to be conveying the soul of the murdered dictator
+to Olympus. An author who wrote on one which appeared in the reign of
+Elizabeth was most anxious, as in duty bound, to apply the phenomenon
+to the queen. But here was the puzzle. "To have foretold calamities
+might have been misprision of treason; and the only precedent for
+saying anything good of a comet was to be drawn from that which
+occurred after the death of Julius Cæsar;" but it so happened that at
+this time Elizabeth was by no means either ripe or willing for her
+apotheosis.[38]
+
+Comets, one author writes, "were made to the end the etherial regions
+might not be more void of monsters than the ocean is of whales and
+other great thieving fishes, and that a gross fatness being gathered
+together as excrements into an imposthume, the celestial air might
+thereby be purged, lest the sun should be obscured." Another says,
+they "signifie corruption of the ayre. They are signes of earthquake,
+of warres, chaunging of kyngdomes, great dearth of corne, yea, a
+common death of man and beast." So a poet of the same age:--
+
+    "There with long bloody hair a blazing star
+    Threatens the world with famine, plague, and war;
+    To princes death, to kingdoms many crosses,
+    To all estates inevitable losses;
+    To herdsmen rot, to plowmen hapless seasons,
+    To sailors storms, to cities civil treasons."
+
+But a writer on comets in 1665 crowned all previous conjecture. "As if
+God and Nature intended by comets to ring the knells of princes;
+esteeming the bells of churches upon earth not sacred enough for such
+illustrious and eminent performances."
+
+No wonder that the comet in Harold's days was regarded with fearful
+misgivings.
+
+It did not, however, dismay him. Duke William, as may be supposed, did
+not tamely submit to a usurpation of what he considered, or affected
+to consider, his own dominions--a circumstance which we see an envoy,
+probably from his party in England, makes him acquainted with. He
+holds a council, seemingly an earnest and animated one, which
+evidently results in the immediate preparation of a fleet; of which
+the tapestry delineates the various stages and circumstances, from the
+felling of the timber in its native woods to the launching of the
+vessels, stored and fully equipped in arms, provisions, and heroes for
+invasion and conquest.
+
+William in this expedition received unusual assistance from his own
+tributary chiefs, and from various other allies, who joined his
+standard, and without whom, indeed, he could not, with any chance of
+success, have made his daring attempt. A summer and autumn were spent
+in fitting-up the fleet and collecting the forces, "and there was no
+knight in the land, no good serjeant, archer, nor peasant of stout
+heart, and of age for battle, that the duke did not summon to go with
+him to England; promising rents to the vavassors, and honours to the
+barons." Thus was an armament prepared of seven hundred ships, but the
+one which bore William, the hero of the expedition, shone proudly
+pre-eminent over the rest. It was the gift of his affectionate queen.
+It is represented in the canvas of larger size than the others: the
+mast, surmounted by a cross, bears the banner which was sent to
+William by the Pope as a testimony of his blessing and approbation. On
+this mast also a beacon-light nightly blazed as a _point d'approche_
+of the remainder of the fleet. On the poop was the figure of a boy
+(supposed to be meant for the conqueror's youngest son), gilded, and
+looking earnestly towards England, holding in one hand a banner, in
+the other an ivory horn, on which he is sounding a joyful reveillee.
+
+But long the fleet waited at St. Valeri for a fair wind, until the
+barons became weary and dispirited. Then they prayed the convent to
+bring out the shrine of St. Valeri and set it on a carpet in the
+plain; and all came praying the holy relics that they might be allowed
+to pass over sea. They offered so much money, that the relics were
+buried beneath it; and from that day forth they had good weather and a
+fair wind. "Than Willyam thanked God and Saynt Valary, and toke
+shortly after shyppynge, and helde his course towarde Englande."
+
+On the arrival of the fleet in England a banquet is prepared. The
+shape of the table at which William sits has been the theme of some
+curious remarks by Father Montfaucon, which have been copied by
+Ducarel and others. It is in form of a half-moon, and was called by
+the Romans _sigma_, from the Greek +s+. It was calculated only for
+seven persons; and a facetious emperor once invited eight, on purpose
+to raise a laugh against the person for whom there would be no place.
+
+"A knight in that country (Britain) heard the noise and cry made by
+the peasants and villains when they saw the great fleet arrive. He
+well knew that the Normans were come, and that their object was to
+seize the land. He posted himself behind a hill, so that they should
+not see him, and tarried there watching the arrival of the great
+fleet. He saw the archers come forward from the ships, and the knights
+follow. He saw the carpenters with their axes, and the host of people
+and troops. He saw the men throw the materials for the fort out of the
+ships. He saw them build up and enclose the fort, and dig the fosse
+around it. He saw them land the shields and armour. And as he beheld
+all this his spirit was troubled; and he girt his sword and took his
+lance, saying he would go straightway to King Harold and tell the
+news. Forthwith he set out on his way, resting late and rising early;
+and thus he journeyed on by night and by day to seek Harold his lord."
+And we see him in the tapestry speeding to his beloved master.
+
+Meanwhile Harold is not idle. But the fleet which, in expectation of
+his adversary's earlier arrival, he had stationed on the southern
+coast, had lately dispersed from want of provisions, and the King,
+occupied by the Norwegian invasion, had not been able to reinstate it;
+and "William came against him (says the Saxon chronicle) unawares ere
+his army was collected." Thus the enemy found nor opposition nor
+hinderance in obtaining a footing in the island.
+
+Taken at such disadvantage, Harold did all that a brave man could do
+to repel his formidable adversary. The tapestry depicts, as well as
+may be expected, the battle.
+
+"The priests had watched all night, and besought and called upon God,
+and prayed to him in their chapels, which were fitted up throughout
+the host. They offered and vowed fasts, penances, and orisons; they
+said psalms and misereres, litanies and kyriels; they cried on God,
+and for his mercy, and said paternosters and masses; some the SPIRITUS
+DOMINI, others SALUS POPULI, and many SALVE SANCTE PARENS, being
+suited to the season, as belonging to that day, which was Saturday.
+
+"AND NOW, BEHOLD! THAT BATTLE WAS GATHERED WHEREOF THE FAME IS YET
+MIGHTY.
+
+"Then Taillefer, who sang right well, rode, mounted on a swift horse,
+before the duke.
+
+"Loud and far resounded the bray of the horns, and the shocks of the
+lances, the mighty strokes of clubs, and the quick clashing of swords.
+One while the Englishmen rushed on, another while they fell back; one
+while the men from over sea charged onwards, and again at other times
+retreated. When the English fall, the Normans shout. Each side taunts
+and defies the other, yet neither knoweth what the other saith; and
+the Normans say the English bark, because they understand not their
+speech.
+
+"Some wax strong, others weak; the brave exult, but the cowards
+tremble, as men who are sore dismayed. The Normans press on the
+assault, and the English defend their post well; they pierce the
+hauberks and cleave the shields; receive and return mighty blows.
+Again some press forwards, others yield, and thus in various ways the
+struggle proceeds."
+
+The death of Harold's two brothers is depicted, and, finally, his own.
+It is said that his mother offered the weight of the body in gold to
+have the melancholy satisfaction of interring it, and that the
+Conqueror refused the boon. But other writers affirm, and apparently
+with truth, that William immediately transmitted the body, unransomed,
+to the bereaved parent, who had it interred in the monastery of
+Waltham.
+
+With the death of Harold the tapestry now ends, though some writers
+think it probable that it once extended as far as the coronation of
+William. There can be little doubt of its having been intended to
+extend so far, though it is impossible now to ascertain whether the
+Queen was ever enabled quite to complete her Herculean task. Enough
+there is, however, to stamp it as one of the "most noble and
+interesting relics of antiquity;" and, as Dibdin calls it, "an
+exceedingly curious document of the conjugal attachment, and even
+enthusiastic veneration of Matilda, and a political record of more
+weight than may at first sight appear to belong to it." Taking it
+altogether, he adds, "none but itself could be its parallel."
+
+Almost all historians describe the Normans as advancing to the onset
+"singing the song of Roland," that is, a detail of the achievements
+of the slaughtered hero of Roncesvalles, which is well known to have
+been, for ages after the event to which it refers, a note of magical
+inspiration to deeds of "derring do". On this occasion it is recorded
+that the spirit note was sung by the minstrel Taillefer, who was,
+however, little contented to lead his countrymen by voice alone. It is
+not possible that our readers can be otherwise than pleased with the
+following animated account of his deeds:[39]--
+
+    THE ONSET OF TAILLEFER
+
+    "Foremost in the bands of France,
+    Arm'd with hauberk and with lance,
+    And helmet glittering in the air,
+    As if a warrior-knight he were,
+    Rushed forth the minstrel Taillefer--
+    Borne on his courser swift and strong,
+      He gaily bounded o'er the plain,
+    And raised the heart-inspiring song
+    (Loud echoed by the warlike throng)
+      Of Roland and of Charlemagne,
+    Of Oliver, brave peer of old,
+      Untaught to fly, unknown to yield,
+    And many a knight and vassal bold,
+    Whose hallowed blood, in crimson flood,
+      Dyed Roncesvalles' field.
+
+    "Harold's host he soon descried,
+    Clustering on the hill's steep side:
+    Then turned him back brave Taillefer,
+    And thus to William urged his prayer:
+    'Great Sire, it fits me not to tell
+    How long I've served you, or how well;
+    Yet if reward my lays may claim,
+    Grant now the boon I dare to name;
+    Minstrel no more, be mine the blow
+    That first shall strike yon perjured foe.'
+    'Thy suit is gained,' the Duke replied,
+    'Our gallant minstrel be our guide.'
+    'Enough,' he cried, 'with joy I speed,
+    Foremost to vanquish or to bleed.'
+
+    "And still of Roland's deeds he sung,
+    While Norman shouts responsive rung,
+    As high in air his lance he flung,
+              With well directed might;
+    Back came the lance into his hand,
+    Like urchin's ball, or juggler's wand,
+    And twice again, at his command,
+              Whirled its unerring flight.--
+    While doubting whether skill or charm
+    Had thus inspired the minstrel's arm,
+    The Saxons saw the wondrous dart
+    Fixed in their standard bearer's heart.
+
+    "Now thrice aloft his sword he threw,
+      'Midst sparkling sunbeams dancing,
+    And downward thrice the weapon flew,
+    Like meteor o'er the evening dew,
+      From summer sky swift glancing:
+    And while amazement gasped for breath,
+    Another Saxon groaned in death.
+
+    "More wonders yet!--on signal made,
+      With mane erect, and eye-balls flashing,
+    The well taught courser rears his head,
+      His teeth in ravenous fury gnashing;
+    He snorts--he foams--and upward springs--
+      Plunging he fastens on the foe,
+    And down his writhing victim flings,
+      Crushed by the wily minstrel's blow.
+    Thus seems it to the hostile band
+    Enchantment all, and fairy land.
+
+    "Fain would I leave the rest unsung:--
+    The Saxon ranks, to madness stung,
+    Headlong rushed with frenzied start,
+    Hurling javelin, mace, and dart;
+    No shelter from the iron shower
+    Sought Taillefer in that sad hour;
+    Yet still he beckoned to the field,
+    'Frenchman, come on--the Saxons yield--
+    Strike quick--strike home--in Roland's name--
+    For William's glory--Harold's shame.'
+    Then pierced with wounds, stretched side by side,
+    The minstrel and his courser died."
+
+We have dwelt on the details of the tapestry with a prolixity which
+some may deem tedious. Yet surely the subject is worthy of it; for, in
+the first place, it is the oldest piece of needlework in the
+world--the only piece of that era now existing; and this circumstance
+in itself suggests many interesting ideas, on which, did our space
+permit, we could readily dilate. Ages have rolled away; and the fair
+hands that wrought this work have mouldered away into dust; and the
+gentle and affectionate spirit that suggested this elaborate memorial
+has long since passed from the scene which it adorned and dignified.
+In no long period after the battle thus commemorated, an abbey,
+consecrated to praise and prayer, raised its stately walls on the very
+field that was ploughed with the strife and watered with the blood of
+fierce and evil men. The air that erst rang with the sounds of wrath,
+of strife, of warfare, the clangour of armour, the din of war, was now
+made musical with the chorus of praise, or was gently stirred by the
+breath of prayer or the sigh of penitence; and where contending hosts
+were marshalled in proud array, or the phalanx rushed impetuous to the
+battle, were seen the stoled monks in solemn procession, or the holy
+brother peacefully wending on his errand of charity.
+
+But the grey and time-honoured walls waxed aged as they beheld
+generation after generation consigned to dust beneath their shelter.
+Time and change have done their worst. A few scattered ruins, seen
+dimly through the mist of years, are all that remain to point to the
+inquiring wanderer the site of the stupendous struggle of which the
+results are felt even after the expiration of eight hundred years.
+
+These may be deemed trite reflections: still it is worthy of remark,
+that many of the turbulent spirits who then made earth echo with their
+fame would have been literally and altogether as though they never had
+been--for historians make little or no mention of them--were it not
+for the lasting monument raised to them in this tapestry by woman's
+industry and skill.
+
+Matilda the Queen's character is pictured in high terms by both
+English and Norman historians. "So very stern was her husband, and
+hot, that no man durst do anything against his will. He had earls in
+his custody who acted against his will. Bishops he hurled from their
+bishoprics, and abbots from their abbacies, and thanes into prison;"
+yet it is recorded that even his iron temper was not proof against the
+good sense, the gentleness, the piety, and the affection of a wife who
+never offended him but once; and on this occasion there was so much to
+palliate and excuse her fault, proceeding as it did from a mother's
+yearnings towards her eldest son when he was in disgrace and sorrow,
+that the usually unyielding King forgave her immediately. She lived
+beloved, and she died lamented; and, from the time of her death, the
+King, says William of Malmsbury, "refrained from every gratification."
+
+Independently of the value of this tapestry as an historical
+authority, and its interest as being projected, and in part executed,
+by a lady as excellent in character as she was noble in rank, and its
+high estimation as the oldest piece of needlework extant--independently
+of all these circumstances, it is impossible to study this memorial
+closely, "rude and skilless" as it at first appears, without becoming
+deeply interested in the task. The outline engravings of it in the
+"Tapisseries Anciennes Historiées" are beautifully executed, but are
+inferior in interest to Mr. Stothart's (published by the Society of
+Antiquarians), because these have the advantage of being coloured
+accurately from the original. In the study of these plates alone, days
+and weeks glided away, nor left us weary of our task.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[38] The Comet of 1618 carried dismay and horror in its course. Not
+only mighty monarchs, but the humblest private individuals seem to
+have considered the sign as sent to them, and to have set a double
+guard on all their actions. Thus Sir Symonds D'Ewes, the learned
+antiquary, having been in danger of an untimely end by entangling
+himself among some bell-ropes, makes a memorandum in his private diary
+never more to exercise himself in bell-ringing when there is a comet
+in the sky.--Aikin.
+
+[39] By Thomas Amyot, Esq., F.S.A.--Archæol., vol. xix
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+NEEDLEWORK OF THE TIMES OF ROMANCE AND CHIVALRY.
+
+    "As ladies wont
+    To finger the fine needle and nyse thread."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+
+Though, during bygone ages, the fingers of the fair and noble were
+often sedulously employed in the decoration and embellishment of the
+church, and of its ministers, they were by no means universally so.
+Marvellous indeed in quantity, as well as quality, must have been the
+stitchery done in those industrious days, for the "fine needle and
+nyse thread" were not merely visible but conspicuous in every
+department of life. If, happily, there were not proof to the contrary,
+we might be apt to imagine that the women of those days came into the
+world _only_ "to ply the distaff, broider, card, and sew." That this
+was not the case we, however, well know; but before we turn to those
+embroideries which are more especially the subject of this chapter, we
+will transcribe, from a recent work,[40] an interesting detail of the
+household responsibilities of the mistress of a family in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
+
+"While to play on the harp and citole (a species of lute), to execute
+various kinds of the most costly and delicate needle-work, and in some
+instances to 'pourtraye,' were, in addition to more literary pursuits,
+the accomplishments of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the
+functions which the mistress of an extensive household was expected to
+fulfil were never lost sight of.
+
+"Few readers are aware of the various qualifications requisite to form
+the 'good housewife' during the middle ages. In the present day, when
+household articles of every kind are obtainable in any country town,
+and, with few exceptions, throughout the year, we can know little of
+the judgment, the forethought, and the nice calculation which were
+required in the mistress of a household consisting probably of
+three-score, or even more persons, and who, in the autumn, had to
+provide almost a twelvemonth's stores. There was the fire-wood, the
+rushes to strew the rooms, the malt, the oatmeal, the honey (at this
+period the substitute for sugar), the salt (only sold in large
+quantities), and, if in the country, the wheat and the barley for the
+bread--all to be provided and stored away. The greater part of the
+meat used for the winter's provision was killed and salted down at
+Martinmas; and the mistress had to provide the necessary stock for the
+winter and spring consumption, together with the stockfish and
+'baconed herrings' for Lent. Then at the annual fair, the only
+opportunity was afforded for purchasing those more especial articles
+of housewifery which the careful housewife never omitted buying--the
+ginger, nutmegs, and cinnamon, for the Christmas posset, and
+Sheer-Monday furmety; the currants and almonds for the Twelfth-Night
+cake (an observance which dates almost as far back as the Conquest);
+the figs, with which our forefathers always celebrated Palm-Sunday;
+and the pepper, the saffron, and the cummin, so highly prized in
+ancient cookery. All these articles bore high prices, and therefore it
+was with great consideration and care that they were bought.
+
+"But the task of providing raiment for the family also devolved upon
+the mistress, and there were no dealers save for the richer articles
+of wearing apparel to be found. The wool that formed the chief
+clothing was the produce of the flock, or purchased in a raw state;
+and was carded, spun, and in some instances woven at home. Flax, also,
+was often spun for the coarser kinds of linen, and occasionally woven.
+Thus, the mistress of a household had most important duties to fulfil,
+for on her wise and prudent management depended not merely the
+comfort, but the actual well-being of her extensive household. If the
+winter's stores were insufficient, there were no markets from whence
+an additional supply could be obtained; and the lord of wide estates
+and numerous manors might be reduced to the most annoying privations
+through the mismanagement of the mistress of the family."
+
+The "costly and delicate needle-work" is here, as elsewhere, passed
+over with merely a mention. It is, naturally, too insignificant a
+subject to task the attention of those whose energies are devoted to
+describing the warfare and welfare of kingdoms and thrones. Thus did
+we look only to professed historians, though enough exists in their
+pages to evidence the existence of such productions as those which
+form the subject of our chapter, our evidence would be meagre indeed
+as to the minuter details: but as the "novel" now describes those
+minutiæ of every day life which we should think it ridiculous to look
+for in the writings of the politician or historian, so the romances of
+the days of chivalry present us with descriptions which, if they be
+somewhat redundant in ornament, are still correct in groundwork; and
+the details gathered from romances have in, it may be, unimportant
+circumstances, that accidental corroboration from history which fairly
+stamps their faithfulness in more important particulars: and it has
+been shown, says the author of 'Godefridus,' by learned men, in the
+memoirs of the French Academy of Inscriptions, that they may be used
+in common with history, and as of equal authority whenever an inquiry
+takes place respecting the _spirit and manners of the ages_ in which
+they were composed. But we are writing a dissertation on romance
+instead of describing the "clodes ryche," to which we must now
+proceed.
+
+So highly was a facility in the use of the needle prized in these
+"ould ancient times," that a wandering damsel is not merely
+_tolerated_ but _cherished_ in a family in which she is a perfect
+stranger, solely from her skill in this much-loved art.
+
+After being exposed in an open boat, Emare was rescued by Syr Kadore,
+remained in his castle, and there--
+
+    "She tawghte hem to _sewe_ and _marke_
+    All _maner of sylkyn werke_,
+        Of her they wer ful fayne."[41]
+
+Syr Kadore says of her--
+
+    "She ys the konnyngest wommon,
+    I trowe, that be yn Crystendom,
+        Of _werk_ that y have sene."
+
+And again describing her--
+
+    "She _sewed sylke_ werk yn bour."
+
+This same accomplished and luckless lady had, princess though she was,
+every advantage of early tuition in this notable art, having been sent
+in her childhood to a lady called Abro, who not only taught her
+"curtesye and thewe" (virtue and good manners), but also
+
+    "Golde and sylke for to sewe,
+    Amonge maydenes moo:"
+
+evidently an old dame's school; where, however, we may infer from the
+arrangement of the accomplishments taught, and the special mention of
+needlework, that the extra expense would be for the _sewing_; whereas,
+in our time and country (or county), the routine has been, "REDING AND
+SOING, THREE-PENCE A WEEK: A PENY EXTRA FOR MANNERS."
+
+This expensive and troublesome acquirement--the art of sewing in
+"golde and silke"--was of general adoption: gorgeous must have been
+the appearance of the damsels and knights of those days, when their
+
+    "----Clothys wyth bestes & byrdes wer _bete_,[42]
+            All abowte for pryde."
+
+"By that light Amadis saw his lady, and she appeared more beautiful
+than man could fancy woman could be. She had on a robe of _Indian
+silk, thickly wrought with flowers of gold_; her hair was so beautiful
+that it was a wonder, and she had covered it only with a garland."[43]
+
+"Now when the fair Grasinda heard of the coming of the fleet, and of
+all that had befallen, she made ready to receive Oriana, whom of all
+persons in the world she most desired to see, because of her great
+renown that was everywhere spread abroad. She therefore wished to
+appear before her like a lady of such rank and such wealth as indeed
+she was: the robe which she put on was adorned with _roses of gold,
+wrought with marvellous skill, and bordered with pearls and precious
+stones_ of exceeding value."[44]
+
+    "His fine, soft garments, wove with cunning skill,
+    All over, ease and wantonness declare;
+    These with her hand, such subtle toil well taught,
+    For him, in silk and gold, Alcina wrought."[45]
+
+    "Mayde Elene, al so tyte.
+    In a robe of samyte,[46]
+        Anoon sche gan her tyre,
+    To do Lybeau's profyte
+    In kevechers whyt,
+        Arayde wyth golde wyre.
+    A velvwet mantyll gay,
+    Pelored[47] wyth grys and gray
+        Sche caste abowte her swyre;
+    A sercle upon her molde,
+    Of stones and of golde,
+        The best yn that empyre."[48]
+
+We read perpetually of "kercheves well schyre,[49]
+
+    "Arayde wyth ryche gold wyre."
+
+But the labours of those days were not confined to merely
+good-appearing garments: the skill of the needlewoman--for doubtless
+it was solely attributable to that--could imbue them with a value far
+beyond that of mere outward garnish.
+
+    "She seyde, Syr Knight, gentyl and hende,[50]
+    I wot thy stat, ord, and ende,
+        Be naught aschamed of me;
+    If thou wylt truly to me take,
+    And alle wemen for me forsake
+        Ryche i wyll make the.
+    I wyll the geve an alner,[51]
+    Imad of sylk and of gold cler,
+        Wyth fayr ymages thre;
+    As oft thou puttest the hond therinne
+    A mark of gold thou schalt wynne,
+        In wat place that thou be."[52]
+
+But infinitely more marvellous is the following:--"King Lisuarte was
+so content with the tidings of Amadis and Galaor, which the dwarf had
+brought him, that he determined to hold the most honourable court that
+ever had been held in Great Britain. Presently three knights came
+through the gate, two of them armed at all points, the third unarmed,
+of good stature and well proportioned, his hair grey, but of a green
+and comely old age. He held in his hand a coffer; and, having inquired
+which was the king, dismounted from his palfrey and kneeled before
+him, saying, 'God preserve you, Sir! for you have made the noblest
+promise that ever king did, if you hold it.' 'What promise was that?'
+quoth Lisuarte. 'To maintain chivalry in its highest honour and
+degree: few princes now-a-days labour to that end; therefore are you
+to be commended above all other.' 'Certes, knight, that promise shall
+hold while I live.' 'God grant you life to complete it!' quoth the old
+man: 'and because you have summoned a great court to London, I have
+brought something here which becomes such a person, for such an
+occasion.' Then he opened the coffer and took out a Crown of Gold, so
+curiously wrought and set with pearls and gems, that all were amazed
+at its beauty; and it well appeared that it was only fit for the brow
+of some mighty lord. 'Is it not a work which the most cunning artists
+would wonder at?' said the old knight. Lisuarte answered, 'In truth it
+is.' 'Yet,' said the knight, 'it hath a virtue more to be esteemed
+than its rare work and richness: whatever king hath it on his head
+shall always increase his honour; this it did for him for whom it was
+made till the day of his death: since then no king hath worn it. I
+will give it you, sir, for one boon.'----'You also, Lady,' said the
+knight, 'should purchase a rich mantle that I bring:' and he took from
+the coffer the richest and most beautiful mantle that ever was seen;
+for besides the pearls and precious stones with which it was
+beautified, there were figured on it all the birds and beasts in
+nature; so that it looked like a miracle. 'On my faith,' exclaimed the
+Queen, 'this cloth can only have been made by that Lord who can do
+everything.' 'It is the work of man,' said the old knight; 'but rarely
+will one be found to make its fellow: it should belong to wife rather
+than maiden, for she that weareth it _shall never have dispute with
+her husband_.' Britna answered, 'If that be true, it is above all
+price; I will give you for it whatsoever you ask.' And Lisuarte bade
+him demand what he would for the mantle and crown."[53]
+
+But the robe which occupied the busy fingers of the Saracen king's
+daughter for seven long years, and of which the jewelled ornaments
+inwrought in it--as was then very usual--were sought far and wide, has
+often been referred to (albeit wanting in fairy gifts) as a crowning
+proof of female industry and talent. We give the full description from
+the Romance of 'EMARE,' in Ritson's collection:--
+
+    "Sone aftur yu a whyle,
+    The ryche Kynge of Cesyle
+        To the Emperour gaun wende,
+    A ryche present wyth hym he browght,
+    A cloth that was wordylye wroght,
+        He wellcomed hym at the hende.[54]
+
+    "Syr Tergaunte, that nobyll knyghte hyghte,
+    He presented the Emperour ryght,
+        And sette hym on hys kne,
+    Wyth that cloth rychyly dyght.
+    Full of stones ther hit was pyght,
+        At thykke as hit myght be,
+    Off topaze and rubyes,
+    And other stones of myche prys,
+        That semely wer to se,
+    Of crapowtes and nakette,
+    As thykke ar they sette
+        For sothe as y say the.
+
+    "The cloth was displayed sone,
+    The Emperoer lokede therupone,
+        And myght hyt not se,
+    For glysteryng of the ryche ston
+    Redy syght had he non,
+        And sayde, How may thys be?
+    The Emperour sayde on hygh,
+    Sertes thys ys a fayry,
+        Or ellys a vanyte.
+    The Kyng of Cysyle answered than,
+    So ryche a jewell ys ther non
+        In all Crystyante.
+
+    "The amerayle[55] dowghter of hethennes
+    Made this cloth withouten lees,
+        And wrowghte hit all with pride,
+    And purtreyed hyt with gret honour,
+    Wyth ryche golde and asowr,[56]
+        And stones on ylke a side;
+    And, as the story telles in honde,
+    The stones that yn this cloth stonde
+        Sowghte they wer full wyde.
+    Seven wynter hit was yn makynge,
+    Or hit was browght to endynge,
+        In herte ys not to hyde.
+
+    "In that on korner made was
+    Idoyne and Amadas,
+        With love that was so trewe,
+    For they loveden hem wit honour,
+    Portrayed they wer with trewe-love flour,
+        Of stones bryght of hewe,
+    Wyth carbankull and safere,
+    Kasydonys and onyx so clere,
+        Sette in golde newe,
+    Deamondes and rubyes,
+    And other stones of mychyll pryse,
+        And menstrellys with her gle.
+
+    "In that other korner was dyght,
+    Trystram and Isowde so bryght,
+        That semely wer to se,
+    And for they loved hem ryght,
+    As full of stones ar they dyght,
+        As thykke as they may be,
+    Of topase and of rubyes,
+    And other stones of myche pryse,
+        That semely wer to se,
+    With crapawtes and nakette,
+    Thykke of stones ar they sette,
+        For sothe as y say the.
+
+    "In the thyrdde korner, with gret honour,
+    Was Florys and dame Blawncheflour,
+        As love was hem betwene,
+    For they loved wyth honour,
+    Purtrayed they wer with trewe-love-flower,
+        With stones bryght and shene.
+    Ther wer knyghtes and senatowres,
+    Emerawdes of gret vertues,
+        To wyte withouten wene,
+    Deamondes and koralle,
+    Perydotes and crystall,
+        And gode garnettes bytwene.
+
+    "In the fowrthe korner was oon
+    Of Babylone the sowdan sonne,
+        The amerayle's dowghter hym by,
+    For hys sake the cloth was wrowght,
+    She loved hym in hert and thowght,
+        As testy-moyeth thys storye.
+    The fayr mayden her byforn
+    Was purtrayed an unykorn,
+        With hys horn so hye,
+    Flowres and bryddes on ylke a syde,
+    Wyth stones that wer sowght wyde,
+        Stuffed wyth ymagerye.
+
+    "When the cloth to ende was wrought,
+    To the sowdan sone hit was browght,
+        That semely was of syghte:
+    'My fadyr was a nobyll man,
+    Of the sowdan he hit wan,
+        Wyth maystrye and myghth;
+    For gret love he yaf hyt me,
+    I brynge hit the in specyalte,
+        Thys cloth ys rychely dyght.'
+    He yaf hit the Emperour,
+    He receyved hit wyth gret honour,
+        And thonkede hym fayr and ryght."
+
+We must not dismiss this subject without recording a species of mantle
+much celebrated in romance, and which must have tried the skill and
+patience of the fair votaries of the needle to the uttermost. We all
+have seen, perhaps we have some of us been foolish enough to
+manufacture, initials with hair, as tokens or souvenirs, or some other
+such fooleries. In our mothers' and grandmothers' days, when "fine
+marking" was the _sine quâ non_ of a good education, whole sets of
+linen were thus elaborately marked; and often have we marvelled when
+these tokens of grandmotherly skill and industry were displayed to our
+wondering and aching eyes. What then should we have thought of King
+Ryence's mantle, of rich scarlet, bordered round with the beards of
+kings, sewed thereon full craftily by accomplished female hands. Thus
+runs the anecdote in the 'Morte Arthur:'--
+
+"Came a messenger hastely from King Ryence, of North Wales, saying,
+that King Ryence had discomfited and overcomen eleaven kings, and
+everiche of them did him homage, and that was thus: they gave him
+their beards cleane flayne off,--wherefore the messenger came for King
+Arthur's beard, for King Ryence had purfeled a mantell with king's
+beards, and there lacked for one a place of the mantell, wherefore he
+sent for his beard, or else he would enter into his lands, and brenn
+and slay, and never leave till he have thy head and thy beard. 'Well,'
+said King Arther, 'thou hast said thy message, which is the most
+villainous and lewdest message that ever man heard sent to a king.
+Also thou mayest see my beard is full young yet for to make a purfell
+of; but tell thou the king that--or it be long--he shall do to _me_
+homage on both his knees, or else he shall leese his head.'"
+
+In Queen Elizabeth's day, when they were beginning to skim the cream
+of the ponderous tomes of former times into those elaborate ditties
+from which the more modern ballad takes its rise, this incident was
+put into rhyme, and was sung before her majesty at the grand
+entertainment at Kenilworth Castle, 1575, thus:--
+
+    "As it fell out on a Pentecost day,
+      King Arthur at Camelot kept his Court royall,
+    With his faire queene dame Guenever the gay,
+      And many bold barons sitting in hall;
+      With ladies attired in purple and pall;
+    And heraults in hewkes,[57] hooting on high,
+    Cryed, _Largesse, largesse, Chevaliers tres hardie_.
+
+    "A doughty dwarfe to the uppermost deas
+      Right pertlye gan pricke, kneeling on knee;
+    With steven[58] fulle stoute amids all the preas,
+      Sayd, Nowe sir King Arthur, God save thee, and see!
+      Sir Ryence of Northgales greeteth well thee,
+    And bids thee thy beard anon to him send,
+    Or else from thy jaws he will it off rend.
+
+    "For his robe of state is a rich scarlet mantle,
+      With eleven kings beards bordered about,
+    And there is room lefte yet in a kantle,[59]
+      For thine to stande, to make the twelfth out:
+      This must be done, be thou never so stout;
+    This must be done, I tell thee no fable,
+    Maugre the teethe of all thy rounde table.
+
+    "When this mortal message from his mouthe past,
+      Great was the noyse bothe in hall and in bower,
+    The king fum'd; the queen screecht; ladies were aghast;
+      Princes puff'd; barons blustered; lords began lower;
+      Knights stormed; squires startled, like steeds in a stower;
+    Pages and yeomen yell'd out in the hall;
+    Then in came Sir Kay, the king's seneschal.
+
+    "Silence, my soveraignes, quoth this courteous knight,
+      And in that stound the stowre began still:
+    Then the dwarfe's dinner full deerely was dight;
+      Of wine and wassel he had his wille:
+      And when he had eaten and drunken his fill,
+    An hundred pieces of fine coyned gold
+    Were given this dwarfe for his message bold.
+
+    "But say to Sir Ryence, thou dwarfe, quoth the king,
+      That for his bold message I do him defye;
+    And shortly with basins and pans will him ring
+      Out of North Gales; where he and I
+      With swords, and not razors, quickly shall trye
+    Whether he or King Arthur will prove the best barbor:
+    And therewith he shook his good sword Excalábor."
+
+Drayton thus alludes to the same circumstance:--
+
+    "Then told they, how himselfe great Arthur did advance,
+    To meet (with his Allies) that puissant force in France,
+    By Lucius thither led; those Armies that while ere
+    Affrighted all the world, by him strooke dead with feare:
+    Th' report of his great Acts that over Europe ran,
+    In that most famous field he with the Emperor wan:
+    As how great Rython's selfe hee slew in his repaire,
+    Who ravisht Howell's Neece, young Helena the faire;
+    And for a trophy brought the Giant's coat away,
+    Made of the beards of kings."[60]----
+
+And Spenser is too uncourteous in his adoption of the incident; for he
+not only levels tolls on the gentlemen's beards, but even on the
+flowing and golden locks of the gentle sex:--
+
+    "Not farre from hence, upon yond rocky hill,
+      Hard by a streight there stands a castle strong,
+    Which doth observe a custom lewd and ill,
+      And it hath long mayntaind with mighty wrong:
+      For may no knight nor lady passe along
+    That way, (and yet they needs must passe that way,
+      By reason of the streight, and rocks among,)
+    But they that Ladies locks doe shave away,
+    And that knight's berd for toll, which they for passage pay.
+
+    "A shamefull use, as ever I did heare,
+      Said Calidore, and to be overthrowne.
+    But by what means did they at first it reare,
+      And for what cause, tell, if thou have it knowne.
+      Sayd then that Squire: The Lady which doth owne
+    This Castle is by name Briana hight;
+      Then which a prouder Lady liveth none;
+    She long time hath deare lov'd a doughty knight,
+    And sought to win his love by all the meanes she might.
+
+    "His name is Crudor, who through high disdaine
+      And proud despight of his selfe-pleasing mynd,
+    Refused hath to yeeld her love againe,
+      Untill a Mantle she for him doe fynd,
+      With beards of knights and locks of Ladies lynd,
+    Which to provide, she hath this Castle dight,
+      And therein hath a Seneschall assynd,
+    Cald Maleffort, a man of mickle might,
+    Who executes her wicked will, with worse despight."[61]
+
+"To pluck the beard" of another has ever been held the highest
+possible sign of scorn and contumely; but it was certainly a
+refinement on the matter, for which we are indebted to the Morte
+Arthur, or rather probably, according to Bishop Percy, to Geoffrey of
+Monmouth's history originally, for the unique and ornamental purpose
+to which these despoiled locks were applied. So particularly anxious
+was Charlemagne to shew this despite to an enemy that, as we read in
+Huon de Bordeaux, he despatched no less than fifteen successive
+messengers from France to Babylon to pull the beard of Admiral
+Gaudisse. And this, by no means pleasant operation, was to be
+accompanied by one even still less inviting.
+
+"Alors le duc Naymes, & tres tous les Barons, s'en retournèrent au
+palais avec le Roy, lequel s'assist sur un banc doré de fin or, & les
+Barons tous autour de luy. Si commanda qu'on luy amenast Huon, lequel
+il vint, et se mist à genoux devant le roy, ou luy priant moult
+humblement que pitié & mercy voulsist avoir de luy. Alors le roy le
+voyant en sa presence luy dist: Huon puisque vers moy veux estre
+accordé, si convient que faciez ce que je vous or donneray. Sire, ce
+dist Huon, pour obeir à vous, il n'est aujourd'huy chose en ce monde
+mortel, que corps humain puisse porter, que hardiment n'osasse
+entreprendre, ne ia pour peur de mort ne le laisseray à faire, & fust
+à aller jusques à l'arbre sec, voire jusques aux portaux d'enfer
+combattre aux infernaux, comme fist le fort Hercule: avant qu'à vous
+ne fusse accordé. Huon, ce dist Charles, je cuide qu'en pire lieu vous
+envoyeray, car, de quinze messages qui de par moy y ont este envoyez,
+n'en est par revenu un seul homme. Si te diray ou tu iras, puis que tu
+veux qui de toy aye mercy, m'a volonté est, qu'il te convient aller en
+la cité de Babylonne, par devers diray, & gardes que sur ta vie ne
+face faute, quand là seras venu tu monteras en son palais, là ou tu
+attendras l'heure de son disner & que tu le verras assis à table. Si
+convient que tu sois armé de toutes armes, l'espee nuë au poing, par
+tel si que le premier & le plus grand baron que tu verras manger à sa
+table tu luy trencheras le chef quel qu'il soit, soit Roy, ou Admiral.
+Et apres ce te convient tant faire que la belle Esclarmonde fille à
+l'Amiral Gaudisse tu fiances, & la baises trois fois en la presence de
+son pere, & de tous sous qui la seront presens, car je veux que tu
+sçaches que c'est la plus belle pucelle qu'aujourd'huy soit en vie,
+puis apres diras de par moy à l'Admiral qu'il m'envoye mille
+espreuiers, mille ours, mille viautres, tous enchainez, & mille jeune
+valets, & mille des plus belles pucelles de son royaume, & avecques
+ce, convient _que tu me rapportes une poignee de sa barbe, et quatre
+de ses dents machoires_. Ha! Sire, dirent les Barons, bien desirez sa
+mort, quant de tel message faire luy enchargez, vous dites la verité
+ce dit le Roy, car si tant ne fait que j'aye la barbe & les dents
+machoires sans aucune tromperie ne mensonge, jamais ne retourne en
+France, ne devant moi ne se monstre. Car je le ferois pendre &
+trainer. Sire, ce dit Huon, m'avez vous dit & racompté tout ce que
+voulez que je face. Oui dist le Roy Charles ma volonté est telle, si
+vers moy veux avoir paix. Sire ce dit Huon, au plaisir de nostre
+Seigneur, je feray & fourniray vostre message."
+
+In what precise way the beards were sewed on the mantles we are not
+exactly informed. Whether this royal exuberance was left to shine in
+its own unborrowed lustre, its own naked magnificence, as too valuable
+to be intermixed with the grosser things of earth: whether it was
+thinly scattered over the surface of the "rich scarlet;" or whether it
+was gathered into locks, perhaps gemmed round with orient pearl, or
+clustered together with brilliant emeralds, sparkling diamonds, or
+rich rubies--"Sweets to the sweet:" whether it was exposed to the
+vulgar gaze on the mantle, or whether it was so arranged that only at
+the pleasure of the mighty wearer its radiant beauties were
+visible:--on all these deeply interesting particulars we should
+rejoice in having any information; but, alas! excepting what we have
+recorded, not one circumstance respecting them has "floated down the
+tide of years." But we may perhaps form a correct idea of them from
+viewing a shield of human hair in the museum of the United Service
+Club, which may be supposed to have been _compiled_ (so to speak)
+with the same benevolent feelings as that of the heroes to whom we
+have been alluding. It is from Borneo Island, and is formed of locks
+of hair placed at regular intervals on a ground of thin tough wood: a
+refined and elegant mode of displaying the scalps of slaughtered foes.
+These coincidences are curious, and may serve at any rate to show that
+King Ryence's mantle was not the _invention_ of the penman; but, in
+all probability, actually existed.
+
+The ladies of these days did not confine their handiwork merely to the
+adornment of the person. We have seen that among the Egyptians the
+couches that at night were beds were in the daytime adorned with
+richly wrought coverlets. So amongst the classical nations
+
+    "------the menial fair that round her wait,
+    At Helen's beck prepare the room of state;
+    Beneath an ample portico they spread
+    The downy fleece to form the slumberous bed;
+    And o'er soft palls of purple grain, unfold
+    _Rich tapestry, stiff with inwoven gold_."
+
+And during the middle ages the beds, not excluded from the day
+apartments, often gave gorgeous testimony of the skill of the
+needlewoman, and were among the richest ornaments of the sitting room,
+so much fancy and expense were lavished on them. The curtains were
+often made of very rich material, and usually adorned with embroidery.
+They were often also trimmed with expensive furs: Philippa of Hainault
+had a bed on which sea-syrens were embroidered. The coverlid was
+often very rich:
+
+    "The ladi lay in hire bed,
+    With riche clothes bespred,
+      Of gold and purpre palle."[62]
+
+    "Here beds are seen adorned with silk and gold."[63]
+
+          "------on a bed design'd
+    With gay magnificence the fair reclin'd;
+    High o'er her head, on silver columns rais'd,
+    With broidering gems her proud pavilion blaz'd."
+
+    "Thence pass'd into a bow'r, where stood a bed,
+    With milkwhite furs of Alexandria spread:
+    Beneath, a richly broider'd vallance hung;
+    The pillows were of silk; o'er all was flung
+    A rare wrought coverlet of phoenix plumes,
+    Which breathed, as warm with life, its rich perfumes."[64]
+
+The array of the knights of these days was gorgeous and beautiful; and
+though the materials might be in themselves, and frequently were
+costly, still were they entirely indebted to the female hand for the
+rich elegance of the _tout ensemble_. And the custom of disarming and
+robing knights anew after the conflict, whether of real or mimic war,
+to which we have alluded as a practice of classical antiquity, was as
+much or even more practised now, and afforded to the ladies an
+admirable opportunity of exhibiting alike their preference, their
+taste, and their liberality.
+
+"Amadis and Agrayes proceeded till they came to the castle of Torin,
+the dwelling of that fair young damsel, where they were disarmed and
+mantles given them, and they were conducted into the hall."[65]
+
+"Thus they arrived at the palace, and there was he (the Green Sword
+Knight) lodged in a rich chamber, and was disarmed, and his hands and
+face washed from the dust, and they gave him a rose-coloured
+mantle."[66]
+
+The romance of "Ywaine and Gawin" abounds in instances:
+
+    "A damisel come unto me,
+    The semeliest that ever I se,
+    Lufsumer lifed never in land,
+    Hendly scho toke me by the hand,
+    And sone that gentyl creature
+    Al unlaced myne armure;
+    Into a chamber scho me led,
+    And with a mantil scho me cled;
+    It was of purpur, fair and fine;
+    And the pane of ermyne."
+
+Again--
+
+    "The maiden redies hyr fal rath,[67]
+    Bilive sho gert syr Ywaine bath,
+    And cled him sethin[68] in gude scarlet,
+    Forord wele with gold fret,
+    A girdel ful riche for the nanes,
+    Of perry[69] and of precious stanes."
+
+And--
+
+    "The mayden was bowsom and bayne[70]
+    Forto unarme syr Ywayne,
+    Serk and breke both sho hym broght,
+    That ful craftily war wroght,
+    Of riche cloth soft als the sylk,
+    And tharto white als any mylk.
+    Sho broght hym ful riche wedes to wer."
+
+On the widely acknowledged principle of "Love me, love my dog," the
+steed of a favoured knight was often adorned by the willing fingers of
+the fair.
+
+    "Each damsel and each dame who her obeyed,
+    She task'd, together with herself, to sew,
+    With subtle toil; and with fine gold o'erlaid
+    A piece of silk of white and sable hue:
+    With this she trapt the horse."[71]
+
+The tabards or surcoats which knights wore over their armour was the
+article of dress in which they most delighted to display their
+magnificence. They varied in form, but were mostly made of rich silk,
+or of cloth of gold or silver, lined or trimmed with choice and
+expensive furs, and usually, also, having the armorial bearings of the
+family richly embroidered. Thus were women even the heralds of those
+times. Besides the acknowledged armorial bearings, devices were often
+wrought symbolical of some circumstance in the life of the wearer.
+Thus we are told in Amadis that the Emperor of Rome, on his black
+surcoat, had a golden chain-work woven, which device he swore never to
+lay aside till he had Amadis in chains. The same romance gives the
+following incident regarding a surcoat.
+
+"Then Amadis cried to Florestan and Agrayes, weeping as he spake, good
+kinsman, I fear we have lost Don Galaor, let us seek for him. They
+went to the spot where Amadis had smitten down King Cildadan, and seen
+his brother last on foot; but so many were the dead who lay there that
+they saw him not, till as they moved away the bodies, Florestan knew
+him by the sleeve of his _surcoat_, which was of azure, worked with
+silver flowers, and then they made great moan over him."
+
+The shape of them, as we have remarked, varied considerably; besides
+minor alterations they were at one time worn very short, at another so
+long as to trail on the ground. But this luxurious style was
+occasionally attended with direful effects. Froissart names a surcoat
+in which Sir John Chandos was attired, which was embroidered with his
+arms in white sarsnet, argent a field gules, one on his back and
+another on his breast. It was a long robe which swept the ground, and
+this circumstance, most probably, caused the untimely death of one of
+the most esteemed knights of chivalry.
+
+Sir John Chandos was one of the brightest of that chivalrous circle
+which sparkled in the reign of Edward the Third. He was gentle as well
+as valiant; he was in the van with the Black Prince at the battle of
+Cressy; and at the battle of Poictiers he never left his side. His
+death was unlooked for and sudden. Some disappointments had depressed
+his spirits, and his attendants in vain endeavoured to cheer them.
+
+"And so he stode in a kechyn, warmyng him by the fyre, and his
+servantes jangled with hym, to {thentent} to bring him out of his
+melancholy; his servantes had prepared for hym a place to rest hym:
+than he demanded if it were nere day, and {therewith} there {came} a
+man into the house, and came before hym, and sayd,
+
+'Sir, I have brought you tidynges.'
+
+'What be they, tell me?'
+
+'Sir, surely the {frenchmen} be rydinge abrode.'
+
+'How knowest thou that?'
+
+'Sir,' sayd he, 'I departed fro saynt Saluyn with them.'
+
+'What way be they ryden?'
+
+'Sir, I can nat tell you the certentie, but surely they take the
+highway to Poiters.'
+
+'What {Frenchmen} be they; canst thou tell me?'
+
+'Sir, it is Sir Loys of Saynt Julyan, and Carlovet the Breton.'
+
+'Well, quoth Sir Johan Chandos, I care nat, I have no lyst this night
+to ryde forthe: they may happe to be {encountred} though I be nat
+ther.'
+
+"And so he taryed there styll a certayne space in a gret study, and at
+last, when he had well aduysed hymselfe, he sayde, 'Whatsoever I have
+sayd here before, I trowe it be good that I ryde forthe; I must
+retourne to Poictiers, and anone it will be day.'
+
+'That is true sir,' quoth the knightes about hym.
+
+'Then,' he sayd, 'make redy, for I wyll ryde forthe.'
+
+"And so they dyd."
+
+The skirmish commenced; there had fallen a great dew in the morning,
+in consequence of which the ground was very slippery; the knight's
+foot slipped, and in trying to recover himself, it became entangled in
+the folds of his magnificent _surcoat_; thus the fall was rendered
+irretrievable, and whilst he was down he received his death blow.
+
+The barons and knights were sorely grieved. They "lamentably
+complayned, and sayd, 'A, Sir Johan Chandos, the floure of all
+chivalry, vnhappely was that glayue forged that thus hath {wounded}
+you, and brought you in parell of dethe:' they wept piteously that
+were about hym, and he herde and vnderstode them well, but he could
+speke no worde."--"For his dethe, his frendes, and also some of his
+enemyes, were right soroufull; the Englysshmen loued hym, bycause all
+noblenesse was founde in hym; the frenchmen hated him, because they
+doubted hym; yet I herde his dethe greatly complayned among right
+noble and valyant knightes of France[72]."
+
+Across this surcoat was worn the scarf, the indispensable appendage of
+a knight when fully equipped: it was usually the gift of his
+"ladye-love," and embroidered by her own fair hand.
+
+And a knight would encounter fifty deaths sooner than part with this
+cherished emblem. It is recorded of Garcia Perez de Vargas, a
+noble-minded Spanish knight of the thirteenth century, that he and a
+companion were once suddenly met by a party of seven Moors. His friend
+fled: but not so Perez; he at once prepared himself for the combat,
+and while keeping the Moors at bay, who hardly seemed inclined to
+fight, he found that his scarf had fallen from his shoulder.
+
+    "He look'd around, and saw the Scarf, for still the Moors were near,
+    And they had pick'd it from the sward, and loop'd it on a spear.
+    'These Moors,' quoth Garci Perez, 'uncourteous Moors they be--
+    Now, by my soul, the scarf they stole, yet durst not question me!
+
+    "'Now, reach once more my helmet.' The Esquire said him, nay,
+    'For a silken string why should you fling, perchance, your life away?'
+    'I had it from my lady,' quoth Garci, 'long ago,
+    And never Moor that scarf, be sure, in proud Seville shall show.'
+
+    "But when the Moslems saw him, they stood in firm array:
+    He rode among their armed throng, he rode right furiously.
+    'Stand, stand, ye thieves and robbers, lay down my lady's pledge,'
+    He cried, and ever as he cried, they felt his faulchion's edge.
+
+    "That day when the lord of Vargas came to the camp alone,
+    The scarf, his lady's largess, around his breast was thrown:
+    Bare was his head, his sword was red, and from his pommel strung
+    Seven turbans green, sore hack'd I ween, before Garci Perez hung."
+
+It casts a redeeming trait on this butchering sort or bravery to find
+that when the hero returned to the camp he steadily refused to reveal
+the name of the person who had so cravenly deserted him.
+
+But the favours which ladies presented to a knight were various;
+consisting of "jewels, ensigns of noblesse, scarfs, hoods, sleeves,
+mantles, bracelets, knots of ribbon; in a word, some detached part of
+their dress." These he always placed conspicuously on his person, and
+defended, as he would have done his life. Sometimes a lock of his fair
+one's hair inspired the hero:
+
+    "Than did he her heere unfolde,
+      And on his helme it set on hye,
+    With rede thredes of ryche golde,
+      Whiche he had of his lady.
+    Full richely his shelde was wrought,
+      With asure stones and beten golde,
+    But on his lady was his thought,
+      The yelowe heere what he dyd beholde."[73]
+
+It is recorded in "Perceforest," that at the end of one tournament
+"the ladies were so stripped of their head attire, that the greatest
+part of them were quite bareheaded, and appeared with their hair
+spread over their shoulders yellower than the finest gold; their robes
+also were without sleeves; for all had been given to adorn the
+knights; hoods, cloaks, kerchiefs, stomachers, and mantuas. But when
+they beheld themselves in this woful plight, they were greatly
+abashed, till, perceiving every one was in the same condition, they
+joined in laughing at this adventure, and that they should have
+engaged with such vehemence in stripping themselves of their clothes
+from off their backs, as never to have perceived the loss of them."
+
+A sleeve (more easily detached than we should fancy those of the
+present day) was a very usual token.
+
+Elayne, the faire mayden of Astolat gave Syr Launcelot "a reed sleeve
+of scarlet wel embroudred with grete perlys," which he wore for a
+token on his helmet; and in real life it is recorded that in a
+serious, but not desperate battle, at the court of Burgundy, in 1445,
+one of the knights received from his lady a sleeve of delicate dove
+colour, elegantly embroidered; and he fastened this favour on his left
+arm.
+
+Chevalier Bayard being declared victor at the tournament of Carignan,
+in Piedmont, he refused, from extreme delicacy, to receive the reward
+assigned him, saying, "The honour he had gained was solely owing to
+the sleeve, which a lady had given him, adorned with a ruby worth a
+hundred ducats." The sleeve was brought back to the lady in the
+presence of her husband; who knowing the admirable character of the
+chevalier, conceived no jealousy on the occasion: "The ruby," said the
+lady, "shall be given to the knight who was the next in feats of arms
+to the chevalier; but since he does me so much honour as to ascribe
+his victory to my sleeve, for the love of him I will keep it all my
+life."
+
+Another important adjunct to the equipment of a knight was the pennon;
+an ensign or streamer formed of silk, linen, or stuff, and fixed to
+the top of the lance. If the expedition of the soldier had for its
+object the Holy Land, the sacred emblem of the cross was embroidered
+on the pennon, otherwise it usually bore the owner's crest, or, like
+the surcoat, an emblematic allusion to some circumstance in the
+owner's life. Thus, Chaucer, in the "Knighte's Tale," describes that
+of Duke Theseus:
+
+    "And by his banner borne is his _penon_
+    Of gold ful riche, in which ther was ybete
+    The Minotaure which that he slew in Crete."
+
+The account of the taking of Hotspur's pennon, and his attempt at its
+recapture, is abridged by Mr. Mills[74] from Froissart. It is
+interesting, as displaying the temper of the times about these
+comparatively trifling matters, and being the record of history, may
+tend to justify our quotations of a similar nature from romance.
+
+"In the reign of Richard the Second, the Scots commanded by James,
+Earl of Douglas, taking advantage of the troubles between the King and
+his Parliament, poured upon the south. When they were sated with
+plunder and destruction they rested at Newcastle, near the English
+force which the Earl of Northumberland and other border chieftains had
+hastily levied.
+
+"The Earl's two sons were young and lusty knights, and ever foremost
+at the barriers to skirmish. Many proper feats of arms were done and
+achieved. The fighting was hand to hand. The noblest encounter was
+that which occurred between the Earl Douglas and Sir Henry Percy,
+surnamed Hotspur. The Scot won the pennon of his foeman; and in the
+triumph of his victory he proclaimed that he would carry it to
+Scotland, and set it on high on his castle of Dalkeith, that it might
+be seen afar off.
+
+"Percy indignantly replied, that Douglas should not pass the border
+without being met in a manner which would give him no cause for
+boasting.
+
+"With equal spirit the Earl Douglas invited him that night to his
+lodging to seek for his pennon.
+
+"The Scots then retired and kept careful watch, lest the taunts of
+their leader should urge the Englishmen to make an attack. Percy's
+spirit burnt to efface his reproach, but he was counselled into
+calmness.
+
+"The Scots then dislodged, seemingly resolved to return with all haste
+to their own country. But Otterbourn arrested their steps. The castle
+resisted the assault; and the capture of it would have been of such
+little value to them that most of the Scotch knights wished that the
+enterprise should be abandoned.
+
+"Douglas commanded, however, that the assault should be persevered
+in, and he was entirely influenced by his chivalric feelings. He
+contended that the very difficulty of the enterprise was the reason of
+undertaking it; and he wished not to be too far from Sir Henry Percy,
+lest that gallant knight should not be able to do his devoir in
+redeeming his pledge of winning the pennon of his arms again.
+
+"Hotspur longed to follow Douglas and redeem his badge of honour; but
+the sage knights of the country, and such as were well expert in arms,
+spoke against his opinion, and said to him, 'Sir, there fortuneth in
+war oftentimes many losses. If the Earl Douglas has won your pennon,
+he bought it dear, for he came to the gate to seek it, and was well
+beaten: another day you shall win as much of him and more. Sir, we say
+this because we know well that all the power of Scotland is abroad in
+the fields; and if we issue forth and are not strong enough to fight
+with them (and perchance they have made this skirmish with us to draw
+us out of the town), they may soon enclose us, and do with us what
+they will. It is better to loose a pennon than two or three hundred
+knights and squires, and put all the country to adventure.'"
+
+By such words as these, Hotspur and his brother were refrained, but
+the coveted moment came.
+
+"The hostile banners waved in the night breeze, and the bright moon,
+which had been more wont to look upon the loves than the wars of
+chivalry, lighted up the Scottish camp. A battle ensued of as valiant
+a character as any recorded in the pages of history; for there was
+neither knight nor squire but what did his devoir and fought hand to
+hand."
+
+The Scots remained masters of the field: but the Douglas was slain,
+and this loss could not be recompensed even by the capture of the
+Percy.
+
+Little did the "gentle Kate" anticipate this catastrophe when her
+fairy fingers with proud and loving alacrity embroidered on the
+flowing pennon the inspiring watchword of her chivalric husband and
+his noble family--ESPERANCE.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[40] Historical Memoirs of Queens of England.--H. Lawrance.
+
+[41] Emare.
+
+[42] _Bete_--inlayed, embroidered.
+
+[43] Amadis of Gaul, bk. i. ch. xv.
+
+[44] Ibid. bk. iv. ch. iii.
+
+[45] Orl. Fur.: transl. by Rose.
+
+[46] _Samyte_--rich silk.
+
+[47] _Pelored_--furred.
+
+[48] Lybeaus Disconus.
+
+[49] _Schyre_--clear.
+
+[50] _Hende_--kind, obliging.
+
+[51] _Alner_--pouch, bag or purse.
+
+[52] Launfal.
+
+[53] Amadis of Gaul, bk. i. ch. xxx.
+
+[54] _Hende_--kind, civil, obliging.
+
+[55] Saracen king.
+
+[56] _Asowr_--azure.
+
+[57] _Hewke_--herald's coat.
+
+[58] _Steven_--voice, sound
+
+[59] _Kantle_--a corner.
+
+[60] Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 4.
+
+[61] Faerie Queene. Book vi.
+
+[62] The Kyng of Tars.
+
+[63] Orl. Fur.
+
+[64] Partenopex of Blois.
+
+[65] Amadis of Gaul.
+
+[66] Ibid.
+
+[67] _Rath_--speedily.
+
+[68] _Sethin_--afterward.
+
+[69] _Perry_--jewels.
+
+[70] _Bayne_--ready.
+
+[71] Orl. Fur., canto 23.
+
+[72] Froissart, by Lord Berners, vol. i. p. 270.
+
+[73] The Fair Lady of Faguell.
+
+[74] Hist. Chivalry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+TAPESTRY.
+
+
+The term _tapestry_ or _tapistry_ (from _tapisser_, to line, from the
+Latin word _tapes_, a cover of a wall or bed), is now appropriated
+solely to woven hangings of wool and silk; but it has been applied to
+all sorts of hangings, whether wrought entirely with the needle (as
+originally indeed all were) or in the loom, whether composed of
+canvass and wool, or of painted cloth, leather, or even paper. This
+wide application of the term seems to be justified by the derivation
+quoted above, but its present use is much more limited.
+
+In the thirteenth century the decorative arts had attained a high
+perfection in England. The palace of Westminster received, under the
+fostering patronage of Henry III., a series of decorations, the
+remains of which, though long hidden, have recently excited the wonder
+and admiration of the curious.[75] "Near this monastery (says an
+ancient Itinerary) stands the most famous royal palace of England; in
+which is that celebrated chamber, on whose walls all the warlike
+histories of the whole Bible are painted with inexpressible skill, and
+explained by a regular and complete series of texts, beautifully
+written in French over each battle, to the no small admiration of the
+beholder, and the increase of royal magnificence."
+
+Round the walls of St. Stephen's chapel effigies of the Apostles were
+painted in oil; (which was thus used with perfectness and skill two
+centuries before its presumed discovery by John ab Eyck in 1410,) on
+the western side was a grand composition of the day of Judgment: St.
+Edward's or the "Painted Chamber," derived the latter name from the
+quality and profuseness of its embellishments, and the walls of the
+whole palace were decorated with portraits or ideal representations,
+and historical subjects. Nor was this the earliest period in which
+connected passages of history were painted on the wainscot of
+apartments, for the following order, still extant, refers to the
+_renovation_ of what must previously--and at some considerable
+interval of time probably, have been done.
+
+"Anno, 1233, 17 Hen. 3. Mandatum est Vicecomiti South'ton quod Cameram
+regis lambruscatam de castro Winton depingi faciat eisdem historiis
+quibus fuerat pri'us depicta."
+
+About 1312, Langton, Bishop of Litchfield, commanded the coronation,
+marriages, wars, and funeral of his patron King Edward I., to be
+painted in the great hall of his episcopal palace, which he had newly
+built.
+
+Chaucer frequently refers to this custom of painting the walls with
+historical or fanciful designs.
+
+    "And soth to faine my chambre was
+    Ful wel depainted----
+    And all the wals with colours fine
+    Were painted bothe texte and glose,
+    And all the Romaunt of the Rose."
+
+And again:--
+
+    "But when I woke all was ypast,
+    For ther nas lady ne creture,
+    Save on the wals old portraiture
+    Of horsemen, hawkis, and houndis,
+    And hurt dere all ful of woundis."
+
+Often emblematical devices were painted, which gave the artist
+opportunity to display his fancy and exercise his wit. Dr. Cullum, in
+his History of Hawsted, gives an account of an old mansion, having a
+closet, the panels of which were painted with various sentences,
+emblems, and mottos. One of these, intended doubtless as a hint to
+female vanity, is a painter, who having begun to sketch out a female
+portrait, writes "Dic mihi qualis eris."
+
+But comfort, or at least a degree of comfort, had progressed hand in
+hand with decoration. Tapestry, that is to say needlework tapestry,
+which, like the Bayeux tapestry of Matilda, had been used solely for
+the decoration of altars, or the embellishment of other parts of
+sacred edifices on occasions of festival, or the performance of solemn
+rites, had been of much more general application amongst the luxurious
+inhabitants of the South, and was introduced into England as furniture
+hanging by Eleanor of Castile. In Chaucer's time it was common. Among
+his pilgrims to Canterbury is a tapestry worker who is mentioned in
+the Prologue, in common with other "professors."
+
+    "An haberdasher and a carpenter,
+    A webbe, a dyer, and a tapiser."
+
+And, again:--
+
+    "I wol give him all that falles
+    To his chambre and to his halles,
+    I will do painte him with pure golde,
+    And _tapite_ hem ful many a folde."
+
+These modes of decorating the walls and chambers with paintings, and
+with tapestry, were indeed contemporaneous; though the greater
+difficulty of obtaining the latter--for as it was not made at Arras
+until the fourteenth century, all that we here refer to is the painful
+product of the needle alone--many have made it less usual and common
+than the former. Pithy sentences, and metrical stanzas were often
+wrought in tapestry: in Wresil Castle and other mansions, some of the
+apartments were adorned in the Oriental manner with metrical
+descriptions called Proverbs. And Warton mentions an ancient suit of
+tapestry, containing Ariosto's Orlando, and Angelica, where, at every
+group, the story was all along illustrated with short lines in
+Provençal or old French.
+
+It could only be from its superior comfort that an article so tedious
+in manufacture as needlework tapestry could be preferred to the more
+quickly-produced decorations of the pencil; it was also rude in
+design; and the following description of some tapestry in an old Manor
+House in King John's time, though taken from a work of fiction,
+probably presents a correct picture of the style of most of the pieces
+exhibited in the mansions of the middle ranks at that period.
+
+"In a corner of the apartment stood a bed, the tapestry of which was
+enwrought with gaudy colours representing Adam and Eve in the garden
+of Eden. Adam was presenting our first mother with a large yellow
+apple, gathered from a tree that scarcely reached his knee. Beneath
+the tree was an angel milking, and although the winged milkman sat on
+a stool, yet his head overtopped both cow and tree, and nearly
+covered a horse, which seemed standing on the highest branches. To the
+left of Eve appeared a church; and a dark robed gentleman holding
+something in his hand which looked like a pincushion, but doubtless
+was intended for a book: he seemed pointing to the holy edifice, as if
+reminding them that they were not yet married. On the ground lay the
+rib, out of which Eve (who stood the head higher than Adam) had been
+formed; both of them were very respectably clothed in the ancient
+Saxon costume; even the angel wore breeches, which, being blue,
+contrasted well with his flaming red wings."
+
+No one who has read the real blunders of artists and existing
+anachronisms in pictures detailed in "Percy Anecdotes," will think the
+above sketch at all too highly coloured; though doubtless the tapestry
+hangings introduced by Queen Eleanor which would be imitated and
+caricatured in ten thousand different forms, were in much superior
+style. The Moors had attained to the highest perfection in the
+decorative arts, and from them did the Spaniards borrow this fashion
+of hangings,[76] and "the coldness of our climate (says her
+accomplished biographer, Miss Agnes Strickland, speaking of Eleanor,)
+must have made it indispensable to the fair daughter of the South,
+chilled with the damp stone walls of English Gothic halls and
+chambers." Of the chillness of these walls we may form some idea,
+from a feeling description of a residence which was thought sufficient
+for a queen some centuries later. In the year 1586, Mary, the unhappy
+Queen of Scots, writes thus:--
+
+"In regard to my lodging, my residence is a place inclosed with walls,
+situated on an eminence, and consequently exposed to all the winds and
+storms of heaven. Within this inclosure there is, like as at
+Vincennes, a very old hunting seat, built of wood and plaister, with
+chinks on all sides, with the uprights; the intervals between which
+are not properly filled up, and the plaister dilapidated in the
+various places. The house is about six yards distant from the walls,
+and so low that the terrace on the other side is as high as the house
+itself, so that neither the sun nor the fresh air can penetrate it at
+that side. The damp, however, is so great there, that every article of
+furniture is covered with mouldiness in the space of four days.--In a
+word, the rooms for the most part are fit rather for a dungeon for the
+lowest and most abject criminals, than for a residence of a person of
+my rank, or even of a much inferior condition. I have for my own
+accommodation only wretched little rooms, and so cold, that were it
+not for the protection of the curtains and tapestries which I have had
+put up, I could not endure it by day, and still less by night."[77]
+
+The tapestries, whether wrought or woven, did not remain on the walls
+as do the hangings of modern days: it was the primitive office of the
+grooms of the chamber to hang up the tapestry which in a royal
+progress was sent forward with the purveyor and grooms of the
+chamber. And if these functionaries had not, to use a proverbial
+expression, "heads on their shoulders," ridiculous or perplexing
+blunders were not unlikely to arise. Of the latter we have an instance
+recorded by the Duc de Sully.
+
+"The King (Henry IV.) had not yet quitted Monceaux, when the Cardinal
+of Florence, who had so great a hand in the treaty of the Vervins,
+passed through Paris, as he came back from Picardy, and to return from
+thence to Rome, after he had taken leave of his Majesty. The king sent
+me to Paris to receive him, commanding me to pay him all imaginable
+honours. He had need of a person near the Pope, so powerful as this
+Cardinal, who afterwards obtained the Pontificate himself: I therefore
+omitted nothing that could answer His Majesty's intentions; and the
+legate, having an inclination to see St. Germain-en-Laye, I sent
+orders to Momier, the keeper of the castle, to hang the halls and
+chambers with the finest tapestry of the Crown. Momier executed my
+orders with great punctuality, but with so little judgment, that for
+the legate's chamber he chose a suit of hangings made by the Queen of
+Navarre; very rich, indeed, but which represented nothing but emblems
+and mottos against the Pope and the Roman Court, as satirical as they
+were ingenious. The prelate endeavoured to prevail upon me to accept a
+place in the coach that was to carry him to St. Germain, which I
+refused, being desirous of getting there before him, that I might see
+whether everything was in order; with which I was very well pleased. I
+saw the blunder of the keeper, and reformed it immediately. The
+legate would not have failed to look upon such a mistake as a formed
+design to insult him, and to have represented it as such to the Pope.
+Reflecting afterwards, that no difference in religion could authorise
+such sarcasms, I caused all those mottos to be effaced."[78]
+
+In the sixteenth century[79] a sort of hanging was introduced, which,
+partaking of the nature both of tapestry and painting on the walls,
+was a formidable rival to the former. Shakspeare frequently alludes to
+these "painted cloths." For instance, when Falstaff persuades Hostess
+Quickly, not only to withdraw her arrest, but also to make him a
+further loan: she says--
+
+"By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my
+plate and the _tapestry_ of my dining chambers!"
+
+Falstaff answers--
+
+"Glasses, glasses is the only drinking, and for thy walls a pretty
+slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or a German Hunting in
+water-work, is worth a thousand of these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it
+be ten pounds if thou canst. If it were not for thy humours, there is
+not a better wench in England! Go wash thy face and draw thy action."
+
+In another passage of the play he says that his troops are "as ragged
+as Lazarus in the _painted cloth_."
+
+There are now at Hampton Court eight large pieces or hangings of this
+description; being "The Triumphs of Julius Cæsar," in water-colours,
+on cloth, and in good preservation. They are by Andrea Mantegna, and
+were valued at 1000_l._ at the time, when, by some strange
+circumstance, the Cartoons of Raphael were estimated only at 300_l._
+
+Tapestry was common in the East at a very remote era, when the most
+grotesque compositions and fantastic combinations were usually
+displayed on it. Some authors suppose that the Greeks took their ideas
+of griffins, centaurs, &c., from these Tapestries, which, together
+with the art of making them, they derived from the East, and at first
+they closely imitated both the beauties and deformities of their
+patterns. At length their refined taste improved upon these originals;
+and the old grotesque combinations were confined to the borders of the
+hanging, the centre of which displayed a more regular and systematic
+representation.
+
+It has been supposed by some writers that the invention of Tapestry,
+passed from the East into Europe; but Guicciardini ascribes it to the
+Netherlanders; and assuredly the Bayeux Tapestry, the work of the
+Conqueror's Queen, shows that this art must have acquired much
+perfection in Europe before the time of the Crusades, which is the
+time assigned by many for its introduction there. Probably
+Guicciardini refers to woven Tapestry, which was not practised until
+the article itself had become, from custom, a thing of necessity.
+Unintermitting and arduous had been the stitchery practised in the
+creation of these coveted luxuries long, very long before the loom was
+taught to give relief to the busy finger.
+
+The first manufactories of Tapestry of any note were those of
+Flanders, established there long before they were attempted in France
+or England. The chief of these were at Brussels, Antwerp, Oudenarde,
+Lisle, Tournay, Bruges, and Valenciennes. At Brussels and Antwerp they
+succeeded well both in the design and the execution of human figures
+and animals, and also in landscapes. At Oudenarde the landscape was
+more imitated, and they did not succeed so well in the figure. The
+other manufactories, always excepting those of Arras, were inferior to
+these.
+
+The grand era of general manufactories in France must be fixed in the
+reign of Henry the IV. Amongst others he especially devoted his
+attention to the manufacture of Tapestry, and that of the Gobelins,
+since so celebrated, was begun, though futilely, in his reign. His
+celebrated minister, Sully, was entangled in these matters somewhat
+more than he himself approved.
+
+1605. "I laid, by his order, the foundations of the new edifices for
+his Tapestry weavers, in the horse-market. His Majesty sent for Comans
+and La Planche, from other countries, and gave them the care and
+superintendence of these manufactures: the new directors were not long
+before they made complaints, and disliked their situation, either
+because they did not find profits equal to their hopes and
+expectations, or, that having advanced considerable sums themselves,
+they saw no great probability of getting them in again. The king got
+rid of their importunity by referring them to me."[80]
+
+1607. "It was a difficult matter to agree upon a price with these
+celebrated Flemish tapestry workers, which we had brought into France
+at so great an expense. At length it was resolved in the presence of
+Sillery and me, that a 100,000_l._ should be given them for their
+establishment. Henry was very solicitous about the payment of this
+sum; 'Having,' said he, 'a great desire to keep them, and not to lose
+the advances we have made.' He would have been better pleased if these
+people could have been paid out of some other funds than those which
+he had reserved for himself: however, there was a necessity for
+satisfying them at any price whatever. His Majesty made use of his
+authority to oblige De Vienne to sign an acquittal to the undertakers
+for linen cloth in imitation of Dutch Holland. This prince ordered a
+complete set of furniture to be made for him, which he sent for me to
+examine separately, to know if they had not imposed upon him. _These
+things were not at all in my taste_, and I was but a very indifferent
+judge of them: the price seemed to me to be excessive, as well as the
+quantity. Henry was of another opinion: after examining the work, and
+reading my paper, he wrote to me that there was not too much, and that
+they had not exceeded his orders; and that he had never seen so
+beautiful a piece of work before, and that the workman must be paid
+his demands immediately."[81]
+
+The manufactory languished however, even if it did not become entirely
+extinct. But it was revived in the reign of Louis XIV., and has since
+dispersed productions of unequalled delicacy over the civilised world.
+
+It was called "Gobelins," because the house in the suburbs of Paris,
+where the manufacture is carried on, was built by brothers whose names
+were Giles and John Gobelins, both excellent dyers, and who brought to
+Paris in the reign of Francis I. the secret of dying a beautiful
+scarlet colour, still known by their name.
+
+In the year 1667 this place, till then called "Gobelines' Folly,"
+changed its name into that of "Hotel Royal des Gobelins," in
+consequence of an edict of Louis XIV. M. Colbert having
+re-established, and with new magnificence enriched and completed the
+king's palaces, particularly the Louvre and the Tuilleries, began to
+think of making furniture suitable to the grandeur of those buildings;
+with this view he called together all the ablest workmen in the divers
+arts and manufactures throughout the kingdom; particularly painters,
+tapestry makers from Flanders, sculptors, goldsmiths, ebonists, &c.,
+and by liberal encouragement and splendid pensions called others from
+foreign nations.
+
+The king purchased the Gobelins for them to work in, and laws and
+articles were drawn up, amongst which is one that no other tapestry
+work shall be imported from any other country.
+
+Nor did there need; for the Gobelins has ever since remained the first
+manufactory of this kind in the world. The quantity of the finest and
+noblest works that have been produced by it, and the number of the
+best workmen bred up therein are incredible; and the present
+flourishing condition of the arts and manufactures of France is, in
+great measure, owing thereto.
+
+Tapestry work in particular is their glory. During the
+superintendence of M. Colbert, and his successor M. de Louvois, the
+making of tapestry is said to have been practised to the highest
+degree of perfection.
+
+The celebrated painter, Le Brun, was appointed chief director, and
+from his designs were woven magnificent hangings of Alexander's
+Battles--The Four Seasons--the Four Elements--and a series of the
+principal actions of the life of Louis XIV. M. de Louvois, during his
+administration, caused tapestries to be made after the most beautiful
+originals in the king's cabinet, after Raphael and Julio Romano, and
+other celebrated Italian painters. Not the least interesting part of
+the process was that performed by the _rentrayeurs_, or fine-drawers,
+who so unite the breadths of the tapestry into one picture that no
+seam is discernible, but the whole appears like one design. The French
+have had other considerable manufactories at Auvergne, Felletin and
+Beauvais, but all sank beneath the superiority of the Gobelins, which
+indeed at one time outvied the renown of that far-famed town, whose
+productions gave a title to the whole species, viz., that of Arras.
+
+Walpole gives an intimation of the introduction of tapestry weaving
+into England, so early as the reign of Edward III., "De inquirendo de
+mysterâ Tapiciorum, London;" but usually William Sheldon, Esq., is
+considered the introducer of it, and he allowed an artist, named
+Robert Hicks, the use of his manor-house at Burcheston, in
+Warwickshire; and in his will, dated 1570, he calls Hicks "the only
+auter and beginner of tapistry and arras within this realm." At his
+house were four maps of Oxford, Worcester, Warwick, and
+Gloucestershires, executed in tapestry on a large scale, fragments of
+which are or were among the curiosities of Strawberry-hill. We meet
+with little further notice of this establishment.
+
+This beautiful art was, however, revived in the reign of James I., and
+carried to great perfection under the patronage of himself and his
+martyr son. It received its death blow in common with other equally
+beautiful and more important pursuits during the triumph of the
+Commonwealth. James gave £2000 to assist Sir Francis Crane in the
+establishment of the manufactory at Mortlake, in Surry, which was
+commenced in the year 1619. Towards the end of this reign, Francis
+Cleyn, or Klein, a native of Rostock, in the duchy of Mecklenburg, was
+employed in forming designs for this institution, which had already
+attained great perfection. Charles allowed him £100 a year, as appears
+from Rymer's Foedera: "Know ye that we do give and grant unto
+Francis Cleyne a certain annuitie of one hundred pounds, by the year,
+during his natural life." He enjoyed this salary till the civil war,
+and was in such favour with the king, and in such reputation, that on
+a small painting of him he is described as "Il famosissimo pittore
+Francesco Cleyn, miracolo del secolo, e molto stimato del re Carlo
+della gran Britania, 1646."
+
+The Tapestry Manufacture at Mortlake was indeed a hobby, both of King
+James and Prince Charles, and of consequence was patronised by the
+Court. During Charles the First's romantic expedition to Spain, when
+Prince of Wales, with the Duke of Buckingham, James writes--"I have
+settled with Sir Francis Crane for my Steenie's business, and I am
+this day to speak with Fotherby, and by my next, Steenie shall have an
+account both of his business, and of Kit's preferment and supply in
+means; but Sir Francis Crane desires to know if my Baby will have him
+to hasten the making of that suit of Tapestry that he commanded
+him."[82]
+
+The most superb hangings were wrought here after the designs of
+distinguished painters; and Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, Whitehall,
+St. James's, Nonsuch, Greenwich, and other royal seats, and many noble
+mansions were enriched and adorned by its productions. In the first
+year of his reign, Charles was indebted £6000 to the establishment for
+three suits of gold tapestry; Five of the Cartoons were wrought here,
+and sent to Hampton Court, where they still remain. A suit of
+hangings, representing the Five Senses, executed here, was in the
+palace at Oatlands, and was sold in 1649 for £270. Rubens sketched
+eight pieces in Charles the First's reign for tapestry, to be woven
+here, of the history of Achilles, intended for one of the royal
+palaces. At Lord Ilchester's, at Redlinch, in Somersetshire, was a
+suit of hangings representing the twelve months in compartments; and
+there are several other sets of the same design. Williams, Archbishop
+of York, and Lord Keeper, paid Sir Francis Crane £2500 for the Four
+Seasons. At Knowl, in Kent, was a piece of the same tapestry wrought
+in silk, containing the portraits of Vandyck, and St. Francis himself.
+At Lord Shrewsbury's (Hoythorp, Oxfordshire) are, or were, four
+pieces of tapestry from designs by Vanderborght, representing the four
+quarters of the world, expressed by assemblages of the nations in
+various habits and employments, excepting Europe, which is in
+masquerade, wrought in chiaroscuro. And at Houghton (Lord Oxford's
+seat) were beautiful hangings containing whole lengths of King James,
+King Charles, their Queens, and the King of Denmark, with heads of the
+Royal Children in the borders. These are all mentioned incidentally as
+the production of the Mortlake establishment.
+
+After the death of Sir Francis Crane, his brother Sir Richard sold the
+premises to Charles I. During the civil wars, this work was seized as
+the property of the Crown; and though, after the Restoration, Charles
+II. endeavoured to revive the manufacture, and sent Verrio to sketch
+the designs, his intention was not carried into effect. The work,
+though languishing, was not altogether extinct; for in Mr. Evelyn's
+very scarce tract intituled "Mundus Muliebris," printed in 1690, some
+of this manufacture is amongst the articles to be furnished by a
+gallant to his mistress.
+
+One of the first acts of the Protectorate after the death of the king,
+was to dispose of the pictures, statues, tapestry hangings, and other
+splendid ornaments of the royal palaces. Cardinal Mazarine enriched
+himself with much of this royal plunder; and some of the splendid
+tapestry was purchased by the Archduke Leopold. This however found its
+way again to England, being repurchased at Brussels for £3000 by
+Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III.
+
+In 1663 "two well-intended statutes" were made: one for the
+encouragement of the linen and _tapestry manufactures_ of England, and
+discouragement of the importation of foreign tapestry:--and the
+other--start not, fair reader--the other "for regulating the packing
+of herrings."[83]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[75] See Smith's History of the Ancient Palace of Westminster.
+
+[76] But not from them would be derived the art of painting with the
+needle the representation of the human figure. Hence, perhaps, the
+awkward and ungainly aspect of these, in comparison with the arabesque
+patterns. From a fear of its exciting a tendency to idolatry Mohammed
+prohibited his followers from delineating the form of men or animals
+in their pictorial embellishments of whatever sort.
+
+[77] Von Raumer's Contributions, 297.
+
+[78] Sully's Memoirs. We have, in a subsequent chapter, a more full
+account of this Tapestry.
+
+[79] Gent's Mag., 1830.
+
+[80] Sully's Memoirs, vol. ii.
+
+[81] Sully's Memoirs, vol. iii.
+
+[82] Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. i. No. 26.
+
+[83] "The rich tapestry and arras hangings which belonged to St.
+James's Palace, Hampton Court, Whitehall, and other Royal Seats, were
+purchased for Cromwell: these were inventoried at a sum not exceeding
+£30,000. One piece of eight parts at Hampton Court was appraised at
+£8,260: this related to the History of Abraham. Another of ten parts,
+representing the History of Julius Cæsar, was appraised at £5019."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ROMANCES WORKED IN TAPESTRY.
+
+    "And storied loves of knights and courtly dames,
+    Pageants and triumphs, tournaments and games."
+
+                        Rose's Partenopex.
+
+
+It has been a favourite practice of all antiquity to work with the
+needle representations of those subjects in which the imagination and
+the feelings were most interested. The labours of Penelope, of Helen,
+and Andromache, are proverbial, and this mode of giving permanency to
+the actions of illustrious individuals was not confined to the
+classical nations. The ancient islanders used to work--until the
+progress of art enabled them to weave the histories of their giants
+and champions in Tapestry; and the same thing is recorded of the old
+Persians; and this furniture is still in high request among many
+Oriental nations, especially in Japan and China. The royal palace of
+Jeddo has profusion of the finest Tapestry; this indeed is gorgeous,
+being wrought with silk, and adorned with pearls, gold, and silver.
+
+It was considered a right regal offering from one prince to another.
+Henry III., King of Castile, sent a present to Timour at Samarcand, of
+Tapestry which was considered to surpass even the works of Asiatic
+artists in beauty: and when the religious and military orders of some
+of the princes of France and Burgundy had plunged them into a kind of
+crusade against the Turkish Sultan Bajazet, and they became his
+prisoners in the battle of Nicopolis, the King of France sent presents
+to the Sultan, to induce him to ransom them; amongst which Tapestry
+representing the battles of Alexander the Great was the most
+conspicuous.
+
+Tapestry was not used in the halls of princes alone, but cut a very
+conspicuous figure on all occasions of festivity and rejoicing. It was
+customary at these times to hang ornamental needlework of all sorts
+from the windows or balconies of the houses of those streets through
+which a pageant or festal procession was to pass; and as the houses
+were then built with the upper stories far overhanging the lower ones,
+these draperies frequently hung in rich folds to the ground, and must
+have had, when a street was thus in its whole length appareled and
+partly roofed by the floating streamers and banners above--somewhat
+the appearance of a suite of magnificent saloons.
+
+    "Then the high street gay signs of triumph wore,
+      Covered with shewy cloths of different dye,
+    Which deck the walls, while Sylvan leaves in store,
+      And scented herbs upon the pavement lie.
+    Adorned in every window, every door,
+      With carpeting and finest drapery;
+    But more with ladies fair, and richly drest
+    In costly jewels and in gorgeous vest."
+
+When the Black Prince entered London with King John of France, as his
+prisoner, the outsides of the houses were covered with hangings,
+consisting of battles in tapestry-work.
+
+And in tournaments the lists were always decorated "with the splendid
+richness of feudal power. Besides the gorgeous array of heraldic
+insignia near the Champions' tents, the galleries, which were made to
+contain the proud and joyous spectators, were covered with tapestry,
+representing chivalry both in its warlike and its amorous guise: on
+one side the knight with his bright faulchion smiting away hosts of
+foes, and on the other side kneeling at the feet of beauty."
+
+But the subjects of the tapestry in which our ancestors so much
+delighted were not confined to _bonâ fide_ battles, and the
+matter-of-fact occurrences of every-day life. Oh no! The Lives of the
+Saints were frequently pourtrayed with all the legendary
+accompaniments which credulity and blind faith could invest them with.
+The "holy and solitary" St. Cuthbert would be seen taming the
+sea-monsters by his word of power: St. Dunstan would be in the very
+act of seizing the "handle" of his Infernal Majesty's face with the
+red-hot pincers; and St. Anthony in the "howling wilderness," would be
+reigning omnipotent over a whole legion of sprites. Here was food for
+the imagination and taste of our notable great-grandmother! Yet let us
+do them justice. If some of their religious pieces were imbued even to
+a ridiculous result, with the superstitions of the time, there were
+others, numberless others, scripture pieces, as chaste and beautiful
+in design, as elaborate in execution. The loom and needle united
+indeed brought these pieces to the highest perfection, but many a
+meek and saintly Madonna, many a lofty and energetic St. Paul, many a
+subdued and touching Magdalene were produced by the unaided industry
+of the pious needlewoman. Nay, the whole Bible was copied in
+needlework; and in a poem of the fifteenth century, by Henry Bradshaw,
+containing the Life of St. Werburgh, a daughter of the King of the
+Mercians, there is an account "rather historical than legendary,"[84]
+of many circumstances of the domestic life of the time. Amongst other
+descriptions is that of the tapestry displayed in the Abbey of Ely, on
+the occasion of St. Werburgh taking the veil there. This Tapestry
+belonged to king Wulfer, and was brought to Ely Monastery for the
+occasion. We subjoin some of the stanzas:--
+
+    "It were full tedyous, to make descrypcyon
+    Of the great tryumphes, and solempne royalte,
+    Belongynge to the feest, the honour and provysyon,
+    By playne declaracyon, upon every partye;
+    But the sothe to say, withouten ambyguyte,
+    All herbes and flowres, fragraunt, fayre, and swete,
+    Were strawed in halles, and layd under theyr fete.
+
+    "Clothes of golde and arras[85] were hanged in the hall
+    Depaynted with pyctures, and hystoryes manyfolde,
+    Well wroughte and craftely, with precious stones all
+    Glysteryng as Phebus, and the beten golde,
+    Lyke an erthly paradyse, pleasaunt to beholde:
+    As for the said moynes,[86] was not them amonge,
+    But prayenge in her cell, as done all novice yonge.
+
+    "The story of Adam, there was goodly wrought,
+    And of his wyfe Eve, bytwene them the serpent,
+    How they were deceyved, and to theyr peynes brought;
+    There was Cayn and Abell, offerynge theyr present,
+    The sacryfyce of Abell, accepte full evydent:
+    Tuball and Tubalcain were purtrayed in that place,
+    The inventours of musyke and crafte by great grace.
+
+    "Noe and his shyppe was made there curyously
+    Sendynge forthe a raven, whiche never came again;
+    And how the dove returned, with a braunche hastely,
+    A token of comforte and peace, to man certayne:
+    Abraham there was, standing upon the mount playne
+    To offer in sacrifice Isaac his dere sone,
+    And how the shepe for hym was offered in oblacyon.
+
+    "The twelve sones of Jacob there were in purtrayture,
+    And how into Egypt yonge Josephe was solde,
+    There was imprisoned, by a false conjectour,
+    After in all Egypte, was ruler (as is tolde).
+    There was in pycture Moyses wyse and bolde,
+    Our Lorde apperynge in bushe flammynge as fyre,
+    And nothing thereof brent, lefe, tree, nor spyre.[87]
+
+    "The ten plages of Egypt were well embost,
+    The chyldren of Israel passyng the reed see,
+    Kynge Pharoo drowned, with all his proude hoost,
+    And how the two table, at the Mounte Synaye
+    Were gyven to Moyses, and how soon to idolatry
+    The people were prone, and punysshed were therefore,
+    How Datan and Abyron, for pryde were full youre."[88]
+
+Then _Duke_ Joshua leading the Israelites: the division of the
+promised land; Kyng Saull and David, and "prudent Solomon;" Roboas
+succeeding;
+
+    "The good Kynge Esechyas and his generacyon,
+    And so to the Machabus, and dyvers other nacyon."
+
+All these
+
+    "Theyr noble actes, and tryumphes marcyall,
+    Freshly were browdred in these clothes royall."
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+    "But over the hye desse, in the pryncypall place,
+    Where the sayd thre kynges sate crowned all,
+    The best hallynge[89] hanged, as reason was,
+    Whereon were wrought the nine orders angelicall
+    Dyvyded in thre ierarchyses, not cessynge to call
+    _Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus_, blessed be the Trynite,
+    Dominius Deus Sabaoth, three persons in one deyte."
+
+Then followed in order our Blessed Lady, the twelve Apostles, "eche
+one in his figure," the four Evangelists "wrought most curyously," all
+the disciples
+
+    "Prechynge and techynge, unto every nacyon,
+    The faythtes[90] of holy chyrche, for their salvacyon."
+
+"Martyrs then followed, right manifolde;" Confessors "fressely
+embrodred in ryche tyshewe and fyne." Saintly virgins "were
+brothered[91] the clothes of gold within," and the long array was
+closed on the other side of the hall by
+
+    "Noble auncyent storyes, and how the stronge Sampson
+    Subdued his enemyes by his myghty power;
+    Of Hector of Troye, slayne by fals treason;
+    Of noble Arthur, kynge of this regyon;
+    With many other mo, which it is to longe
+    Playnly to expresse this tyme you amonge."
+
+But the powers of the chief proportion of needlewomen, and of many of
+the subsequent tapestry looms were devoted to giving permanence to
+those fables which, as exhibited in the Romances of Chivalry, formed
+the very life and delight of our ancestors in
+
+    "------that happy season
+    Ere bright Fancy bent to reason;
+    When the spirit of our stories,
+    Filled the mind with unseen glories;
+    Told of creatures of the air,
+    Spirits, fairies, goblins rare,
+    Guarding man with tenderest care."
+
+These fables, says Warton, were not only perpetually repeated at the
+festivals of our ancestors, but were the constant objects of their
+eyes. The very walls of their apartments were clothed with romantic
+history.
+
+We have mentioned the history of Alexander in Tapestry as forming an
+important part of the peace offering of the king of France to Bajazet,
+and probably there were few princes who did not possess a suit of
+tapestry on this subject; a most important one in romance, and
+consequently a desired one for the loom.
+
+There seems an innate propensity in the writers of the Romance of
+Chivalry to exaggerate, almost to distortion, the achievements of
+those whose heroic bearing needed no pomp of diction, or wild flow of
+imagination to illustrate it. Thus Charlemagne, one of the best and
+greatest of men, appears in romance like one whose thirst for
+slaughter it requires myriads of "Paynims" to quench.
+
+Arthur, on the contrary, a very (if history tell truth) a very "so-so"
+sort of a man, having not one tithe of the intellect or the
+magnanimity of him to whom we have just referred--Arthur is invested
+in romance with a halo of interest and of beauty which is perfectly
+fascinating; and it seems almost impossible to divest oneself of these
+impressions and to look upon him only in the unattractive light in
+which history represents him.
+
+A person not initiated in romance would suppose that the real actions
+of Alexander--the subjugator of Greece, the conqueror of Persia, the
+captor of the great Darius, but the generous protector of his
+family--might sufficiently immortalize him. By no means. He cuts a
+considerable figure in many romances; but in one, appropriated more
+exclusively to his exploits, he "surpasses himself." The world was
+conquered:--from north to south, and from east to west his sovereignty
+was acknowledged; so he forthwith flew up into the air to bring the
+aerial potentates to his feet. But this experiment not answering, he
+descended to the depths of the waters with much better success; for
+immediately all their inhabitants, from the whale to the herring, the
+cannibal shark, the voracious pike, the majestic sturgeon, the lordly
+salmon, the rich turbot, and the delicate trout, with all their kith,
+kin, relations, and allies, the lobster, the crab, and the muscle,
+
+    "The sounds and seas with all their finny drove"
+
+crowd round him to do him homage: the oyster lays her pearl at his
+feet, and the coral boughs meekly wave in token of subjection.
+Doubtless in addition to the legitimate "battles" these exploits, if
+not fully displayed, were intimated by symbols in the Tapestry.
+
+The Tale of Troy was a very favourite subject for Tapestry, and was
+found in many noble mansions, especially in France. It has indeed been
+conjectured, and on sufficient grounds, that the whole Iliad had been
+wrought in a consecutive series of hangings. Though during the early
+part of the middle ages Homer himself was lost, still the "Tale of
+Troy divine" was kept alive in two Latin works, which in 1260 formed
+the basis of a prose romance by a Sicilian.
+
+The great original himself however, had become the companion not only
+of the studious and learned, but also of the fair and fashionable,
+while yet the Flemish looms were in the zenith of their popularity.
+This subject formed part of the decoration of Holyrood House, on the
+occasion of the marriage of Henry the Seventh's daughter to James,
+King of Scotland in 1503. We are told in an ancient record, that the
+"hanginge of the queene's gret chammer represented the ystory of Troye
+toune, that the king's grett chammer had one table, wer was satt, hys
+chamerlayne, the grett sqyer, and many others, well served; the which
+chammer was haunged about with the story of Hercules, together with
+other ystorys." And at the same solemnity, "in the hall wher the
+qwene's company wer satt in lyke as in the other, an wich was haunged
+of the history of Hercules."
+
+The tragic and fearful story of Coucy's heart gave rise to an old
+metrical English Romance, called the 'Knight of Courtesy and the Lady
+of Faguel.' It was entirely represented in tapestry. The incident, a
+true one, on which it was founded, occurred about 1180; and was
+thus:--
+
+"Some hundred and odd years since, there was in France one Captain
+Coucy, a gallant gentleman of an ancient extraction, and keeper of
+Coucy Castle, which is yet standing, and in good repair. He fell in
+love with a young gentlewoman, and courted her for his wife. There was
+a reciprocal love between them; but her parents understanding of it,
+by way of prevention, they shuffled up a forced match 'twixt her and
+one Monsieur Faiell who was a great heir: Captain Coucy hereupon
+quitted France in discontent, and went to the wars in Hungary against
+the Turk; where he received a mortal wound, not far from Bada. Being
+carried to his lodging, he languished for some days; but a little
+before his death he spoke to an ancient servant of his, that he had
+many proofs of his fidelity and truth; but now he had a great business
+to intrust him with, which he conjured him by all means to do, which
+was, That after his death, he should get his body to be opened and
+then to take his heart out of his breast, and put in an earthen pot,
+to be baked to powder; and then to put the powder in a handsome box,
+with that bracelet of hair he had worn long about on his left wrist,
+which was a lock of Mademoiselle Faiell's hair, and put it among the
+powder, together with a little note he had written with his own blood
+to her; and after he had given him the rites of burial, to make all
+the speed he could to France, and deliver the box to Mademoiselle
+Faiell. The old servant did as his master had commanded him, and so
+went to France; and coming one day to Monsieur Faiell's house, he
+suddenly met with him, who examined him because he knew he was Captain
+Coucy's servant, and finding him timorous and faltering in his
+speech, he searched him, and found the said box in his pocket with the
+note, which expressed what was therein. He dismissed the bearer with
+menaces, that he should come no more near his house: Monsieur Faiell
+going in, sent for his cook, and delivered him the powder, charging
+him to make a little well-relished dish of it, without losing a jot of
+it, for it was a very costly thing; and commanded him to bring it in
+himself, after the last course at supper. The cook bringing in the
+dish accordingly, Monsieur Faiell commanded all to void the room, and
+began a serious discourse with his wife: However since he had married
+her, he observed she was always melancholy, and he feared she was
+inclining to a consumption; therefore he had provided for her a very
+precious cordial, which he was well assured would cure her. Thereupon
+he made her eat up the whole dish; and afterwards much importuning him
+to know what it was, he told her at last, she had eaten Coucy's heart,
+and so drew the box out of his pocket, and showed her the note and
+bracelet. In a sudden exultation of joy, she with a far-fetched sigh
+said, '_This is precious indeed_,' and so licked the dish, saying,
+'_It is so precious, that 'tis pity to put ever any meat upon 't_.' So
+she went to bed, and in the morning she was found stone dead."[92]
+
+But a more national, a more inspiriting, and a more agreeable theme
+for the alert finger or the busy loom is found in the life and
+adventures of that prince of combatants, that hero of all heroes, Guy
+Earl of Warwick. Help me, shades of renowned slaughterers, whilst I
+record his achievements! Bear witness to his deed, ye grisly phantoms,
+ye bloody ghosts of infidel Paynims, whom his Christian sword mowed
+down, even as corn falls beneath the the reaper's sickle, till the
+redoubtable champion strode breast deep in bodies over fifteen acres
+covered with slaughtered foes![93] And all this from Christian zeal!
+
+    "In faith of Christ a Christian true
+      The wicked laws of infidels,
+    He sought by power to subdue.
+
+    "So passed he the seas of Greece,
+      To help the Emperour to his right,
+    Against the mighty Soldan's host
+      Of puissant Persians for to fight:
+    Where he did slay of Sarazens
+      And heathen Pagans many a man,
+    And slew the Soldan's cousin dear,
+      Who had to name, Doughty Colbron.
+
+    "Ezkeldered that famous knight,
+      To death likewise he did pursue,
+    And Almain, king of Tyre also,
+      Most terrible too in fight to view:
+    He went into the Soldan's host,
+      Being thither on ambassage sent,
+    And brought away his head with him,
+      He having slain him in his tent."
+
+Or passing by his
+
+    "Feats of arms
+    In strange and sundry heathen lands,"
+
+note his beneficent progress at home--
+
+    "In Windsor forest he did slay
+      A boar of passing might and strength;
+    The like in England never was,
+      For hugeness both in breadth and length.
+    Some of his bones in Warwick yet,
+      Within the castle there do lye;
+    One of his shield bones to this day
+      Hangs in the city of Coventry.
+
+    "On Dunsmore heath he also slew
+      A monstrous wild and cruel beast,
+    Call'd the dun cow of Dunsmore heath,
+      Which many people had opprest;
+    Some of her bones in Warwick yet
+      Still for a monument doth lie,
+    Which unto every looker's view,
+      As wondrous strange they may espy.
+
+    "And the dragon in the land,
+      He also did in flight destroy,
+    Which did both men and beasts oppress,
+      And all the country sore annoy:"
+
+Or look we at him all doughty as he was, as the pilgrim of love, as
+subdued by the influence of the tender passion, a suppliant to the
+gentle Phillis, and ready to compass the earth to fulfil her wishes,
+and to prove his devotion:
+
+    "Was ever knight for lady's sake
+      So tost in love, as I, Sir Guy;
+    For Phillis fair, that Lady bright,
+      As ever man beheld with eye;
+    She gave me leave myself to try
+      The valiant knight with shield and spear,
+    Ere that her love she would grant me,
+      Who made me venture far and near."
+
+Or, afterwards view him as--
+
+    "All clad in grey in Pilgrim sort,
+      His voyage from her he did take,
+    Unto that blessed, holy land,
+      For Jesus Christ, his Saviour's sake."
+
+Lastly, recal we the time when the fierce and ruthless Danes were
+ravaging our land, and there was scarce a town or castle as far as
+Winchester, which they had not plundered or burnt, and a proposal was
+made, and per force acceded to by the English king to decide the
+struggle by single combat. But the odds were great: Colbrand the
+Danish champion, was a giant, and ere he came to a combat he provided
+himself with a cart-load of Danish axes, great clubs with knobs of
+iron, squared barrs of steel lances and iron hooks wherewith to pull
+his adversary to him.
+
+On the other hand the English--and sleepless and unhappy, the king
+Athelstan pondered the circumstance as he lay on his couch, on St.
+John Baptist's night--had no champion forthcoming, even though the
+county of Hants had been promised as a reward to the victor. Roland,
+the most valiant knight of a thousand, was dead; Heraud, the pride of
+the nation, was abroad; and the great and valiant Guy, Earl of
+Warwick, was gone on a pilgrimage. The monarch was perplexed and
+sorrowful; but an angel appeared to him and comforted him.
+
+In conformity with the injunctions of this gracious messenger, the
+king, attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of
+Chichester, placed himself at the north gate of the city (Winchester)
+at the hour of prime. Divers poor people and pilgrims entered thereat,
+and among the rest appeared a man of noble visage and stalwart frame,
+but wan withal, pale with abstinence, and macerated by reason of
+journeying barefoot. His beard was venerably long and he rested on a
+staff; he wore a pilgrim's garb, and on his bare and venerable head
+was strung a chaplet of white roses. Bending low, he passed the gate,
+but the king warned by the vision, hastened to him, and entreated him
+"by his love for Jesus Christ, by the devotion of his pilgrimage, and
+for the preservation of all England, to do battle with the giant." The
+Palmer thus conjured, underwent the combat, and was victorious.
+
+After a solemn procession to the Cathedral, and thanksgiving therein,
+when he offered his weapon to God and the patron of the Church, before
+the High Altar, the pilgrim withdrew, having revealed himself to none
+but the king, and that under a solemn pledge of secrecy. He bent his
+course towards Warwick, and unknown in his disguise, took alms at the
+hands of his own lady--for, reader, this meek and holy pilgrim, was
+none other than the wholesale slayer, whose deeds we have been
+contemplating--and then retired to a solitary place hard by--
+
+    "Where with his hand he hew'd a house,
+      Out of a craggy rock of stone;
+    And lived like a palmer poor,
+      Within that cave himself alone."
+
+Nor was this at all an unusual conclusion to a life of butchery; all
+the heroes of romance turned hermits; and as they all, at least all of
+Arthur's Round Table, were gifted with a very striking development of
+the organ of combativeness, their profound piety at the end of their
+career might not improbably give rise to a very common adage of these
+days regarding sinners and saints.
+
+But here was a theme for Tapestry-workers! a real original, genuine
+English romance; for though the only pieces now extant be, or may be,
+translated from the French, still there are many concurring
+circumstances to prove that the original, often quoted by Chaucer, was
+an ancient metrical English one. That it is difficult to find who Sir
+Guy was, or in fact, to prove that there ever was a Sir Guy at all, is
+nothing to the purpose; leave we that to antiquarians, and their musty
+folios. Guy of Warwick was well known from west to east, even as far
+as Jerusalem, where, in Henry the Fourth's time, Lord Beauchamp was
+kindly received by those in high stations, because he was descended
+from
+
+    "A shadowy ancestor, so renowned as Guy."
+
+One tapestry on this attractive subject which was in Warwick Castle,
+before the year 1398, was so distinguished and valued a piece of
+furniture, that a special grant was made of it by King Richard II.
+conveying "that suit of arras hangings in Warwick Castle, which
+contained the story of Guy Earl of Warwick," together with the Castle
+of Warwick and other possessions, to Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent. And
+in the restoration of forfeited property to this lord after his
+imprisonment, these hangings are particularly specified in the patent
+of King Henry IV., dated 1399.
+
+And the Castle wherein the tapestry was hung was worthy of the heroes
+it had sheltered. The first building on the site was supposed to be
+coeval with our Saviour, and was called Caer-leon; almost overthrown
+by the Picts and Scots, it lay in ruins till Caractacus built himself
+a manor-house, and founded a church to the honour of St. John the
+Baptist. Here was afterwards a Roman fort, and here again was a
+Pictish devastation. A cousin of King Arthur rebuilt it, and then
+lived in it--Arthgal, first Earl of Warwick, a Knight of the Round
+Table; this British title was equivalent to _Ursus_ in Latin, whence
+Arthgal took the Bear for his ensign: and a successor of his, a worthy
+progenitor of our valiant Sir Guy, slew a mighty giant in a duel; and
+because this giant's delicate weapon was a tree pulled up by the
+roots, the boughs being snagged from it, the Earls of Warwick,
+successors of the victor, bore a ragged staff of silver in a sable
+shield for their cognisance.
+
+We are told that,--
+
+    "When Arthur first in court began,
+      And was approved king,
+    By force of arms great victoryes wanne,
+      And conquest home did bring.
+    Then into England straight he came
+      With fifty good and able
+    Knights, that resorted unto him,
+      And were of his round table."
+
+Of these the most renowned were Syr Perceval, Syr Tristan, Syr
+Launcelot du Lac, Syr Ywain, Syr Gawain, Syr Galaas, Syr Meliadus of
+Leonnoys, Sir Ysaie, Syr Gyron, &c. &c., and their various and
+wondrous achievements were woven into a series of tales which are
+known as the "Romances of the Round Table." Of course the main subject
+of each tale is interrupted by ten thousand varied episodes, in which
+very often the original object seems entirely lost sight of. Then the
+construction of many of these Romances, or rather their want of
+construction, is marvellous; their genealogies are interminable, and
+their geography miraculous.
+
+One of the most marvellous and scarce of these Romances, and one, the
+principal passages of which were frequently wrought into Tapestry, was
+the "Roman du Saint Greal," which is founded upon an incident, to say
+the least very peculiar, but which was perhaps once considered true as
+Holy Writ. St. Joseph of Arimathoea, a very important personage in
+many romances, having obtained the hanap, or cup from which our
+Saviour administered the wine to his disciples, caught in the same cup
+the blood which flowed from his wounds when on the Cross. After he had
+first achieved various adventures, and undergone an imprisonment of
+forty-two years, St. Joseph arrives in England with the sacred cup, by
+means of which numerous miracles are performed; he prepares the Round
+Table, and Arthur and his Knights all go in quest of the hanap, which
+by some, to us unaccountable, circumstance, had fallen into the hands
+of a sinner. All make the most solemn vow to devote their lives to its
+recovery; and this they must indeed have done, and not short lives
+either, if all recorded of them be true. None, however, but two, ever
+_see_ the sacred symbol; though oftentimes a soft ray of light would
+stream across the lonesome wild, or the dark pathless forest, or
+unearthly strains would float on the air, or odours as of Paradise
+would entrance the senses, while the wandering and woeworn knight
+would feel all fatigue, all sense of personal inconvenience, of pain,
+of sickness, or of sorrow, vanish on the instant; and then would he
+renew his vows, and betake himself to prayer; for though all unworthy
+to see the Holy Grayle, he would feel that it had been borne on
+viewless pinions through the air for his individual consolation and
+hope. And Syr Galahad and Syr Perceval, the two chaste and favoured
+knights who, "after the dedely flesshe had beheld the spiritual
+things," the holy St. Grael--never returned to converse with the
+world. The first departed to God, and "flights of angels sang him to
+his rest;" the other took religious clothing and retired to a
+hermitage, where, after living "a full holy life for a yere and two
+moneths, he passed out of this world."
+
+But wide as is the range of the Romances of the "Round Table," they
+form but a portion of those which solaced our ancestors. Charlemagne
+and his Paladins were, so to speak, the solar system round which
+another circle revolved; Alexander furnished the radiating star for
+another, derived chiefly perhaps from the East, where numbers of
+fictitious tales were prevalent about him; and many Romances were
+likewise woven around the mangled remains of classic heroes.
+
+    "The mightiest chiefs of British song
+    Scorn'd not such legends to prolong;
+    They gleam through Spenser's elfic dream,
+    And mix in Milton's heavenly theme;
+    And Dryden in immortal strain,
+    Had raised the 'Table Round' again."
+
+The Stories of the Tapestry in the Royal Palaces of Henry VIII. are
+preserved in the British Museum.[94]
+
+These are some of them re-copied from Warton:--
+
+In the tapestry of the Tower of London, the original and most ancient
+seat of our monarchs, there are recited, Godfrey of Bulloign; the
+Three Kings of Cologne; the Emperor Constantine; St. George; King of
+Erkenwald; the History of Hercules; Fame and Honour; the Triumph of
+Divinity; Esther and Ahasueras; Jupiter and Juno; St. George; the
+Eight Kings; the Ten Kings of France; the Birth of our Lord; Duke
+Joshua; the Riche History of King David; the Seven Deadly Sins; the
+Riche History of the Passion; the Stem of Jesse; Our Lady and Son;
+King Solomon; the Woman of Canony; Meleager; and the Dance of
+Maccabee.
+
+At Durham Place were the Citie of Ladies (a French allegorical
+Romance); the Tapestrie of Thebes and of Troy; the City of Peace; the
+Prodigal Son; Esther, and other pieces of Scripture.
+
+At Windsor Castle the Siege of Jerusalem; Ahasueras; Charlemagne; the
+Siege of Troy; and Hawking and Hunting.
+
+At Nottingham Castle, Amys and Amelion.
+
+At Woodstock Manor, the tapestrie of Charlemagne.
+
+At the More, a palace in Hertfordshire, King Arthur, Hercules,
+Astyages, and Cyrus.
+
+At Richmond, the arras of Sir Bevis, and Virtue and Vice fighting.
+
+Among the rest we have also Hannibal, Holofernes, Romulus and Remus,
+Æneas, and Susannah.
+
+Many of these subjects were repeated at Westminster, Greenwich,
+Oatlands, Bedington in Surrey, and other royal seats, some of which
+are now unknown as such.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[84] Warton.
+
+[85] Arras, a very common anachronism. After the production of the
+arras tapestries, arras became the common name for all tapestries:
+even for those which were wrought before the looms of Arras were in
+existence.
+
+[86] Moynes--nun. Lady Werburg
+
+[87] _Spyre_--twig, branch.
+
+[88] _Youre_--burnt.
+
+[89] _Hallynge_--Tapestry.
+
+[90] _Faythtes_--feats, facts.
+
+[91] _Brothered_--embroidered.
+
+[92] Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ.
+
+[93] "Fifteen acres were covered with the bodies of slaughtered
+Saracens; and so furious were the strokes of Sir Guy, that the pile of
+dead men, wherever his sword had reached, rose as high as his
+breast."--Ellis, vol. ii.
+
+[94] Harl. MSS. 1419.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+NEEDLEWORK IN COSTUME.--PART I.
+
+    "What neede these velvets, silkes, or lawne,
+    Embrodery, feathers, fringe and lace."
+
+                        Bp. Hall.
+
+    "Time was, when clothing sumptuous or for use,
+    Save their own painted skins, our Sires had none.
+    As yet black breeches were not."
+
+                        Cowper.
+
+
+Manifold indeed were the varieties in mode and material before that
+_beau ideal_ of all that is graceful and becoming--the "black
+breeches"--were invented. For though in many parts of the globe
+costume is uniform, and the vest and the turban of a thousand years
+ago are of much the same make as now, this is not the case in the more
+polished parts of Europe, where that "turncoat whirligig maniac,
+yclept Fashion," is the pole-star and beacon of the multitude of men,
+from him who has the "last new cut from Stultz," to him who is
+magnificent and happy in the "reg'lar bang-up-go" from the eastern
+parts of the metropolis.
+
+It would seem that England is peculiarly celebrated for her devotion
+at Fashion's shrine; for we are told that "an Englishman, endevoring
+sometime to write of our attire, made sundrie platformes for his
+purpose, supposing by some of them to find out one stedfast ground
+whereon to build the summe of his discourse. But in the end (like an
+orator long without exercise) when he saw what a difficult peece of
+worke he had taken in hand, he gave over his travell, and onely drue
+the picture of a naked man, unto whome he gave a paire of sheares in
+the one hand, and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end he should
+shape his apparell after such fashion as himselfe liked, sith he could
+find no kind of garment that could please him anie while together, and
+this he called an Englishman. Certes this writer shewed himself herein
+not to be altogether void of iudgement, sith the phantasticall follie
+of our nation, even from the courtier to the carter, is such, that no
+forme of apparell liketh vs longer than the first garment is in the
+wearing, if it continue so long and be not laid aside, to receive some
+other trinket newlie devised.
+
+"And as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a world to see
+the costlinesse and the curiositie; the excesse and the vanitie; the
+pompe and the brauerie; the change and the varietie; and, finallie,
+the ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees; insomuch that
+nothing is more constant in England than inconstancie of attire.
+
+"In women, also, it in most to be lamented, that they doo now far
+exceed the lightnesse of our men (who nevertheless are transformed
+from the cap even to the verie shoo) and such staring attire as in
+time past was supposed meet for none but light housewives onlie, is
+now become a habit for chast and sober matrons.
+
+"Thus _it is now come to passe, that women are become men, and men
+transformed into monsters_."
+
+This ever-revolving wheel is still turning; and so all-important now
+is THE MODE that one half of the world is fully occupied in providing
+for the personal embellishment of the other half and themselves; and
+could we contemplate the possibility of a return to the primitive
+simplicity of our ancient "sires," we must look in the same picture on
+one half of the world as useless--as a drug on the face of creation.
+Why, what a desert would it be were all dyers, fullers, cleaners,
+spinners, weavers, printers, mercers and milliners, haberdashers and
+modistes, silk-men and manufacturers, cotton-lords and fustian-men,
+tailors and habit makers, mantuamakers and corset professors,
+exploded? We pass over pin and needle makers, comb and brush
+manufacturers, jewellers, &c. The ladies would have nothing to live
+for; (for on grave authority it has been said, that "woman is an
+animal that delights in the toilette;") the gentlemen nothing to
+solace them. "The toilette" is the very zest of life with both; and if
+ladies are more successful in the results of their devoirs to it, it
+is because "nous sommes faites pour embellir le monde," and not
+because gentlemen practice its duties with less zeal, devotion, or
+assiduity--as many a valet can testify when contemplating his modish
+patron's daily heap of "failures." Indeed to put out of view the more
+obvious, weighty, and important cares attached to the due selection
+and arrangement of coats, waistcoats, and indispensables, the science
+of "Cravatiana" alone is one which makes heavy claims on the time,
+talents, and energies of the thorough-going gentleman of fashion. He
+should be thoroughly versed in all its varieties--The Royal George:
+The Plain Bow: The Military: The Ball Room: The Corsican: The
+Hibernian Tie: The Eastern Tie: The Hunting Tie: The Yankee Tie: (the
+"alone original" one)--The Osbaldiston Tie: The Mail Coach Tie: The
+Indian Tie, &c. &c. &c.
+
+Though of these and their numberless offshoots, the Yankee Tie lays
+most claim to originality, the Ball Room one is considered the most
+exquisite, and requires the greatest practice. It is thus described by
+a "talented" professor:--
+
+"The cloth, of virgin white, well starched and folded to the proper
+depth, should be made to sit easy and graceful on the neck, neither
+too tight nor loose; but with a gentle pressure, curving inwards from
+the further extension of the chin, down the throat to the centre dent
+in the middle of the neck. This should be the point for a slight dent,
+extending from under each ear, between which, more immediately under
+the chin, there should be another slight horizontal dent just above
+the former one. It has no tie; the ends, crossing each other in broad
+folds in front, are secured to the braces, or behind the back, by
+means of a piece of white tape. A brilliant broach or pin is generally
+made use of to secure more effectually the crossing, as well as to
+give an additional effect to the neckcloth."
+
+What a world of wit and invention--what a fund of fancy and
+taste--what a mine of zeal and ability would be lost to the world, "if
+those troublesome disguises which we wear" were reduced to their old
+simplicity of form and material! Industry and talent would be at
+discount, for want of materials whereon to display themselves; and
+money would be such a drug, that politicians would declaim on the
+miseries of being _without_ a national debt. Commerce, in many of its
+most important branches, would be exploded; the "manufacturing
+districts" would be annihilated; the "agricultural interest" would,
+consequently and necessarily, be at a "very low ebb;" and the "New
+World," the magnificent and imperial empress (that is to be) of the
+whole earth, might sink again to the embraces of those minute and
+wonderful artificers from whom, I suppose, she at first proceeded--the
+coral insects; for who would want cotton! No, no. Selfish preferences,
+individual wishes, must merge in the general good of the human race;
+and however "their own painted skins" might suffice our "sires,"
+clothing, "sumptuous," as well as "for use," must decorate ourselves.
+
+To whom, then, are the fullers, the dyers, the cleaners--to whom are
+the spinners and weavers, and printers and mercers, and milliners and
+haberdashers, and modistes, and silk-men and manufacturers, cotton
+lords and fustian men, mantuamakers and corset professors, indebted
+for that nameless grace, that exquisite finish and appropriateness,
+which gives to all their productions their charm and their
+utility?--To the NEEDLEWOMAN, assuredly. For though the raw materials
+have been grown at Sea Island and shipped at New York,--have been
+consigned to the Liverpool broker and sold to the Manchester merchant,
+and turned over to the manufacturer, and spun and woven, and bleached
+and printed, and placed in the custody of the warehouseman, or on the
+shelf of the shopkeeper--of what good would it be that we had a
+fifty-yard length of calico to shade our oppressed limbs on a
+"dog-day," if we had not the means also to render that material
+agreeably available? Yet not content with merely rendering it
+available, this beneficent fairy, the needlewoman, casts, "as if by
+the spell of enchantment, that ineffable grace over beauty which the
+choice and arrangement of dress is calculated to bestow." For the love
+of becoming ornament--we quote no less an authority than the historian
+of the 'State of Europe in the Middle Ages,'--"is not, perhaps, to be
+regarded in the light of vanity; it is rather an instinct which woman
+has received from Nature to give effect to those charms which are her
+defence." And if it be necessary to woman with her charms, is it not
+tenfold necessary to those who--Heaven help them!--have few charms
+whereof to boast? For, as Harrison says, "it is now come to passe that
+men are transformed into monsters."
+
+"Better be out of the world than out of the fashion," is a proverb
+which, from the universal assent which has in all ages been given to
+it, has now the force of an axiom. It was this self evident
+proposition which emboldened the beau of the fourteenth century, in
+spite of the prohibitions of popes and senators,--in spite of the more
+touching personal inconvenience, and even risk and danger, attendant
+thereupon--to persist in wearing shoes of so preposterous a length,
+that the toes were obliged to be fastened with chains to the girdle
+ere the happy votary of fashion could walk across his own parlour!
+Happy was the favourite of Croesus, who could display chain upon
+chain of massy gold wreathed and intertwined from the waistband to
+the shoe, until he seemed almost weighed down by the burthen of his
+own wealth. Wrought silver did excellently well for those who could
+not produce gold; and for those who possessed not either precious
+metal, and who yet felt they "might as well be out of the world as out
+of the fashion," latteen chains, silken cords, aye, and cords of even
+less costly description, were pressed into service to tie up the
+_crackowes_, or piked shoes. For in that day, as in this, "the squire
+endeavours to outshine the knight, the knight the baron, the baron the
+earl, the earl the king, in dress." To complete the outrageous
+absurdity of these shoes, the upper parts of them were cut in
+imitation of a church-window, to which fashion Chaucer refers when
+describing the dress of Absalom, the Parish Clerk. He--
+
+    "Had Paul 'is windowes corven on his shose."
+
+Despite the decrees of councils, the bulls of the Pope, and the
+declamations of the Clergy, this ridiculous fashion was in vogue near
+three centuries.
+
+And the party-coloured hose, which were worn about the same time, were
+a fitting accompaniment for the crackowes. We feel some difficulty in
+realising the idea that gentlemen, only some half century ago, really
+dressed in the gay and showy habiliments which are now indicative only
+of a footman; but it is more difficult to believe, what was
+nevertheless the fact, that the most absurd costume in which the
+"fool" by profession can now be decked on the stage, can hardly
+compete in absurdity with the _outré_ costume of a beau or a belle of
+the fourteenth century. The shoes we have referred to: the garments,
+male or female, were divided in the middle down the whole length of
+the person, and one half of the body was clothed in one colour, the
+other half in the most opposite one that could be selected. The men's
+garments fitted close to the shape; and while one leg and thigh
+rejoiced in flaming yellow or sky-blue, the other blushed in deep
+crimson. John of Gaunt is portrayed in a habit, one half white, the
+other a dark blue; and Mr. Strutt has an engraving of a group
+assembled on a memorable occasion, where one of the figures has a boot
+on one leg and a shoe on the other. The Dauphiness of Auvergne, wife
+to Louis the Good, Duke of Bourbon, born 1360, is painted in a garb of
+which one half all the way down is blue, powdered with gold
+fleurs-de-lys, and the other half to the waist is gold, with a blue
+fish or dolphin (a cognizance, doubtless) on it, and from the waist to
+the feet is crimson, with white "fishy" ornaments; one sleeve is blue
+and gold, the other crimson and gold.
+
+In addition to these absurd garments, the women dressed their heads so
+high that they were obliged to wear a sort of curved horn on each
+side, in order to support the enormous superstructure of feathers and
+furbelows. And these are what are meant by the "horned head-dresses"
+so often referred to in old authors. It is said that, when Isabel of
+Bavaria kept her court at Vincennes, A.D. 1416, it was necessary to
+make all the doors of the palace both higher and wider, to admit the
+head-dresses of the queen and her ladies, which were all of this
+horned kind.
+
+This high bonnet had been worn, under various modifications, ever
+since the fashion was brought from the East in the time of the
+Crusades. Some were of a sugar-loaf form, three feet in height; and
+some cylindrical, but still very high. The French modistes of that day
+called this formidable head-gear _bonnet à la Syrienne_. But our
+author says, if female vanity be violently restrained in one point, it
+is sure to break out in another; and Romish anathemas having abolished
+curls from shading fair brows, so much the more attention was paid to
+head-gear, that the bonnets and caps increased every year most awfully
+in height and size, and were made in the form of crescents, pyramids,
+and horns of such tremendous dimensions, that the old chronicler
+Juvenal des Ursins makes this pathetic lamentation in his History of
+Charles VI.:--
+
+"Et avoient les dames et damoyselles de chacun costé, deux grandes
+oreilles si larges, que quand elles vouloient passer par l'huis d'une
+chambre il fallait qu'elles se tournassent de costé et baisassent, ou
+elles n'eussent pu passer:" that is, "on every side old ladies and
+young ladies were seen with such high and monstrous ears (or horns),
+that when they wanted to enter a room they were obliged perforce to
+stoop and crouch sideways, or they could not pass." At last a regular
+attack was made on the high head-gear of the fifteenth century by a
+popular monk, in his sermons at Nôtre Dame, in which he so
+pathetically lamented the sinfulness and enormities of such a fashion,
+that the ladies, to show their contrition, made _auto da fés_ of their
+Syrian bonnets in the public squares and market-places; and as the
+Church fulminated against them all over Europe, the example of Paris
+was universally followed.
+
+Many attempts had previously been made by zealous preachers to effect
+this alteration. In the previous century a Carmelite in the province
+of Bretagne preached against this fashion, without the power to
+annihilate it: all that the ladies did was to change the particular
+shape of the huge coiffures after every sermon. "No sooner," says the
+chronicler, "had he departed from one district, than the dames and
+damoyselles, who, like frightened snails, had drawn in their horns,
+shot them out again longer than ever; for nowhere were the _hennins_
+(so called, abbreviated from _gehinnin_, incommodious,) larger, more
+pompous or proud, than in the cities through which the Carmelite had
+passed.
+
+"All the world was totally reversed and disordered by these fashions,
+and above all things by the strange accoutrements on the heads of the
+ladies. It was a portentous time, for some carried huge towers on
+their foreheads an ell high; others still higher caps, with sharp
+points, like staples, from the top of which streamed long crapes,
+fringed with gold, like banners. Alas, alas! ladies, dames, and
+demoiselles were of importance in those days! When do we hear, in the
+present times, of Church and State interfering to regulate the
+patterns of their bonnets?"[95]
+
+It is no wonder that fashions so very extreme and absurd should call
+forth animadversion from various quarters. Thus wrote Petrarch in
+1366:--
+
+"Who can see with patience the monstrous, fantastical inventions which
+the people of our times have invented to deform, rather than adorn,
+their persons? Who can behold without indignation their long pointed
+shoes; their caps with feathers; their hair twisted and hanging down
+like tails; the foreheads of young men, as well as women, formed into
+a kind of furrows with ivory-headed pins; their bellies so cruelly
+squeezed with cords, that they suffer as much pain from vanity as the
+martyrs suffered for religion? Our ancestors would not have believed,
+and I know not if posterity will believe, that it was possible for the
+wit of this vain generation of ours to invent so many base, barbarous,
+horrid, ridiculous fashions (besides those already mentioned) to
+disfigure and disgrace itself, as we have the mortification to see
+every day."
+
+And thus Chaucer, a few years later:--
+
+"Alass! may not a man see as in our daies the sinnefull costlew array
+of clothing, and namely in too much superfluite, or else in too
+disordinate scantinese: as to the first, not only the cost of
+embraudering, the disguysed indenting, or barring, ounding, playting,
+wynding, or bending, and semblable waste of clothe in vanitie." The
+common people also "were besotted in excesse of apparell, in wide
+surcoats reaching to their loines, some in a garment reaching to their
+heels, close before and strowting out on the sides, so that on the
+back they make men seem women, and this they called by a ridiculous
+name, _gowne_," &c. &c.
+
+Before this time the legislature had interfered, though with little
+success: they passed laws at Westminster, which were said to be made
+"to prevent that destruction and poverty with which the whole kingdom
+was threatened, by the outrageous, excessive expenses of many persons
+in their apparel, above their ranks and fortunes."
+
+Sumptuary edicts, however, are of little avail, if not supported in
+"influential quarters." King Richard II. affected the utmost splendour
+of attire, and he had one coat alone which was valued at 30,000 marks:
+it was richly embroidered and inwrought with gold and precious stones.
+It is not in human nature, at least in human nature of the "more
+honourable" gender, to be outdone, even by a king. Gorgeous and
+glittering was the raiment adopted by the satellites of the court,
+and, heedless of "that destruction and poverty with which the whole
+kingdom was threatened," they revelled in magnificence. Of one alone,
+Sir John Arundel, it is recorded, that he had at one time fifty-two
+suits of cloth of gold tissue. At this time, says the old Chronicle,
+
+    "Cut werke was great bothe in court and tounes,
+    Bothe in mens hoddes, and also in their gounes,
+    Brouder and furres, and gold smith werke ay newe,
+    In many a wyse, eche day they did renewe."
+
+Unaccountable as it may seem, this rage of expense and show in apparel
+reached even the (then) poverty-stricken sister country Scotland; and
+in 1457 laws were enacted to suppress it.
+
+It is told of William Rufus, that one morning while putting on his new
+boots he asked his chamberlain what they cost; and when he replied
+"three shillings," indignantly and in a rage he cried out, "you--how
+long has the king worn boots of so paltry a price? Go, and bring me a
+pair worth a mark of silver." He went, and bringing him a much
+cheaper pair, told him falsely that they cost as much as he had
+ordered: "Ay," said the king, "these are suitable to royal majesty."
+
+This is merely a specimen of the monarch's shallow-headed
+extravagance; but the costume of his time and that immediately
+preceding it was infinitely superior in grace and dignity to that of
+the fantastical period we have been describing. The English at this
+period were admired by all other nations, and especially _by the
+French_, from whom in subsequent periods _we_ have copied so
+servilely, for the richness and elegance of their attire. With a tunic
+simply confined at the waist, over this, when occasion required, a
+full and flowing mantle, with a veil confined to the back of the head
+with a golden circlet, her dark hair simply braided over her beautiful
+and intelligent brow and waving on her fair throat, the wife of the
+Conqueror looked every inch a queen, and what was more, she looked a
+modest, a dignified, and a beautiful woman.
+
+The male attire was of the same flowing and majestic description: and
+the "brutal" Anglo-Saxons and the "barbarous" Normans had more
+delicacy than to display every division of limb or muscle which nature
+formed, and more taste than to invent divisions where, Heaven knows,
+nature never meant them to be. The simple _coiffure_ required little
+care and attendance, but if a fastening did happen to give way, the
+Anglo-Norman lady could raise her hand to fasten it if she chose. The
+arm was not pinioned by the fiat of a _modiste_.
+
+And the material of a dress of those days was as rich as the mode was
+elegant. Silk indeed was not common; the first that was seen in the
+country was in 780, when Charlemagne sent Offa, King of Mercia, a belt
+and two vests of that beautiful material; but from the particular
+record made of silk mantles worn by two ladies at a ball at Kenilworth
+in 1286, we may fairly infer that till this period silk was not often
+used but as
+
+    "------a robe pontifical,
+    Ne'er seen but wonder'd at."
+
+Occasionally indeed it was used, but only by persons of the highest
+rank and wealth. But the woollens were of beautiful texture, and
+Britain was early famous in the art of producing the richest dyes. The
+Welsh are still remarkable for extracting beautiful tints from the
+commonest plants, such most probably as were used by the Britons
+anciently; and it is worthy of note that the South Sea cloths,
+manufactured from the inner bark of trees, have the same stripes and
+chequers, and indeed the identical patterns of the Welsh, and, as
+supposed, of the ancient Britons. Linen was fine and beautiful; and if
+it had not been so, the rich and varied embroidery with which it was
+decorated would have set off a coarser material.
+
+Furs of all sorts were in great request, and a mantle of regal hue,
+lined throughout with vair or sable, and decorated with bands of gold
+lace and flowers of the richest embroidery, interspersed with pearls,
+clasped on the shoulder with the most precious gems, and looped, if
+requisite, with golden tassels, was a garment at which a nobleman,
+even of these days, need not look askance.
+
+Robert Bloet, second bishop of Lincoln, made a present to Henry I. of
+a cloak of exquisitely fine cloth, lined with black sables with white
+spots, which cost a sum equivalent to £1500 of our money. The robes of
+females of rank were always bordered with a belt of rich needlework;
+their embroidered girdles were inlaid, or rather inwrought, with gold,
+pearls, and precious stones, and from them was usually suspended a
+large purse or pouch, on which the skill of the most accomplished
+needlewomen was usually expended.
+
+This rich and becoming mode of dress was gradually innovated upon
+until caprice reigned paramount over the national wardrobe. For
+"fashion is essentially caprice; and fashion in dress the caprice of
+milliners and tailors, with whom _recherche_ and exaggeration supply
+the place of education and principle." That this modern definition
+applied as accurately to former times as these, an instance may
+suffice to show. Richard I. had a cloak made, at enormous cost, with
+precious and shining metals inlaid _in imitation of the heavenly
+bodies_; and Henry V. wore, on a very memorable occasion, when Prince
+of Wales, a mantle or gown of rich blue satin, full of small
+eyelet-holes, as thickly as they could be put, and a needle hanging by
+a silk thread _from every hole_.
+
+The following incident, quoted from Miss Strickland's Life of
+Berengaria, will show the esteem in which a rich, and especially a
+furred garment was held. Richard I. quarrelled with the virtuous St.
+Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, on the old ground of exacting a simoniacal
+tribute on the installation of the prelate into his see. Willing to
+evade the direct charge of selling the see, King Richard intimated
+that a present of a fur mantle worth a thousand marks might be a
+composition. St. Hugh said he was no judge of such gauds, and
+therefore sent the king a thousand marks, declaring, if he would
+devour the revenue devoted to the poor, he must have his wilful way.
+But as soon as Richard had pocketed the money he sent for the fur
+mantle. St. Hugh set out for Normandy to remonstrate with the king on
+this double extortion. His friends anticipated that he would be
+killed; but St. Hugh said, "I fear him not," and boldly entered the
+chapel where Richard was at mass, when the following scene took
+place:--
+
+"Give me the embrace of peace, my son," said St. Hugh.
+
+"That you have not deserved," replied the king.
+
+"Indeed I have," said St. Hugh, "for I have made a long journey on
+purpose to see my son."
+
+So saying, he took hold of the king's sleeve and drew him on one side.
+Richard smiled and embraced the old man. They withdrew to the recess
+behind the altar and sate down.
+
+"In what state is your conscience?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Very easy," said the king.
+
+"How can that be, my son," said the bishop, "when you live apart from
+your virtuous queen, and are faithless to her; when you devour the
+provision of the poor, and load your people with heavy exactions? Are
+those light transgressions, my son?"
+
+The king owned his faults, and promised amendment; and when he related
+this conversation to his courtiers he added, "Were all our prelates
+like Hugh of Lincoln, both king and barons must submit to their
+righteous rebukes."
+
+Furs were much used now as coverings for beds; and they were
+considered a _necessary_ part of dress for a very considerable period.
+
+In Sir John Cullum's Hawsted, mention is made that in 1281 Cecilia,
+widow of William Talmache, died, and, amongst other bequests, left "to
+Thomas Battesford, for black coats for poor people, xxx_s._ in part."
+"To John Camp, of Bury St. Edmunds, furrier, for furs for the black
+coats, viij_s._ xj_d._" On which the reverend and learned author
+remarks, "We should now indeed think that a black coat bestowed on a
+poor person wanted not the addition of fur: such, however, was the
+fashion of the time; and a sumptuary law of Edward III. allows
+handicraft and yeomen to wear no manner of furre, nor of bugg,[96] but
+only lambe, coney, catte, and foxe."
+
+The distinction in rank was expressly shown by the kind of fur
+displayed on the dress, and these distinctions were regulated by law
+and rigidly enforced. By a statute passed in 1455, for regulating the
+dress of the Scottish lords of parliament, the gowns of the earls are
+appointed to be furred with ermine, while those of the other lords are
+to be lined with "criestay, gray, griece, or purray."
+
+The more precious furs, as ermine and sable, were reserved exclusively
+for the principal nobility of both sexes. Persons of an inferior rank
+wore the _vair_ or _gris_ (probably the Hungarian squirrel); the
+citizens and burgesses, the common squirrel and lamb skins; and the
+peasants, cat and badger skins. The mantles of our kings and peers,
+and the furred robes of the several classes of our municipal officers,
+are the remains of this once universal fashion.
+
+Furs often formed an important part of the ransom of a prisoner of
+rank:--
+
+    "Sir," quoth Count Bongars, "war's disastrous hour
+    Hath cast my lot within my foeman's power.
+    Name ransome as you list; gold, silver bright,
+    Palfreys, or dogs, or falcons train'd to flight;
+    Or choose you _sumptuous furs, of vair or gray_;
+    I plight my faith the destin'd price to pay."[97]
+
+Certain German nobles who had slain a bishop were enjoined, amongst
+other acts of penance, "ut varium, griseum, ermelinum, et pannos
+coloratos, non portent."
+
+The skin of the wild cat was much used by the clergy. Bishop Wolfstan
+preferred lambskin; saying in excuse, "Crede mihi, nunquam audivi, in
+ecclesia, cantari _catus_ Dei, sed _agnus_ Dei; ideo calefieri agno
+volo."
+
+The monk of Chaucer had
+
+    "------his sleeves purfiled, at the hond,
+    With gris, and that the finest of the lond."
+
+It is not till about the year 1204 that there is any specific
+enumeration of the royal apparel for festival occasions. The proper
+officers are appointed to bring for the king on this occasion "a
+golden crown, a red satin mantle adorned with sapphires and pearls, a
+robe of the same, a tunic of white damask; and slippers of red satin
+edged with goldsmith's work; a balbrick set with gems; two girdles
+enamelled and set with garnets and sapphires; white gloves, one with a
+sapphire and one with an amethist; various clasps adorned with
+emeralds, turquois, pearls, and topaz; and sceptres set with
+twenty-eight diamonds."[98]
+
+So much for the king:--And for the queen--oh! ye enlightened
+legislators of the earth, ye omnipotent and magisterial lords of
+creation, look on that picture--and on this.
+
+"For our lady the queen's use, sixty ells of fine linen cloth, forty
+ells of dark green cloth, a skin of minever, a _small brass pan_, and
+_eight towels_."
+
+But John, who in addition to his other amiable propensities was the
+greatest and most extravagant fop in Europe, was as parsimonious
+towards others as selfish and extravagant people usually are. Whilst
+even at the ceremony of her coronation he only afforded his Queen
+"three cloaks of fine linen, one of scarlet cloth, and one grey
+pelisse, costing together 12_l._ 5_s._ 4_d._;" he himself launched
+into all sorts of expenditure. He ordered the minutest articles for
+himself and the queen; but the wardrobe accounts of the sovereigns of
+the middle ages prove that they kept a royal warehouse of mercery,
+haberdashery, and linen, from whence their officers measured out
+velvets, brocades, sarcenets, tissue, gauzes, and trimmings, of all
+sorts. A queen, says Miss Strickland, had not the satisfaction of
+ordering her own gown when she obtained leave to have a new one; the
+warlike hand of her royal lord signed the order for the delivery of
+the materials from his stores, noting down with minute precision the
+exact quantity to a quarter of a yard of the cloth, velvet, or
+brocade, of which the garment was composed.
+
+"Blessed be the memory of King Edward III. and Philippa of Hainault
+his queen, who first invented clothes," was, we are told, the grateful
+adjuration of a monkish historian, who referred probably not to the
+first assumption of apparel, but to the charter which was granted
+first by that monarch to the "cutters and linen armourers,"
+subsequently known as the merchant-tailors, who at that period were
+usually the makers of all garments, silk, linen, or woollen. Female
+fingers had sufficient occupation in the finer parts of the work; in
+the "silke broiderie" with which every garment of fashion was
+embellished; in the tapestry; in the spinning of wool and flax, every
+thread of which was drawn by female hands, and in the weaving of which
+a great portion was also executed by them.
+
+In the forty-fourth year of this king, "as the book of Worcester
+reporteth, they began to use cappes of divers coloures, especially
+red, with costly lynings; and in the year 1372, the forty-seventh of
+the above prince, they first began to wanton it in a new round curtall
+weede, which they call a cloake, and in Latin _armilausa_, as only
+covering the shoulders, and this notwithstanding the king had
+endeavoured to restrain all these inordinances and expenses in
+clothing; as appears by the law by Parliament established in the
+thirty-sixth year of his reign. All ornaments of gold or silver,
+either on the daggers, girdles, necklaces, rings, or other ornaments
+for the body, were forbid to all that could not spend ten pounds
+a-year; and farther, that no furre or pretious and costly apparel,
+should be worne by any but men possessed of 100_l._ a year."
+
+Besides the rigid enactments of the law, and the anathemas of divines,
+other and gentler means were from time to time resorted to as warnings
+from that sin of dress which seems inherent in our nature, or as
+inducements to a more becoming one. We quote a specimen of both:--
+
+"There was a lady whiche had her lodgynge by the chirche. And she was
+alweye accustomed for to be longe to araye her, and to make her freshe
+and gay, insomuch that it annoyed and greued moche the parson of the
+chirche, and the parysshens. And it happed on a Sonday that she was so
+longe, that she sent to the preeste that he shod tarye for her, lyke
+as she had been accustomed. And it was thenne ferforthe on the day.
+And it annoyed the peple. And there were somme that said, How is hit?
+shall not this lady this day be pynned ne wel besene in a Myrroure?
+And somme said softely, God sende to her an evyll syght in her
+myrroure that causeth us this day and so oftymes to muse and to abyde
+for her. And thene as it plesyd God for an ensample, as she loked in
+the myrroure she sawe therein the Fende, whiche shewed hymselfe to her
+so fowle and horryble, that the lady wente oute of her wytte, and was
+al demonyak a long tyme. And after God sente to her helthe. And after
+she was not so longe in arayeng but thanked God that had so suffered
+her to be chastysed."[99]
+
+The 'Garment of Gude Ladyis' is a lecture of a most beguiling kind,
+and an exquisite picture.
+
+    "Wald my gud lady lufe me best,
+      And wirk after my will,
+    I suld ane garment gudliest
+      Gar mak hir body till.
+
+    "Of he honour suld be her hud,
+      Upoun hir heid to weir,
+    Garneist with governance so gud,
+      Na demyng[100] suld hir deir.[101]
+
+    "Hir kirtill suld be of clene constance,
+      Lasit with lesum lufe,
+    The mailyeis[102] of continwance
+      For nevir to remufe.
+
+    "Her gown suld be of gudliness,
+      Weill ribband with renowne,
+    Purfillit[103] with plesour in ilk place,
+      Furrit with fyne fassoun.[104]
+
+    "Her belt suld be of benignitie,
+      About hir middill meit;
+    Hir mantill of humilitie,
+      To tholl[105] bayth wind and weit.
+
+    "Hir hat suld be of fair having[106],
+      And her tepat of trewth,
+    Hir patelet[107] of gude pansing,
+      Hir hals-ribbane of rewth.
+
+    "Hir slevis suld be of esperance,
+      To keip hir fra dispair;
+    Hir gluvis of the gud govirnance,
+      To hyd hir fingearis fair.
+
+    "Hir schone suld be of sickernes[108]
+      In syne that scho nocht slyd;
+    Hir hois of honestie, I ges,
+      I suld for hir provyd.
+
+    "Wald scho put on this garmond gay,
+      I duret sweir by my seill,
+    That scho woir nevir grene nor gray
+      That set hir half so weill."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[95] Lady's Magazine.
+
+[96] Bugg--buge, lamb's furr.--Dr. Jamieson.
+
+[97] Ancassin and Nicolette.
+
+[98] The first instance in which the name of this stone is
+found.--Miss Lawrence.
+
+[99] The Knyght of the Toure.
+
+[100] _Demyng_--censure.
+
+[101] _Deir_--dismay.
+
+[102] _Mailyeis_--network.
+
+[103] _Purfillit_--furbelowed.
+
+[104] _Fassoun_--address, politeness.
+
+[105] _Tholl_--endure.
+
+[106] _Having_--behaviour.
+
+[107] _Patelet_--run.
+
+[108] _Sickernes_--steadfastness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+NEEDLEWORK IN COSTUME.--PART II.
+
+    "And the short French breeches make such a comelie
+    vesture that, except it were a dog in a doublet, you
+    shall not see anie so disguised as are my countriemen of
+    England."
+
+                        Holinshed.
+
+    "Out from the Gadis to the eastern morne,
+    Not one but holds his native state forlorne.
+    When comelie striplings wish it were their chance
+    For Cenis' distaffe to exchange their lance;
+    And weare curl'd periwigs, and chalk their face,
+    And still are poring on their pocket glasse;
+    Tyr'd with pinn'd ruffs, and fans, and partlet strips,
+    And buskes and verdingales about their hips:
+    And tread on corked stilts a prisoner's pace."
+
+                        Bp. Joseph Hall.
+
+    "They brought in fashions strange and new,
+      With golden garments bright;
+    The farthingale and mighty ruff,
+      With gowns of rich delight."
+
+                        A Warning-Piece to England.
+
+
+The queen (Anne Neville) of Richard III. seems to have been somewhat
+more regally accoutred than those of her royal predecessors to whom we
+referred in the last chapter. Among "the stuff delivered to the queen
+at her coronation are twenty-seven yards of white cloth of gold for a
+kirtle and train, and a mantle of the same, richly furred with
+ermine. This was the dress in which she rode in her litter from the
+Tower to the palace of Westminster. This was an age of long trains,
+and the length was regulated by the rank of the wearer; Anne, for her
+whole purple velvet suit, had fifty-six yards. From the entries of
+scarlet cloth given to the nobility for mantles on this occasion, we
+find that duchesses had thirteen yards, countesses ten, and baronesses
+eight."
+
+The costume of Henry VII.'s day differed little from that of Edward
+IV., except in the use of shirts bordered with lace and richly trimmed
+with ornamental needlework, which continued a long time in vogue
+amongst the nobility and gentry.
+
+A slight inspection of the inventories of Henry VIII.'s apparel will
+convince us of a truth which we should otherwise, readily have
+guessed, viz., that no expense and no splendour were spared in the
+"swashing costume" of his day. Its general aspect is too familiar to
+us to require much comment. We may remark, however, that four several
+acts were passed in his reign for the reformation of apparel, and that
+all but the royal family were prohibited from wearing "any cloth of
+gold of purpure colour, or silk of the same colour," upon pain of
+forfeiture of the same and £20 for every offence. Shirt bands and
+ruffles of gold were worn by the privileged, but none under the degree
+of knight were permitted to decorate their shirts with silk, gold, or
+silver. Henry VIII.'s "knitte gloves of silk" are particularly
+referred to, and also his "handkerchers" edged with gold, silver, or
+fine needlework. These handkerchiefs, wrought with gold and silver,
+were not uncommon in the after-times. In the ballad of George
+Barnwell, it is said of Milwood--
+
+    "A handkerchief she had,
+      All wrought with silk and gold,
+    Which she, to stay her trickling tears,
+      Before her eyes did hold."
+
+In the east these handkerchiefs are common, and it is still a
+favourite occupation of the Egyptian ladies to embroider them.
+
+We are surprised now to find to what minute particulars legal
+enactments descended. "No husbandman, shepherd, or common labourer to
+any artificer, out of cities or boroughs (having no goods of their own
+above the value of £10), shall use or wear any cloth the broad yard
+whereof passeth 2_s._ 4_d._, or any hose above the price of 12_d._ the
+yard, upon pain of imprisonment in the stocks for three days."
+
+It was in a subsequent reign, that of Mary, that a proclamation was
+issued that no man should "weare his shoes above sixe inches _square_
+at the toes." We have before seen that the attention of the grave and
+learned members of the Senate, the "Conscript Fathers" of England, was
+devoted to the due regulation of this interesting part of apparel,
+when the shoe-toes were worn so long that they were obliged to be tied
+up to the waist ere the happy and privileged wearer could set his foot
+on the ground. Now, however, "a change came o'er the spirit of the
+day," and it became the duty of those who exercised a paternal
+surveillance over the welfare of the community at large to legislate
+regarding the _breadth_ of the shoe-toes, that they should not be
+above "sixe inches square."
+
+"Great," was anciently the cry--"Great is Diana of the Ephesians;"
+but how immeasurably greater and mightier has been, through that and
+all succeeding ages, the supreme potentate who with a mesh of flimsy
+gauze or fragile silk has constrained nations as by a shackle of iron,
+that shadowy, unsubstantial, ever-fleeting, yet ever-exacting
+deity--FASHION! At her shrine worship all the nations of the earth.
+The savage who bores his nose or tattooes his tawny skin is impelled
+by the same power which robes the courtly Eastern in flowing garments;
+and the dark-hued beauty who smears herself with blubber is influenced
+by the selfsame motive which causes the fair-haired daughter of
+England to tint her delicate cheek with the mimic rose.
+
+And it is not merely in the shape and form of garments that this deity
+exercises her tyrannic sway, transforming "men into monsters," and
+women likewise--if it were possible: her vagaries are infinite and
+unaccountable; yet, how unaccountable soever, have ever numberless and
+willing votaries. It was once the _fashion_ for people who either were
+or fancied themselves to be in love to prove the sincerity of their
+passion by the fortitude with which they could bear those extremes of
+heat and cold from which unsophisticated _nature_ would shrink. These
+"penitents of love," for so the fraternity--and a pretty numerous one
+it was--was called, would clothe themselves in the dog-days in the
+thickest mantles lined throughout with the warmest fur: when the winds
+howled, the hail beat, and snow invested the earth with a freezing
+mantle, they wore the thinnest and most fragile garments. It was
+forbidden to wear fur on a day of the most piercing cold, or to appear
+with a hood, cloak, gloves, or muff. They supposed or pretended that
+the deity whom they thus propitiated was LOVE: we aver that the
+autocrat under whose irreversible decrees they thus succumbed--was
+FASHION.
+
+And, after all, who is this all-powerful genius? What is her
+appearance? Whence does she arise? Did she alight from the skies,
+while rejoicing stars sang Pæans at her birth? Was she born of the
+Sunbeams while a glittering Rainbow cast a halo of glory around her?
+or did she spring from Ocean while Nereids revelled around, and
+Mermaids strung their Harps with their own golden locks, soft melodies
+the while floating along the glistering waves, and echoing from the
+Tritons' booming shells beneath? No. Alas, no! She is subtle as the
+air; she is evanescent as a sunbeam, and unsubstantial as the ocean's
+froth;--but she is none of these. She is--but we will lay aside our
+own definition in order that the reader may have the advantage of that
+of one of the greatest and wisest of statesmen.
+
+"Quelqu'un qui voudrait un peu étudier d'où part en première source ce
+qu'on appelle LES MODES verrait, à notre honte, qu'un petit nombre de
+gens, de la plus méprisable espèce qui soit dans une ville, laquelle
+renferme tout indifféremment dans son sein; pour qui, si nous les
+connaissions, nous n'aurions que le mépris qu'on a pour les gens sans
+moeurs, ou la pitié qu'on a pour les fous, disposent pourtant de nos
+bourses, et nous tiennent assujettis à tous leurs caprices."
+
+Can this indeed be that supereminent deity for whom so "many do
+shipwrack their credits," and make themselves "ridiculous apes, or at
+best but like the cynnamon-tree, whose bark is more worth than its
+body."
+
+"Clothes" writes a venerable historian, "are for necessity; warm
+clothes for health; cleanly for decency; lasting for thrift; and rich
+for magnificence. Now, there may be a fault in their number, if too
+various; making, if too vain; matter, if too costly; and mind of the
+wearer, if he takes pride therein.
+
+"_He that is proud of the russling of his silks, like a madman laughs
+at the rattling of his fetters._ For, indeed, clothes ought to be our
+remembrancers of our lost innocency. Besides, why should any brag of
+what's but borrowed? Should the Estrige snatch off the Gallant's
+feather, the Beaver his hat, the Goat his gloves, the Sheep his sute,
+the Silkworm his stockings, and Neat his shoes (to strip him no
+farther than modesty will give leave), he would be left in a cold
+condition. And yet 'tis more pardonable to be proud, even of cleanly
+rags, than (as many are) of affected slovennesse. The one is proud of
+a molehill, the other of a dunghill."
+
+But the worthy Fuller's ideal picture of suitable dress was the very
+antipodes of the reality of Elizabeth's day, when that rage for
+foreign fashions existed which has since frequently almost inundated
+the island, and our ancestors masked themselves
+
+        "------in garish gaudery
+    To suit a fool's far-fetched livery.
+    A French hood join'd to neck Italian,
+    The thighs from Germany and breast from Spain.
+    An Englishman in none, a fool in all,
+    Many in one, and one in several."
+
+And Shakspeare, who has perhaps suffered no peculiarity of his time
+to escape observation, makes Portia satirize this affectation in her
+English admirer:--"How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his
+doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and
+his behaviour everywhere."
+
+A reverend critic thus remarks on the luxurious modes of his time:
+"These tender Parnels must have one gown for the day, another for the
+night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer.
+One furred through, another but faced; one for the workday, another
+for the holiday. One of this colour, another of that. One of cloth,
+another of silk or damask. Change of apparel; one afore dinner,
+another at after: one of Spanish fashion, another of Turkey. And to be
+brief, never content with enough, but always devising new fashions and
+strange. Yea, a ruffian will have more in his ruff and his hose than
+he should spend in a year. He which ought to go in a russet coat
+spends as much on apparel for him and his wife as his father would
+have kept a good house with."
+
+The following is of later date, and seems, somewhat unjustly we think,
+to satirize the fair sex alone.
+
+"Why do women array themselves in such fantastical dresses and quaint
+devices; with gold, with silver, with coronets, with pendants,
+bracelets, earrings, chains, rings, pins, spangles, embroideries,
+shadows, rebatoes, versicoloured ribbons, feathers, fans, masks, furs,
+laces, tiffanies, ruffs, falls, calls, cuffs, damasks, velvets,
+tassels, golden cloth, silver tissue, precious stones, stars,
+flowers, birds, beasts, fishes, crisped locks, wigs, painted faces,
+bodkins, setting sticks, cork, whalebone, sweet odours, and whatever
+else Africa, Asia, and America can produce; flaying their faces to
+produce the fresher complexion of a new skin, and using more time in
+dressing than Cæsar took in marshalling his army,--but that, like
+cunning falconers, they wish to spread false lures to catch unwary
+larks, and lead by their gaudy baits and dazzling charms the minds of
+inexperienced youth into the traps of love?"
+
+Though the costume of Elizabeth's day, especially at the period of her
+coronation was, splendid, it had not attained to the ridiculous
+extravagance which at a later period elicited the above-quoted
+strictures; and we are told that her own taste at an early period of
+life was simple and unostentatious. Her dress and appearance are thus
+described by Aylmer, Lady Jane Grey's tutor, and afterwards Bishop of
+London.
+
+"The king (Henry VIII.) left her rich clothes and jewels; and I know
+it to be true, that, in seven years after her father's death, she
+never in all that time looked upon that rich attire and precious
+jewels but once, and that against her will. And that there never came
+gold or stone upon her head, till her sister forced her to lay off her
+former soberness, and bear her company in her glittering gayness. And
+then she so wore it as every man might see that her body carried that
+which her heart misliked. I am sure that her maidenly apparel, which
+she used in King Edward's time, made noblemen's daughters and wives to
+be ashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks; being more moved
+with her most virtuous example than with all that ever Paul or Peter
+wrote touching that matter. Yea, this I know, that a great man's
+daughter (Lady Jane Grey) receiving from Lady Mary, before she was
+queen, good apparel of tinsel, cloth of gold and velvet, laid on with
+parchment-lace of gold, when she saw it, said, 'What shall I do with
+it?' 'Marry!' said a gentlewoman, 'wear it.' 'Nay,' quoth she, 'that
+were a shame, to follow my Lady Mary against God's Word, and leave my
+Lady Elizabeth, which followeth God's Word.' And when all the ladies,
+at the coming of the Scots' Queen Dowager, Mary of Guise, (she who
+visited England in Edward's time), went with their hair frownsed,
+curled, and double-curled, she altered nothing, but kept her old
+maidenly shame-facedness."
+
+And there is a print from a portrait of her when young, in which the
+hair is without a single ornament, and the whole dress remarkably
+simple.
+
+Yet this is the lady whose passion for dress in after life could not
+be sated; to whom, or at least before whom (and the Queen was not slow
+in appropriating and resenting the hint[109]), Latimer, Bishop of
+London, thought it necessary to preach on the vanity of decking the
+body too finely; and who finally left behind her a wardrobe containing
+three thousand dresses. A modern fair one may wonder how such a
+profusion of dresses could be accommodated at all, even in a royal
+wardrobe, with fitting respect to the integrity of puffs and
+furbelows. But clothes were not formerly kept in drawers, where but
+few can be laid with due regard to the safety of each, but were hung
+up on wooden pegs, in a room appropriated to the sole purpose of
+receiving them; and though such cast-off things as were composed of
+rich substances were occasionally _ripped_ for domestic uses (viz.,
+mantles for infants, vests for children, and counterpanes for beds),
+articles of inferior quality were suffered to _hang by the walls_ till
+age and moths had destroyed what pride would not permit to be worn by
+servants or poor relations. To this practice, also, does Shakspeare
+allude: Imogen exclaims, in 'Cymbeline,'--
+
+    "Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion;
+    And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls,
+    I must be ripp'd--"
+
+The following regulations may be interesting; and the knowledge of
+them will doubtless excite feelings of joy and gratitude in our fair
+readers that they are born in an age where "will is free," and the
+dustman's wife may, if it so please her, outshine the duchess, without
+the terrors of Parliament before her eyes:--
+
+    "By the Queene.
+
+    "Whereas the Queene's Maiestie, for avoyding of the
+    great inconvenience that hath growen and dayly doeth
+    increase within this her Realme, by the inordinate
+    excesse in Apparel, hath in her Princely wisdome and
+    care for reformation thereof, by sundry former
+    Proclamations, straightly charged and commanded those in
+    Authoritie under her to see her Lawes provided in that
+    behalfe duely executed; Whereof notwithstanding, partly
+    through their negligence, and partly by the manifest
+    contempt and disobedience of the parties offending, no
+    reformation at all hath followed; Her Maiestie, finding
+    by experience that by Clemencie, whereunto she is most
+    inclinable, so long as there is any hope of redresse,
+    this increasing evill hath not beene cured, hath thought
+    fit to seeke to remedie the same by correction and
+    severitie, to be used against both these kindes of
+    offenders, in regard of the present difficulties of this
+    time; wherein the decay and lacke of hospitalitie
+    appeares in the better sort in all countreys,
+    principally occasioned by the immeasurable charges and
+    expenses which they are put to in superfluous
+    apparelling their wives, children, and families, the
+    confusion also of degrees in all places being great;
+    where the meanest are as richly apparelled as their
+    betters, and the pride that such inferior persons take
+    in their garments, driving many for their maintenance to
+    robbing and stealing by the hieway, &c. &c.
+
+    "Her Maiestie doth straightly charge and command--
+
+    "That none under the degree of a Countess wear:
+
+        Cloth of gold or silver tissued;
+
+        Silke of coulor purple.
+
+    "Under the degree of a Baronesse:--
+
+        Cloth of golde;
+
+        Cloth of silver;
+
+        Tinselled satten;
+
+        Sattens branched with silver or golde;
+
+        Sattens striped with silver or golde;
+
+        Taffaties brancht with silver or golde;
+
+        Cipresses flourisht with silver or golde;
+
+        Networks wrought in silver or golde;
+
+        Tabines brancht with silver or golde;
+
+        Or any other silke or cloth mixt or embroidered with
+            pearle, golde, or silver.
+
+    "Under the degree of a Baron's eldest sonne's wife:
+
+        Any embroideries of golde or silver;
+
+        Passemaine lace, or any other lace, mixed with golde,
+            silver, or silke;
+
+        Caules, attires, or other garnishings for the head
+            trimmed with pearle.
+
+    "Under the degree of a Knighte's wife:--
+
+        Velvet in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other uppermost
+            garments;
+
+        Embroidery with silke.
+
+    "Under the degree of a Knighte's eldest sonne's wife:--
+
+        Velvet in kirtles and petticoates;
+
+        Sattens in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other
+            uppermost garments.
+
+    "Under the degree of a Gentleman's wife, bearing armes:--
+
+        Satten in kirtles, }
+        Damaske,           }
+        Tuft taffetie,     }  in gownes."
+        Plaine taffetie,   }
+        Grograine          }
+
+Venice and Paris seem to have been the chief sources of fashion; from
+these depôts of taste were derived the flaunting head-dresses, the
+"shiptire," the "tire valiant," &c., which were commonly worn in these
+days of gorgeous finery, and which were rendered still more _outré_
+and unnatural by the _dyed_ locks which they surmounted. The custom of
+dyeing the hair is of great antiquity, and was very prevalent in the
+East. Mohammed dyed his hair red; Abu Bekr his successor did the same,
+and it is a custom among the Scenite Arabs even to this day.
+
+The ancients often mixed gold dust in their hair, and the Gauls used
+to wash the hair with a liquid which had a tendency to redden it. It
+was doubtless in personal compliment to Queen Elizabeth, that all the
+fashionables of her day dyed their locks of a hue which is generally
+considered the reverse of attraction. Periwigs, which were introduced
+into England about 1572, were to be had of _all colours_. It is in
+allusion to this absurd fashion that Benedick says of the lady whom he
+might chuse to marry:--"Her hair shall be of what colour it please
+God."
+
+Men first wore wigs in Charles the Second's time; and these were
+gradually increased in size, until they reached the acme of their
+magnificence in the reign of William and Mary, when not only men, but
+even young lads and children were disguised in enormous wigs. And
+though in the reign of Queen Anne this latter custom was not so
+common, yet the young men had the want of wigs supplied by artificial
+curlings, and dressing of the hair, which was then only performed by
+the women.
+
+One Bill preserved amongst the Harl. MSS. runs thus:--
+
+"Next door to the Golden Ball, in St. Bride's Lane, Fleet Street,
+Lyveth Lidia Beercraft. Who cutteth and curleth ladies, gentlemen, and
+children's hair. She sells a fine pomatum, which is mixed with
+ingredients of her own making, that if the hair be never so thin, it
+makes it grow thick; and if short, it makes it grow long. If any
+gentleman's or children's hair be never so lank, she makes it curle in
+a little time, and to look like a periwig."
+
+And this, indeed, the looking like a periwig, seems to have been then
+the very _beau ideal_ of all beauty and perfection, for another fair
+tonsoress advertises to cut and curl hair after the French fashion,
+"after so fine a manner, that _you shall not know it to be their own
+hair_."
+
+How applicable to these absurdities are the lines of an amiable censor
+of a later day!--
+
+                    "We have run
+    Through ev'ry change, that Fancy, at the loom
+    Exhausted, has had genius to supply;
+    And, studious of mutation still, discard
+    A real elegance, a little us'd,
+    For monstrous novelty and strange disguise."
+
+To return to Elizabeth:--
+
+The best known, and most distinguishing characteristic of the costume
+of her day was the ruff; which was worn of such enormous size that a
+lady in full dress was obliged to feed herself with a spoon two feet
+long. In the year 1580, sumptuary laws were published by
+proclamation, and enforced with great exactness, by which the ruffs
+were reduced to legal dimensions. Extravagant prices were paid for
+them, and they were made at first of fine holland, but early in
+Elizabeth's reign they began to wear lawn and cambric, which were
+brought to England in very small quantities, and sold charily by the
+yard or half yard; for there was then hardly one shopkeeper in fifty
+who dared to speculate in a whole piece of either. So "strange and
+wonderful was this stuff," says Stowe, speaking of lawn, "that
+thereupon rose a general scoff or byeword, that shortly they would
+wear ruffs of a spider's web." And another difficulty arose; for when
+the Queen had ruffs made of this new and beautiful fabric, there was
+nobody in England who could starch or stiffen them; but happily Her
+Grace found a Dutchwoman possessed of that knowledge which England
+could not supply, and "Guillan's wife was the first starcher the Queen
+had, as Guillan himself was the first coachman."
+
+"Afterward, in 1564, (16th of Elizabeth), one Mistress Dinghen Vauden
+Plasse, born at Teenen in Flanders, daughter of a worshipful knight of
+that province, with her husband, came to London, and there professed
+herself a starcher, wherein she excelled; unto whom her own nation
+presently repaired and employed her, rewarding her very liberally for
+her work. Some of the curious ladies of that time, observing the
+neatness of the Dutch, and the nicety of their linen, made them
+cambric ruffs, and sent them to Mistress Dinghen to starch; soon after
+they began to send their daughters and kinswomen to Mistress Dinghen,
+to learn how to starch; her usual price was, at that time, 4_l._ or
+5_l._ to teach them to starch, and 20_s._ to learn them to see the
+starch. This Mrs. Dinghen was the first that ever taught starching in
+England."
+
+The RUFFS were adjusted by poking sticks of iron, steel, or silver,
+heated in the fire--(probably something answering to our Italian
+iron), and in May 1582 a lady of Antwerp, being invited to a wedding,
+could not, although she employed two celebrated laundresses, get her
+ruff plaited according to her taste, upon which "she fell to sweare
+and teare, to curse and ban, casting the ruffes under feete, and
+wishing that the devill might take her when shee did wear any
+neckerchers againe." This gentleman, whom it is said an invocation
+will always summon, now appeared in the likeness of a favoured suitor,
+and inquiring the cause of her agitation, he "took in hande the
+setting of her ruffes, which he performed to her great contentation
+and liking; insomuch, as she, looking herself in a glasse (as the
+devill bade her) became greatly enamoured with him. This done, the
+young man kissed her, in the doing whereof, he writhed her neck in
+sunder, so she died miserably."
+
+But here comes the marvel: four men tried in vain to lift her "fearful
+body" when coffined for interment; six were equally unsuccessful;
+"whereat the standers-by marvelling, caused the coffin to be opened to
+see the cause thereof: where they found the body to be taken away, and
+a blacke catte, very leane and deformed, sitting in the coffin,
+_setting of great ruffes and frizling of haire_, to the great feare
+and woonder of all the beholders."
+
+The large hoop farthingales were worn now, but they were said to be
+adopted by the ladies from a laudable spirit of emulation, a
+praiseworthy desire on their parts to be of equal standing with the
+"nobler sex," who now wore breeches, stuffed with rags or other
+materials to such an enormous size, that a bench of extraordinary
+dimension was placed round the parliament house, (of which the traces
+were visible at a very late period) solely for their accommodation.
+
+Strutt quotes an instance of a man whom the judges accused of wearing
+breeches contrary to the law (for a law was made against them): he,
+for his excuse, drew out of his slops the contents; at first a pair of
+sheets, two table-cloths, ten napkins, four shirts, a brush, a glass,
+and a comb; with nightcaps and other things of use, saying, "Your
+worship may understand, that because I have no safer a storehouse,
+these pockets do serve me for a room to lay up my goods in,--and,
+though it be a strait prison, yet it is big enough for them, for I
+have many things of value yet within it." His excuse was heartily
+laughed at and accepted.
+
+This ridiculous fashion was for a short time disused, but revived
+again in 1614. The breeches were then chiefly stuffed with hair. Many
+satirical rhymes were written upon them; amongst others, "A lamentable
+complaint of the poore Countrye Men agaynst great hose, for the loss
+of their cattelles tales." In which occur these:--
+
+    "What hurt, what damage doth ensue,
+      And fall upon the poore,
+    For want of wool and flaxe, of late,
+      Whych monstrous hose devoure.
+
+    "But haire hath so possess'd, of late,
+      The bryche of every knave,
+    That no one beast, nor horse can tell,
+      Whiche way his taile to save."
+
+Henry VIII. had received a few pairs of silk stockings from Spain, but
+knitted silk ones were not known until the second year of Elizabeth,
+when her silk-woman, Mrs. Montague, presented to Her Majesty a pair of
+black knit silk stockings, for a new-year's gift, with which she was
+so much pleased that she desired to know if the donor could not help
+her to any more, to which Mrs. Montague answered, "I made them
+carefully on purpose for your Majestie; and seeing they please you so
+well, I will presently set more in hand." "Do so (said the Queen), for
+I like silk stockings so well, that I will not henceforth wear any
+more cloth hose." These shortly became common; though even over so
+simple an article as a stocking, Fashion asserted her supremacy, and
+at a subsequent period they were two yards wide at the top, and made
+fast to the "petticoat breeches," by means of strings through eyelet
+holes.
+
+But Elizabeth's predilection for rich attire is well known, and if the
+costume of her day was fantastic, it was still magnificent. A suit
+trimmed with sables was considered the richest dress worn by men; and
+so expensive was this fur, that, it is said a thousand ducats were
+sometimes given for "a face of sables." It was towards the close of
+her reign that the celebrated Gabrielle d'Estrées wore on a festive
+occasion a dress of black satin, so ornamented with pearls and
+precious stones, that she could scarcely move under its weight. She
+had a handkerchief, for the embroidering of which she engaged to pay
+1900 crowns. And such it was said was the influence of her example in
+Paris, that the ladies ornamented even their shoes with jewels.
+
+Yet even this costly magnificence was afterwards surpassed by that of
+Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, with whom it was common, even at an
+ordinary dancing, to have his clothes trimmed with great diamond
+buttons, and to have diamond hatbands, cockades, and earrings, to be
+yoked with great and manifold ropes and knots of pearl; in short, to
+be manacled, fettered, and imprisoned in jewels: insomuch that at his
+going to Paris in 1625, he had twenty-seven suits of clothes made, the
+richest that embroidery, lace, silk, velvet, gold, and gems could
+contribute; one of which was a white uncut velvet set all over, both
+suit and cloak, with diamonds valued at fourscore thousand pounds,
+besides a great feather, stuck all over with diamonds, as were also
+his sword, girdle, hatband, and spurs.[110]
+
+It would but weary our readers were we to dwell on the well-known
+peculiarities of the "Cavalier and Roundhead" days; and tell how the
+steeple-crowned hat was replaced at the Restoration by the plumed and
+jewelled velvet; the forlorn, smooth, methodistical pate, by the
+curled ringlets and flowing lovelock; the sober, sombre, "sad"
+coloured garment, with its starched folds, by the gay, varied, flowing
+drapery of all hues. Then, how the plume of feathers gave way to the
+simpler band and buckle, and the thick large curling wig and full
+ruffle, to the bagwig, the tie, and stock.
+
+The dashing cloak and slashed sleeves were succeeded by the coat of
+ample dimensions, and the waistcoat with interminable pockets resting
+on the knees; the "breeches" were in universal use, though they were
+not of the universal "black" which Cowper immortalises; but "black
+breeches" and "powder" have had their reign, and are succeeded by the
+"inexpressible" costume of the present day. We will conclude a
+chapter, which we fear to have spun out tediously, by Lady Morgan's
+animated account of the introduction, in France, of that
+universally-coveted article of dress--a Cashmir shawl:--
+
+"While partaking of a sumptuous collation (at Rouen), the conversation
+naturally turned on the splendid views which the windows commanded,
+and on the subjects connected with their existence. The flocks, which
+were grazing before us had furnished the beautiful shawls which hung
+on the backs of the chairs occupied by our fair companions, and which
+might compete with the turbans of the Grand Signor. It would be
+difficult now to persuade a Parisian _petite maitresse_ that there was
+a time when French women of fashion could exist without a cashmir, or
+that such an indispensable article of the toilet and _sultan_ was
+unknown even to the most elegant. 'The first cashemir that appeared in
+France,' said Madame D'Aubespine, (for an educated French woman has
+always something worth hearing to say on all subjects,) 'was sent over
+by Baron de Tott, then in the service of the Porte, to Madame de
+Tessé. When they were produced in her society, every body thought them
+very fine, but nobody knew what use to make of them. It was determined
+that they would make pretty _couvre-pieds_ and veils for the cradle;
+but the fashion wore out with the shawls, and ladies returned to their
+eider-down quilts.'
+
+"Monsieur Ternaux observed that 'though the produce of the Cashmerian
+looms had long been known in Europe, they did not become a vogue until
+after Napoleon's expedition to Egypt; and that even then they took, in
+the first instance, but slowly.' The shawl was still a novelty in
+France, when Josephine, as yet but the wife of the First Consul, knew
+not how to drape its elegant folds, and stood indebted to the
+_brusque_ Rapp for the grace with which she afterwards wore it.
+
+"'Permettez que je vous fasse l'observation,' said Rapp, as they were
+setting off for the opera; 'que votre schall n'est pas mis avec cette
+grâce qui vous est habituelle.'
+
+"Josephine laughingly let him arrange it in the manner of the Egyptian
+women. This impromptu toilette caused a little delay, and the infernal
+machine exploded in vain!
+
+"What destinies waited upon the arrangement of this cashemir! A moment
+sooner or later, and the shawl might have given another course to
+events, which would have changed the whole face of Europe."[111]
+
+The Empress Josephine (says her biographer) had quite a passion for
+shawls, and I question whether any collection of them was ever as
+valuable as hers. At Navarre she had one hundred and fifty, all
+extremely beautiful and high-priced. She sent designs to
+Constantinople, and the shawls made after these patterns were as
+beautiful as they were valuable. Every week M. Lenormant came to
+Navarre, and sold her whatever he could obtain that was curious in
+this way. I have seen white shawls covered with roses, bluebells,
+perroquets, peacocks, &c., which I believe were not to be met with any
+where else in Europe; they were valued at 15,000 and 20,000 francs
+each.
+
+The shawls were at length sold _by auction_ at Malmaison, at a rate
+much below their value. All Paris went to the sale.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[109] "Her Majesty told the ladies, that if the Bishop held more
+discourse on such matters, she would fit him for heaven; but he should
+walk thither without a staff, and leave his mantle behind him."
+
+[110] Life of Raleigh, by Oldys.
+
+[111] Lady Morgan's France in 1829-30.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD.
+
+    "Where are the proud and lofty dames,
+    Their jewell'd crowns, their gay attire,
+    Their odours sweet?
+    Where are the love-enkindled flames,
+    The bursts of passionate desire
+    Laid at their feet?
+    Where are the songs, the troubadours,
+    The music which delighted then?--
+    It speaks no more.
+    Where is the dance that shook the floors,
+    And all the gay and laughing train,
+    And all they wore?
+
+    "The royal gifts profusely shed,
+    The palaces so proudly built,
+    With riches stor'd;
+    The roof with shining gold o'erspread,
+    The services of silver gilt,
+    The secret hoard,
+    The Arabian pards, the harness bright,
+    The bending plumes, the crowded mews,
+    The lacquey train,
+    Where are they?--where!--all lost in night,
+    And scatter'd as the early dews
+    Across the plain."
+
+                        Bowring's Anc. Span. Romances.
+
+
+Romance and song have united to celebrate the splendours of the "Field
+of the Cloth of Gold." The most scrupulously minute and faithful of
+recorders has detailed day by day, and point by point, its varied and
+showy routine, and every subsequent historian has borrowed from the
+pages of the old chronicler; and these dry details have been so
+expanded by the breath of Fancy, and his skeleton frame has been so
+fleshed by the magical drapery of talent, that there seems little left
+on which the imagination can dilate, or the pen expatiate.
+
+The astonishing impulse which has in various ways within the last few
+years been given to the searching of ancient records, and the
+development of hitherto obscure and comparatively uninteresting
+details, and vesting them in an alluring garb, has made us as familiar
+with the domestic records of the eighth Henry, as in our school-days
+we were with the orthodox abstract of necessary historical
+information,--that "Henry the Eighth ascended the throne in the 18th
+year of his age;" that "he became extremely corpulent;" that "he
+married six wives, and beheaded two." Not even affording gratuitously
+the codicil which the talent of some writer hath educed--that "if
+Henry the Eighth had not beheaded his wives, there would have been no
+impeachment on his gallantry to the fair sex."
+
+But in describing this, according to some, "the most magnificent
+spectacle that Europe ever beheld," and to others, "a heavy mass of
+allegory and frippery," historians have been contented to pourtray the
+outward features of the gorgeous scene, and have slightly, if at all,
+touched on the contending feelings which were veiled beneath a broad
+though thin surface of concord and joy. Truly, it were a task of deep
+interest, even slightly to picture them, or to attempt to enter into
+the feelings of the chief actors on that field.
+
+First and foremost, as the guiding spirit of the whole, as the mighty
+artificer of that pageant on which, however gaudy in its particulars
+the fates of Europe were supposed to depend, and the earnest eyes of
+Europe were certainly fixed--comes WOLSEY.--Gorgeously habited
+himself, and the burnished gold of his saddle cloth only partially
+relieved by the more sombre crimson velvet; nay, his very shoes
+gleaming with brilliants, and himself withal so lofty in bearing, of
+so noble a presence, that this very magnificence seemed but a natural
+appendage, Wolsey took his lofty way from monarch to monarch; and so
+well did he become his dignity, that none but kings, and such kings as
+Henry and Francis, would have drawn the eyes of the myriad spectators
+from himself. And surely he was now happy; surely his ambition was now
+gratified to the uttermost; now, in the eyes of all Europe did the two
+proudest of her princes not merely associate with him almost as an
+equal, but openly yield to his suggestions--almost bow to his
+decisions. No--loftily as he bore himself, courtly as was his
+demeanour, rapid and commanding as was his eloquence, and influential
+as seemed his opinions on all and every one around--the cardinal had a
+mind ill at ease, as, despite his self-control, was occasionally
+testified by his contracted brow and thoughtful aspect. After exerting
+all the might of his mighty influence, and for his own aggrandisement,
+to procure this meeting between the two potentates, he had at the
+last moment seen fit to alter his policy. He had sold himself to a
+higher bidder; he had pledged himself to Charles in the very teeth of
+his solemn engagement to Francis. Even whilst celebrating this league
+of amity, he was turning in his own mind the means by which to rupture
+it; and was yet withal, nervously fearful of any accident which should
+prematurely break it, or lead to a discovery of his own
+faithlessness.--So much for his enjoyment!
+
+Our KING HENRY was all delight, and eager impetuous enjoyment. He had
+not outlived the good promise of his youth; nor had his foibles
+become, by indulgence, vices. He loved to see all around him happy; he
+loved, more especially, to make them so. He delighted in all the
+exercises of the field; he was unrivalled in the tilt and the
+tournament; and when engaged in them forgot kings and kingdoms. His
+vanity, outrageous as it was, hardly sat ungracefully on him, so much
+was it elevated then by buoyant good humour--so much was it softened
+at that time by his noble presence, his manly grace, his kingly
+accomplishments, and his regal munificence. The stern and selfish
+tyrant whom one shudders to think upon, was then only "bluff King
+Hal," loving and beloved, courted and caressed by an empire. He gave
+himself up to the gaieties of the time without a care for the present,
+a thought for the future. Could he have glanced dimly into that
+future! But he could not, and he was happy.
+
+FRANCIS was admirably qualified to grace this scene, and to enjoy it,
+as probably he did enjoy it, vividly. Yet was this gratification by no
+means unalloyed. His gentle manly nature was irritated at certain
+stipulations of Henry's advisers, by which their most trivial
+intercourse was subjected to specific regulations. There were recorded
+instances enough of treacherous advantages taken to justify fully this
+conduct on the part of Henry's ministers; but Francis felt its
+injustice, as applied to himself, and at that time, made use of a
+generous and well-known stratagem to convince others. But in the midst
+of his enjoyments he had misgivings on his mind of a more serious
+nature, caused by the Emperor's recent visit to Dover. These
+misgivings were increased by the meeting between Henry and Charles at
+Gravelines; and too surely confirmed by quickly-following
+circumstances.
+
+The gentle and good KATHARINE of England, and the equally amiable
+Queen CLAUDE, the carefully-trained stepdaughter of the noble and
+admirable Anne of Bretagne, probably derived their chief gratification
+here from the pleasure of seeing their husbands amicable and happy.
+For queens though they were, their happiness was in domestic life, and
+their chief empire was over the hearts of those domesticated with
+them.
+
+Not so the DOWAGER QUEEN of France--the lively, and graceful, and
+beautiful Duchess of Suffolk; for though very fond of her royal
+brother, and devoted to her gallant husband, she had yet an eye and an
+ear for all the revelries around, and had a radiant glance and a
+beaming smile for all who crowded to do homage to her charms. And yet
+her heart must have been somewhat hard--and that we know it was
+not--if she could have inhaled the air of France, or trod its sunny
+soil, without recollections which must have dimmed her eye at the
+thoughts of the past, even whilst breathing a thanksgiving for the
+present. Somewhat less than five years ago, she had been taken thither
+a weeping bride; youth, nature, inclination, nay, hope itself,
+sacrificed to that expediency by which the actions of monarchs are
+regulated. We are accustomed to read these things so much as mere
+historical memoranda, to look upon them in their cold unvarnished
+simplicity of detail, like the rigid outlines of stiff old portraits
+which we can scarcely suppose were ever meant to represent living
+flesh and blood--that it requires a strong effort to picture these
+circumstances to our eyes as actually occurring.
+
+In considering the state policy of the thing--and the apparent
+national advantage of the King of England's sister being married to
+the King of France--we forget that this King of England's sister was a
+fair young creature, with warm heart, gushing affections, and passions
+and feelings just opening in all the vividness of early womanhood; and
+that she was condemned to marry a sickly, querulous, elderly man, who
+began his loving rule by dismissing at once, even while she was "a
+stranger in a foreign land," every endeared friend and attendant who
+had accompanied her thither; and that, worse than all, her young
+affections had been sought and gained by a noble English gentleman,
+the favourite of the English king, and the pride of his Court.
+
+Surely her lot was hard; and well might she weepingly exclaim, "Where
+is now my hope?" Little could she suppose (for Louis, though infirm,
+was not aged) that three or four short months would see her not only
+at liberty from her enforced vows, but united to the man of her heart.
+
+Must there not, while watching the tilting of her graceful and gallant
+husband, must there not have been melancholy in her mirth?--must there
+not, in the keen encounter of wits during the banquet or the
+ball--must there not have mingled method with her madness?
+
+Who shall record, or even refer to the hopes, and feelings, and
+wishes, and thoughts, and reflections of the thousands congregated
+thither; each one with feelings as intense, with hopes as individually
+important as those which influenced the royal King of France, or the
+majestic monarch of England! The loftiest of Christendom's knights,
+the loveliest of Christendom's daughters were assembled here; and the
+courteous Bayard, the noble Tremouille, the lofty Bourbon, felt
+inspired more gallantly, if possible, than was even their wont, when
+contending in all love and amity with the proudest of England's
+champions, in presence of the fairest of her blue-eyed maidens,--the
+noblest of her courtly dames.
+
+Nor were the lofty and noble alone there congregated. After the
+magnificent structure for the king and court, after every thing in the
+shape of a tenement in, out, or about the little town of Guisnes, and
+the neighbouring hamlets, were occupied, two thousand eight hundred
+tents were set up on the side of the English alone. No noble or baron
+would be absent; but likewise knights, and squires, and yeomen flocked
+to the scene: citizens and city wives disported their richest silks
+and their heaviest chains; jews went for gain, pedlars for knavery,
+tradespeople for their craft, rogues for mischief. Then there were
+"vagaboundes, plowmen, laborers, wagoners, and beggers, that for
+drunkennes lay in routes and heapes, so great resorte thether came,
+that bothe knightes and ladies that wer come to see the noblenes, were
+faine to lye in haye and strawe, and hold theim thereof highly
+pleased."
+
+The accommodations provided for the king and privileged members of his
+court on this occasion were more than magnificent; a vast and splendid
+edifice that seemed to be endued with the magnificence, and to rise
+almost with the celerity of that prepared by the slaves of the lamp,
+where the richest tapestry and silk embroidery--the costliest produce
+of the most accomplished artisans, were almost unnoticed amid the gold
+and jewellery by which they were surrounded--where all that art could
+produce, or riches devise had been lavished--all this has been often
+described. And the tent itself, the nucleus of the show, the point
+where the "brother" kings were to confer, was hung round with cloth of
+gold: the posts, the cones, the cords, the tents, were all of the same
+precious metal, which glittered here in such excessive profusion as to
+give that title to the meeting which has superseded all others--"The
+Field of the Cloth of Gold."
+
+This gaudy pageant was the prelude to an era of great interest, for
+while dwelling on the "galanty shew" we cannot forget that now reigned
+Solyman the magnificent, and that this was the age of Leo the Tenth;
+that Charles the Fifth was now beginning his influential course; that
+a Sir Thomas More graced England; and that in Germany there was "one
+Martin Luther," who "belonged to an order of strolling friars." Under
+Leo's munificent encouragement, Rafaello produced those magnificent
+creations which have been the inspiration of subsequent ages; and at
+home, under Wolsey's enlightened patronage, colleges were founded,
+learning was encouraged, and the College of Physicians first
+instituted in 1518, found in him one of its warmest advocates and
+firmest supporters.
+
+A modern writer gives the following amusing picture of part of the
+bustle attendant on the event we are considering. "The palace (of
+Westminster) and all its precincts became the elysium of tailors,
+embroiderers, and sempstresses. There might you see many a shady form
+gliding about from apartment to apartment, with smiling looks and
+extended shears, or armed with ell-wands more potent than Mercury's
+rod, driving many a poor soul to perdition, and transforming his
+goodly acres into velvet suits, with tags of cloth of gold. So
+continual were the demands upon every kind of artisan, that the
+impossibility of executing them threw several into despair. One tailor
+who is reported to have undertaken to furnish fifty embroidered suits
+in three days, on beholding the mountain of gold and velvet that
+cumbered his shop-board, saw, like Brutus, the impossibility of
+victory, and, with Roman fortitude, fell on his own shears. Three
+armourers are said to have been completely melted with the heat of
+their furnaces; and an unfortunate goldsmith swallowed molten silver
+to escape the persecutions of the day.
+
+"The road from London to Canterbury was covered during one whole week
+with carts and waggons, mules, horses, and soldiers; and so great was
+the confusion, that marshals were at length stationed to keep the
+whole in order, which of course increased the said confusion a hundred
+fold. So many were the ships passing between Dover and Calais, that
+the historians affirm they jostled each other on the road like a herd
+of great black porkers.
+
+"The King went from station to station like a shepherd, driving all
+the better classes of the country before him, and leaving not a single
+straggler behind."
+
+Though we do not implicitly credit every point of this humorous
+statement, we think a small portion of description from the old
+chronicler Hall (we will really inflict _only_ a small portion on our
+readers) will justify a good deal of it; but more especially it will
+enlighten us as to some of the elaborate conceits of the day, in
+which, it seems, the needle was as fully occupied as the pen.
+
+Indeed, what would the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" have been without
+the skill of the needlewoman? _Would it have been at all?_
+
+"The Frenche kyng sette hymself on a courser barded, covered with
+purple sattin, broched with golde, and embraudered with corbyns
+fethers round and buckeled; the fether was blacke and hached with
+gold. Corbyn is a rauen, and the firste silable of corbyn is _Cor_,
+whiche is a harte, a penne in English, is a fether in Frenche, and
+signifieth pain, and so it stode; this fether round was endles, the
+buckels wherwith the fethers wer fastened, betokeneth sothfastnes,
+thus was the devise, _harte fastened in pain endles, or pain in harte
+fastened endles_.
+
+"Wednesdaie the 13 daie of June, the twoo hardie kynges armed at all
+peces, entered into the feld right nobly appareled, the Frenche kyng
+and all his parteners of chalenge were arraied in purple sattin,
+broched with golde and purple velvet, embrodered with litle rolles of
+white sattin wherein was written _quando_, all bardes and garmentes
+wer set full of the same, and all the residue where was no rolles,
+were poudered and set with the letter ell as thus, L, whiche in
+Frenche is she, which was interpreted to be _quando elle_, when she,
+and ensuyng the devise of the first daie it signifieth together,
+_harte fastened in pain endles, when she_.
+
+"The Frenche kyng likewise armed at al pointes mounted on a courser
+royal, all his apparel as wel bardes as garmentes were purple velvet,
+entred the one with the other, embrodred ful of litle bookes of white
+satten, and in the bokes were written _a me_; aboute the borders of
+the bardes and the borders of the garmentes, a chaine of blewe like
+iron, resemblyng the chayne of a well or prison chaine, whiche was
+enterpreted to be _liber_, a booke; within this boke was written as is
+sayed, _a me_, put these two together, and it maketh _libera me_; the
+chayne betokeneth prison or bondes, and so maketh together in
+Englishe, _deliver me of {bondes}_; put to {the} reason, the fyrst
+day, second day, and third day of chaunge, for he chaunged but the
+second day, and it is _hart fastened in paine endles, when she
+deliuereth me not of bondes_; thus was thinterpretation made, but
+whether it were so in all thinges or not I may not say."
+
+The following animated picture from an author already quoted, has been
+drawn of this spirit-stirring scene:--
+
+"Upon a large open green, that extended on the outside of the walls,
+was to be seen a multitude of tents of all kinds and colours, with a
+multitude of busy human beings, employed in raising fresh pavilions on
+every open space, or in decorating those already spread with
+streamers, pennons, and banners of all the bright hues under the sun.
+Long lines of horses and mules, loaded with armour or baggage, and
+ornamented with gay ribbons to put them in harmony with the scene,
+were winding about all over the plain, some proceeding towards the
+town, some seeking the tents of their several lords, while mingled
+amongst them, appeared various bands of soldiers, on horseback and on
+foot, with the rays of the declining sun catching upon the heads of
+their bills and lances; and together with the white cassock and broad
+red cross, marking them out from all the other objects. Here and
+there, too, might be seen a party of knights and gentlemen cantering
+over the plain, and enjoying the bustle of the scene, or standing in
+separate groups, issuing their orders for the erection and garnishing
+of their tents; while couriers, and poursuivants, and heralds, in all
+their gay dresses, mingled with mule drivers, lacqueys, and peasants,
+armourers, pages, and tent stretchers, made up the living part of the
+landscape.
+
+"The sounding of the trumpets to horse, the shouts of the various
+leaders, the loud cries of the marshals and heralds, and the roaring
+of artillery from the castle, as the king put his foot in the stirrup,
+all combined to make one general outcry rarely equalled. Gradually the
+tumult subsided, gradually also the confused assemblage assumed a
+regular form. Flags, and pennons, and banderols, embroidered banners,
+and scutcheons; silver pillars, and crosses, and crooks, ranged
+themselves in long line; and the bright procession, an interminable
+stream of living gold, began to wind across the plain. First came
+about five hundred of the gayest and wealthiest gentlemen of England,
+below the rank of baron; squires, knights, and bannerets, rivalling
+each other in the richness of their apparel and the beauty of their
+horses; while the pennons of the knights fluttered above their heads,
+marking the place of the English chivalry. Next appeared the proud
+barons of the realm, each with his banner borne before him, and
+followed by a custrel with the shield of his arms. To these again
+succeeded the bishops, not in the simple robes of the Protestant
+clergy, but in the more gorgeous habits of the Church of Rome; while
+close upon their steps rode the higher nobility, surrounding the
+immediate person of the king, and offering the most splendid mass of
+gold and jewels that the summer sun ever shone upon.
+
+"Slowly the procession moved forward to allow the line of those on
+foot to keep an equal pace. Nor did this band offer a less gay and
+pleasing sight than the cavalcade, for here might be seen the
+athletic forms of the sturdy English yeomanry, clothed in the various
+splendid liveries of their several lords, with the family cognisance
+embroidered on the bosom and arm, and the banners and banderols of
+their particular houses carried in the front of each company. Here
+also was to be seen the picked guard of the King of England,
+magnificently dressed for the occasion, with the royal banner carried
+in their centre by the deputy standard bearer, and the banner of their
+company by their own ancient. In the rear of all, marshalled by
+officers appointed for the purpose, came the band of those whose rank
+did not entitle them to take place in the cavalcade, but who had
+sufficient interest at court to be admitted to the meeting. Though of
+an inferior class, this company was not the least splendid in the
+field; for here were all the wealthy tradesmen of the court, habited
+in many a rich garment, furnished by the extravagance of those that
+rode before; and many a gold chain hung round their necks, that not
+long ago had lain in the purse of some prodigal customer."
+
+But we cease, being fully of opinion with the old chronicler that "to
+tell the apparel of the ladies, their riche attyres, their sumptuous
+juelles, their diversities of beauties, and their goodly behaviour
+from day to day sithe the fyrst metyng, I assure you ten mennes wittes
+can scarce declare it."
+
+And in a few days, a few short days, all was at an end; and the pomp
+and the pageantry, the mirth and the revelry, was but as a dream--a
+most bitter, indeed, and painful dream to hundreds who had bartered
+away their substance for the sake of a transient glitter:
+
+    "We seken fast after felicite
+    But we go wrong ful often trewely,
+    Thus may we sayen alle."
+
+Homely indeed, after the paraphernalia of the "Field of the Cloth of
+Gold," would appear the homes of England on the return of their
+masters. For though the nobles had begun to remove the martial fronts
+of their castles, and endeavoured to render them more commodious, yet
+in architecture the nation participated neither the spirit nor the
+taste of its sovereign. The mansions of the gentlemen were, we are
+told, still sordid; the huts of the peasantry poor and wretched. The
+former were generally thatched buildings composed of timber, or, where
+wood was scarce, of large posts inserted in the earth, filled up in
+the interstices with rubbish, plastered within, and covered on the
+outside with coarse clay. The latter were light frames, prepared in
+the forest at small expense, and when erected, probably covered with
+mud. In cities the houses were constructed mostly of the same
+materials, for bricks were still too costly for general use; and the
+stories seem to have projected forward as they rose in height,
+intercepting sunshine and air from the streets beneath. The apartments
+were stifling, lighted by lattices, so contrived as to prohibit the
+occasional and salutary admission of external air. The floors were of
+clay, strewed with rushes, which often remained for years a receptacle
+of every pollution.[112]
+
+In an inventory of the goods and chattels of Sir Andrew Foskewe,
+Knight, dated in the 30th year of King Henry the Eighth, are the
+following furnitures. We select the hall and the best parlour, in
+which he entertained company, first premising that he possessed a
+large and noble service of rich plate worth an amazing sum, and so
+much land as proved him to be a wealthy man:--
+
+"The hall.--A hangin of greine say, bordered with darneng (or
+needlework); item a grete side table, with standinge tressels; item a
+small joyned cuberde, of waynscott, and a short piece of counterfett
+carpett upon it; item a square cuberde, and a large piece of
+counterfett wyndowe, and five formes, &c.
+
+"Perler.--Imprim., a hangynge of greene say and red, panede; item a
+table with two tressels, and a greyne verders carpet upon it; three
+greyne verders cushyns; a joyned cupberd, and a carpett upon it; a
+piece of verders carpet in one window, and a piece of counterfeit
+carpett in the other; one Flemishe chaire; four joyned stooles; a
+joyned forme; a wyker skryne; two large awndyerns, a fyer forke, a
+fyer pan, a payer of tonges; item a lowe joyned stole; two joyned
+foote-stoles; a rounde table of cipress; and a piece of counterfeitt
+carpett upon it; item a paynted table (or picture) of the Epiphany of
+our Lord."[113]
+
+But notwithstanding this apparent meagreness of accommodation, luxury
+in architecture was making rapid strides in the land. Wolsey was as
+magnificent in this taste as in others, as Hampton Court, "a
+residence," says Grotius, "befitting rather a god than a king," yet
+remains to attest. The walls of his chambers at York Place,
+(Whitehall,) were hung with cloth of gold, and tapestry still more
+precious, representing the most remarkable events in sacred
+history--for the easel was then subordinate to the loom.
+
+The subjects of the tapestry in York Place consisted, we are told, of
+triumphs, probably Roman; the story of Absalom, bordered with the
+cardinal's arms; the Petition of Esther, and the Honouring of
+Mordecai; the History of Sampson, bordered with the cardinal's arms;
+the History of Solomon; the History of Susannah and the Elders,
+bordered with the cardinal's arms; the History of Jacob, also
+bordered; Holofernes and Judith, bordered; the Story of Joseph, of
+David, of St. John the Baptist; the History of the Virgin; the Passion
+of Christ; the Worthies; the Story of Nebuchadnezzar; a Pilgrimage;
+all bordered.
+
+This place--Whitehall--Henry decorated magnificently; erected splendid
+gateways, and threw a gallery across to the Park, where he erected a
+tilt-yard, with all royal and courtly appurtenances, and converted the
+whole into a royal manor. This was not until after fire had ravaged
+the ancient, time-honoured, and kingly palace of Westminster, a place
+which perhaps was the most truly regal of any which England ever
+beheld. Recorded as a royal residence as early--almost--as there is
+record of the existence of our venerable abbey; inhabited by Knute the
+Dane; rebuilt by Edward the Confessor; remodelled by Henry the Third;
+receiving lustre from the residence, and ever-added splendour from
+the liberality of a long line of illustrious monarchs, it had obtained
+a hold on the mind which is even yet not passed away, although the
+ravages of time, and of fire, and the desecrations of subsequent ages,
+have scarcely left stone or token of the original structure.
+
+After the fire, however, Henry forsook it. He it was who first built
+St. James's Palace on the site of an hospital which had formerly stood
+there. He also possessed, amongst other royal retreats, Havering
+Bower, so called from the legend of St. Edward receiving a ring from
+St. John the Evangelist on this spot by the hands of a pilgrim from
+the Holy Land; which legend is represented at length in Westminster
+Abbey; Eltham, in Kent, where the king frequently passed his
+Christmas; Greenwich, where Elizabeth was born; and Woodstock,
+celebrated for
+
+          "the unhappy fate
+    Of Rosamond, who long ago
+      Prov'd most unfortunate."
+
+The ancient palace of the Savoy had changed its destination as a royal
+residence only in his father's time. With the single exception of
+Westminster--if indeed that--the most magnificent palace which the
+hand of liberality ever raised, which the finger of taste ever
+embellished. Various indeed have been the changes to which it has been
+doomed, and now not one stone remains on another to say that such
+things have been. Now--of the thousands who traverse the spot, scarce
+one, at long and far distant intervals, may glance at the dim memories
+of the past, to think of the plumed knights and high-born dames who
+revelled in its halls; the crowned and anointed kings who, monarch or
+captive, trod its lofty chambers; the gleaming warriors who paced its
+embattled courts; the gracious queen who caused its walls to echo the
+sounds of joy; the subtle heads which plodded beneath its gloomy
+shades; the unhappy exiles who found a refuge within its dim recesses;
+or[114] the lame, the sick, the impotent, who in the midst of
+suffering blessed the home that sheltered them, the hands that
+ministered to their woes.
+
+No. The majestic walls of the Savoy are in the dust, and not merely
+all trace, but all idea of its radiant gardens and sunny bowers, its
+sparkling fountains and verdant lawns, is lost even to the imagination
+in the matter-of-fact, business-like demeanour of the myriads of
+plodders who are ever traversing the dusty and bustling environs of
+Waterloo-bridge. In our closets we may perchance compel the unromantic
+realities of the present to yield beneath the brilliant imaginations
+of the past; but on the spot itself it is impossible.
+
+Who can stand in Wellington-street, on the verge of Waterloo-bridge,
+and fancy it a princely mansion from the lofty battlements of which a
+royal banner is flying, while numerous retainers keep watch below?
+Probably the sounds of harp and song may be heard as lofty nobles and
+courtly dames are seen to tread the verdant alleys and flower-bestrewn
+paths which lead to the bright and glancing river, where a costly
+barge (from which the sounds proceed) is waiting its distinguished
+freight. Ever and anon are these seen gliding along in the sunbeams,
+or resting at the avenue leading to one or other of the noble mansions
+with which the bright strand is sprinkled.
+
+Of these, perhaps, the most gorgeous is York-place, while farthest in
+the distance rise the fortified walls of the old palace of
+Westminster, inferior only to those of the ancient abbey, which are
+seen to rise, dimmed, yet distinct, in the soft but glowing haze cast
+around by the setting sun.
+
+And that building seen on the opposite side of the river? Strangely
+situated it seems, and in a swamp, and with none of the felicity of
+aspect appertaining to its loftier neighbour, the Savoy. Yet its lofty
+tower, its embattled gateway, seem to infer some important
+destination. And such it had. The unassuming and unattractively placed
+edifice has outlived its more aspiring neighbours; and while the
+stately palace of the Savoy is extinct, and the slight remains of
+Westminster are desecrated, the time-honoured walls of Lambeth yet
+shelter the head of learning and dignify the location in which they
+were reared.
+
+Eastward of our position the city looks dim and crowded; but, with the
+exception of the sprinkled mansions to which we have alluded, there is
+little to break the natural characteristics of the scene between
+Temple-bar and the West Minster. The hermitage and hospital on the
+site of Northumberland House harmonise well with the scene; the little
+cluster of cottages at Charing has a rural aspect; and that beautiful
+and touching memento of unfailing love and undiminished
+affection--that tribute to all that was good and excellent in
+woman--the Cross, which, formed of the purest and, as yet, unsoiled
+white marble, raised its emblem of faith and hope, gleaming like
+silver in the brilliant sky--that--would that we had it still!
+
+Somewhat nearer, the May-pole stands out in gay relief from the woods
+which envelop the hills northward, where yet the timid fawn could
+shelter, and the fearful hare forget its watch; where yet perchance
+the fairies held their revels when the moon shone bright; where they
+filled to the brim the "fairy-cups" and pledged each other in dew;
+where they played at "hide and seek" in the harebells, ran races in
+the branches of the trees, and nestled on the leaves, on which they
+glittered like diamonds; where they launched their tiny barks on the
+sparkling rivulets, breathing ere morning's dawn on the flowers to
+awaken them, tinting the gossamer's web with silver, and scattering
+pearls over the drops of dew.
+
+Closer around, among meadows and pastures, are all sounds and emblems
+of rural life; which as yet are but agreeably varied, not ruthlessly
+annihilated, by the encroachments of population and the increase of
+trade.
+
+Truly this is a difficult picture to realise on Waterloo-bridge, yet
+is it nevertheless a tolerably correct one of this portion of our
+metropolis at the time of "The Field of the Cloth of Gold."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[112] Henry.
+
+[113] Strutt's Manners and Customs.
+
+[114] It was at length converted into an hospital.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE NEEDLE.
+
+    "A grave Reformer of old Rents decay'd."
+
+                        J. Taylor.
+
+    "His garment--
+    With thornes together pind and patched was."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+    _Hodge._  "Tush, tush, her neele, her neele, her neele, man; neither
+                      flesh nor fish,
+              A lytle thing with an hole in the ende, as bright as any
+                      syller,
+              Small, long, sharp at the point, and straight as any piller."
+
+    _Diccon._ "I know not what it is thou menest, thou bringst me more in
+                      doubt."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Knowest not what Tom tailor's man sits broching thro' a
+                      clout?
+              A neele, a neele, a neele, my gammer's neele is gone."
+
+                        Gammer Gurton's Needle.
+
+
+It is said in the old chronicles that previous to the arrival of Anne
+of Bohemia, Queen of Richard the Second, the English ladies fastened
+their robes with skewers; but as it is known that pins were in use
+among the early British, since in the barrows that have been opened
+numbers of "neat and efficient" ivory pins were found to have been
+used in arranging the grave-clothes, it is probable that this remark
+is unfounded.
+
+The pins of a later date than the above were made of boxwood, bone,
+ivory, and some few of silver. They were larger than those of the
+present day, which seem to have been unknown in England till about the
+middle of the fifteenth century. In 1543, however, the manufacture of
+brass pins had become sufficiently important to claim the attention of
+the legislature, an Act having been passed that year by which it was
+enacted, "That no person shall put to sale any pins, but only such as
+shall be double headed and have the head soldered fast to the shank,
+the pins well smoothed, and the shank well sharpened."
+
+Gloucestershire is noted for the number of its pin manufactories. They
+were first introduced in that county, in 1626, by John Tilsby; and it
+is said that at this time they employ 1,500 hands, and send up to the
+metropolis upwards of £20,000 of pins annually.
+
+Our motto says, however, that his garment
+
+    "With thornes together pind and _patched_ was;"
+
+and a French writer says, that before the invention of steel needles
+people were obliged to make use of thorns, fish bones, &c., but that
+since "l'établissement des sociétés, ce petit outil est devenu d'un
+usage indispensable dans une infinité d'arts et d'occasions."
+
+He proceeds:--"De toutes les manières d'attacher l'un à l'autre deux
+corps flexibles, celle qui se pratique avec l'aiguille est une des
+plus universellement répandues: aussi distingue-t-on un grand nombre
+d'aiguilles différentes. On a les aiguilles à coudre, ou de tailleur;
+les aiguilles de chirurgie, d'artillerie, de bonnetier, ou faiseur de
+bas au métier, d'horloger, de cirier, de drapier, de gainier, de
+perruquier, de coiffeuse, de faiseur de coiffe à perruques, de piqueur
+d'étuis, tabatières, et autres semblables ouvrages; de sellier,
+d'ouvrier en soie, de brodeur, de tapissier, de chandelier,
+d'emballeur; à matelas, à empointer, à tricoter, à enfiler, à presser,
+à brocher, à relier, à natter, à boussole ou aimantée, &c. &c."
+
+Needles are said to have been first made in England by a native of
+India, in 1545, but the art was lost at his death; it was, however,
+recovered by Christopher Greening, in 1560, who was settled with his
+three children, Elizabeth, John, and Thomas, by Mr. Damar, ancestor of
+the present Lord Milton, at Long Crendon, in Bucks, where the
+manufactory has been carried on from that time to the present
+period.[115]
+
+Thus our readers will remark, that until far on in the sixteenth
+century, there was not a needle to be had but of foreign manufacture;
+and bearing this circumstance in mind, they will be able to enter more
+fully into the feelings of those who set such inestimable value on a
+needle. And, indeed, _if_ all we are told of them be true, needles
+could not be too highly esteemed. For instance, we were told of an
+old woman who had used one needle so long and so constantly for
+mending stockings, that at last the needle was able to do them of
+itself. At length, and while the needle was in the full perfection of
+its powers, the old woman died. A neighbour, whose numerous "olive
+branches" caused her to have a full share of matronly employment,
+hastened to possess herself of this domestic treasure, and gathered
+round her the weekly accumulation of sewing, not doubting but that
+with her new ally, the wonder-working needle, the unwieldy work-basket
+would be cleared, "in no time," of its overflowing contents. But even
+the all-powerful needle was of no avail without thread, and she
+forthwith proceeded to invest it with a long one. But thread it she
+could not; it resisted her most strenuous endeavours. In vain she
+turned and re-turned the needle, the eye was plain enough to be seen;
+in vain she cut and screwed the thread, she burnt it in the candle,
+she nipped it with the scissars, she rolled it with her lips, she
+twizled it between her finger and thumb: the pointed end was fine as
+fine could be, but enter the eye of the needle it would not. At
+length, determined not to relinquish her project whilst any hope
+remained of its accomplishment, she borrowed a magnifying glass to
+examine the "little weapon" more accurately. And there, "large as life
+and twice as natural," a pearly gem, a translucent drop, a crystal
+_tear_ stood right in the gap, and filled to overflowing the eye of
+the needle. It was weeping for the death of its old mistress; it
+refused consolation; it was never threaded again.
+
+We give this incident on the testimony of a gallant naval officer; an
+unquestionable authority, though we are fully aware that some of our
+readers may be ungenerously sceptical, and perhaps even rude enough to
+attempt some vile pun about the brave sailor's "drawing a long yarn."
+
+If, however, Gammer Gurton's needle resembled the one we have just
+referred to, and that, too, at a time when a needle, even not
+supernaturally endowed, was not to be had of English manufacture, and
+therefore could only be purchased probably at a high price, we cannot
+wonder at the aggrieved feelings of her domestic circle when the
+catastrophe occurred which is depicted as follows:--The parties
+interested were the Dame Gammer Gurton herself; Hodge, her farming
+man; Tib, her maid; Cocke, her boy; and Gib, her cat. The play from
+which our quotation is taken is not without some pretensions to wit,
+though of the coarsest kind: it is supposed to have been first
+performed at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1566; and Warton observes
+on it, that while Latimer's sermons were in vogue at court, Gammer
+Gurton's needle might well be tolerated at the university.
+
+    Act I. Scene 3. Hodge and Tib.
+
+    _Hodge._  "I am agast, by the masse, I wot not what to do;
+              I had need blesse me well before I go them to:
+              Perchance, some felon spirit may haunt our house indeed,
+              And then I were but a noddy to venter where's no need."
+
+    _Tib._    "I'm worse than mad, by the masse, to be at this stay.
+              I'm chid, I'm blam'd, and beaten all th' hours on the day.
+              Lamed and hunger starved, pricked up all in jagges,
+              Having no patch to hide my backe, save a few rotten ragges."
+
+    _Hodge._  "I say, Tib, if thou be Tib, as I trow sure thou be,
+              What devil make ado is this between our dame and thee?"
+
+    _Tib._    "Truly, Hodge, thou had a good turn thou wart not here this
+                      while;
+              It had been better for some of us to have been hence a mile:
+              My Gammer is so out of course, and frantike all at once,
+              That Cocke, our boy, and I poor wench, have felt it on our
+                      bones."
+
+    _Hodge._  "What is the matter, say on, Tib, whereat she taketh so on?"
+
+    _Tib._    "She is undone, she saith (alas) her life and joy is gone:
+              If she hear not of some comfort, she is she saith but dead,
+              Shall never come within her lips, on inch of meat ne bread.
+              And heavy, heavy is her grief, as, Hodge, we all shall feel."
+
+    _Hodge._  "My conscience, Tib, my Gammer has never lost her neele?"
+
+    _Tib._    "Her neele."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Her neele?"
+
+    _Tib._    "Her neele, by him that made me!"
+
+    _Hodge._  "How a murrain came this chaunce (say Tib) unto her dame?"
+
+    _Tib._    "My Gammer sat her down on the pes, and bade me reach thy
+                      breches,
+              And by and by, a vengeance on it, or she had take two
+                      stitches
+              To clout upon the knee, by chaunce aside she lears,
+              And Gib our cat, in the milk pan, she spied over head
+                      and ears.
+              Ah! out, out, theefe, she cried aloud, and swapt the
+                      breeches down,
+              Up went her staffe, and out leapt Gib at doors into the town:
+              And since that time was never wight cold set their eyes
+                      upon it.
+              God's malison she have Cocke and I bid twentie times light
+                      on it."
+
+    _Hodge._  "And is not then my breches sewed up, to-morrow that I shuld
+                      wear?"
+
+    _Tib._    "No, in faith, Hodge, thy breches lie, for all this never the
+                      near."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Now a vengeance light on al the sort, that better shold
+                      have kept it;
+              The cat, the house, and Tib our maid, that better should
+                      have swept it.
+              Se, where she cometh crawling! Come on, come on thy
+                      lagging way;
+              Ye have made a fair daies worke, have you not? pray you,
+                      say."
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+    Act I. Scene 4. Gammer, Hodge, Tib, Cocke.
+
+    _Gammer._ "Alas, alas, I may well curse and ban
+              This day, that ever I saw it, with Gib and the milke pan.
+              For these, and ill lucke together, as knoweth Cocke my boy,
+              Have stacke away my dear neele, and rob'd me of my joy,
+              My fair long straight neele, that was mine only treasure,
+              The first day of my sorrow is, and last of my pleasure."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Might ha kept it when ye had it; but fools will be fools
+                      still:
+              Lose that is fast in your hands? ye need not, but ye will."
+
+    _Gammer._ "Go hie the, Tib, and run along, to th' end here of the town.
+              Didst carry out dust in thy lap? seek where thou porest
+                      it down;
+              And as thou sawest me roking in the ashes where I morned,
+              So see in all the heap of dust thou leave no straw unturned."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Your neele lost? it is pitie you shold lacke care and
+                      endles sorrow.
+              Tell me, how shall my breches be sewid? shall I go thus
+                      to-morrow?"
+
+    _Gammer._ "Ah, Hodge, Hodge, if that I could find my neele, by the
+                      reed,
+              I'd sew thy breches, I promise the, with full good double
+                      threed,
+              And set a patch on either knee, shall last this months twain,
+              Now God, and Saint Sithe, I pray, to send it back again."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Whereto served your hands and eyes, but your neele keep?
+              What devil had you els to do? ye keep, I wot, no sheep.
+              I'm fain abrode to dig and delve, in water, mire and clay,
+              Sossing and possing in the dirt, still from day to day
+              A hundred things that be abroad, I'm set to see them weel;
+              And four of you sit idle at home, and cannot keep a neele."
+
+    _Gammer._ "My neele, alas, I lost, Hodge, what time I me up hasted,
+              To save milk set up for thee, which Gib our cat hath wasted."
+
+    _Hodge._  "The devil he take both Gib and Tib, with all the rest;
+              I'm always sure of the worst end, whoever have the best.
+              Where ha you ben fidging abroad, since you your neele lost?"
+
+    _Gammer._ "Within the house, and at the door, sitting by this same
+                      post;
+              Where I was looking a long hour, before these folke came
+                      here;
+              But, wel away! all was in vain, my neele is never the near!"
+
+"Gammer Gurton's Needle," says Hazlitt, "is a regular comedy, in five
+acts, built on the circumstance of an old woman having lost her needle
+which throws the whole village into confusion, till it is at last
+providentially found sticking in an unlucky part of Hodge's dress.
+This must evidently have happened at a time when the manufactures of
+Sheffield and Birmingham had not reached the height of perfection
+which they have at present done. Suppose that there is only one sewing
+needle in a village, that the owner, a diligent notable old dame,
+loses it, that a mischief-making wag sets it about that another old
+woman has stolen this valuable instrument of household industry, that
+strict search is made every where in-doors for it in vain, and that
+then the incensed parties sally forth to scold it out in the open air,
+till words end in blows, and the affair is referred over to the higher
+authorities, and we shall have an exact idea (though, perhaps, not so
+lively a one) of what passes in this authentic document between Gammer
+Gurton and her gossip Dame Chat; Dickon the Bedlam (the causer of
+these harms); Hodge, Gammer Gurton's servant; Tyb, her maid; Cocke,
+her 'prentice boy; Doll Scapethrift; Master Baillie, his master; Dr.
+Rat, the curate; and Gib, the cat, who may fairly be reckoned one of
+the _dramatis personæ_, and performs no mean part."
+
+From the needle itself the transition is easy to the needlework which
+was in vogue at the time when this little implement was so valuable
+and rare a commodity. We are told that the various kinds of needlework
+practised at this time would, if enumerated, astonish even the most
+industrious of our modern ladies. The lover of Shakspeare will
+remember that the term _point device_ is often used by him, and that,
+indeed, it is a term frequently met with in the writers of that age
+with various applications; and it is originally derived, according to
+Mr. Douce, from the fine stitchery of the ladies.
+
+It has been properly stated, that _point device_ signifies _exact_,
+_nicely_, _finical_; but nothing has been offered concerning the
+etymology, except that we got the expression from the French. It has,
+in fact, been supplied from the labours of the needle. _Poinct_, in
+the French language, denotes a _stitch_; _devise_ any thing
+_invented_, disposed, or _arranged_. _Point devise_ was, therefore, a
+particular sort of patterned lace worked with the needle; and the term
+_point lace_ is still familiar to every female. They had likewise
+their _point-coupé_, _point-compté_, _dentelle au point devant
+l'aiguille_, &c. &c.
+
+But it is apparent, he adds, that the expression _point devise_ became
+applicable, in a _secondary_ sense, to whatever was uncommonly exact,
+or constructed with the nicety and precision of stitches made or
+devised with the needle.
+
+Various books of patterns of needlework for the assistance and
+encouragement of the fair stitchers were published in those days. Mr.
+Douce[116] enumerates some of them, and the omission of any part of
+his notation would be unpardonable in the present work.
+
+The earliest on the list is an Italian book, under the title of
+"Esemplario di lavori: dove le tenere fanciulle et altre donne nobile
+potranno facilmente imparare il modo et ordine di lavorare, cusire,
+raccamare, et finalmente far tutte quelle gentillezze et lodevili
+opere, le quali pò fare una donna virtuosa con laco in mano, con li
+suoi compasse et misure. Vinegia, per Nicolo D'Aristotile detto
+Zoppino, MDXXIX. 8vo."
+
+The next that occurs was likewise set forth by an Italian, and
+entitled, "Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts du Seigneur Federic
+de Vinciolo Venitien, pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de lingerie.
+Paris, 1588. 4to." It is dedicated to the Queen of France, and had
+been already twice published.
+
+In 1599 a second part came out, which is much more difficult to be met
+with than the former, and sometimes contains a neat portrait, by
+Gaultier, of Catherine de Bourbon, the sister of Henry the Fourth.
+
+The next is "Nouveaux pourtraicts de point coupé et dantelles en
+petite moyenne et grande forme, nouvellement inventez et mis en
+lumière. Imprimé à Montbeliard, 1598. 4to." It has an address to the
+ladies, and a poem exhorting young damsels to be industrious; but the
+author's name does not appear. Vincentio's work was published in
+England, and printed by John Wolfe, under the title of "New and
+Singular Patternes and Workes of Linnen, serving for paternes to make
+all sortes of lace, edginges, and cutworkes. Newly invented for the
+profite and contentment of ladies, gentilwomen, and others that are
+desireous of this Art. 1591. 4to." He seems also to have printed it
+with a French title.
+
+We have then another English book, of which this is the title: "Here
+foloweth certaine Patternes of Cutworkes; newly invented and never
+published before. Also, sundry sortes of spots, as flowers, birdes,
+and fishes, &c., and will fitly serve to be wrought, some with gould,
+some with silke, and some with crewell in coullers; or otherwise at
+your pleasure. And never but once published before. Printed by Rich.
+Shorleyker." No date. In oblong quarto.
+
+And lastly, another oblong quarto, entitled, "The Needle's Excellency,
+a new booke, wherein are divers admirable workes wrought with the
+needle. Newly invented and cut in copper for the pleasure and profit
+of the industrious." Printed for James Boler, &c., 1640. Beneath this
+title is a neat engraving of three ladies in a flower garden, under
+the names of Wisdom, Industrie, and Follie. Prefixed to the patterns
+are sundry poems in commendation of the needle, and describing the
+characters of ladies who have been eminent for their skill in
+needlework, among whom are Queen Elizabeth and the Countess of
+Pembroke. The poems were composed by John Taylor the water poet. It
+appears that the work had gone through twelve impressions, and yet a
+copy is now scarcely to be met with. This may be accounted for by
+supposing that such books were generally cut to pieces, and used by
+women to work upon or transfer to their samplers. From the dress of a
+lady and gentleman on one of the patterns in the last mentioned book,
+it appears to have been originally published in the reign of James the
+First. All the others are embellished with a multitude of patterns
+elegantly cut in wood, several of which are eminently conspicuous for
+their taste and beauty.
+
+We are happy to add a little further information on some of these
+works, and on others preserved in the British Museum.
+
+"Les singuliers et nouveaux Pourtraicts du Seigneur Federic de
+Vinciolo Venitien, pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de Lingerie. Dédié à
+la Reyne. A Paris, 1578."[117]
+
+The book opens with a sonnet to the fair, which announces to them an
+admirable motive for the work itself:--
+
+    "Pour tromper vos ennuis, et l'esprit employer."
+
+Aux Dames et Damoyselles.
+
+    SONNET.
+
+    "L'un s'efforce à gaigner le coeur des {grands} Seigneurs
+    Pour posseder en fin une exquise richesse;
+    L'autre aspire aux estats, pour monter en altesse,
+    Et l'autre, par la guerre alléche les honneurs.
+
+    "Quand à moy, seulement pour chasser mes langueurs,
+    Je me sen satisfaict de vivre en petitesse,
+    Et de faire si bien, qu'aux Dames ie delaisse
+    Un grand contentement en mes graves labeurs.
+
+    "Prenez doncques en gré (mes Dames) ie vous prie,
+    Ces pourtrais ouvragez lesquels ie vous dedie,
+    Pour tromper vos ennuis, et l'esprit employer.
+
+    "En ceste nouveauté, pourrez beaucoup apprendre,
+    Et maistresses en fin en cest oeuvre vous rendre,
+    Le travail est plaisant: Si grand est le loyer."
+
+Which, barring elegant diction and poetic rule, may be read thus:--
+
+    Whilst one man worships lordly state
+      As yielding all that he desires--
+    This, fertile acres begs from fate;
+      Another, bloody laurels fires.
+
+    To dissipate my devils blue,
+    Trifles, I'm satisfied to do;
+    For surely if the fair I please,
+    My very labours smack of ease.
+
+    Take then, fair ladies, I you pray,
+    The book which at your feet I lay,
+    To make you happy, brisk and gay.
+
+    There's much you here may learn anew,
+    Which _comme il faut_ will render you,
+    And bring you joy and honour too.
+
+Proceed we to the--
+
+"Ouvrages de point Coupé," of which there are thirty-six. Some birds,
+animals, and figures are introduced; but the patterns are chiefly
+arabesque, set off in white, on a thick black ground.
+
+Then, with a repetition of the ornamented title-page, come about fifty
+patterns, which are represented much like the German patterns of the
+present day, in squares for stitches, but not so finely wrought as
+some which we shall presently notice. These patterns consist of
+arabesques, figures, birds, beasts, flowers, in every variety. To many
+the stitches are ready counted (as well as pourtrayed), thus:--
+
+"Ce Pélican contient en longueur 70 mailles, et en hauteur 65." This
+pattern of maternity is represented as pecking her breast, towards
+which three young ones are flying; their course being indicated by the
+three lines of white stitches, all converging to the living nest.
+
+"Ce Griffon {contient} en hauteur 58 mailles, et en {longueur} 67."
+Small must be the skill of the needlewoman who does not make this a
+very rampant animal indeed.
+
+"Ce Paon contient en longueur 65 mailles, et en hauteur 61."
+
+"La Licorne en hauteur {contient} 44 mailles, et en longueur 62, &c.
+&c."
+
+"La bordure contient 25 mailles."
+
+"La bordure de haut {contient} 35 mailles." This is a very handsome
+one, resembling pine apples.
+
+"Ce quarré contient 65 mailles." There are several of these squares,
+and borders appended, of very rich patterns.
+
+But the book contains far more ambitious designs. There are Sol, Luna,
+Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Neptune, and others, whose
+dignities and vocation must be inferred from the emblematical
+accompaniments.
+
+There is "La Déesse des fleurs représentant le printemps."
+
+"La Déesse des Bleds representant l'esté."
+
+"Ce Bacchus representant l'Autonne."
+
+"Ceste figure representant l'hiver," &c. &c.
+
+Appended is this "Extraict du Privilege."
+
+"Per grace et privelege du Roy, est permis a Jean le Clerc le jeune,
+tailleur d'histoires à Paris, d'imprimer ou faire imprimer {vendre} et
+distribuer un livre intitulé livre de patrons de Lingerie, DEDIE A LA
+ROYNE, nouvellement inventé par le Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo
+Venitien, avec deffences à tous Libraires, Imprimeurs, ou autres, de
+quelque condition et qualité quilz soyent, de faire ny contrefaire,
+aptisser ny {agrandir}, ou pocher lesdits figures, ny exposer en vente
+ledict Livre sans le {congé} ou permission dudict le Clerc, et ce
+jusques au temps et terme de neuf ans finis et accomplis, sur peine de
+confiscation de tous les livres qui se trouveront imprimez, et damande
+arbitraire: comme plus a plein est declaré en lettres patentes,
+données à Paris ce douziesme jour de Novembre, 1587."
+
+Another work, preserved in the British Museum, was published at
+Strasbourg, 1596, seemingly from designs of the same Vinciolo. These
+consist of about six-and-thirty plates, with patterns in white on a
+black ground, consisting of a few birds and figures, but chiefly of
+stars and wreaths pricked out in every possible variety; and at the
+end of the book a dozen richly wrought patterns, without any edging,
+were seemingly designed for what we should now call "insertion" work
+or lace.
+
+There is another, by the same author, printed at Basil in 1599, which
+varies but slightly from the foregoing.
+
+This Frederick de Vinciolo is doubtless the same person who was
+summoned to France, by Catherine de Medicis, to instruct the ladies of
+the court in the art of netting the lace of which the then fashionable
+ruffs were made.
+
+In another volume we have--
+
+"Corona delle Nobili et virtuose Donne, nel quale si dimostra in varij
+Dissegni tutte le sorti di Mostre di punti tagliati, punti in Aria,
+punti Fiamenghi, punti à Reticelle, e d'ogni altre sorte, cosi per
+Freggi, per Merli, e Rosette, che con l'Aco si usano hoggidì per tutta
+l'Europa.
+
+"E molte delle quali Mostre possono servire ancora per opere a
+Mazzette.
+
+"Con le dichiarationi a le Mostre a Lavori fatti da Lugretia Romana.
+
+"In Venetia appresso Alessandro di Vecchi, 1620."
+
+The plates here are very similar to those in the above-mentioned
+works. Some are accompanied by short explanations, saying where they
+are most used and to whom they are best suited, as--
+
+"Hopera Bellissima, che per il più le Signore Duchese, et altre
+Signore si servono per li suoi lavori."
+
+"Queste bellissime Rosette usano anco le gentildonne Venetiane da far
+traverse."
+
+But certainly the best work of the kind is, "The Needle's Excellency,"
+referred to in Mr. Douce's list. It contains a variety of plates, of
+which the patterns are all, or nearly all, arabesque. They are
+beautifully executed, many of them being very similar to, and equally
+fine with, the German patterns before the colouring is put on, which,
+though it guides the eye, defaces the work. These are seldom seen
+uncoloured, the Germans having a jealousy of sending them; but we have
+seen, through the polite attention of Mr. Wilks, of Regent Street, one
+or two in this state, and we could not but admire the extreme delicacy
+and beauty of the work. Some few of the patterns in the book we are
+now referring to are so extremely similar, that we doubt not the
+modern artists have borrowed the _idea_ of their beautifully traced
+patterns from this or some similar work; thereby adding one more proof
+of the truth of the oft quoted proverb, "There is nothing new under
+the sun."
+
+As a fitting close to this chapter, we give the Needle's praises in
+full, as sung by the water poet, John Taylor, and prefixed to the
+last-mentioned work.
+
+    THE PRAISE OF THE NEEDLE.
+
+    "To all dispersed sorts of arts and trades,
+    I write the needles prayse (that never fades)
+    So long as children shall be got or borne,
+    So long as garments shall be made or worne,
+    So long as hemp or flax, or sheep shall bear
+    Their linnen wollen fleeces yeare by yeare:
+    So long as silkwormes, with exhausted spoile,
+    Of their own entrailes for man's gaine shall toyle:
+    Yea till the world be quite dissolv'd and past,
+    So long at least, the needles use shall last:
+    And though from earth his being did begin,
+    Yet through the fire he did his honour win:
+    And unto those that doe his service lacke,
+    He's true as steele and mettle to the backe
+    He hath indeed, I see, small single sight,
+    Yet like a pigmy, _Polipheme_ in fight:
+    As a stout captaine, bravely he leades on,
+    (Not fearing colours) till the worke be done,
+    Through thicke and thinne he is most sharpely set,
+    With speed through stitch, he will the conquest get.
+    And as a souldier (Frenchefyde with heat)
+    Maim'd from the warres is forc'd to make retreat;
+    So when a needles point is broke, and gone,
+    _No point Mounsieur_, he's maim'd, his worke is done,
+    And more the needles honour to advance,
+    It is a tailor's javelin, or his lance;
+    And for my countries quiet, I should like,
+    That women kinde should use no other pike.
+    It will increase their peace, enlarge their store,
+    To use their tongues lesse, and their needles more.
+    The needles sharpnesse, profit yields, and pleasure,
+    But sharpnesse of the tongue, bites out of measure.
+    A needle (though it be but small and slender)
+    Yet it is both a maker and a mender:
+    A grave Reformer of old rents decay'd,
+    Stops holes and seames and desperate cuts display'd,
+    And thus without the needle we may see
+    We should without our bibs and biggins bee;
+    No shirts or smockes, our nakednesse to hide,
+    No garments gay, to make us magnifide:
+    No shadowes, shapparoones, caules, bands, ruffs, kuffs,
+    No kerchiefes, quoyfes, chinclouts, or marry-muffes,
+    No croscloaths, aprons, handkerchiefes, or falls,
+    No table-cloathes, for parlours or for halls,
+    No sheetes, no towels, napkins, pillow beares,
+    Nor any garment man or woman weares.
+    Thus is a needle prov'd an instrument
+    Of profit, pleasure, and of ornament.
+    Which mighty queenes have grac'd in hand to take,
+    And high borne ladies such esteeme did make,
+    That as their daughters daughters up did grow,
+    The needles art, they to the children show.
+    And as 'twas then an exercise of praise,
+    So what deserves more honour in these dayes,
+    Than this? which daily doth itselfe expresse
+    A mortall enemy to idlenesse.
+    The use of sewing is exceeding old,
+    As in the sacred text it is enrold:
+    Our parents first in Paradise began,
+    Who hath descended since from man to man:
+    The mothers taught their daughters, sires their sons
+    Thus in a line successively it runs
+    For generall profit, and for recreation,
+    From generation unto generation.
+    With work like cherubims embroidered rare,
+    The covers of the tabernacle were.
+    And by the Almighti's great command, we see,
+    That Aaron's garments broidered worke should be;
+    And further, God did bid his vestments should
+    Be made most gay, and glorious to behold.
+    Thus plainly and most truly is declar'd
+    The needles worke hath still bin in regard,
+    For it doth art, so like to nature frame,
+    As if it were her sister, or the same.
+    Flowers, plants and fishes, beasts, birds, flyes, and bees,
+    Hills, dales, plaines, pastures, skies, seas, rivers, trees;
+    There's nothing neere at hand, or farthest sought,
+    But with the needle may be shap'd and wrought.
+    In clothes of arras I have often seene,
+    Men's figur'd counterfeits so like have beene,
+    That if the parties selfe had been in place,
+    Yet art would vie with nature for the grace;
+    Moreover, posies rare, and anagrams,
+    Signifique searching sentences from names,
+    True history, or various pleasant fiction,
+    In sundry colours mixt, with arts commixion,
+    All in dimension, ovals, squares, and rounds,
+    Arts life included within natures bounds:
+    So that art seemeth merely naturall,
+    In forming shapes so geometricall;
+    And though our country everywhere is fild
+    With ladies, and with gentlewomen, skild
+    In this rare art, yet here they may discerne
+    Some things to teach them if they list to learne.
+    And as this booke some cunning workes doth teach,
+    (Too hard for meane capacities to reach)
+    So for weake learners, other workes here be,
+    As plaine and easie as are A B C.
+    Thus skilful, or unskilful, each may take
+    This booke, and of it each good use may make,
+    All sortes of workes, almost that can be nam'd,
+    Here are directions how they may be fram'd:
+    And for this kingdomes good are hither come,
+    From the remotest parts of Christendome,
+    Collected with much paines and industrie,
+    From scorching _Spaine_ and freezing _Muscovie_,
+    From fertill _France_, and pleasant _Italy_,
+    From _Poland_, _Sweden_, _Denmark_, _Germany_,
+    And some of these rare patternes have beene fet
+    Beyond the bounds of faithlesse _Mahomet_:
+    From spacious _China_, and those kingdomes East,
+    And from great _Mexico_, the Indies West.
+    Thus are these workes, _farrefetcht_ and _dearely bought_,
+    And consequently _good for ladies thought_.
+    Nor doe I derogate (in any case)
+    Or doe esteeme of other teachings base,
+    For _tent worke_, _rais'd worke_, _laid worke_, _frost works_,
+            _net worke_,
+    Most curious _purles_, or rare _Italian cut worke_,
+    Fine, _ferne stitch_, _finny stitch_, _new stitch_, and _chain stitch_,
+    Brave _bred stitch_, _Fisher stitch_, _Irish stitch_, and _Queen
+            stitch_,
+    The _Spanish stitch_, _Rosemary stitch_, and _Mowse stitch_
+    The smarting _whip stitch_, _back stitch_, and the _crosse stitch_
+    All these are good, and these we must allow,
+    And these are everywhere in practise now:
+    And in this booke there are of these some store,
+    With many others, never seene before.
+    Here practise and invention may be free.
+    And as a squirrel skips from tree to tree,
+    So maids may (from their mistresse or their mother)
+    Learne to leave one worke, and to learne another,
+    For here they may make choice of which is which,
+    And skip from worke to worke, from stitch to stitch,
+    Until, in time, delightful practise shall
+    (With profit) make them perfect in them all.
+    Thus hoping that these workes may have this guide,
+    To serve for ornament, and not for pride:
+    To cherish vertue, banish idlenesse,
+    For these ends, may this booke have good successe."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[115] It is worth while to remark the circumstance, that by a machine
+of the simplest construction, being nothing in fact but a tray, 20,000
+needles thrown promiscuously together, mixed and entangled in every
+way, are laid parallel, heads to heads, and points to points, in the
+course of three or four minutes.
+
+[116] Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 92.
+
+[117] This seems to be a somewhat earlier edition of the second book
+in Mr. Douce's list.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+TAPESTRY FROM THE CARTOONS.
+
+      "For, round about, the walls yclothed were
+      With goodly Arras of great majesty,
+      Woven with gold and silk so close and nere,
+      That the rich metal lurked privily,
+      As faining to be hidd from envious eye;
+      Yet here, and there, and every where unwares
+      It shew'd itselfe and shone unwillingly;
+      Like to a discolour'd Snake, whose hidden snares
+    Through the greene gras his long bright burnisht back declares."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+
+Raphael, whose name is familiar to all "as a household word," seems to
+have been equally celebrated for a handsome person, an engaging
+address, an amiable disposition, and high talents. Language exhausts
+itself in his eulogy.[118] But the extravagant encomiums of Lanzi and
+others must be taken in a very modified sense, ere we arrive at the
+rigid truth. The tone of morals in Italy "did not correspond with
+evangelical purity;" and Raphael's follies were not merely permitted,
+but encouraged and fostered by those who sought eagerly for the
+creations of his pencil. His thousand engaging qualities were
+disfigured by a licentiousness which probably shortened his career,
+for he died at the early age of thirty-seven.
+
+Great and sincere was the grief expressed at Rome for his untimely
+death, and no testimony of sorrow could be more affecting, more
+simple, or more highly honourable to its object than the placing his
+picture of the Transfiguration over his mortal remains in the chamber
+wherein he died.
+
+It was probably within two years of the close of his short life when
+he was engaged by Pope Leo the Tenth to paint those cartoons which
+have more than all his works immortalised his name, and which render
+the brief hints we have given respecting him peculiarly appropriate to
+this work.
+
+The cartoons were designs, from Scripture chiefly, from which were to
+be woven hangings to ornament the apartments of the Vatican; and their
+dimensions being of course proportioned to the spaces they were
+designed to fill, the tapestries, though equal in height, differed
+extremely in breadth.
+
+The designs were,
+
+    1. The Nativity.
+
+    2. The Adoration of the Magi.
+
+    3. }
+       }
+    4. } The Slaughter of the Innocents.
+       }
+    5. }
+
+    6. The Presentation in the Temple.
+
+    7. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes.
+
+    8. St. Peter receiving the Keys.
+
+    9. The Descent of Christ into Limbus.
+
+    10. The Resurrection.
+
+    11. Noli me tangere.
+
+    12. Christ at Emmaus.
+
+    13. The Ascension.
+
+    14. The Descent of the Holy Ghost.
+
+    15. The Martyrdom of St. Stephen.
+
+    16. The Conversion of St. Paul.
+
+    17. Paul and Barnabas at Lystra.
+
+    18. Paul Preaching.
+
+    19. Death of Ananias.
+
+    20. Elymas the Sorcerer.
+
+    21. An earthquake; showing the delivery of Paul and
+    Silas from prison: named from the earthquake which shook
+    the foundations of the building. The artist endeavours
+    to render it ideally visible to the spectator by placing
+    a gigantic figure, which appears to be raising the
+    superincumbent weight on his shoulders; but the result
+    is not altogether successful.
+
+    22. St. Peter healing the cripple.
+
+    23-24. Contain emblems alluding to Leo the Tenth. These
+    are preserved in one of the private apartments of the
+    Vatican palace.
+
+    25. Justice. In this subject the figures of Religion,
+    Charity, and Justice are seen above the papal armorial
+    bearings. The last figure gives name to the whole.
+
+When the cartoons were finished they were sent into Flanders to be
+woven (at the famous manufactory at Arras) under the superintendence
+of Barnard Van Orlay of Brussels, and Michael Coxis, artists who had
+been for some years pupils of Raphael at Rome. Two sets were executed
+with the utmost care and cost, but the death of Raphael, the murder of
+the Pope, and subsequent intestine troubles seem to have delayed their
+appropriation. They cost seventy thousand crowns, a sum which is said
+to have been defrayed by Francis the First of France, in consideration
+of Leo's having canonised St. Francis of Paola, the founder of the
+Minims.
+
+Adrian the Second was a man "alienissimo da ogni bell'arte;" an
+indifference which may account for the cartoons not being sent with
+the tapestries to Rome, though some accounts say that the debt for
+their manufacture remained unliquidated, and that the paintings were
+kept in Flanders as security for it. They were carried away by the
+Spanish army in 1526-7 during the sack of Rome, but were restored by
+the zeal and spirit of Montmorenci the French general, as set forth in
+the woven borders of the tapestries Nos. 6 and 9. Pope Paul the Fourth
+(1555) first introduced them to the gaze of the public by exhibiting
+them before the Basilica of St. Peter on the festival of Corpus
+Domini, and also at the solemn "function of Beatification." This use
+of them was continued through part of the last century, and is now
+resumed.
+
+In 1798 they were taken by the French from Rome and sold to a Jew at
+Leghorn, and one of them was burnt by him in order to extract the gold
+with which they were richly interwoven; but happily they did not
+furnish so much spoil as the speculator hoped, and this devastation
+was arrested. The one that was destroyed represented Christ's Descent
+into Limbus; the rest were repurchased for one thousand three hundred
+crowns, and restored to the Vatican in 1814.
+
+We have alluded to two sets of these tapestries, and it is believed
+that there were two; whether _exactly_ counterparts has not been
+ascertained. We have traced the migrations of one set. The other was,
+according to some authorities, presented by Pope Leo the Tenth to our
+Henry the Eighth; whilst others say that our king purchased it from
+the state of Venice. It was hung in the Banqueting House of
+Whitehall, and after the unhappy execution of Charles the First, was
+put up, amongst other royal properties, to sale. Being purchased by
+the Spanish ambassador, it became the property of the house of Alva,
+and within a few years back was sold by the head of that illustrious
+house to Mr. Tupper, our consul in Spain, and by him sent back to this
+country.
+
+These tapestries were then exhibited for some time in the Egyptian
+Hall, Piccadilly, and were afterwards repurchased by a foreigner.
+Probably they have been making a "progress" throughout the kingdom, as
+within this twelvemonth we had the satisfaction of viewing them at the
+principal town in a northern county. The motto of our chapter might
+have been written expressly for these tapestries, so exquisitely
+accurate is the description as applied to them of the gold thread:--
+
+        "As here and there, and every where unwares
+        It shew'd itselfe and shone unwillingly;
+        Like to a discolour'd snake, whose hidden snares
+    Through the greene gras his long bright burnisht back declares."
+
+The cartoons themselves, the beautiful originals of these magnificent
+works, remained in the Netherlands, and were all, save seven, lost and
+destroyed through the ravages of time, and chance, and revolution.
+These seven, much injured by neglect, and almost pounced into holes by
+the weaver tracing his outlines, were purchased by King Charles the
+First, and are now justly considered a most valuable possession. It is
+supposed that the chief object of Charles in the purchase was to
+supply the then existing tapestry manufactory at Mortlake with
+superior designs for imitation. Five of them were _certainly_ woven
+there, and it is far from improbable that the remaining ones were
+also.[119]
+
+There was also a project for weaving them by a person of the name of
+James Christopher Le Blon, and houses were built and looms erected at
+Chelsea expressly for that purpose, but the design failed.
+
+The "British Critic," for January, this year, has the following
+spirited remarks with regard to the present situation of the cartoons.
+"The cartoons of Raffaelle are very unfairly seen in their present
+locale; a long gallery built for the purpose by William the Third, but
+in which the light enters through common chamber windows, and therefore
+is so much below the cartoons as to leave the greater part of them in
+shade. We venture to say there is no country in Europe in which such
+works as these--unique, and in their class invaluable--would be treated
+with so little honour. It has been decided by competent opinions, that
+their removal to London would be attended with great risk to their
+preservation, from the soot, damp, accumulation of dust, and other
+inconveniences, natural or incident to a crowded city. This, however,
+is no fair reason for their being shut up in their present ill-assorted
+apartment. There is not a petty state in Germany that would not erect a
+gallery on purpose for them; and a few thousand pounds would be well
+bestowed in providing a fitting receptacle for some of the finest
+productions of human genius in art; and of the full value of which we
+_alone_, their possessors, seem to be comparatively insensible. Various
+portions of cartoons by Raffaelle, part of the same series or set,
+exist in England; and it is far from unlikely that, were there a proper
+place to preserve and exhibit the whole in, these would in time, by
+presentation or purchase, become the property of the country, and we
+should then possess a monument of the greatest master of his art, only
+inferior to that which he has left on the walls of the Vatican."
+
+Of all these varied and beautiful paintings, that of the Adoration of
+the Magi, from the variety of character and expression, the splendor
+and oriental pomp of the whole, the multitude of persons, between
+forty and fifty, the various accessaries, elephants, horses, &c., with
+the variety of splendid and ornamental illustrations, and the
+exquisite grouping, is considered as the most attractive and brilliant
+in tapestry. As a piece of general and varied interest it may be so;
+but we well remember being, not so suddenly struck, as attracted and
+fascinated by the figure of the Christ when, after his resurrection,
+he is recommending the care of his flock to St. Peter. The colours
+have faded gradually and equably--(an advantage not possessed by the
+others, where some tints which have stood the ravages of time better
+than those around them, are in places strikingly and painfully
+discordant)--but in this figure the colours, though greatly faded,
+have yet faded so harmoniously as to add very much to the illusion,
+giving to the figure really the appearance of one risen from the
+dead. The outline is majestic; turn which way we would, we
+involuntarily returned to look again. At length we mentioned our
+admiration to the superintendent, and the reply of the enthusiastic
+foreigner precluded all further remark--for nothing further could be
+said:--
+
+"Madam, I should have been astonished if you had not admired that
+figure: _it is itself_; it is precisely _the finest thing in the
+world_."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[118] For example:--"Egli avea tenuto sempre un contegno da
+guadagnarsi il cuore di tutto. Rispettoso verso il maestro, ottenne
+dal Papa che le sue pitture in una volta delle camere Vaticane
+rimanessero intatte; giusto verso i suoi emuli ringraziava Dio
+d'averlo fatto nascere a' tempi del Bonarruoti; grazioso verso i
+discepoli gl'istruì e gli amò come figli; cortese anche verso
+gl'ignoti, a chiunque ricorse a lui per consiglio prestò liberalmente
+l'opera sua, e per far disegni ad altrui o dar gl'indirizzo lasciò
+indietro talvolta i lavori propri, non sapendo non pure di negar
+grazia, ma differirla."--Lanzi, vol. ii.
+
+Consequently when his body before interment lay in the room in which
+he was accustomed to paint, "Non v'ebbe sì duro artefice che a quello
+spettacolo non lagrimasse."--"Ne pianse il Papa."
+
+Of his works:--"Le sue figure veramente amano, languiscono, temono,
+sperano, ardiscono; mostrano ira, placabilità, umiltà, orgoglio, come
+mette bene alla storia: spesso chi mira que' volti, que' guardi,
+quelle mosse, non si ricorda che ha innanzi una immagine; si sente
+accendere, prende partito, crede di trovarsi in sul fatto.--Tutto
+parla nel silenzio; ogni attore, _Il cor negli occhi e nella fronte ha
+scritto_; i piccioli movimenti degli occhi, degli narici, della bocca,
+delle dita corrispondono a' primi moti d'ogni passione; i gesti più
+animati e più vivi ne descrivono la violenza; e ciò ch'è più, essi
+variano in cento modi senza uscir mai del naturale, e si attemperano a
+cento caratteri senza uscir mai dalla proprietà. L'eroe ha movimenti
+da eroe, il volgar da volgare; e quel che non descriverebbe lingua nè
+penna, descrive in pochissimi tratti l'ingegno e l'arte di
+Raffaello."--p. 65.
+
+"Il paese, gli elementi, gli animali, le fabbriche, le manifatture,
+ogni età dell'uomo, ogni condizione, ogni affetto, tutte comprese con
+la divinità del suo ingegno, tutto ridusse più bello."--p. 71.
+
+I have thought this long extract pardonable as applied to one whose
+finest designs are now, through so many channels, rendered familiar to
+us.
+
+[119] In a priced catalogue of His Majesty's collection of "Limnings,"
+edited by Vertue, is the following entry. "Item, in a slit box-wooden
+case, some TWO CARTOONS of Raphael Urbinus for hangings to be made by,
+and _the other FIVE are by the King's appointment delivered to Mr.
+Francis Cleen at Mortlake, to make hangings by_."--Cartonensia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE DAYS OF "GOOD QUEEN BESS."
+
+    "A worthie woman judge, a woman sent for staie."
+
+    "When Fame resounds with thundring trump, which rends the ratling
+            skies,
+    And pierceth to the hautie Heavens, and thence descending flies
+    Through flickering ayre: and so conjoines the sea and shore togither,
+    In admiration of thy grace, good Queene, thou'rt welcome hither."
+
+                        _The Receyving of the Queene's Maiestie
+                            into hir Citie of Norwich._
+
+    "We may justly wonder what has become of the industry of
+    the English ladies; we hear no more of their rich
+    embroiderings, and curious needlework. Is all the
+    domestic simplicity of the former ages entirely
+    vanished?"--Aikin.
+
+
+The age of Elizabeth presents a never-failing field of variety through
+which people of all tastes may delightedly rove, gathering flowers at
+will. The learned statesman, the acute politician, the subtle lawyer,
+will find in the measures of her Burleigh, her Walsingham, her Cecil,
+abundant food for approbation or for censure; the heroic sailor will
+glory over the achievements of her time; the adventurous traveller
+will explore the Eldoradic regions with Raleigh, or plough the waves
+with Drake and Frobisher; the soldier will recal glorious visions of
+Essex and Sidney, while poesy wreathes a bay round the memory of the
+last, which shines freshly and bright even in the age which produced a
+Ben Jonson, and him "who was born with a star on his forehead to last
+through all time"--Shakspeare.
+
+The age of Elizabeth was especially a learned age. The study of the
+dead languages had hitherto been confined almost exclusively to
+ecclesiastics and scholars by profession, but from the time of Henry
+the Seventh it had been gradually spreading amongst the higher
+classes. The great and good Sir Thomas More gave his daughters a
+learned education, and they did honour to it; Henry the Eighth
+followed his example; Lady Jane Grey made learning lovely; and
+Elizabeth's pedantry brought the habit into full fashion.
+
+If a queen were to talk Sanscrit, her court would endeavour to do so
+likewise. The example of learned studies was given by the queen
+herself, who translated from the Greek a play of Euripides, and parts
+of Isocrates, Xenophon, and Plutarch; from the Latin considerable
+portions of Cicero, Seneca, Sallust, Horace, &c. She wrote many Latin
+letters, and is said to have spoken five languages with facility. As a
+natural consequence the nobility and gentry, their wives and
+daughters, became enthusiasts in the cause of letters. The novelty
+which attended these studies, the eager desire to possess what had
+been so long studiously and jealously concealed, and the curiosity to
+explore and rifle the treasures of the Greek and Roman world, which
+mystery and imagination had swelled into the marvellous, contributed
+to excite an absolute passion for study and for books. The court, the
+ducal castle, and the baronial hall were suddenly converted into
+academies, and could boast of splendid tapestries. In the first of
+these, according to Ascham, might be seen the queen reading "more
+Greeke every day than some prebendarie of this church doth read
+_Latin_ in a whole week;" and while she was translating Isocrates or
+Seneca, it may be easily conceived that her maids of honour found it
+convenient to praise and to adopt the disposition of her time. In the
+second, observes Warton, "the daughter of a duchess was taught not
+only to distil strong waters, but to construe Greek; and in the third,
+every young lady who aspired to be fashionable was compelled, in
+imitation of the greater world, to exhibit similar marks of
+erudition."
+
+A contemporary writer says, that some of the ladies of the court
+employ themselves "in continuall reading either of the holie
+Scriptures, or histories of our owne or forren nations about us, and
+diverse in writing volumes of their owne, or translating of other mens
+into our English and Latine toongs. I might here (he adds) make a
+large discourse of such honorable and grave councellors, and noble
+personages, as give their dailie attendance upon the queene's
+majestie. I could in like sort set foorth a singular commendation of
+the vertuous beautie, or beautiful vertues of such ladies and
+gentlewomen as wait upon his person, betweene whose amiable
+countenances and costlinesse of attire there seemeth to be such a
+dailie conflict and contention, as that it is verie difficult for me
+to gesse whether of the twaine shall beare awaie the preheminence.
+This further is not to be omitted, to the singular commendation of
+both sorts and sexes of our courtiers here in England, that there are
+verie few of them which have not the use and skill of sundrie
+speaches, beside an excellent veine of writing before-time not
+regarded. Would to God the rest of their lives and conversations were
+correspondent to these gifts! for as our common courtiers (for the
+most part) are the best lerned and endued with excellent gifts, so are
+manie of them the worst men when they come abroad, that anie man shall
+either heare or read of. Trulie it is a rare thing with us now to
+heare of a courtier which hath but his owne language. And to saie how
+many gentlewomen and ladies there are, that beside sound knowledge of
+the Greeke and Latine toongs, are thereto no lesse skilful in the
+Spanish, Italian, and French, or in some one of them, it resteth not
+in me. Sith I am persuaded, that as the noblemen and gentlemen doo
+surmount in this behalfe, so these come verie little or nothing at all
+behind them for their parts, which industrie God continue, and
+accomplish that which otherwise is wanting!"[120]
+
+At this time the practice (derived from the chivalrous ages, when
+every baronial castle was the resort of young persons of gentle birth,
+of both sexes) was by no means discontinued of placing young women, of
+gentle birth, in the establishment of ladies of rank, where, without
+performing any menial offices, they might be supposed to have their
+own understood duties in the household, and had in return the
+advantage of a liberal education, and constant association with the
+best company. Persons of rank and fortune often retained in their
+service many young people of both sexes of good birth, and bestowed on
+them the fashionable education of the time. Indeed their houses were
+the best, if not then the only schools of elegant learning. The
+following letter, written in 1595, is from a young lady thus situated:
+
+    "To my good mother Mrs. Pake, at Broumfield, deliver this.
+
+    "Deare Mother,
+
+    "My humble dutye remembred unto my father and you, &c. I
+    received upon Weddensday last a letter from my father
+    and you, whereby, I understand, it is your pleasures
+    that I should certifie you what times I do take for my
+    lute, and the rest of my exercises. I doe for the most
+    part playe of my lute after supper, for then commonlie
+    my lady heareth me; and in the morninges, after I am
+    reddie, I play an hower; and my wrightinge and
+    siferinge, after I have done my lute. For my drawinge I
+    take an hower in the afternowne, and my French at night
+    before supper. My lady hath not bene well these tooe or
+    three dayes: she telleth me, when she is well, that she
+    will see if Hilliard will come and teche me; if she can
+    by any means she will, &c. &c.--As touchinge my newe
+    corse in service, I hope I shall performe my dutye to my
+    lady with all care and regard to please her, and to
+    behave myselfe to everye one else as it shall become me.
+    Mr. Harrisone was with me upone Fridaye; he heard me
+    playe, and brought me a dusson of trebles; I had some of
+    him when I came to London. Thus desiring pardone for my
+    rude writinge, I leave you to the Almightie, desiringe
+    him to increase in you all health and happines.
+
+        "Your obedient daughter,
+
+            "Rebecca Pake."
+
+Could any thing afford a stronger contrast to the grave and certainly
+severe study to which Elizabeth had habituated herself, than the vain
+and fantastic puerility of many of her recreations and habits,--the
+unintellectual brutality of the bearbaits which she admired, or the
+gaudy and glittering pageants in which she delighted? She built a
+gallery at Whitehall at immense expense, and so superficially, that it
+was in ruins in her successor's time; but it was raised, in order to
+afford a magnificent reception to the ambassadors who, in 1581, came
+to treat of an alliance with the Duke of Anjou. It was framed of
+timber, covered with painted canvas, and decorated with the utmost
+gaudiness. Pendants of fruit of various kinds (amongst which cucumbers
+and even carrots are enumerated) were hung from festoons of flowers
+intermixed with evergreens, and the whole was powdered with gold
+spangles; the ceiling was painted like a sky with stars, sunbeams, and
+clouds, intermixed with scutcheons of the royal arms; and glass
+lustres and ornaments were scattered all around. Here were enacted
+masques and pageants chiefly remarkable for their pedantic prolixity
+of composition, and the fulsome and gross flattery towards the queen
+with which they were throughout invested.
+
+Everything, in accordance with the rage of the day, assumed an
+erudite, or, more truly speaking, a pedantic cast. When the queen
+(says Warton) paraded through a country town, almost every pageant was
+a pantheon. When she paid a visit at the house of any of her nobility,
+at entering the hall she was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to
+her privy chamber by Mercury. Even the pastry cooks were expert
+mythologists. At dinner, select transformations of Ovid's
+metamorphoses were exhibited in confectionary; and the splendid iceing
+of an immense historic plum-cake was embossed with a delicious
+basso-relievo of the destruction of Troy. In the afternoon, when she
+condescended to walk in the garden, the lake was covered with Tritons
+and Nereids; the pages of the family were converted into wood-nymphs,
+who peeped from every bower; and the footmen gambolled over the lawns
+in the figure of satyrs.
+
+Scarcely we think could even the effusions of Euphues--a fashion also
+of this period--be more wearisome to the spirit than a repetition of
+these dull delights.
+
+This predilection for learning, and the time perforce given to its
+acquisition, must necessarily have subtracted from those hours which
+might otherwise have been bestowed on the lighter labours and
+beguiling occupations of the needle. Nor does it appear that after her
+accession Elizabeth did much patronise this gentle art. She was cast
+in a more stirring mould. In her father's court, under her sister's
+jealous eye, within her prison's solitary walls, her needle might be a
+prudent disguise, a solacing occupation, "woman's pretty excuse for
+thought." But after her own accession to the throne _action_ was her
+characteristic.
+
+Nevertheless we are not to suppose that, because needlework was not "a
+rage," it was frowned upon and despised. By no means. It is perhaps
+fortunate that Elizabeth did not especially patronise it; for so
+dictatorial and absolute was she, that by virtue of the "right divine"
+she would have made her statesmen embroider their own robes, and her
+warriors lay aside the sword for the distaff. But as, happily, it now
+only held a secondary place in her esteem, we have Raleigh's poems
+instead of his sampler, and Bacon's learning instead of his stitchery.
+But it was not in her nature to suffer any thing in which she excelled
+to lie quite dormant. She was an accomplished needlewoman; some
+exquisite proofs of her skill were then glowing in all their
+freshness, and her excellence in this art was sufficiently obvious to
+prevent the ladies of her court from entirely forsaking it. Many
+books, with patterns for needlework, were published about this time,
+and in a later one Queen Elizabeth is especially celebrated in a
+laudatory poem for her skill in it. That proficiency in ornamental
+needlework was an absolute requisite in the accomplishments of a
+country belle, may be inferred from the prominent place it holds in
+Drayton's description of the well-educated daughter of a country
+knight in Elizabeth's days:
+
+    "The silk well couth she twist and twine,
+    And make the fine march pine,
+        And with the needlework:
+    And she couth help the priest to say
+    His mattins on a holy day,
+        And sing a psalm in kirk.
+
+    "She wore a frock of frolic green,
+    Might well become a maiden queen,
+        Which seemly was to see;
+    A hood to that so neat and fine,
+    In colour like the columbine,
+        Ywrought full featously."
+
+The march pine or counterpanes here alluded to, taxed in these days to
+the fullest extent both the purse of the rich and the fingers of the
+fair. Elizabeth had several most expensively trimmed with ermine as
+well as needlework; the finest and richest embroidery was lavished on
+them; and it was no unusual circumstance for the counterpane for the
+"standing" or master's bed to be so lavishly adorned as to be worth a
+thousand marks.
+
+At no time was ornamental needlework more admired, or in greater
+request in the every-day concerns of life, than now. Almost every
+article of dress, male and female, was adorned with it. Even the
+boots, which at this time had immense tops turned down and fringed,
+and which were commonly made of russet cloth or leather, were worn by
+some exquisites of the day of very fine cloth (of which enough was
+used to make a shirt), and were embroidered in gold or silver, or in
+various-coloured silks, in the figures of birds, animals, or
+antiques; and the ornamental needlework alone of a pair of these boots
+would cost from four to ten pounds. The making of a single shirt would
+frequently cost 10_l._, so richly were they ornamented with
+"needleworke of silke, and so curiously stitched with other knackes."
+
+"Woman's triflings," too, their handkerchiefs, reticules, workbags,
+&c., were decorated richly. We have seen within these few days a
+workbag which would startle a modern fair one, for, as far as regards
+_size_, it has a most "industrious look," but which, despite the
+ravages of near three centuries, yet gives token of much original
+magnificence. It is made of net, lined with silk; the material, the
+net itself, (a sort of honeycomb pattern, like what we called a few
+years ago the Grecian lace,) was made by the fair workwoman in those
+days, and was a fashionable occupation both in France and England.
+This bag is wrought in broad stripes with gold thread, and between the
+stripes various flowers are embroidered in different coloured silks.
+The bag stands in a sort of card-board basket, covered in the same
+style; it is drawn with long cords and tassels, and is large enough
+perhaps, on emergency, to hold a good sized baby.
+
+It is more than probable that female skill was in request in various
+matters of household decoration. The Arras looms, indeed, had long
+superseded the painful fingers of notable dames in the construction of
+hangings for walls, which were universally used, intermingled and
+varied in the palaces and nobler mansions by "painted cloth," and
+cloth of gold and silver. Thus Shakspeare describes Imogen's chamber
+in Cymbeline:
+
+    "Her bed-chamber was hanged
+    With tapestry of silk and silver."
+
+We have remarked that Henry the Eighth's palaces were very splendid;
+Elizabeth's were equally so, and more consistently finished in minor
+conveniences, as it is particularly remarked that "easye quilted and
+lyned formes and stools for the lords and ladyes to sit on" had
+superseded the "great plank forms, that two yeomen can scant remove
+out of their places, and waynscot stooles so hard, that since great
+breeches were layd asyde men can skant indewr to sitt on." Her two
+presence chambers at Hampton Court shone with tapestry of gold and
+silver, and silk of various colours; her bed was covered with costly
+coverlids of silk, wrought in various patterns, by the needle; and she
+had many "chusions," moveable articles of furniture of various shapes,
+answering to our large family of tabourets and ottomans, embroidered
+with gold and silver thread.
+
+But it was not merely in courts and palaces that arras was used; it
+was now, of a coarser fabric, universally adopted in the houses of the
+country gentry. "The wals of our houses on the inner sides be either
+hanged with tapisterie, arras-work,[121] or painted cloths, wherein
+either diverse histories, or hearbes, beasts, knots, and such like are
+stained, or else they are seeled with oke of our owne, or wainescot
+brought hither out of the east countries." The tapestry was now
+suspended on frames, which, we may infer, were often at a considerable
+distance from the walls, since the portly Sir John Falstaff ensconced
+himself "behind the arras" on a memorable occasion; Polonius too met
+his death there; and indeed Shakspeare presses it into the service on
+numerous occasions.
+
+The following quotation will give an accurate idea of properties
+thought most valuable at this time; and it will be seen that
+ornamental needlework cuts a very distinguished figure therein. It is
+a catalogue of his wealth given by Gremio when suing for Bianca to her
+father, who declares that the wealthiest lover will win her, in the
+Taming of the Shrew.
+
+    _Gremio._ "First, as you know, my house within the city
+              Is richly furnished with plate and gold;
+              Basons and ewers, to lave her dainty hands;
+              My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
+              In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;
+              In cypres chests my _arras_, counterpoints,
+              Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
+              Fine linen, _Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,
+              Valence of Venice gold, in needlework_,
+              Pewter and brass, and all things that belong
+              To house or house-keeping."
+
+The age of Elizabeth was one which powerfully appeals to the
+imagination in various ways. The æra of warlike chivalry was past; but
+many of its lighter observances remained, and added to the variety of
+life, and perhaps tended to polish it. We are told, for instance,
+that as the Earl of Cumberland stood before Elizabeth she dropped her
+glove; and on his picking it up graciously desired him to keep it. He
+caused the trophy to be encircled with diamonds; and ever after, at
+all tilts and tourneys, bore it conspicuously placed in front of his
+high crowned hat. Jousting and tilting in honour of the ladies (by
+whom prizes were awarded) continued still to be a favourite diversion.
+There were annual contentions in the lists in honour of the sovereign,
+and twenty-five persons of the first rank established a society of
+arms for this purpose, of which the chivalric Sir Henry Lee was for
+some time president.
+
+The "romance of chivalry" was sinking to be succeeded by the heavier
+tomes of Gomberville, Scudery, &c., but the extension of classical
+knowledge, the vast strides in acquirement of various kinds, the utter
+change, so to speak, in the system of literature, all contributed to
+the downfall of the chivalric romance. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia
+introduced a rage for high-flown pastoral effusions; and now too was
+re-born that taste for metaphorical effusion and spiritual romance,
+which was first exhibited in the fourth century in the Bishop of
+Tricca's romance of "Barlaam and Josaphat," and which now pervaded the
+fast-rising puritan party, and was afterwards fully developed in that
+unaccountably fascinating work, "The Pilgrim's Progress."
+Nevertheless, as yet
+
+                  "Courted and caress'd,
+    High placed in hall, a welcome guest,"
+
+the harper poured to lord and lady gay not indeed "his unpremeditated
+lay," but a poetical abridgment (the precursor of a fast succeeding
+race of romantic ballads) of the doughty deeds of renowned knights, so
+amply expatiated upon in the time-honoured folios of the "olden time."
+The wandering harper, if fallen somewhat from his "high estate," was
+still a recognised and welcome guest; his "matter being for the most
+part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of
+Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the
+Clough, and such other old romances or historical rhimes." Though the
+character of the minstrel gradually lost respectability, yet for a
+considerable part of Elizabeth's reign it was one so fully
+acknowledged, that a peculiar garb was still attached to the office.
+
+    "Mongst these, some bards there were that in their sacred rage
+    Recorded the descents and acts of everie age.
+    Some with their nimbler joynts that strooke the warbling string;
+    In fingering some unskild, but onelie vsed to sing
+    Vnto the other's harpe: of which you both might find
+    Great plentie, and of both excelling in their kind."
+
+The superstitions of various kinds, the omens, the warnings, the
+charms, the "potent spells" of the wizard seer, which
+
+    "Could hold in dreadful thrall the labouring moon,
+    Or draw the fix'd stars from their eminence,
+    And still the midnight tempest,"--
+
+the supernatural agents, the goblins, the witches, the fairies, the
+satyrs, the elves, the fauns, the "shapes that walk," the
+
+        "Uncharnel'd spectres, seen to glide
+    Along the lone wood's unfrequented path"--
+
+the being and active existence of all these was considered "true as
+holy writ" by our ancestors of the Elizabethan age. On this subject we
+will transcribe a beautifully illustrative passage from Warton:--
+
+"Every goblin of ignorance" (says he) "did not vanish at the first
+glimmerings of the morning of science. Reason suffered a few demons
+still to linger, which she chose to retain in her service under the
+guidance of poetry. Men believed, or were willing to believe, that
+spirits were yet hovering around, who brought with them _airs from
+heaven, or blasts from hell_; that the ghost was duly relieved from
+his prison of torment at the sound of the curfew, and that fairies
+imprinted mysterious circles on the turf by moonlight. Much of this
+credulity was even consecrated by the name of science and profound
+speculation. Prospero had not yet _broken and buried his staff_, nor
+_drowned his book deeper than did ever plummet sound_. It was now that
+the alchemist and the judicial astrologer conducted his occult
+operations by the potent intercourse of some preternatural being, who
+came obsequious to his call, and was bound to accomplish his severest
+services, under certain conditions, and for a limited duration of
+time. It was actually one of the pretended feats of these fantastic
+philosophers to evoke the queen of the fairies in the solitude of a
+gloomy grove, who, preceded by a sudden rustling of the leaves,
+appeared in robes of transcendant lustre. The Shakspeare of a more
+instructed and polished age would not have given us a magician
+darkening the sun at noon, the sabbath of the witches, and the
+cauldron of incantation."
+
+It were endless, and indeed out of place here, to attempt to specify
+the numberless minor superstitions to which this credulous tendency of
+the public mind gave birth or continuation; or the marvels of
+travellers,--as the Anthropophagi, the Ethiops with four eyes, the
+Hippopodes with their nether parts like horses, the Arimaspi with one
+eye in the forehead, and the Monopoli who have no head at all, but a
+face in their breast--which were all devoutly credited. One potent
+charm, however, we are constrained to particularise, since its
+infallibility was mainly dependent on the needlewoman's skill. It was
+a waistcoat which rendered its owner invulnerable: we believe that if
+duly prepared it would be found proof not only against "silver
+bullets," but also against even the "charmed bullet" of German
+notoriety. Thus runs the charm:--
+
+"On Christmas daie at night, a thread must be sponne of flax, by a
+little virgine girle, in the name of the divell; and it must be by hir
+woven, and also _wrought with the needle_. In the brest or forepart
+thereof must be made _with needleworke_ two heads; on the head at the
+right side must be a hat and a long beard, and the left head must have
+on a crowne, and it must be so horrible that it maie resemble
+Belzebub; and on each side of the wastcote must be _wrought_ a
+crosse."
+
+The newspaper, that now mighty political engine, that "thewe and
+sinew" of the fourth estate of the realm, took its rise in Elizabeth's
+day. How would her legislators have been overwhelmed with amazement
+could they have beheld, in dim perspective, this child of the press,
+scarcely less now the offspring of the imagination than those chimeras
+of their own time to which we have been alluding; and would not the
+wrinkled brow of the modern politician be unconsciously smoothened,
+would not the careworn and profound diplomatist "gather up his face
+into a smile before he was aware," if the FIRST NEWSPAPER were
+suddenly placed before him? It is not indeed in existence, but was
+published under the title of "_The English Mercurie_," in April, 1588,
+on the first appearance near the shores of England of the Spanish
+Armada, a crisis which caused this innovation on the usual public
+news-letter circulated in manuscript. No. 50, dated July 23, 1588, is
+the first now in existence; and as the publication only began in
+April, it shows they must have been issued frequently. We have seen
+this No. 50, which is preserved in the British Museum.[122]
+
+In it are no advertisements--no fashions--no law reports--no court
+circular--no fashionable arrivals--no fashionable intelligence--no
+murders--no robberies--no reviews--no crim. cons.--no elopements--no
+price of stocks--no mercantile intelligence--no police reports--no
+"leaders,"--no literary memoranda--no poets' corner--no spring
+meetings--no radical demonstrations--no conservative dinners--but
+
+    "The
+
+    "English Mercurie,
+
+    "Published by AUTHORITIE,
+
+    "For the Prevention of False Reportes,
+
+    "_Whitehall, July 23, 1588._"
+
+Contains three pages and a half, small quarto, of matter of fact
+information.
+
+Two pages respecting the Armada then seen "neare the Lizard, making
+for the entrance of the Channell," and appearing on the surface of the
+water "like floating castles."
+
+A page of news from Ostend, where "nothing was talked of but the
+intended invasion of England. His Highnesse the Prince of Parma having
+compleated his preparationes, of which the subjoined Accounte might be
+depended upon as _exacte and authentique_."
+
+Something to say--for a newspaper.
+
+And a few lines dated "London, July 13, of the lord mayor, aldermen,
+common councilmen, and lieutenancie of this great citie" waiting on
+Her Majesty with assurances of support, and receiving a gracious
+reception from her.
+
+Such was the newspaper of 1588.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great events of Elizabeth's reign, in war, in politics, in
+legislation, belong to the historian; the great march of mind, the
+connecting link which that age formed between the darkness of the
+preceding ones (for during the period of the wars of the Roses all
+sorts of art and science retrograded), and the high cultivation of
+later days, it is the province of the metaphysician and philosopher to
+analyse; and even the lighter characteristics of the time have become
+so familiar through the medium of many modern and valuable works, that
+we have ventured only to touch very superficially on some few of the
+more prominent of them.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[120] Harrison.
+
+[121] From this separate mention of _tapisterie_ and _arras-work_ by
+so accurate a describer as Harrison, it would seem that tapestry of
+the needle alone was not, even yet, quite exploded.
+
+[122] Sloane MSS. No. 4106.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+TAPESTRY OF THE SPANISH ARMADA, BETTER KNOWN AS TAPESTRY OF THE HOUSE
+OF LORDS.
+
+    "He did blow with his wind, and they were scattered."
+
+                        'Inscription on the Medal.'
+
+
+The year 1588 had been foretold by astrologers to be a wonderful year,
+the "climacterical year of the world;" and the public mind of England
+was at that period sufficiently credulous and superstitious to be
+affected with vague presentiments, even if the preparation of an
+hostile armada so powerful as to be termed "invincible," had not
+seemed to engraft on these vague surmises too real and fearful a
+groundwork of truth.
+
+The preparations of Philip II. in Spain, combined with those of the
+Duke of Parma in the Low Countries, and furthered by the valued and
+effective benediction of the shaken and tottering, but still
+influential and powerful head of the Roman church, had produced a
+hostile array which, with but too much probability of success,
+threatened the conquest of England, and its subjugation to the papal
+yoke. Not since the Norman Conquest had any event occurred which, if
+successful, would be fraught with results so harassing and distressing
+to the established inhabitants of the island. Though the Norman
+Conquest had, undoubtedly, _in the course of time_, produced a
+beneficial and civilising and ennobling influence on the island, it
+was long and bitter years ere the groans of the subjugated and
+oppressed Anglo-Saxons had merged in the contented peacefulness of a
+united people.
+
+Yet William was certainly of a severe temper, and was incited by the
+unquenchable opposition of the English to a cruel and exterminating
+policy. Philip of Spain seemed not to promise milder measures. He was
+a bigot, and moreover hated the English with an utter hatred. During
+his union with Mary he had utterly failed to gain their good will, and
+his hatred to them increased in an exact ratio to the failure of his
+desired influence with them. Neither time, nor trouble, nor care, nor
+expense, was spared in this his decided invasion; and it is said that
+from Italy, Sicily, and even America, were drafted the most
+experienced captains and soldiers to aid his cause. Well, then, might
+England look with anxiety, and even with terror, to this threatened
+and fast approaching event.
+
+But her energies were fully equal to the emergency. Elizabeth, now in
+the full plenitude of her power, was at the acme of her influence over
+the wills, and in a great degree over the affections of her subjects,
+at least over by far the greater portion of them; one factious and
+discontented party there was, but too insufficient to be any effectual
+barrier to her designs. And the cause was a popular one: Protestants
+and Romanists joined in deprecating a foreign yoke. Her powerful and
+commanding energies did not forsake her. Her appeal to her subjects
+was replied to with heart-thrilling readiness, the city of London
+setting a noble example; for when ministers desired from it five
+thousand men and fifteen ships, the lord mayor, in behalf of the city,
+craved their sovereign to accept of ten thousand soldiers and thirty
+ships.
+
+This spirited precedent was followed all through the empire, all
+classes vied with each other in contributing their utmost quota of
+aid, by means and by personal service, and amongst many similar
+instances it is recorded of "that noble, vertuous, honourable man, the
+Viscount Montague, that he now came, though he was very sickly, and in
+age, with a full resolution to live and dye in defence of the queene,
+and of his countrie, against all invaders, whether it were pope, king,
+and potentate whatsoever, and in that quarrell he would hazard his
+life, his children, his landes and goods. And to shew his mynde
+agreeably thereto, he came personally himselfe before the queene, with
+his band of horsemen, being almost two hundred; the same being led by
+his owne sonnes, and with them a yong child, very comely, seated on
+horseback, being the heire of his house, that is, ye eldest sonne to
+his sonne and heire; a matter much noted of many, to see a
+grandfather, father, and sonne, at one time on horsebacks afore a
+queene for her service."
+
+For three years had Philip been preparing, in all parts of his
+dominions, for this overwhelming expedition, and his equipments were
+fully equal to his extensive preparations; and so popular was the
+project in Spain, and so ardent were its votaries, that there was not
+a family of any note which had not contributed some of its dearest and
+nearest members; there were also one hundred and eighty Capuchins,
+Dominicans, Jesuits, and Mendicant friars; and so great was the
+enthusiastic anticipation, that even females hired vessels to follow
+the fleet which contained those they loved; two or three of these were
+driven by the storm on the coast of France.
+
+This Armada consisted of about one hundred and fifty ships, most of
+which were of an uncommon size, strength, and thickness, more like
+floating castles than anything else; and to this unwieldy size may,
+probably, be attributed much of their discomfiture. For the greater
+holiness of their action, twelve were called the Twelve Apostles; and
+a pinnace of the Andalusian squadron, commanded by Don Pedro de
+Valdez, was called the "Holy Ghost." The fleet is said to have
+contained thirty-two thousand persons, and to have cost every day
+thirty thousand ducats.
+
+The Duke of Parma's contemporary preparations were also prodigious,
+and of a nature which plainly declared the full certainty and
+confidence in which the invaders indulged of making good their object.
+But the preparations were doomed not to be even tried. The finesse and
+manoeuvres of the shrewd Sir Francis Walsingham[123] had caused the
+invasion to be retarded for a whole year, and by this time England
+was fully prepared for her foes. The result is known. The hollow
+treaty of peace into which Parma had entered in order, when all
+preparations were completed, to take her by surprise, was entered into
+with an equal share of hypocritical policy by Elizabeth. "So (says an
+old historian) as they seemed on both sides to sew the foxe's skin to
+the lion's."
+
+So powerful was the effect on the public mind, not only of this
+projected enterprise, but of its almost unhoped for discomfiture, that
+all possible means were taken to commemorate the event. One method
+resorted to was the manufacture of tapestry representing a series of
+subjects connected with it. At that time Flanders excelled all others
+in the manufacture of tapestry, it was scarcely indeed introduced into
+England; and our ancestors had a series of ten charts, designed by
+Henry Cornelius Vroom, a celebrated painter of Haarlem, from which
+their Flemish neighbours worked beautiful draperies, which ornamented
+the walls of the House of Lords.
+
+At the time of the Union with Ireland, when considerable repairs and
+alterations were made here, these magnificent tapestries were taken
+down, cleaned, and replaced, with the addition of large frames of dark
+stained wood, which set off the work and colouring to advantage. They
+formed a series of ten pictures, round which portraits of the
+distinguished officers who commanded the fleet were wrought into a
+border.
+
+With a prescience, which might now almost seem prophetic, Mr. John
+Pine, engraver, published in 1739 a series of plates taken from these
+tapestries; and "because," says he, "time, or accident, or moths may
+deface these valuable shadows, we have endeavoured to preserve their
+likeness in the preceding prints, which, by being multiplied and
+dispersed in various hands, may meet with that security from the
+closets of the curious, which the originals must scarce always hope
+for, even from the sanctity of the place they are kept in."
+
+"On the 17th day of July, 1588, the English discovered the Spanish
+fleet with lofty turrets like castles, in front like a half moon, the
+wing thereof spreading out about the length of seven miles, sailing
+very slowly, though with full sails, the winds being as it were tired
+with carrying them, and the ocean groaning under the weight of them."
+
+This forms the subject of the first tableau. The English commanders
+suffered the Spaniards to pass them unmolested, in order that they
+might hang upon their rear, and harass them when they should be
+involved in the Channel; for the English navy were unable to confront
+such a power in direct and close action. The second piece represents
+them thus, near Fowey, the English coast displayed in the back-ground,
+diversified perhaps somewhat too elaborately into hill and dale, and
+the foliage scattered somewhat too regularly in lines over each hill,
+but very pretty nevertheless. A small village with its church and
+spire appears just at the water edge, Eddystone lighthouse lifts its
+head above the waters, and, fit emblem of the patriotism which now
+burned throughout the land, and even glowed on the waters, a huge sea
+monster uprears itself in threatening attitude against the invading
+host, and shows a countenance hideous enough to scare any but
+Spaniards from its native shores.
+
+No. 3 represents the first engagement between the hostile fleets, and
+also the subsequent sailing of the Spanish Armada up the channel,
+closely followed by the English, whose ships were so much lighter,
+that in a running warfare of this kind they had greatly the advantage.
+The sea is alive too with dolphins and other strange fish, with right
+British hearts, as it has been said that "they seemed to oppose
+themselves with fierce and grim looks to the progress of the Spanish
+fleet." The view of the coast here is very good; and, where it retires
+from Start Point so as to form a bay or harbour, the perspective is
+really admirably indicated by two vessels dimly defined in the
+horizon.
+
+The views of the coast are varied and interesting; and the distances
+and perspective views are much more accurately delineated than was
+usual at the time; but, as we have remarked, they were designed by an
+eminent painter, and one whose particular _forte_ was the delineation
+of shipping and naval scenes.
+
+The pictures are certainly as a series devoid of variety. In two of
+them the Calais shore is introduced; and the intermixture of
+fortifications, churches, houses, and animated spectators, eagerly
+crowding to behold the fleets sailing by, produces an enlivening and
+busy scene, which, set off by the varied, lively, and appropriate
+colouring of the tapestry, would have a most striking effect. But the
+man who, unmoved by the excitement about him, is calmly fishing under
+the walls, without even turning his head toward the scene of tumult,
+must be blessed with an apathy of disposition which the poor enraged
+dolphins and porpoises might have envied.
+
+With these exceptions the tapestries are all sea pieces with only a
+distant view of the coast, and portray the two fleets in different
+stages of their progress, sometimes with engagements between single
+ships, but generally in an apparent state of truce, the English always
+the pursuers, and the Spaniards generally drawn up in form of a
+crescent. The last however shows the invading fleet hurriedly and in
+disorder sailing away, when bad weather, the Duke of Parma's delay,
+and a close engagement of fourteen hours, in which they "suffered
+grievously," having "had to endure all the heavy cannonading of their
+triumphant opponents, while they were struggling to get clear of the
+shallows," convinced them of the impossibility of a successful close
+to their enterprise, and made them resolve to take advantage of a
+southern breeze to make their passage up the North sea, and round
+Scotland home.
+
+    "He that fights and runs away,
+    May live to fight another day."
+
+So, however, did _not_ the Spaniards. "About these north islands their
+mariners and soldiers died daily by multitudes, as by their bodies
+cast on land did appear. The Almighty ordered the winds to be so
+contrary to this proud navy, that it was, by force, dissevered on the
+high seas west upon Ireland; and so great a number of them driven into
+sundry dangerous bays, and upon rocks, and there cast away; some
+sunk, some broken, some on the sands, and some burnt by the Spaniards
+themselves."
+
+Misfortune clung to them; storm and tempest on the sea, and
+inhospitable and cruel treatment when they were forced on shore so
+reduced them, that of this magnificent Armada only sixty shattered
+vessels found their home; and their humbled commander, the Duke de
+Medina Sidonia, was led to understand that his presence was not
+desired at court, and that a private country residence would be the
+most suitable.
+
+It was on this occasion, when the instant danger was past but by no
+means entirely done away, as for some time it was supposed that the
+Armada, after recruiting in some northern station, would return, that
+Elizabeth with a general's truncheon in her hand rode through the
+ranks of her army at Tilbury, and addressed them in a style which
+caused them to break out into deafening and tumultuous shouts and
+cries of love, and honour, and obedience to death. Thus magnificently
+the English heroine spoke:
+
+"My loving People,--We have been persuaded by some that are careful of
+our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed Multitudes;
+but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and
+loving People. Let Tyrants fear; I have always so behaved myself that,
+under GOD, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the
+loyal Hearts and Goodwill of my Subjects; and therefore I am come
+amongst you, as you see at this time, not for my Recreation and
+Disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the Battle, to
+live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my GOD, and for my
+kingdom, and for my People, my Honour, and my Blood, even in the dust.
+I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble Woman, but I have the
+Heart and Stomach of a King, and of a King of England too; and think
+foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince of Europe should dare to
+invade the Borders of my Realm; to which, rather than any Dishonour
+shall grow by me, I myself will take up Arms, I myself will be your
+General, Judge, and Rewarder of every one of your Virtues in the
+Field; I know already, for your forwardness, you have deserved Rewards
+and Crowns; and we do assure you, in the word of a Prince, they shall
+be duly paid you. In the mean time my Lieutenant-general shall be in
+my stead, than whom never Prince commanded a more noble or worthy
+subject; not doubting but, by your obedience to my General, by your
+Concord in the camp, and your Valour in the Field, we shall shortly
+have a famous victory over those Enemies of my GOD, of my Kingdoms,
+and of my People."
+
+The tapestry, the magnificent memorial of this great event, was lost
+irreparably in the devastating fire of 1834. Some fragments, it is
+said, were preserved, but we have not been able to ascertain this
+fact. One portion still exists at Plymouth, though shorn of its
+pristine brilliancy, as some of the silver threads were drawn out by
+the economists of the time of the Commonwealth. This piece was cut out
+to make way for a gallery at the time of the trial of Queen Caroline,
+was secreted by a German servant of the Lord Chamberlain, and sold by
+him to a broker who offered it to Government for 500_l._
+
+Some inquiry was made into the circumstances, which, however, do not
+seem to have excited very great interest, since the relic was
+ultimately bought by the Bishop of Landaff (Van Mildert) for 20_l._ By
+him it was presented to the corporation of Plymouth, who still possess
+it.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[123] He contrived, by means of a Venetian priest, his spy, to obtain
+a copy of a letter from Philip to the Pope; a gentleman of the
+bedchamber taking the keys of the cabinet from the pockets of his
+holiness as he slept. Upon intelligence thus obtained, Walsingham got
+those Spanish bills protested at Genoa which should have supplied
+money for the preparations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+ON STITCHERY.
+
+    "Here have I cause in men just blame to find,
+      That in their proper praise too partial bee,
+    And not indifferent to womankind,
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+      Scarse do they spare to one, or two, or three,
+    Rowme in their writtes; yet the same writing small
+    Does all their deedes deface, and dims their glories all."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+    "Christine, whiche understode these thynges of Dame
+    Reason, replyed upon that in this manere. Madame Ise wel
+    {that} ye myght fynde ynowe & of grete nombre of women
+    praysed in scyences and in crafte; but knowe ye ony that
+    by {the} vertue of their felynge & of subtylte of wytte
+    _haue founde of themselfe_ ony newe craftes and scyences
+    necessary, good, & couenable that were neuer founde
+    before nor knowne? for it is not so grete maystry to
+    folowe and to lerne after ony other scyence founde and
+    comune before, as it is to fynde of theymselfe some newe
+    thynge not accustomed before.
+
+    "_Answere._--Ne doubte ye not {the} contrary my dere
+    frende but many craftes and scyences ryght notable hathe
+    ben founde by the wytte and subtylte of women, as moche
+    by speculacyon of understandynge, the whiche sheweth
+    them by wrytynge, as in craftes, {that} sheweth theym
+    _in werkynge of handes_ & of laboure."
+
+                        _The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes._
+
+
+Again we must lament that the paucity of historical record lays us
+under the necessity of concluding, by inference, what we would fain
+have displayed by direct testimony. The respectable authority quoted
+above affirms that "many craftes and scyences ryght notable hathe ben
+founde by the wytte and subtylte of women," and it specifies
+particularly "werkynge of handes," by which we suppose the "talented"
+author means needlework. That the necessity for this pretty art was
+first created by woman, no one, we think, will disallow; and that it
+was first practised, as it has been subsequently perfected, by her, is
+a fact of which we feel the most perfect conviction.
+
+This conviction has been forced upon us by a train of reasoning which
+will so readily suggest itself to the mind of all our readers, that we
+content ourselves with naming the result, assured that it is
+unnecessary to trouble them with the intervening steps. One only link
+in the chain of "circumstantial evidence" will we adduce, and that is
+afforded by the ancient engraving to which we have before alluded in
+our remarks upon Eve's needle and thread. There whilst our "general
+mother" is stitching away at the fig-leaves in the most edifying
+manner possible, our "first father," far from trying to "put in a
+stitch for himself," is gazing upon her in the most utter amazement.
+And while she plies her busy task as if she had been born to
+stitchery, his eyes, _not_ his fingers,
+
+    "Follow the nimble fingers of the fair,"
+
+with every indication of superlative wonder and admiration.
+
+In fact, it is no slight argument in favour of the original invention
+of sewing by women, that men very rarely have wit enough to learn it,
+even when invented. There has been no lack of endeavour, even amongst
+the world's greatest and mightiest, but poor "work" have they made of
+it. Hercules lost all the credit of his mighty labours from his
+insignificance at the spinning wheel, and the sceptre of Sardanapalus
+passed from his grasp as he was endeavouring to "finger the fine
+needle and nyse thread."
+
+These love-stricken heroes might have said with Gower--had he then
+said it--
+
+    "What things she bid me do, I do,
+    And where she bid me go, I go.
+    And where she likes to call, I come,
+    I serve, I bow, I look, I lowte,
+    My eye followeth her about.
+    What so she will, so will I,
+    When she would set, I kneel by.
+    And when she stands, then will I stand,
+    _And when she taketh her work in hand_,
+    Of _wevyng or of embroidrie_.
+    Then can I _only_ muse and prie,
+    Upon her fingers long and small."
+
+Our modern Hercules, the Leviathan of literature, was not more
+successful.
+
+_Dr. Johnson._--"Women have a great advantage that they may take up
+with little things, without disgracing themselves; a man cannot,
+except with fiddling. Had I learnt to fiddle I should have done
+nothing else."
+
+_Boswell._--"Pray, Sir, did you ever play on any musical instrument?"
+
+_Dr. Johnson._--"No, Sir; I once bought a flageolet, but I never made
+out a tune."
+
+_Boswell._--"A flageolet, Sir! So small an instrument? I should have
+liked to hear you play on the violoncello. _That_ should have been
+your instrument."
+
+_Dr. Johnson._--"Sir, I might as well have played on the violoncello
+as another; but I should have done nothing else. No, Sir; a man would
+never undertake great things could he be amused with small. I once
+tried knotting; Dempster's sister undertook to teach me, but _I could
+not learn it_."
+
+_Boswell._--"So, Sir; it will be related in pompous narrative, 'once
+for his amusement he tried knotting, nor did this Hercules disdain the
+distaff.'"
+
+_Dr. Johnson._--"Knitting of stockings is a good amusement. As a
+freeman of Aberdeen, I should be a knitter of stockings."
+
+Nor was Dr. Johnson singular in his high appreciation of the value of
+some sort of stitchery to his own half of the human race, if their
+intellects unfortunately had not been too obtuse for its acquisition.
+The great censor of the public morals and manners a century ago, the
+Spectator, recommends the same thing, though with his usual policy he
+feigns merely to be the medium of another's advice.
+
+"Mr. Spectator,--You are always ready to receive any useful hint or
+proposal, and such, I believe, you will think one that may put you in
+a way to employ the most idle part of the kingdom; I mean that part of
+mankind who are known by the name of the women's men, beaux, &c. Mr.
+Spectator, you are sensible these pretty gentlemen are not made for
+any manly employments, and for want of business are often as much in
+the vapours as the ladies. Now what I propose is this, that since
+knotting is again in fashion, which has been found a very pretty
+amusement, that you will recommend it to these gentlemen as something
+that may make them useful to the ladies they admire. And since it is
+not inconsistent with any game or other diversion, for it may be done
+in the playhouse, in their coaches, at the tea-table, and, in short,
+in all places where they come for the sake of the ladies (except at
+church, be pleased to forbid it there to prevent mistakes), it will be
+easily complied with. It is besides an employment that allows, as we
+see by the fair sex, of many graces, which will make the beaux more
+readily come into it; and it shows a white hand and a diamond ring to
+great advantage; it leaves the eyes at full liberty to be employed as
+before, as also the thoughts and the tongue. In short, it seems in
+every respect so proper that it is needless to urge it further, by
+speaking of the satisfaction these male knotters will find when they
+see their work mixed up in a fringe, and worn by the fair lady for
+whom, and with whom, it was done. Truly, Mr. Spectator, I cannot but
+be pleased I have hit upon something that these gentlemen are capable
+of; for it is sad so considerable a part of the kingdom (I mean for
+numbers) should be of no manner of use. I shall not trouble you
+further at this time, but only to say, that I am always your reader
+and generally your admirer.                             C. B.
+
+"P.S.--The sooner these fine gentlemen are set to work the better;
+there being at this time several fringes that stay only for more
+hands."
+
+But, alas! the sanguine writer was mistaken in supposing that at last
+gentlemen had found a something "of which they were capable." The days
+of knotting passed away before they had made any proficiency in it; nor
+have we ever heard that they have adopted any other branch or stitch of
+this extensive art. There is variety enough to satisfy anybody, and
+there are gradations enough in the stitches to descend to any capacity
+but a man's. There are tambour stitch--satin--chain--finny--new--bred--
+ferne--and queen-stitches; there is slabbing--veining--and button stitch;
+seeding--roping--and open stitch: there is sockseam--herring-bone--long
+stitch--and cross stitch: there is rosemary stitch--Spanish stitch--and
+Irish stitch: there is back stitch--overcast--and seam stitch:
+hemming--felling--and basting: darning--grafting--and patching: there
+is whip stitch--and fisher stitch: there is fine drawing--gathering--
+marking--trimming--and tucking.
+
+Truly all this does require some +nous+, and the lords of the creation
+are more to be pitied than blamed for that paucity of intellect which
+deprives them of "woman's pretty excuse for thought."
+
+Raillery apart, sewing is in itself an agreeable occupation, it is
+essentially a useful one; in many of its branches it is quite
+ornamental, and it is a gentle, a graceful, an elegant, and a truly
+feminine occupation. It causes the solitary hours of domestic life to
+glide more smoothly away, and in those social unpretending reunions
+which in country life and in secluded districts are yet not abolished,
+it takes away from the formality of sitting for conversation, abridges
+the necessity for scandal, or, to say the least of it, as we have
+heard even ungallant lordly man allow, it keeps us out of mischief.
+
+And there are frequent and oft occurring circumstances which invest it
+with characteristics of a still higher order. How many of "the sweet
+solicitudes that life beguile" are connected with this interesting
+occupation! either in preparing habiliments for those dependent on our
+care, and for love of whom many an unnecessary stitch which may tend
+to extra adornment is put in; or in those numberless pretty and not
+unuseful tokens of remembrance, which, passing from friend to friend,
+soften our hearts by the intimation they convey, that we have been
+cared for in our absence, and that while the world looked dark and
+desolate about us, unforgetting hearts far, far away were holding us
+in remembrance, busy fingers were occupied in our behoof. Oh! a
+reticule, a purse, a slipper, how valueless soever in itself, is, when
+fraught with these home memories, worth that which the mines of
+Golconda could not purchase. And of such a nature would be the
+feelings which suggested these well-known but exquisite lines:--
+
+    "The twentieth year is well nigh past,
+    Since first our sky was overcast,
+    Ah, would that this might be the last!
+                                    My Mary!
+
+    "Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
+    I see thee daily weaker grow,
+    'Twas my distress that brought thee low,
+                                    My Mary!
+
+    "Thy needles, once a shining store,
+    For my sake restless heretofore,
+    Now rust disused and shine no more,
+                                    My Mary!
+
+    "For though thou gladly would'st fulfil
+    The same kind office for me still,
+    Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
+                                    My Mary!
+
+    "But well thou play'dst the housewife's part,
+    And all thy threads with magic art,
+    Have wound themselves about this heart,
+                                    My Mary!"
+
+An interesting circumstance connected with needlework is mentioned in
+the delightful memoir written by lady Murray, of her mother, the
+excellent and admirable Lady Grisell Baillie. The allusion itself is
+very slight, merely to the making of a frill or a collar; but the
+circumstances connected with it are deeply interesting, and place
+before us a vivid picture of the deprivations of a family of rank and
+consequence in "troublous times," and moreover offer us a portrait
+from _real life_ of true feminine excellence, of a young creature of
+rank and family, of cultivated and refined tastes and of high
+connexions, utterly forgetting all these in the cheerful and
+conscientious discharge, for years, of the most arduous and humble
+duties, and even of menial and revolting offices. It may be that my
+readers all are not so well acquainted with this little book as
+ourselves, and, if so, they will not consider the following extract
+too long.
+
+"They lived three years and a half in Holland, and in that time she
+made a second voyage to Scotland about business. Her father went by
+the borrowed name of Dr. Wallace, and did not stir out for fear of
+being discovered, though who he was, was no secret to the wellwishers
+of the revolution. Their great desire was to have a good house, as
+their greatest comfort was at home; and all the people of the same way
+of thinking, of which there were great numbers, were continually with
+them. They paid for their house what was very extravagant for their
+income, nearly a fourth part; they could not afford keeping any
+servant, but a little girl to wash the dishes.
+
+"All the time they were there, there was not a week that my mother did
+not sit up two nights, to do the business that was necessary. She went
+to market, went to the mill to have the corn ground, which it seems is
+the way with good managers there, dressed the linen, cleaned the
+house, made ready the dinner, mended the children's stockings and
+other clothes, made what she could for them, and, in short, did
+everything.
+
+"Her sister, Christian, who was a year or two younger, diverted her
+father and mother and the rest who were fond of music. Out of their
+small income they bought a harpsichord for little money, but is a
+_Rucar_ now in my custody, and most valuable. My aunt played and sang
+well, and had a great deal of life and humour, but no turn to
+business. Though my mother had the same qualifications, and liked it
+as well as she did, she was forced to drudge; and many jokes used to
+pass betwixt the sisters about their different occupations. Every
+morning before six my mother lighted her father's fire in his study,
+then waked him (she was ever a good sleeper, which blessing, among
+many others, she inherited from him); then got him, what he usually
+took as soon as he got up, warm small beer with a spoonful of bitters
+in it, which he continued his whole life, and of which I have the
+receipt.
+
+"Then she took up the children and brought them all to his room, where
+he taught them everything that was fit for their age; some Latin,
+others French, Dutch, geography, writing, reading, English, &c.; and
+my grandmother taught them what was necessary on her part. Thus he
+employed and diverted himself all the time he was there, not being
+able to afford putting them to school; and my mother, when she had a
+moment's time, took a lesson with the rest in French and Dutch, and
+also diverted herself with music. I have now a book of songs of her
+writing when there; many of them interrupted, half-writ, some broke
+off in the middle of a sentence. She had no less a turn for mirth and
+society than any of the family, when she could come at it without
+neglecting what she thought more necessary.
+
+"Her eldest brother, Patrick, who was nearest her age, and bred up
+together, was her most dearly beloved. My father was there, forfeited
+and exiled, in the same situation with themselves. She had seen him
+for the first time in the prison with his father, not long before he
+suffered;[124] and from that time their hearts were engaged. Her
+brother and my father were soon got in to ride in the Prince of
+Orange's Guards, till they were better provided for in the army, which
+they were before the Revolution. They took their turn in standing
+sentry at the Prince's gate, but always contrived to do it together,
+and the strict friendship and intimacy that then began, continued to
+the last.
+
+"Though their station was then low, they kept up their spirits; the
+prince often dined in public, then all were admitted to see him: when
+any pretty girl wanted to go in they set their halberts across the
+door and would not let her pass till she gave each of them a kiss,
+which made them think and call them very pert soldiers. I could relate
+many stories on this subject; my mother could talk for hours and never
+tire of it, always saying it was the happiest part of her life. Her
+_constant attention was to have her brother appear right in his linen
+and dress_; they wore little point cravats and cuffs, which many a
+night she sat up to have in as good order for him as any in the place;
+and one of their greatest expenses was in dressing him as he ought to
+be.
+
+"As their house was always full of the unfortunate people banished
+like themselves, they seldom went to dinner without three, four, or
+five of them to share it with them; and many a hundred times I have
+heard her say she could never look back upon their manner of living
+there without thinking it a miracle. They had no want, but plenty of
+everything they desired, and much contentment, and always declared it
+the most pleasing part of her life, though they were not without their
+little distresses; but to them they were rather jokes than grievances.
+The professors and men of learning in the place came often to see my
+grandfather; the best entertainment he could give them was a glass of
+alabast beer, which was a better kind of ale than common. He sent his
+son Andrew, the late Lord Kimmerghame, a boy, to draw some for them
+in the cellar, and he brought it up with great diligence, but in the
+other hand the spigot of the barrel. My grandfather said, 'Andrew!
+what is that in your hand?' When he saw it he ran down with speed, but
+the beer was all run out before he got there. This occasioned much
+mirth, though perhaps they did not well know where to get more.
+
+"It is the custom there to gather money for the poor from house to
+house, with a bell to warn people to give it. One night the bell came,
+and no money was there in the house but a orkey, which is a doit, the
+smallest of all coin; everybody was so ashamed no one would go to give
+it, it was so little, and put it from one to the other: at last my
+grandfather said, 'Well, then, I'll go with it; we can do no more than
+give all we have.' They were often reduced to this by the delay of the
+ships coming from Scotland with their small remittances; then they put
+the little plate they had (all of which they carried with them) in the
+lumber, which is pawning it, till the ships came: and that very plate
+they brought with them again to Scotland, and left no debt behind
+them."
+
+This is a long but not an uninteresting digression, and we were led to
+it from the recollection that Lady Grisell Baillie, when encompassed
+with heavy cares, not only sat up a night or two every week, but felt
+a satisfaction, a pleasure, in doing so, to execute the needlework
+required by her family. And when sewing with a view to the comfort and
+satisfaction of others, the needlewoman--insignificant as the details
+of her employment may appear--has much internal satisfaction; she has
+a definite vocation, an important function.
+
+Nor few nor insignificant are her handmaidens, one or other of whom is
+ever at her side, inspiriting her to her task. Her most constant
+attendant is a matron of stayed and sober appearance, called UTILITY.
+The needlewoman's productions are found to vary greatly, and this
+variation is ascribed with truth to the influencing suggestions of the
+attendant for the time being.
+
+Thus, for instance, when Utility is her companion all her labours are
+found to result in articles of which the material is unpretending, and
+the form simple; for however she may be led wandering by the vagaries
+of her other co-mates, it is always found that in moments of steady
+reflection she listens with the most implicit deference to the
+intimations of this her experienced and most respectable friend.
+
+But occasionally, indeed frequently, Utility brings with her a fair
+and interesting relative, called TASTE; a gentle being, of modest and
+retiring mien, of most unassuming deportment, but of exquisite grace;
+and it is even observed that the needlewoman is more happy in her
+labours, and more universally approved when accompanied by these two
+friends, than by any other of the more eccentric ones who occasionally
+take upon themselves to direct her steps.
+
+Of these latter, FASHION is one of her most frequent visitors, and it
+is very often found that as she approaches Utility and Taste retire.
+This is not, however, invariably the case. Sometimes the three agree
+cordially together, and their united suffrages and support enhance
+the fame of the needlewoman to the very highest pitch; but this happy
+cordiality is of infrequent occurrence, and usually of short duration.
+Fashion is fickle, varying, inconstant; given to sudden partialities
+and to disruptions unlooked for, and as sudden. She laughs to scorn
+Utility's grave maxims, and exaggerates the graceful suggestions of
+Taste until they appear complete caricatures. Consequently they,
+offended, retire; and Fashion, heedless, holds on her own course,
+keeping the needlewoman in complete subjection to her arbitrary rule,
+which is often enforced in her transient absence by her own peculiar
+friend and intimate--CAPRICE. This fantastic being has the greatest
+influence over Fashion, who having no staple character of her own, is
+easily led every way at the beck of this whimsical and absurd
+dictator. The productions which emanate from the hands of the
+needlewoman under their guidance are much sought for, much looked at,
+but soon fall into utter contempt.
+
+But there is another handmaiden created for the delight and solace of
+mankind in general, and who from the earliest days, even until now,
+has been the loving friend of the needlewoman; ever whispering
+suggestions in her ear, or tracing patterns on her work, or gently
+guiding her finger through the fantastic maze. She is of the most
+exquisite beauty: fragile in form as the gossamer that floats on a
+summer's breath--brilliant in appearance as the colours that illumine
+the rainbow. So light, that she floats on an atom; so powerful that
+she raises empires, nay, the whole earth by her might. Her habits are
+the most vagrant imaginable; she is indeed the veriest little gossip
+in creation, but her disposition to roam is not more boundless than
+her power to gratify it.
+
+One instant she is in the depths of the ocean, loitering upon coral
+beds; the next above the stars, revelling in the immensity of space;
+one moment she tracks a comet in his course, the next hobnobs with the
+sea-king, or foots a measure with mermaids. A most skilful architect,
+she will build palaces on the clouds radiant with splendour and
+beautiful as herself; then, demolishing them with a breath, she flies
+to some moss-grown ruin of the earth, where a glimpse of her
+countenance drives away the bat and the owl; the wallflower, the moss,
+and the ivy, are displaced by the rose, the lily, and the myrtle; the
+damp building is clothed in freshness and splendour, the lofty halls
+resound with the melody of the lute and the harp, and the whole scene
+is vivid with light and life, with brilliancy and beauty. Again, in an
+instant, all is mute, and dim, and desolate, and the versatile
+sorceress is hunting the otter with an Esquimaux; or, pillowed on
+roses whose fragrance is wafted by softest zephyrs around, she listens
+to the strain which the Bulbul pours; or, wrapped in deepest maze of
+philosophic thought, she "treads the long extent of backward time," by
+the gigantic sepulchres of Egyptian kings; or else she flies "from the
+tempest-rocked Hebrides or the icebound Northern Ocean--from the red
+man's wilderness of the west--from the steppes of Central Asia--from
+the teeming swamps of the Amazon--from the sirocco deserts of
+Africa--from the tufted islands of the Pacific--from the heaving
+flanks of Ætna--or from the marbled shores of Greece;"--and draws the
+whole circle of her enchantments round the needlewoman's fingers,
+within the walls of an humble English cottage.
+
+But it were equally unnecessary and useless to dilate on her fairy
+wanderings. Suffice it to say that so great is the beneficent
+liberality of this fascinating being, that every corner of her rich
+domain is open to the highest or lowest of mortals without reserve;
+and so lovely is she herself, and so bewitching is her company, that
+few, few indeed, are they who do not cherish her as a bosom friend and
+as the dearest of companions.
+
+Bearing, however, her vagrant characteristics in mind, we shall not be
+surprised at the peculiar ideas some people entertain of her haunts,
+nor at the strange places in which they search for her person. One
+would hardly believe that hundreds of thousands have sought her
+through the smoke, din, and turmoil of those lines "where all
+antipathies to comfort dwell,"--the railroads; while others, more
+adventurous, plough the ocean deep, scale the mighty mountains, or
+soar amid the clouds for her; or, strange to say, have sought her in
+the battle field 'mid scenes of bloody death. Like Hotspur, such would
+pluck her--
+
+    "From the pale-faced moon;"
+
+or would
+
+    "Dive into the bottom of the deep,
+    Where fathom-line could never touch the ground"
+
+for her.
+
+But she is a lady before whom strength and pride fall nerveless and
+abased; her gracious smiles are to be wooed, not commanded; her bright
+presence may be won, not forced;
+
+    "For spotless, and holy, and gentle, and bright,
+    She glides o'er the earth like an angel of light."
+
+Possessing all the gentleness of her mother--_Taste_, she shrinks from
+everything rude or abrupt; and when, as has frequently been the case,
+persons have attempted to lay violent hands upon her, she has invariably
+eluded their vigilance, by leaving in her place, tricked out in her
+superabundant ornaments to blind them, her half-brother--_Whim_, who
+sprang from the same father--_Wit_, but by another mother--_Humour_. She
+herself, wanderer as she is, is not without her favourite haunts, in
+which she lingers as if even loath to quit them at all.
+
+Finally, wherever yet the _accomplished_ needlewoman has been found,
+in the Jewish tabernacle of old--in the Grecian dome where the "Tale
+of Troy divine" glowed on the canvass--or in the bower of the
+high-born beauty of the "bright days of the sword and the lance"--in
+the cell of the pale recluse--or in the turretted prison of the royal
+captive--there has FANCY been her devoted friend, her inseparable
+companion.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[124] She was then a mere child, not more, if I remember rightly, than
+twelve years old.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+"LES ANCIENNES TAPISSERIES;" TAPESTRY OF ST. MARY'S HALL, COVENTRY;
+TAPESTRY OF HAMPTON COURT.
+
+    "There is a sanctity in the past."
+
+                        Bulwer.
+
+
+All monuments of antiquity are so speedily passing away, all traces of
+those bygone generations on which the mind loves to linger, and which
+in their dim and indistinct memories exercise a spell, a holy often,
+and a purifying spell on the imagination are so fleeting, and when
+_irrevocably_ gone will be so lamented--that all testimonies which
+throw certain light on the habits and manners of the past, how slight
+soever the testimonies they afford, how trivial soever the
+characteristics they display, are of the highest possible value to an
+enlightened people, who apply the experience of the past to its
+legitimate and noblest use, the guidance and improvement of the
+present.
+
+In this point of view the work which forms the subject of this
+chapter[125] assumes a value which its intrinsic worth--beautiful as
+is its execution--would not impart to it; and it is thus rendered not
+less valuable as an historical record, than it is attractive as a work
+of taste.
+
+"Là chez eux, (we quote from the preface to the work itself,) c'est un
+siège ou un tournoi; ici un festin, plus loin une chasse; et toujours,
+chasse, festin, tournoi, siège, tout cela est _pourtraict au vif_,
+comme aurait dit Montaigne, tout cela nous retrace au naturel la vie
+de nos pères, nous montre leurs châteaux, leurs églises, leurs
+costumes, leurs armes et même, grâce aux légendes explicatives, leur
+langage à diverses époques. Il y a mieux. Si nous nous en rapportons à
+l'inventaire de Charles V., exécuté en 1379, toute la littérature
+française des siècles féconds qui précédèrent celui de ce sage
+monarque, aurait été par ces ordres traduite en laine."
+
+This book consists of representations of all the existing ancient
+tapestries which activity and research can draw from the hiding-places
+of ages, copied in the finest outline engraving, with letter-press
+descriptions of each plate. They are published in numbers, and in a
+style worthy of the object. We do not despair of seeing this spirited
+example followed in our own country, where many a beautiful specimen
+of ancient tapestry, still capable of renovation by care--is
+mouldering unthought of in the lumber-rooms of our ancient mansions.
+
+We have seen twenty-one numbers of this work, with which we shall deal
+freely: excepting, however, the eight parts which are entirely
+occupied by the Bayeux Tapestry. Our own chapters on the subject were
+written before we were fortunate enough to obtain a sight of these,
+which include the whole of the correspondence on the tapestry to
+which we in our sketch alluded.
+
+LA TAPISSERIE DE NANCY.--"aurait une illustre origine, et remonterait
+à une assez haute antiquité. Prise dans la tente de Charles le
+Téméraire, lors de la mort de ce prince, en 1477, devant la capitale
+de la Lorraine, qu'il assiégeait, elle serait devenue un meuble de la
+couronne, et aurait servi au palais des ducs de ce pays, depuis René 2
+jusqu'à Charles IV.----C'est une de ces anciennes tapisseries
+flamandes dont le tissu, de laine tres fine, est éclairé par l'or et
+la soie. La soie et la laine subsistent encore, mais l'or ne
+s'aperçoit plus que dans quelques endroits et à la faveur d'un beau
+soleil. Nous ferons remarquer que le costume des divers personnages
+que figurent dans notre monument est tout à fait caractéristique. Ce
+sont bien là les vêtements et les ornements en usage vers la moitié du
+quinzième siècle, et la disposition artistique, le choix du sujet,
+ainsi que l'exécution elle-même portent bien l'empreinte du style des
+oeuvres de 1450 environ.----La maison de Bourgogne était fort riche
+en joyaux, en vaisselle d'or ou d'argent et en _tapis_."
+
+The tapestry presents an allegorical history, of which the object is
+to depict the inconveniences consequent on what is called "good
+cheer." Later on this formed the subject of "a morality." Originally
+this tapestry was only one vast page, the requisite divisions being
+wrought in the form of ornamented columns. It was afterwards cut in
+pieces, and unfortunately the natural divisions of the subject were
+not attended to in the severment. More unhappily still the pieces have
+since been rejoined in a wrong order; and after every possible
+endeavour to read them aright, the publishers are indebted to the
+"Morality" before referred to, which was taken from it, and was
+entitled "La Nef de Santé, avec le gouvernail du corps humain, et la
+condamnaçion des bancquetz, a la louenge de Diepte et Sobriéte, et la
+Traictie des Passions de l'ame."
+
+Banquet, Bonnecompagnie, Souper, Gourmandise, Friandise, Passetemps,
+Je pleige d'autant, Je boy à vous, and other rare personifications,
+not forgetting that indispensable guest _then_ in all courtly pastime,
+Le fol, "go it" to their hearts' content, until they are interrupted
+_vi et armis_ by a ghastly phalanx in powerful array of Apoplexie,
+Ydropsie, Epilencie, Pleurisie, Esquinancie, Paralasie, Gravelle,
+Colicque, &c.
+
+TAPISSERIE DE DIJON.--"On conviendra qu'il serait difficile de trouver
+un monument de ce genre plus fidèle sur le rapport historique, plus
+intéressant pour les arts, et plus digne d'être reproduit par la
+gravure. Je ferai en outre remarquer combien cet immense tableau de
+laine, qui est unique, renferme de détails précieux à la fois pour la
+panoplie, pour les costumes, et l'architecture du commencement du 16
+siècle, ainsi que pour l'histoire monumentale de Dijon."
+
+This tapestry, judging by the engravings in the work we quote, must be
+very beautiful. The groups are spirited and well disposed; and the
+countenances have so much _nature_ and expression in them, as to lead
+us readily to credit the opinion of the writer that they were
+portraits. The buildings are well outlined; and in the third piece an
+excellent effect is produced by exposing--by means of an open window,
+or some simple contrivance of the sort--part of the interior of the
+church of Nôtre Dame, and so displaying the brave leader of the French
+army, La Tremouille, as he offers thanks before the shrine of the
+Virgin.
+
+The tapestry was worked immediately after the siege of Dijon, (1513)
+and represents in three scenes the most important circumstances
+relating to it; the costumes, the arms, and the architecture of the
+time being displayed with fidelity and exactitude. The first
+represents the invading army before the walls; the second a solemn
+procession in honour of Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Espoir. In the midst is
+elevated the image of the Virgin, which is surrounded by the clergy in
+their festal vestments, by the religious communities, by the nobility,
+the bourgeois, and the military, all bearing torches.
+
+To this solemn procession was attributed the truce which led to a more
+lasting peace, though there are some heterodox dissentients who
+attribute this substantial advantage to the wisdom and policy of the
+able commander La Tremouille, who shared with Bayard the honourable
+distinction of being "sans peur et sans reproche."
+
+TAPISSERIES DE BAYARD.--A château which belonged to this noted hero
+was despoiled at the Revolution, and it was doubtless only owing to an
+idea of its worthlessness that some of the ancient tapestry was left
+there. These fragments, in a deplorable state, were purchased in 1807,
+and there are yet sufficient of them to bear testimony to their former
+magnificence, and to decide the date of their creation at the close
+of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century. The subjects
+are taken from Homer's "Iliad," and "il est probable (says M. Jubinal)
+que ce poëme se trouvait originairement reproduit en laine presque
+tout entier, malgré sa longueur, car ce n'était pas le travail qui
+effrayait nos aïeux."
+
+Valenciennes was celebrated for the peculiar fineness and gloss of its
+tapestry. By the indefatigable industry of certain antiquarians, some
+pieces in good preservation representing a tournament, have lately
+been taken from a garret, dismantled of their triple panoply of dust,
+cleaned and hung up; after being traced from their original abode in
+the state apartments of a prince through various gradations, to the
+damp walls of a registry office, where, from their apparent fragility
+alone, they escaped being cut into floor mats.
+
+Those of the CHATEAU D'HAROUE, and of the COLLECTION DUSOMMERARD, are
+also named here; but there is little to say about them, as the
+subjects are more imaginary than historical. They are of the sixteenth
+century, representing scenes of the chase, and are enlivened with
+birds in every position, some of them being, in proportion to other
+figures, certainly _larger_ than life, and "twice as natural."
+
+TAPISSERIES DE LA CHAISE DIEU.--"L'Abbaye de la Chaise Dieu fut fondée
+en 1046 par Robert qu'Alexandre 2de canonisa plus tard en 1070; et
+dont l'origine se rattachait à la famille des comtes de Poitou.
+
+"Robert fut destiné de bonne heure aux fonctions du sacerdoce." He
+went on pilgrimage to the tombs of some of the Apostles, and it was on
+his return thence that he was first struck with the idea of founding a
+coenobitical establishment.
+
+"Réuni à un soldat nommé Etienne, à un solitaire nommé Delmas, et à un
+chanoine nommé Arbert, il se retira dans la solitude, et s'emparant du
+désert au profit de la religion, il planta la croix du Sauveur dans
+les lieux jusqu'à-là couverts de forêts et de bruyères incultes, et
+rassembla quelques disciples pour vivre auprès de lui sous la règle
+qu'un ange lui avait, disait il, apportée du ciel.
+
+"Bientôt la réputation des cénobites s'étendit; Robert fut reconnu
+comme leur chef. De toutes parts on accourut les visiter. Des
+donations leur furent faites, et sur les ruines d'une ancienne église
+une nouvelle basilique s'éleva.
+
+"Telle est à peu prés l'histoire primitive de l'abbaye de la
+Chaise-Dieu."
+
+The Chaise-Dieu tapestries are fourteen in number, three of them are
+ten feet square, and the others are six feet high by eighteen long,
+excepting one which measures nearly twenty-six feet. Twelve are hung
+on the carved wood-work of the choir of the great church, and thus
+cover an immense space. Further off is the ancient choir of the monks,
+of which the wood-work of sculptured oak is surprisingly rich. Not
+even the cathedral of Rheims, of which the wood-work has long been
+regarded as the most beautiful in the kingdom, contains so great a
+number. Unhappily in times of intestine commotion this chef d'oeuvre
+has been horribly mutilated by the axes of modern iconoclasts, more
+ferocious than the barbarians of old. The two other tapestries are
+placed in the Church of the Penitents, an ancient refectory of the
+monks which now forms a dependent chapel to the great temple.
+
+These magnificent hangings are woven of wool and silk, and one yet
+perceives almost throughout, golden and silver threads which time has
+spared. When the artist prepared to copy them for the work we are
+quoting, no one dreamt of the richness buried beneath the accumulated
+dust and dirt of centuries. They were carefully cleaned, and then,
+says the artist, "Je suis ébloui de cette magnificence que nous ne
+soupçonnions plus. C'est admirable. Les Gobelins ne produisent pas
+aujourd'hui de tissus plus riches et plus éclatans. Imaginez-vous que
+les robes des femmes, les ornemens, les colonnettes sont émaillés,
+ruisselants de milliers de pierres fines et de perles," &c.
+
+It would be tedious to attempt to describe individually the subjects
+of these tapestries. They interweave the histories of the Old and New
+Testaments; the centre of the work generally representing some passage
+in the life of our Saviour, whilst on each side is some correspondent
+typical incident from the Old Testament. Above are rhymed quatrains,
+either legendary or scriptural; and below and around are sentences
+drawn from the prophets or the psalms.
+
+These tapestries appear to have been the production of the close of
+the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, denoting
+in the architecture and costumes _more_ the reigns of Charles VIII.
+and Louis XI., than of Louis XII. and Francis I. Such pieces were
+probably long in the loom, since the tapestry of Dijon, composed of a
+single _lai_ of twenty-one feet, required not less, according to a
+competent judge, than ten years' labour.
+
+There are some most beautiful, even amongst these all-beautiful
+engravings, which we much regret to see there--engravings of the
+tapestry in the cathedral of Aix, which tapestry ought still to enrich
+our own country. Shame on those under whose barbarous rule these,
+amongst other valuable and cherished monuments, were, as relics of
+papistry, bartered for foreign gold. "L'histoire manuscrite de la
+ville d'Aix dit que cette tapisserie avait servi à l'église de St.
+Paul de Londres ou à toute autre église cathédrale d'Angleterre; qu'à
+l'époque de la Réformation, les tableaux et les tapisseries ayant été
+exclus des temples, les Anglais cherchèrent à vendre dans les pays
+étrangers quelques-unes des tapisseries qui ornaient leurs
+cathédrales, et _qu'ils en brûlèrent un plus grand nombre_!"
+
+This tapestry represents the history of our Saviour, in twenty seven
+compartments, being in the whole about 187 feet long. It is supposed
+to have been woven about 1511, when William Warham was Archbishop of
+Canterbury, and Chancellor. Warham had been previously Bishop of
+London; and as his arms are on this tapestry, and also the arms of two
+prior bishops of London who are supposed to have left legacies to
+ornament the church which were applied towards defraying the expenses
+of this manufacture, it seems quite probable that its destination was
+St. Paul's, and not any other cathedral church. The arms of the king
+are inwrought in two places; for Henry contributed to the
+embellishment of this church. He loved the arts; he decorated
+churches; and though he seceded from the Roman communion, he
+maintained throughout his life magnificent decorations in his
+favourite churches as well as the worship of the ancient Catholic
+Church. It was first under Edward, and more decidedly under Elizabeth,
+that the ceremonies of the church were completely changed, and that
+those which had been considered only decent and becoming were
+stigmatised as popish. Nor did this fantasy reach its height until the
+time of Cromwell.
+
+Lord Douglas, Earl of Buchan, who founded the Society of Antiquaries
+in Edinburgh, endeavoured during the interval of the Peace of Amiens,
+to treat with the Archbishop of Aix for the repurchase of this
+tapestry. He would have placed it in a Gothic church belonging to an
+ancient Scotch Abbey on his domains. He had already ornamented this
+church with several beautiful monuments of antiquity, and he wished to
+place this tapestry there as a national monument, but the treaty was
+broken off.
+
+The TAPESTRIES OF AULHAC, representing the siege of Troy, and those of
+BEAUVAIS, embracing a variety of subjects from history both sacred and
+profane; of the LOUVRE, representing the Miracle of St. Quentin,
+tapestry representing ALEXANDER, King of Scotland; and those of ST.
+REMI, at Rheims, are all engraven and described.
+
+Those of the magnificent cathedral church at Rheims, consisting of
+forty tapestries, forming different collections, but all on religious
+subjects, will probably form the material for future numbers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That there are ancient tapestries existing in England fully equal to
+those in France is, we think, almost certain; but of course they are
+not to be summoned from the "vasty deep" of neglect and oblivion by
+the powerless voice of an obscure individual. Gladly would we, had it
+been in our power, have enriched our sketch by references to some of
+them.
+
+The following notice of a tapestry at Coventry is drawn from "Smith's
+Selections of the ancient Costume of Britain;" and the names of the
+tapestries at Hampton Court Palace from "Pyne's Royal Residences." We
+have recently visited Hampton Court for the express purpose of viewing
+the tapestries. There, we believe, they were, entirely (with the
+exception of a stray inch or two here and there) hung over with
+paintings.
+
+The splendid though neglected tapestry of St. Mary's Hall at Coventry
+offers a variety of materials no less interesting on account of the
+sanctity and misfortunes of the prince (Henry VI.) who is there
+represented, than curious as specimens of the arts of drawing, dyeing,
+and embroidery of the time in which it was executed.
+
+It is thirty feet in length and ten in height; and is divided into six
+compartments, three in the upper tier and three in the lower,
+containing in all upwards of eighty figures or heads. The centre
+compartment of the upper row, in its perfect and original state,
+represented the usual personification of the Trinity--(the Trinity
+Guild held its meetings in the hall of St. Mary) surrounded by angels
+bearing the various instruments of the Passion. But the zeal of our
+early reformers sacrificed this part of the work, and substituted in
+its stead a tasteless figure of Justice, which now holds the scales
+amidst the original group of surrounding angels.
+
+The right hand division of this tier is occupied with sundry figures
+of saints and martyrs, and the opposite side is filled with a group of
+female saints.
+
+In the centre compartment below is represented the Virgin Mary in the
+clouds, standing on the crescent, surrounded by the twelve Apostles
+and many cherubs. But the two remaining portions of this fine tapestry
+constitute its chief value and importance to the city of Coventry, as
+they represent the figures of Henry VI., his Queen, the ambitious, and
+crafty, and cruel, yet beautiful and eloquent and injured Margaret of
+Anjou, and many of their attendants. During all the misfortunes of
+Henry, the citizens of Coventry zealously supported him; and their
+city is styled by historians "Queen Margaret's secret bower." As the
+tapestry was purposely made for the hall, and probably placed there
+during the lives of the sovereigns, the figures may be considered as
+authentic portraits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first Presence Chamber in Hampton Court is (or was) hung with rich
+ancient tapestry, representing a landscape, with the figures of
+Nymphs, Fawns, Satyrs, Nereides, &c.
+
+There is some fine ancient tapestry in the King's Audience Chamber,
+the subjects being, on one side, Abraham and Lot dividing their lands;
+and on the other, God appearing to Abraham purchasing ground for a
+burying-place.
+
+The tapestry on the walls of the King's Drawing-Room represents
+Abraham entertaining the three Angels; also Abraham, Isaac, and
+Rebecca.
+
+The tapestry which covers three sides of the King's State Bedchamber
+represents the history of Joshua.
+
+The walls of the Queen's Audience Chamber are covered with tapestry
+hangings, which represent the story of Abraham and Melchisedec, and
+Abraham and Rebecca.
+
+The Ball Room is called also the Tapestry Gallery, from the superb
+suite of hangings that ornament its walls, which was brought from
+Flanders by General Cadogan, and set up by order of George I. The
+series of seven compartments describes the history of Alexander the
+Great, from the paintings of the celebrated Charles le Brun. The first
+represents the story of Alexander and his horse Bucephalus; the
+second, the visit of Alexander to Diogenes; the third, the passage of
+Alexander over the Granicus; the fourth, Alexander's visit to the
+mother and wife of Darius, in their tent, after the battle of Arbela;
+the fifth, Alexander's triumphal entrance into Babylon; the sixth,
+Alexander's battle with Porus; the seventh, his second entrance into
+Babylon.--These magnificent hangings were wrought at the Gobelins.
+
+The tapestry hangings in the king's private bedchamber describe the
+naval battle of Solebay between the combined fleets of England and
+France and the Dutch fleet, in 1672.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of all the tapestries here recorded, the last only, representing the
+Battle of Solebay, are now visible.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[125] "Les Anciennes Tapisseries Historiées, ou Collection des
+Monumens les plus remarquables, de ce genre, qui nous soient restés du
+moyen age." A Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+EMBROIDERY.
+
+    "Flowers, Plants and Fishes, Beasts, Birds, Flyes, and Bees,
+    Hils, Dales, Plaines, Pastures, Skies, Seas, Rivers, Trees,
+    There's nothing neere at hand, or farthest sought,
+    But with the Needle may be shap'd and wrought."
+
+                        John Taylor.
+
+
+Perhaps of all nations in very ancient times the Medes and Babylonians
+were most celebrated for the draperies of the apartments, about which
+they were even more anxious than about their attire. All their noted
+hangings with which their palaces were so gorgeously celebrated were
+wrought by the needle. And though now everywhere the loom is in
+request, still these and other eastern nations maintain great practice
+and unrivalled skill in needle embroidery. Sir John Chardin says of
+the Persians, "Their tailors certainly excel ours in their sewing.
+They make carpets, cushions, veils for doors, and other pieces of
+furniture of felt, in Mosaic work, which represents just what they
+please. This is done so neatly, that a man might suppose the figures
+were painted instead of being a kind of inlaid work. Look as close as
+you will, the joining cannot be seen;" and the Hall of Audience at
+Jeddo, we are told, is a sumptuous edifice; the roof covered with gold
+and silver of exquisite workmanship, the throne of massy gold enriched
+with pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones. The tapestry is of
+the finest silk, wrought by the _most curious hands_, and adorned with
+pearls, gold, and silver, and other costly embellishments.
+
+About the close of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century, the
+Caliph Moctadi's whole army, both horse and foot, (says Abulfeda) were
+under arms, which together made a body of 160,000 men. His state
+officers stood near him in the most splendid apparel, their belts
+shining with gold and gems. Near them were 7000 black and white
+eunuchs. The porters or door-keepers were in number 700. Barges and
+boats, with the most superb decorations, were swimming on the Tigris.
+Nor was the palace itself less splendid, in which were hung _38,000
+pieces of tapestry, 12,500 of which were of silk embroidered with
+gold_. The carpets on the floor were 22,000. A hundred lions were
+brought out with a keeper to each lion. Among the other spectacles of
+rare and stupendous luxury, was a tree of gold and silver, which
+opened itself into eighteen larger branches, upon which, and the other
+less branches sate birds of every sort, made also of gold and silver.
+The tree glittered with leaves of the same metals, and while its
+branches, through machinery, appeared to move of themselves, the
+several birds upon them warbled their natural notes.
+
+The skill of the eastern embroiderer has always had a wide field for
+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 Sorbonæ, 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, Angliæ, Franciæ,
+Hiberniæq. regi, fidei defensori, et secundum Christum ecclesiæ
+Anglicanæ et Hibernicæ 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 scripturæ 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
+Britannicæ Ecclesiæ:" 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 _recherché_
+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 degnò 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 Goëthe 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 Goëthe, 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 _élégante_--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 charité_ 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 _bonâ 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: "Aulmonière. 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 mûrissent--"... et comme on voit à certains
+    arbres des fruits qui ne mûrissent jamais; ..."
+
+    Page 27--footsep amended to footstep--"Each accidental
+    passer hushed his footstep ..."
+
+    Page 42--le amended to la--"Suivant la différence des
+    états, elles apprennent à lire, ..."
+
+    Page 42--elle amended to elles--"... mais elles insistent
+    beaucoup plus sur la nécessité
+..."
+
+    Page 83--supurb amended to superb--"... seated on a
+    superb throne, and crowned with the papal tiara."
+
+    Page 99, footnote--lvo. amended to vol.--"Archæologia,
+    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 mépris 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 Cæsar 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 ciò ch'è
+    più, essi variano in cento modi senza uscir mai dal
+    naturale, ..."
+
+    Page 273, footnote--ridusce amended to ridusse--"...
+    tutte comprese con la divinità del suo ingegno, tutto
+    ridusse più 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 Téméraire, lors de la mort de ce prince, ..."
+
+    Page 332--intérressant amended to intéressant--"... plus
+    intéressant pour les arts, et plus digne d'être
+    reproduit par la gravure."
+
+    Page 334--destinée amended to destiné--"Robert fut
+    destiné de bonne heure aux fonctions du sacerdoce."
+
+    Page 335--jusque-là converts amended to jusqu'à-là
+    couverts--"... il planta la croix du Sauveur dans les
+    lieux jusqu'à-là couverts de forêts et de bruyères
+    incultes, ..."
+
+    Page 336--émaillées amended to émaillés, and
+    ruisselantes amended to ruisselants--"... les
+    colonnettes sont émaillés, 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; ..."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Art of Needle-work, from the
+Earliest Ages, 3rd ed., by Elizabeth Stone
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Art of Needlework, from the Earliest Ages, by Elizabeth Stone.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest
+Ages, 3rd ed., by Elizabeth Stone
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages, 3rd ed.
+       Including Some Notices of the Ancient Historical Tapestries
+
+Author: Elizabeth Stone
+
+Editor: Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton Wilton
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2010 [EBook #31714]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART OF NEEDLE-WORK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller, Sam W. and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<p><b>Transcriber's Note</b></p>
+
+<p>There is a small amount of Greek in this text, which may require adjustment
+of your browser settings to display correctly. A transliteration of
+each word is included. Hover your mouse over words underlined with a
+<ins class="greek" title="like this">faint red dotted line</ins> to see
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Some words in the text have been contracted. To see the full word, hover
+your mouse over words underlined with a <ins class="contr" title="like this">faint
+grey dotted line</ins>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h1 class="padtop">THE ART<br />
+<br />
+<span class="xsmlfont">OF</span><br />
+<br />
+NEEDLE-WORK,<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">FROM THE EARLIEST AGES;</span></h1>
+
+<p class="center smlpadt smlfont">INCLUDING</p>
+
+<p class="center smlfont">SOME NOTICES OF THE</p>
+
+<p class="center xlrgfont">ANCIENT HISTORICAL TAPESTRIES</p>
+
+
+<p class="center padtop smlfont">EDITED BY</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE RIGHT HONOURABLE</p>
+
+<p class="center xlrgfont">THE COUNTESS OF WILTON.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center padtop smlfont">&ldquo;I WRITE THE NEEDLE&rsquo;S PRAYSE.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<p class="center padtop"><i>THIRD EDITION.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center padtop padbase">LONDON:<br />
+<span class="lrgfont">HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,</span><br />
+<span class="smlfont">GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.</span><br />
+&mdash;&mdash;<br />
+1841.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p class="center padtop fsmlfont">TO</p>
+
+<p class="center">HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY</p>
+
+<p class="center xlrgfont">THE QUEEN DOWAGER</p>
+
+<p class="center">THIS LITTLE WORK,</p>
+
+<p class="center fsmlfont">INTENDED TO ILLUSTRATE THE HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF AN ART<br />
+ENNOBLED BY HER MAJESTY&rsquo;S PRACTICE, AND BY HER EXAMPLE<br />
+RECOMMENDED TO THE</p>
+
+<p class="center">WOMEN OF ENGLAND,</p>
+
+<p class="center fsmlfont">IS,</p>
+
+<p class="center fsmlfont">BY HER MAJESTY&rsquo;S MOST GRACIOUS PERMISSION,</p>
+
+<p class="center">INSCRIBED,</p>
+
+<p class="center fsmlfont">WITH THE UTMOST RESPECT,</p>
+
+<p class="center fsmlfont smlpadr smlpadt">BY HER MAJESTY&rsquo;S MOST GRATEFUL</p>
+
+<p class="center fsmlfont smlpadl">AND MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,</p>
+
+<p class="center padbase lrgpadl">THE AUTHORESS.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>v]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>If there be one mechanical art of more universal
+application than all others, and therefore of more
+universal interest, it is that which is practised with
+the <span class="smcap">Needle</span>. From the stateliest denizen of the
+proudest palace, to the humblest dweller in the
+poorest cottage, all more or less ply the busy needle;
+from the crying infant of a span long and an hour&rsquo;s
+life, to the silent tenant of &ldquo;the narrow house,&rdquo; all
+need its practical services.</p>
+
+<p>Yet have the <span class="smcap">Needle</span> and its beautiful and useful
+creations hitherto remained without their due meed
+of praise and record, either in sober prose or sounding
+rhyme,&mdash;while their glittering antithesis, the
+scathing and destroying sword, has been the theme
+of admiring and exulting record, without limit and
+without end!</p>
+
+<p>The progress of real civilization is rapidly putting
+an end to this false <em>prestige</em> in favour of the
+&ldquo;Destructive&rdquo; weapon, and as rapidly raising the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>vi]</a></span>
+&ldquo;Conservative&rdquo; one in public estimation; and the
+time seems at length arrived when that triumph of
+female ingenuity and industry, &ldquo;<span class="smcap">The Art of Needlework</span>&rdquo;
+may be treated as a fitting subject of historical
+and social record&mdash;fitting at least for a female hand.</p>
+
+<p>The chief aim of this volume is that of affording a
+comprehensive record of the most noticeable facts, and
+an entertaining and instructive gathering together
+of the most curious and pleasing associations, connected
+with &ldquo;<span class="smcap">The Art of Needlework</span>,&rdquo; from the
+earliest ages to the present day; avoiding entirely
+the dry technicalities of the art, yet furnishing an
+acceptable accessory to every work-table&mdash;a fitting
+tenant of every boudoir.</p>
+
+<p>The Authoress thinks thus much necessary in explanation
+of the objects of a work on what may be
+called a maiden topic, and she trusts that that
+leniency in criticism which is usually accorded to the
+adventurer on an unexplored track will not be withheld
+from her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="60%" summary="Table of contents">
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER I.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tdr fsmlfont">Page</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Introductory</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER II.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Early Needlework</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER III.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Needlework of the Tabernacle</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Needlework of the Egyptians</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER V.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Needlework of the Greeks and Romans</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">The Dark Ages.&mdash;&ldquo;Shee-Schools&rdquo;</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>viii]</a></span>CHAPTER VII.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Needlework of the Dark Ages</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">The Bayeux Tapestry.&mdash;Part I.</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER IX.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">The Bayeux Tapestry.&mdash;Part II.</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER X.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Needlework of the Times of Romance and Chivalry</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XI.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Tapestry</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XII.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Romances worked in Tapestry</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIII.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Needlework in Costume.&mdash;Part I.</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIV.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Needlework in Costume.&mdash;Part II.</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XV.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">&ldquo;The Field of the Cloth of Gold&rdquo;</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVI.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">The Needle</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_252">252</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>ix]</a></span>CHAPTER XVII.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Tapestry from the Cartoons</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVIII.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">The Days of &ldquo;Good Queen Bess&rdquo;</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_282">282</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIX.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">The Tapestry of the Spanish Armada; better known as the Tapestry of the House of Lords</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_301">301</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XX.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">On Stitchery</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_312">312</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXI.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">&ldquo;Les Anciennes Tapisseries.&rdquo; Tapestry of St. Mary Hall, Coventry. Tapestry of Hampton Court</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_329">329</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXII.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Embroidery</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_342">342</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXIII.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Needlework on Books</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_355">355</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXIV.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Needlework of Royal Ladies</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_374">374</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXV.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Modern Needlework</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_395">395</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1 class="padtop">THE ART<br />
+<br />
+<span class="xsmlfont">OF</span><br />
+<br />
+NEEDLEWORK.</h1>
+
+
+
+<h2 class="padtop">INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+
+
+<h2 class="smlpadt">CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0" lang="it" xml:lang="it">&ldquo;Le donne son venute in eccellenza<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="it" xml:lang="it">Di ciascun&rsquo;arte, ove hanno posto cura;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="it" xml:lang="it">E qualunque all&rsquo;istorie abbia avvertenza,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ne sente ancor la fama non oscura.<br /></span>
+<span class="i3"> * <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> * <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> *<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="it" xml:lang="it">E forse ascosi han lor debiti onori<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="it" xml:lang="it">L&rsquo;invidia, o il non saper degli scrittori.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Ariosto.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>In all ages woman may lament the ungallant
+silence of the historian. His pen is the record of
+sterner actions than are usually the vocation of the
+gentler sex, and it is only when fair individuals have
+been by extraneous circumstances thrown out, as
+it were, on the canvas of human affairs&mdash;when they
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>2]</a></span>
+have been forced into a publicity little consistent
+with their natural sphere&mdash;that they have become his
+theme. Consequently those domestic virtues which
+are woman&rsquo;s greatest pride, those retiring characteristics
+which are her most becoming ornament,
+those gentle occupations which are her best employment,
+find no record on pages whose chief aim and
+end is the blazoning of manly heroism, of royal disputations,
+or of trumpet-stirring records. And if this
+is the case even with historians of enlightened times,
+who have the gallantry to allow woman to be a component
+part of creation, we can hardly wonder that
+in darker days she should be utterly and entirely
+overlooked.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammed asserted that women had no souls;
+and moreover, that, setting aside the &ldquo;diviner part,&rdquo;
+there had only existed <em>four</em> of whom the mundane
+qualifications entitled them to any degree of approbation.
+Before him, Aristotle had asserted that
+Nature only formed women when and because she
+found that the imperfection of matter did not permit
+her to carry on the world without them.</p>
+
+<p>This complimentary doctrine has not wanted supporters.
+&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Des hommes tr&egrave;s sages ont &eacute;crit que la
+Nature, dont l&rsquo;intention et le dessein est toujours de
+tendre &agrave; la perfection, ne produirait s&rsquo;il &eacute;tait possible,
+jamais que des hommes, et que quand il na&icirc;t
+une femme c&rsquo;est un monstre dans l&rsquo;ordre de ses productions,
+n&eacute; express&eacute;ment contre sa volont&eacute;: ils
+ajoutent, que, comme on voit na&icirc;tre un homme
+aveugle, boiteux, ou avec quelqu&rsquo;autre d&eacute;faut nature;
+et comme on voit &agrave; certains arbres des fruits
+qui ne m&ucirc;rissent jamais; ainsi l&rsquo;on peut dire que la
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>3]</a></span>
+femme est un animal produit par accident et par le
+hasard.</span>&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>Without touching upon this extreme assertion that
+woman is but &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">un monstre</span>,&rdquo; an animal produced
+by chance, we may observe briefly, that women have
+ever, with some few exceptions,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> been considered as
+a degraded and humiliated race, until the promulgation
+of the Christian religion elevated them in society:
+and that this distinction still exists is evident
+from the difference at this moment exhibited between
+the countries professing Mohammedanism and
+those professing Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>Still, though in our happy country it is now pretty
+generally allowed that women are &ldquo;des cr&eacute;atures
+humaines,&rdquo; it is no new remark that they are comparatively
+lightly thought of by the &ldquo;nobler&rdquo; gender.
+This is absolutely the case even in those countries
+where civilization and refinement have elevated
+the sex to a higher grade in society than they ever
+before reached. Women are courted, flattered,
+caressed, extolled; but still the difference is there,
+and the &ldquo;lords of the creation&rdquo; take care that it
+shall be understood. Their own pursuits&mdash;public,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>4]</a></span>
+are the theme of the historian&mdash;private, of the biographer;
+nay, the every-day circumstances of life&mdash;their
+dinners&mdash;their speeches&mdash;their toasts&mdash;and
+their <i>post c&oelig;nam</i> eloquence, are noted down for immortality:
+whilst a woman with as much sense, with more
+eloquence, with lofty principles, enthusiastic feelings,
+and pure conduct&mdash;with sterling virtue to command
+respect, and the self-denying conduct of a martyr&mdash;steals
+noiselessly through her appointed path in life;
+and if she excite a passing comment during her
+pilgrimage, is quickly lost in oblivion when that pilgrimage
+hath reached its appointed goal.</p>
+
+<p>And this is but as it should be. Woe to that
+nation whose women, as a habit, as a custom, as a
+matter of course, seek to intrude on the attributes of
+the other sex, and in a vain, a foolish, and surely a
+most unsuccessful pursuit of publicity, or power,
+or fame, forget the distinguishing, the high, the
+noble, the lofty, the pure and <em>unearthly</em> vocation
+of their sex. Every earthly charity, every unearthly
+virtue, are the legitimate object of woman&rsquo;s pursuit.
+It is hers to soothe pain, to alleviate suffering, to
+soften discord, to solace the time-worn spirit on
+earth, to train the youthful one for heaven. Such is
+woman&rsquo;s magnificent vocation; and in the peaceful
+discharge of such duties as these she may be content
+to steal noiselessly on to her appointed bourne,
+&ldquo;the world forgetting, by the world forgot.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But these splendid results are not the effect of
+great exertions&mdash;of sudden, and uncertain, and enthusiastic
+efforts. They are the effect of a course,
+of a system of minor actions and of occupations,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>5]</a></span>
+<em>individually</em> insignificant in their appearance, and
+noiseless in their approach. They are like &ldquo;the gentle
+dew from heaven&rdquo; in their silent unnoted progress,
+and, like that, are known only by their blessed results.</p>
+
+<p>They involve a routine of minor duties which
+often appear, at first view, little if at all connected
+with such mighty ends. But such an inference
+would lead to a false conclusion. It is entirely of
+insignificant details that the sum of human life is
+made up; and any one of those details, how insignificant
+soever <em>apparently</em> in itself, as a link in
+the chain of human life is of <em>definite</em> relative value.
+The preparing of a spoonful of gruel may seem a
+very insignificant matter; yet who that stands by the
+sick-bed of one near and dear to him, and sees the
+fevered palate relieved, the exhausted frame refreshed
+by it, but will bless the hand that made it?
+It is not the independent intrinsic worth of each
+isolated action of woman which stamps its value&mdash;it
+is their bearing and effect on the mass. It is the
+daily and hourly accumulation of minute particles
+which form the vast amount.</p>
+
+<p>And if we look for that feminine employment
+which adds most absolutely to the comforts and the
+elegancies of life, to what other shall we refer than
+to <small>NEEDLEWORK</small>? The hemming of a pocket-handkerchief
+is a trivial thing in itself, yet it is a branch
+of an art which furnishes a useful, a graceful,
+and an agreeable occupation to one-half of the
+human race, and adds very materially to the comforts
+of the other half.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>6]</a></span>
+How sings our own especial Bard?&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;So long as garments shall be made or worne;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So long as hemp, or flax, or sheep shall bear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their linnen wollen fleeces yeare by yeare;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So long as silkwormes, with exhausted spoile<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of their own entrailes, for mans gaine shall toyle:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yea, till the world be quite dissolv&rsquo;d and past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So long, at least, the <small>NEEDLE&rsquo;S</small> use shall last.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>&rsquo;Tis true, indeed, that as far as <em>necessity</em>, rigidly
+speaking, is concerned, a very small portion of
+needlework would suffice; but it is also true that the
+very signification of the word necessity is lost, buried
+amidst the accumulations of ages. We talk habitually
+of <em>mere necessaries</em>, but the fact is, that we
+have hardly an idea of what merely necessities are.</p>
+
+<p>St. Paul, the hermit, when abiding in the wilderness,
+might be reduced to necessities; and in that
+noble and exalted instance of high principle referred
+to by Mr. Wesley,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> where a person unknown to
+others, seeking no praise, and looking to no reward
+but the applaudings of his own conscience, bought
+a pennyworth of parsnips weekly, and on them, and
+them alone, with the water in which they were boiled,
+lived, that he might save money to pay his debts.&mdash;Surely
+a man of such incorruptible integrity as this
+would spend nothing intentionally in superfluities of
+dress&mdash;and yet, mark how many he would have.
+His shirt would be &ldquo;curiously wrought,&rdquo; his neckcloth
+neatly hemmed; his coat and waistcoat and
+trousers would have undergone the usual mysteries
+of shaping and seaming; his hat would be neatly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>7]</a></span>
+bound round the edge; his stockings woven or
+knitted; his shoes soled and stitched and tied; neither
+must we debar him a pocket-handkerchief and
+a pair of gloves. And see what this man&mdash;as great,
+nay, a greater anchoret in his way than St. Paul,
+for he had the world and its temptations all around,
+while the saint had fled from both&mdash;yet see what <em>he</em>
+thought absolutely requisite in lieu of the sheepskin
+which was St. Paul&rsquo;s wardrobe. See what was required
+&ldquo;to cover and keep warm&rdquo; in the eighteenth
+century,&mdash;nay, not even to &ldquo;keep warm,&rdquo; for we
+did not allow either great-coat or comforter. See
+then what was required merely to &ldquo;cover,&rdquo; and then
+say whether the art of needlework is a trivial one.</p>
+
+<p>Could we, as in days of yore, when sylphs and
+fairies deigned to mingle with mortals, and shed
+their gracious influence on the scenes and actions of
+every-day life&mdash;could we, by some potent spell or
+by some fitting oblation, propitiate the Genius of
+Needlework, induce her to descend from her hidden
+shrine, and indulge her votaries with a glimpse
+of her radiant <small>SELF</small>&mdash;what a host of varied reminiscences
+would that glimpse conjure up in our
+minds, as&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;guided by historic truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We <em>trod</em> the long extent of backward time!&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">She</span> was twin born with necessity, the first necessity
+the world had ever known, but she quickly left
+this stern and unattractive companion, and followed
+many leaders in her wide and varied range. She
+became the handmaiden of Fancy; she adorned the
+train of Magnificence; she waited upon Pomp; she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>8]</a></span>
+decorated Religion; she obeyed Charity; she served
+Utility; she aided Pleasure; she pranked out Fun;
+and she mingled with all and every circumstance of
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Many changes and chances has it been her lot to
+behold. At one time honoured and courted, she
+was the acknowledged and cherished guest of the
+royal and noble. Then in gorgeous drapery, begemmed
+with brilliants, bedropped with gold, she reigned
+supreme in hall and palace; or in silken tissue girt
+she adorned the high-born maiden&rsquo;s bower what time
+the &ldquo;deeds of knighthood&rdquo; were &ldquo;in solemn canto&rdquo;
+told. In still more rich array, in kingly purple, in
+regal tissue, in royal magnificence, she stood within
+the altar&rsquo;s sacred pale; and her robes, rich in Tyrian
+dye, and glittering with Ophir&rsquo;s gold, swept the
+hallowed pavement. When battle aroused the land
+she inspirited the host. When the banner was unfurled
+she pointed to the device which sent its message
+home to every heart; she displayed the cipher
+on the hero&rsquo;s pennon which nerved him sooner to
+relinquish life than it; she entwined those initials
+in the scarf, the sight of which struck fresh ardour
+into his breast.</p>
+
+<p>But she fell into disrepute, and was rejected from
+the halls of the noble. Still was she ever busy, ever
+occupied, and not only were her services freely given
+to all who required them, but given with such
+winning grace that she required but to be once
+known to be ever loved&mdash;so exquisitely did she
+adapt herself to the peculiarities of all.</p>
+
+<p>With flowing ringlets and silken robe, carolling
+gaily as she worked, you would see her pinking the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>9]</a></span>
+ruffles of the Cavalier, and ever and anon adding to
+their piquancy by some new and dainty device: then
+you would behold her with smoothly plaited hair,
+and sad-coloured garment of serge, and looks like a
+November day, hemming the bands of a Roundhead,
+and withal adding numerous layers of starch. With
+grave and sedate aspect she would shape and
+sew the uncomely raiment of a Genevan divine;
+with neat-handed alacrity she would prepare the
+grave and becoming garments of the Anglican
+Church, though perhaps a gentle sigh would
+escape, a sigh of regret for the stately and glowing
+vestments of old: for they did honour to the house
+of God, not because they were stately and glowing,
+but because they were offerings of <em>our best</em>.</p>
+
+<p>In all the sweet charities of domestic life she has
+ever been a participant. Often and again has she
+fled the splendid court, the glittering ball-room, and
+taken her station at the quiet hearth of the gentle
+and home-loving matron. She has lightened the
+weariness of many a solitary vigil, and she has
+heightened the enjoyment of many a social gossip.</p>
+
+<p>Nor even while courted and caressed in courts
+and palaces did Needlework absent herself from the
+habitations of the poor. Oh no, she was their familiar
+friend, the daily and hourly companion of their
+firesides. And when she experienced, as all do
+experience, the fickleness of court favour, she was
+cherished and sheltered there. And there she remained,
+happy in her utility, till again summoned
+by royal mandate to resume her station near the
+throne. The illustrious and excellent lady who lately
+filled the British throne, and who reigned still more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>10]</a></span>
+surely in the hearts of Englishwomen, and who has
+most graciously permitted us to place her honoured
+name on these pages, allured Needlework from her
+long seclusion, and reinstated her in her once familiar
+place among the great and noble.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<p>Fair reader! you see that this gentle dame <span class="smcap">Needlework</span>
+is of ancient lineage, of high descent, of
+courtly habits: will you not permit me to make you
+somewhat better acquainted? Pray travel onward
+with me to her shrine. The way is not toilsome, nor
+is the track rugged; but,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Where the silver fountains wander,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the golden streams meander,&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>amid the sunny meads and flower-bestrewn paths of
+fancy and taste&mdash;there will she beguile us. Do not
+then, pray do not, forsake me.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>
+<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">On aurait de la peine &agrave; se persuader qu&rsquo;une pareille opinion e&ucirc;t
+&eacute;t&eacute; mise gravement en question dans un concile, et qu&rsquo;on n&rsquo;e&ucirc;t
+d&eacute;cid&eacute; en faveur des femmes qu&rsquo;apr&egrave;s un assez long examen.
+Cependant le fait est tr&egrave;s v&eacute;ritable, et ce fut dans le Concile de
+Macon.</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Probl&egrave;me sur les Femmes, o&ugrave; l&rsquo;on essaye de prouver que
+les femmes ne sont point des cr&eacute;atures humaines.</span>&mdash;<i>Amsterdam,
+1744.</i></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>
+As, for instance, the ancient Germans, and their offshoots, the
+Saxons, &amp;c.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a>
+Southey&rsquo;s Life; vol. ii.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>11]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">EARLY NEEDLEWORK.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The use of sewing is exceeding old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As in the sacred text it is enrold:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our parents first in Paradise began.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">John Taylor.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The rose was in rich bloom on Sharon&rsquo;s plain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When a young mother, with her first-born, thence<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Went up to Sion; for the boy was vow&rsquo;d<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unto the Temple service. By the hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She led him; and her silent soul the while,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oft as the dewy laughter of his eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Met her sweet serious glance, rejoic&rsquo;d to think<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That aught so pure, so beautiful, was hers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bring before her God.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Hemans.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>In speaking of the origin of needlework it will be
+necessary to define accurately what we mean by the
+term &ldquo;needlework;&rdquo; or else, when we assert that
+Eve was the first sempstress, we may be taken to
+task by some critical antiquarian, because we may
+not be able precisely to prove that the frail and
+beautiful mother of mankind made use of a little
+weapon of polished steel, finely pointed at one end
+and bored at the other, and &ldquo;warranted not to cut
+in the eye.&rdquo; Assuredly we do not mean to assert
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>12]</a></span>
+that she did use such an instrument; most probably&mdash;we
+would <em>almost</em> venture to say most <em>certainly</em>&mdash;she
+did not. But then again the cynical critic
+would attack us:&mdash;&ldquo;You say that Eve was the first
+professor of <em>needle</em>work, and yet you disclaim the
+use of a needle for her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>No, good sir, we do not. Like other profound
+investigators and original commentators, we do not
+annihilate one hypothesis ere we are prepared with
+another, &ldquo;ready cut and dried,&rdquo; to rise, like any
+fabled phoenix, on the ashes of its predecessor. It
+is not long since we were edified by a conversation
+which we heard, or rather overheard, between two
+sexagenarians&mdash;both well versed in antiquarian lore,
+and neither of them deficient in antiquarian tenacity
+of opinion&mdash;respecting some theory which one
+of them wanted to establish about some aborigines.
+The concluding remark of the conversation&mdash;and we
+opined that it might as well have formed the commencement&mdash;was&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you want to lay down <em>facts</em>, you must follow
+history; if you want to establish a system, it is
+quite easy to place the people where you like.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>So, if I wished to &ldquo;establish a system,&rdquo; I could
+easily make Eve work with a &ldquo;superfine drill-eyed
+needle:&rdquo; but this is not my object.</p>
+
+<p>It seems most probable that Eve&rsquo;s first needle
+was a thorn:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Before man&rsquo;s fall the rose was born,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">St. Ambrose sayes, without the thorn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, for man&rsquo;s fault, then was the thorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without the fragrant rosebud, born.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Why thorns should spring up at the precise
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>13]</a></span>
+moment of the fall is difficult to account for in a world
+where everything has its use, except we suppose
+that they were meant for needles: and general
+analogy leads us to this conclusion; for in almost all
+existing records of people in what we are pleased
+to call a &ldquo;savage&rdquo; state, we find that women make
+use of this primitive instrument, or a fish-bone.
+&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Avant l&rsquo;invention des aiguilles d&rsquo;acier, on a d&ucirc;
+se servir, &agrave; leur d&eacute;faut, d&rsquo;&eacute;pines, ou d&rsquo;ar&ecirc;tes de
+poissons, ou d&rsquo;os d&rsquo;animaux.</span>&rdquo; And as Eve&rsquo;s first
+specimen of needlework was certainly completed
+before the sacrifice of any living thing, we may
+safely infer that the latter implements were not
+familiar to her. The Cimbrian inhabitants of
+Britain passed their time in weaving baskets, or in
+sewing together for garments the skins of animals
+taken in the chase, while they used as needles for
+uniting these simple habiliments small bones of
+fish or animals rudely sharpened at one end; and
+needles just of the same sort were used by the
+inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, when the celebrated
+Captain Cook first visited them.</p>
+
+<p>Proceed we to the material of the first needlework.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They sewed themselves fig-leaves together, and
+made themselves aprons.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Thus the earliest historical record; and thus the
+most esteemed poetical commentator.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">&ldquo;Those leaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They gather&rsquo;d, broad as Amazonian targe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, with what skill they had, together sew&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To gird their waist.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is supposed that the leaves alluded to here were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>14]</a></span>
+those of the banian-tree, of which the leaves, says
+Sir James Forbes, are large, soft, and of a lively
+green; the fruit a small bright scarlet fig. The
+Hindoos are peculiarly fond of this tree; they consider
+its long duration, its outstretching arms, and
+overshadowing beneficence, as emblems of the Deity,
+and almost pay it divine honours. The Brahmins,
+who thus &ldquo;find a fane in every sacred grove,&rdquo;
+spend much of their time in religious solitude, under
+the shade of the banian-tree; they plant it near
+the dewals, or Hindoo temples; and in those villages
+where there is no structure for public worship,
+they place an image under one of these trees, and
+there perform morning and evening sacrifice. The
+size of some of these trees is stupendous. Sir James
+Forbes mentions one which has three hundred and
+fifty <em>large</em> trunks, the smaller ones exceeding three
+thousand; and another, whereunder the chief of the
+neighbourhood used to encamp in magnificent style;
+having a saloon, dining room, drawing-room, bedchambers,
+bath, kitchen, and every other accommodation,
+all in separate tents; yet did this noble tree
+cover the whole, together with his carriages, horses,
+camels, guards, and attendants; while its spreading
+branches afforded shady spots for the tents of his
+friends, with their servants and cattle. And in the
+march of an army it has been known to shelter
+seven thousand men.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the banian-tree, the pride of Hind&ucirc;stan:
+which Milton refers to as the one which served
+&ldquo;our general mother&rdquo; for her first essay in the art
+of needlework.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>15]</a></span>
+<span class="i4">&ldquo;Both together went<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fig-tree; not that tree for fruit renown&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But such as at this day, to Indians known,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Malabar or Deccan spreads her arms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Branching so broad and long, that in the ground<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">About the mother tree, a pillar&rsquo;d shade<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">High overarch&rsquo;d, and echoing walks between:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At loopholes cut through thickest shade: Those leaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They gather&rsquo;d, broad as Amazonian targe;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, with what skill they had, together sew&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To gird their waist.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Some of the most interesting incidents in Holy
+Writ turn on the occupation of needlework; slight
+sketches, nay, hardly so much, but mere touches
+which engage all the gentler, and purer, and holier
+emotions of our nature. For instance: the beloved
+child of the beautiful mother of Israel, for whom
+Jacob toiled fourteen years, which were but as one
+day for the love he bare her&mdash;this child, so eagerly
+coveted by his mother, so devotedly loved by his
+father, and who was destined hereafter to wield the
+destinies of such a mighty empire&mdash;had a token,
+a peculiar token, bestowed on him of his father&rsquo;s
+overwhelming love and affection. And what was it?
+&ldquo;A coat of many colours;&rdquo; probably including some
+not in general use, and obtained by an elaborate
+process. Entering himself into the minuti&aelig; of a
+concern, which, however insignificant in itself, was
+valuable in his eyes as giving pleasure to his boy,
+the fond father selects pieces of various-coloured
+cloth, and sets female hands, the most expert of his
+household, to join them together in the form of a
+coat.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>16]</a></span>
+But, alas! to whom should he intrust the task?
+She whose fingers would have revelled in it, Rachel
+the mother, was no more; her warm heart was cold,
+her busy fingers rested in the tomb. Would his
+sister, would Dinah execute the work? No; it was
+but too probable that she shared in the jealousy of
+her brothers. No matter. The father apportions
+the task to his handmaidens, and himself superintends
+the performance. With pleased eye he
+watches its progress, and with benignant smile he
+invests the happy and gratified child with the
+glowing raiment.</p>
+
+<p>This elaborate piece of work, the offering of paternal
+affection to please a darling child, was probably
+the simple and somewhat clumsy original of
+those which were afterwards embroidered and subsequently
+woven in various colours, and which came
+to be regarded as garments of dignity and appropriated
+to royalty; as it is said of Tamar that &ldquo;she
+had a garment of divers colours upon her: for with
+such robes were the king&rsquo;s daughters that were
+virgins apparelled.&rdquo; It is even now customary in
+India to dress a favourite or beautiful child in a
+coat of various colours tastefully <em>sewed together</em>;
+and it may not perhaps be very absurd to refer
+even to so ancient an origin as Joseph&rsquo;s coat of
+many colours the superstition now prevalent in some
+countries, which teaches that a child clothed in a
+garment of many colours is safe from the blasting
+of malicious tongues or the machinations of evil
+spirits.</p>
+
+<p>In the Book of Samuel we read, &ldquo;And Hannah
+his mother, made him a little coat.&rdquo; This seems a
+trivial incident enough, yet how interesting is the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>17]</a></span>
+scene which this simple mention conjures up! With
+all the earnest fervour of that separated race who
+hoped each one to be the honoured instrument of
+bringing a Saviour into the world, Hannah, then
+childless, prayed that this reproach might be taken
+from her. Her prayer was heard, her son was born;
+and in holy gratitude she reared him, not for wealth,
+for fame, for worldly honour, or even for her own
+domestic comfort,&mdash;but, from his birth, and before
+his birth she devoted him as the servant of the
+Most High. She indulged herself with his presence
+only till her maternal cares had fitted him for duty;
+and then, with a tearful eye it might be, and a faltering
+footstep, but an unflinching resolution, she
+devoted him to the altar of her God.</p>
+
+<p>But never did his image leave her mind: never
+amid the fair scions which sprang up and bloomed
+around her hearth did her thoughts forsake her
+first-born; and yearly, when she went up to the
+Tabernacle with Elkanah her husband, did she
+take him &ldquo;a little coat&rdquo; which she had made. We
+may fancy her quiet happy thoughts when at this
+employment; we may fancy the eager earnest questionings
+of the little group by whom she was surrounded;
+the wondering about their absent brother;
+the anxious catechisings respecting his whereabouts;
+and, above all, the admiration of the new garment
+itself, and the earnest criticisms on it; especially if
+in form and fashion it should somewhat differ from
+their own. And then arrives the moment when the
+garment is committed to its envelope; and the
+mother, weeping to part from her little ones, yet
+longing to see her absent boy, receives their adieux
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>18]</a></span>
+and their thousand reminiscences, and sets forth on
+her journey.</p>
+
+<p>Again she treads the hallowed courts, again she
+meekly renews her vows, and again a mother&rsquo;s longings,
+a mother&rsquo;s hopes are quenched in the full enjoyment
+of a mother&rsquo;s love. Beautiful and good, the
+blessing of Heaven attending him, and throwing a
+beam of light on his fair brow, the pure and holy child
+appears like a seraph administering at that altar to
+which he had been consecrated a babe, and at which
+his ministry was sanctioned even by the voice of the
+Most High himself, when in the solemn stillness of
+midnight he breathed his wishes into the heart of
+the child, and made him, infant as he was, the
+medium of his communications to one grown hoary
+in the service of the altar.</p>
+
+<p>The solemn duties ended, Hannah invests her
+hopeful boy with the little coat, whilst her willing
+fingers lingeringly perform their office, as if loth to
+quit a task in which they so much delight. And then
+with meek step and grateful heart she wends her
+homeward way, and meditates tranquilly on the past
+interview, till the return of another year finds her
+again on her pilgrimage of love&mdash;the joyful bearer
+of another &ldquo;little coat.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And a high tribute is paid to needlework in the
+history of Dorcas, who was restored to life by the
+apostle St. Peter, by whom &ldquo;all the widows stood
+weeping, and showing the coats and garments which
+Dorcas made while she was with them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&ldquo;In these were read<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The monuments of Dorcas dead:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These were thy acts, and thou shalt have<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These hung as honours o&rsquo;er thy grave:<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>19]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And after us, distressed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Should fame be dumb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thy very tomb<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would cry out, Thou art blessed!&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But it is not merely as an object of private and
+domestic utility that needlework is referred to in
+the Bible. It was applied early to the service of
+the Tabernacle, and the directions concerning it are
+very clear and specific; but before this time, and most
+probably as early as the time of Abraham, rich and
+valuable raiment of needlework was accounted of
+as part of the <i>bon&acirc; fide</i> property of a wealthy man.
+When the patriarch&rsquo;s steward sought Rebekah for
+the wife of Isaac, he &ldquo;brought forth jewels of silver,
+and jewels of gold, and <em>raiment</em>.&rdquo; This &ldquo;raiment&rdquo;
+consisted, in all likelihood, of garments embroidered
+with gold, the handiwork, it may be, of the female
+slaves of the patriarch; such garments being in
+very great esteem from the earliest ages, and being
+then, as now, a component portion of those presents
+or offerings without which one personage hardly
+thought of approaching another.</p>
+
+<p>Fashion in those days was not quite the chameleon-hued
+creature that she is at present; nor were
+the fabrics on which her fancy was displayed quite
+so light and airy: their gold <em>was</em> gold&mdash;not silk
+covered with gilded silver; and consequently the
+raiment of those days, inwrought with slips of gold
+beaten thin and cut into spangles or strips, and
+sewed on in various patterns, sometimes intermingled
+with precious stones, would carry its own intrinsic
+value with it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>20]</a></span>
+This &ldquo;raiment&rdquo; descended from father to son, as
+a chased goblet and a massy wrought urn does now;
+and was naturally and necessarily inventoried as a
+portion of the property. The practice of making presents
+of garments is still quite usual amongst the eastern
+nations; and to such an excess was it carried with
+regard to those who, from their calling or any other
+circumstance, were in public favour, that, so late as
+the ninth century, Bokteri, an illustrious poet of
+Cufah, had so many presents made him, that at his
+death he was found possessed of a hundred complete
+suits of clothes, two hundred shirts, and five hundred
+turbans.</p>
+
+<p>Horace, speaking of Lucullus (who had pillaged
+Asia, and first introduced Asiatic<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> refinements
+among the Romans), says that, some persons having
+waited on him to request the loan of a hundred
+suits out of his wardrobe for the Roman stage, he
+exclaimed&mdash;&ldquo;A hundred suits! how is it possible
+for me to furnish such a number? However, I will
+look over them and send you what I have.&rdquo;&mdash;After
+some time he writes a note and tells them he had
+<em>five thousand</em>, to the whole or part of which they were
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p>In all the eastern world formerly, and to a great
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>21]</a></span>
+extent now, the arraying a person in a rich dress is
+considered a very high compliment, and it was one
+of the ancient modes of investing with the highest
+degree of subordinate power. Thus was Joseph
+arrayed by Pharaoh, and Mordecai by Ahasueras.</p>
+
+<p>We all remember what important effects are produced
+by splendid robes in &ldquo;The Tale of the Wonderful
+Lamp,&rdquo; and in many other of those fascinating
+tales (which are allowed to be rigidly correct in the
+delineations of eastern life). They were doubtless
+esteemed the richest part of the spoil after a battle,
+as we find the mother of Sisera apportioning them as
+his share, and reiterating her delighted anticipations
+of the &ldquo;raiment of needlework&rdquo; which should be
+his: &ldquo;a prey of divers colours, of divers colours of
+needlework, of divers colours of needlework on both
+sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Job has many allusions to raiment as an essential
+part of &ldquo;treasures&rdquo; in the East; and our Saviour
+refers to the same when he desires his hearers not
+to lay up for themselves &ldquo;treasures&rdquo; on earth, where
+<em>moth</em> and rust corrupt. St. James even more explicitly:
+&ldquo;Go to now, ye rich men; weep and howl
+for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your
+gold and silver is cankered, and your <small>GARMENTS</small> are
+moth-eaten.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The first notice we have of gold-wire or thread
+being used in embroidery is in Exodus, in the directions
+given for the embroidery of the priests&rsquo; garments:
+from this it appears that the metal was still
+used alone, being beaten fine and then rounded.
+This art the Hebrews probably learnt from the
+Egyptians, by whom it was carried to such an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>22]</a></span>
+astonishing degree of nicety, that they could either
+weave it in or work it on their finest linen. And
+doubtless the productions of the Hebrews now must
+have equalled the most costly and intricate of those
+of Egypt. This the adornments of the Tabernacle
+testify.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a>
+Persia had great wardrobes, where there were always many
+hundred habits, sorted, ready for presents, and the intendant of the
+wardrobe sent them to those persons for whom they were designed by
+the sovereign; more than forty tailors were always employed in this
+service. In Turkey they do not attend so much to the richness as to
+the number of the dresses, giving more or fewer according to the
+dignity of the persons to whom they are presented, or the marks of
+favour the prince would confer on his guests.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>23]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">NEEDLEWORK OF THE TABERNACLE.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The cedars wave on Lebanon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Judah&rsquo;s statelier maids are gone.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Byron.</span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Gorgeous and magnificent must have been the
+spectacle presented by that ancient multitude of
+Israel, as they tabernacled in the wilderness of Sinai.
+These steril solitudes are now seldom trodden by
+the foot of man, and the adventurous traveller who
+toils up their rugged steeps can scarce picture to
+himself a host sojourning there, so wild, so barren
+is the place, so fearful are the precipices, so dismal
+the ravines. On the spot where &ldquo;Moses talked with
+God&rdquo; the grey and mouldering remnants of a convent
+attest the religious veneration and zeal of
+some of whom these ruins are the only memorial;
+and near them is a small chapel dedicated to the
+Virgin, while religious hands have crowned even
+the summit of the steep ascent by &ldquo;a house of
+prayer;&rdquo; and at the foot of the sister peak, Horeb,
+is an ancient Greek convent, founded by the Emperor
+Justinian 1400 years ago, which is occupied
+still by some harmless recluses, the monotony of
+whose lives is only broken by the few and far
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>24]</a></span>
+between visits of the adventurous traveller, or the more
+frequent and startling interruptions of the wild
+Arabs on their predatory expeditions.</p>
+
+<p>But neither church nor temple of any sort, nor
+inquiring traveller, nor prowling Arab, varied the
+tremendous grandeur of the scene, when the Israelitish
+host encamped there. Weary and toilsome
+had been the pilgrimage from the base of the mountain
+where the desolation was unrelieved by a trace of
+vegetation, to the upper country or wilderness,
+called more particularly, &ldquo;the Desert of Sinai,&rdquo;
+where narrow intersecting valleys, not destitute of
+verdure, cherished perhaps the lofty and refreshing
+palm. Here in the ravines, in the valleys, and
+amid the clefts of the rocks, clustered the hosts of
+Israel, while around them on every side arose lofty
+summits and towering precipices, where the eye that
+sought to scan their fearful heights was lost in the
+far-off dimness. Far, far around, spread this savage
+wilderness, so frowning, and dreary, and desolate,
+that any curious explorer beyond the precincts of the
+camp would quickly return to the <em>home</em> which its
+vicinity afforded even there.</p>
+
+<p>Clustered closely as bees in a hive were the tents
+of the wandering race, yet with an order and a uniformity
+which even the unpropitious nature of the
+locality was not permitted to break; for, separated
+into tribes, each one, though sufficiently connected
+for any object of kindness or brotherhood, for public
+worship, or social intercourse, was inalienably distinct.</p>
+
+<p>And in the midst, extending from east to west, a
+length of fifty-five feet, was reared the splendid
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>25]</a></span>
+Tabernacle. For God had said, &ldquo;Let them make
+me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell among them;&rdquo;
+and behold, &ldquo;they came, both men and women, as
+many as were willing-hearted, and brought bracelets,
+and earrings, and rings, and tablets, all jewels
+of gold; and every man that offered, offered an
+offering of gold unto the Lord. And every man
+with whom was found blue, and purple, and scarlet,
+and fine linen, and goats&rsquo; hair, and red skins of
+rams, and badgers&rsquo; skins, brought them. Every
+one that did offer an offering of silver and brass
+brought the Lord&rsquo;s offering: and every man with
+whom was found shittim-wood for any work of the
+service brought it. And all the women that were
+wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought
+that which they had spun, both of blue, and of
+purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen. And all
+the women whose hearts stirred them up in wisdom
+spun goats&rsquo; hair. And the rulers brought onyx-stones,
+and stones to be set, for the ephod, and for
+the breastplate; and spice, and oil for the light,
+and for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And all these materials, which the &ldquo;willing-hearted&rdquo;
+offered in such abundance that proclamation
+was obliged to be made through the camp to
+stop their influx, had been wrought under the
+superintendence of Bezaleel and Aholiab, who were
+divinely inspired for the task; and the Tabernacle
+was now completed, with the exception of some of
+the finest needlework, which had not yet received
+the finishing touches.</p>
+
+<p>But what was already done bore ample testimony
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>26]</a></span>
+to the skill, the taste, and the industry of the &ldquo;wise-hearted&rdquo;
+daughters of Israel. The outer covering
+of the Tabernacle, or that which lay directly over
+the framework of boards of which it was constructed,
+and hung from the roof down the sides
+and west end, was formed of tabash skins; over this
+was another covering of ram-skins dyed red; a
+hanging made of goats&rsquo; hair, such as is still used
+in the tents of the Bedouin Arabs, had been spun
+and woven by the matrons of the congregation, to
+hang over the skins; and these substantial draperies
+were beautifully concealed by a first or inner
+covering of fine linen. On this the more youthful
+women had embroidered figures of cherubim in
+scarlet, purple, and light blue, entwined with gold.
+They had made also sacerdotal vestments, the
+&ldquo;coats of fine linen&rdquo; worn by all the priests, which,
+when old, were unravelled, and made into wicks
+burnt in the feast of tabernacles. They had made
+the &ldquo;girdles of needlework,&rdquo; which were long, very
+long pieces of fine twined linen (carried several
+times round the body), and were embroidered with
+flowers in blue, and purple, and scarlet: the &ldquo;robe
+of the ephod&rdquo; also for the high priest, of light blue,
+and elaborately wrought round the bottom in pomegranates;
+and the plain ephods for the priests.</p>
+
+<p>But now the sun was declining in the western sky,
+and the busy artificers of all sorts were relaxing
+from the toil of the day.</p>
+
+<p>In a retired spot, apart from the noise of the
+camp, paced one in solitary meditation. Stalwart
+he was in frame, majestic in bearing; he trod the
+earth like one of her princes; but the loftiness of his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>27]</a></span>
+demeanour was forgotten when you looked on the
+surpassing benignity of his countenance. Each
+accidental passer hushed his footstep and lowered
+his voice as he approached; more, as it should seem,
+from involuntary awe and reverence than from any
+understood prohibition.</p>
+
+<p>But with some of these loiterers a child of some
+four or five summers, in earnest chase after a
+brilliant fly, whose golden wings glittered in the
+sunlight, heedlessly pursued it even to the very
+path of the Solitary, and to the interruption of his
+walk. Hastily, and somewhat peremptorily, the
+father calls him away. The stranger looks up, and
+casting a glance around, from an eye to whose
+brilliance that of the eagle would look dim, he for
+the first time sees the little intruder. Gently placing
+a hand on the child&rsquo;s head, &ldquo;Bless thee,&rdquo; he said,
+in a voice whose every tone was melody: &ldquo;Bless
+thee, little one; the blessing of the God of Israel be
+upon thee,&rdquo; and calmly resumed his walk. The
+child, as if awed, mutely returned to his friends, who,
+after casting a glance of reverence and admiration,
+returned to the camp.</p>
+
+<p>Here, scattered all around, are groups occupied
+in those varied kinds of busy idleness which will naturally
+engage the moments of an intelligent multitude
+at the close of an active day. Here a knot of
+men in the pride of manhood, whose flashing eyes
+have lost none of their fire, whose raven locks are yet
+not varied by a single silver line, are talking politics&mdash;such
+politics as the warlike men of Israel would
+talk, when discoursing of the promised land and the
+hostile hosts through whose serried ranks they must
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>28]</a></span>
+cut their intrepid way thither, and whom, impatient
+of all delay, they burn to engage. Here were elder
+ones, &ldquo;whose natural force&rdquo; was in some degree
+&ldquo;abated,&rdquo; and who were lamenting the decree, however
+justly incurred, which forbade them to lay their
+bones in the land of their lifelong hope; and here
+was a patriarch, bowed down with the weight of
+years, whose silver hairs lay on his shoulders, whose
+snow-white beard flowed upon his breast, who as he
+leaned upon his staff was recounting to his rapt auditors
+the dealing of Jehovah with his people in
+ancient days; how the Most High visited his father
+Abraham, and had sworn unto Jacob that his seed
+should be brought out of captivity, and revisit the
+promised land. &ldquo;And behold,&rdquo; said the old man,
+&ldquo;it will now come to pass.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But what is passing in that detached portion of
+the camp? who sojourn in yonder tents which attract
+more general attention than all the others, and in
+which all ages and degrees seem interested? Now a
+group of females are there, eagerly conversing;
+anon a Hebrew mother leads her youthful and beautiful
+daughter, and seems to incite her to remain
+there; now a hoary priest enters, and in a few moments
+returns pondering; and anon a trio of more
+youthful Levites with pleased and animated countenances
+return from the same spot.</p>
+
+<p>On a sudden is every eye turned thitherward; for
+he who just now paced the solitary glade&mdash;none
+other than the chosen leader of God&rsquo;s host, the majestic
+lawgiver, the meekest and the mightiest of all
+created beings&mdash;he likewise wends his way to these
+attractive tents. With him enters Aaron, a venerable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>29]</a></span>
+man, with hoary beard and flowing white robes;
+and follow him a majestic-looking female who was
+wont to lead the solemn dance&mdash;Miriam the sister of
+Aaron; and a youth of heroic bearing, in the springtime
+of that life whose maturity was spent in leading
+the chosen race to conquest in the promised land.</p>
+
+<p>With proud and pleased humility did the fair inmates
+of those tents, the most accomplished of Israel&rsquo;s
+daughters, display to their illustrious visitors the
+&ldquo;fine needlework&rdquo; to which their time and talents
+had been for a long season devoted, and which was
+now on the eve of completion. The &ldquo;holy garments&rdquo;
+which God had commanded to be made &ldquo;for
+glory and for beauty;&rdquo; the pomegranates on the
+hem of the high priest&rsquo;s robe, wrought in blue and
+purple and scarlet; the flowers on his &ldquo;girdle of
+needlework,&rdquo; glowing as in life; the border on the
+ephod, in which every varied colour was shaded off
+into a rich and delicate tracery of gold; and above
+all, that exquisite work, the most beautiful of all their
+productions&mdash;the veil which separated the &ldquo;Holy of
+Holies,&rdquo; the place where the Most High vouchsafed
+his especial presence, where none but the high
+priest might presume to enter, and he but once a
+year, from the remaining portions of the Tabernacle.
+This beautiful hanging was of fine white linen, but
+the original fabric was hardly discernible amid the
+gorgeous tracery with which it was inwrought. The
+whole surface was covered with a profusion of flowers,
+intermixed with fanciful devices of every sort, except
+such as might represent the forms of animals&mdash;these
+were rigidly excluded. Cherubims seemed to be
+hovering around and grasping its gorgeous folds;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>30]</a></span>
+and if tradition and history be to be credited, this
+drapery merited, if ever the production of the needle
+did merit, the epithet which English talent has since
+rendered classical, &ldquo;<em>Needlework Sublime</em>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Long, despite the advancing shades of evening,
+would the visitors have lingered untired to comment
+upon this beautiful production, but one said, &ldquo;Behold!&rdquo;
+and immediately all, following the direction of
+his outstretched arm, looked towards the Tabernacle.
+There a thin spiral flame is seen to gleam palely
+through the pillar of smoke; but perceptibly it increases,
+and even while the eye is fixed it waxes
+stronger and brighter, and quickly though gradually
+the smoke has melted away, and a tall vivid
+flame of fire is in its place. Higher and taller it
+aspires: its spiral flame waxes broader and broader,
+ascends higher and higher, gleams brighter and
+brighter, till it mingles in the very vault of heaven,
+with the beams of the setting sun which bathe in
+crimson fire the summits of Sinai.</p>
+
+<p>In the eastern sky the stars gleam brightly in the
+pure transparent atmosphere; and ere long the
+moon casts pale radiant beams adown the dark
+ravines, and utters her wondrous lore to the silent
+hills and the gloomy waste. The sounds of toil are
+hushed; the weary labourer seeks repose; the toil-worn
+wanderer is at rest: the murmuring sounds of
+domestic life sink lower and lower; the breath of
+prayer becomes fainter and fainter; the voice of
+praise, the evensong of Israel, comes stealing
+through the calm of evening, and now dies softly
+away. Nought is heard but the password of the
+sentinels; the far-off shriek of the bat as it flaps its
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>31]</a></span>
+wings beneath the shadow of some fearful precipice;
+or the scream of the eagle, which, wheeling round the
+lofty summits of the mountain, closes in less and
+lesser circles, till, as the last faint gleam of evening
+is lost in the dark horizon, it drops into its eyrie.</p>
+
+<p>The moon and the stars keep their eternal watch;
+the beacon-light of God&rsquo;s immediate presence flames
+unchanged by time or chance. It may be that the
+appointed earthly shepherd of that chosen flock
+passes the still hours of night and solitude in communion
+with his God; but silence is over the wilderness,
+and the children of Israel are at rest.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>32]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">NEEDLEWORK OF THE EGYPTIANS.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;How is thy glory, Egypt, pass&rsquo;d away!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Weep, child of ruin, o&rsquo;er thy humbled name!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wreck alone that marks thy deep decay<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Now tells the story of thy former fame!&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>There can be little doubt that the Jewish maidens
+were beholden to their residence in Egypt for that
+perfectness of finish in embroidery which was displayed
+so worthily in the service of the Tabernacle.
+Egypt was at this time the seat of science, of art, and
+learning; for it was thought the highest summary
+which could be given of Moses&rsquo; acquirements to say
+that he was skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians.
+By the researches of the curious, new proofs
+are still being brought to light of the perfection
+of their skill in various arts, and we are not without
+testimony that the practice of the lighter and
+more ornamental bore progress with that of the
+stupendous and magnificent. Of these lighter pursuits
+we at present refer only to the art of needlework.</p>
+
+<p>The Egyptian women were treated with courtesy,
+with honour, and even with deference: indeed, some
+historians have gone so far as to say that the women
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>33]</a></span>
+transacted public business, to the exclusion of the
+men, who were engaged in domestic occupations.
+This misapprehension may have arisen from the
+fact of men being at times engaged at the loom,
+which in all other countries was then considered as
+exclusively a feminine occupation; spinning, however,
+was principally, if not entirely, confined to
+women, who had attained to such perfection in the
+pretty and valuable art, that, though the Egyptian
+yarn was all spun by the hand, some of the linen made
+from it was so exquisitely fine as to be called &ldquo;woven
+air.&rdquo; And there are some instances recorded by
+historians which seem fully to bear out the appellation.
+For example: so delicate were the threads
+used for nets, that some of these nets would pass
+through a man&rsquo;s ring, and one person could carry a
+sufficient number of them to surround a whole wood.
+Amasis king of Egypt presented a linen corslet to
+the Rhodians of which the threads were each composed
+of 365 fibres; and he presented another to
+the Lacedemonians, richly wrought with gold; and
+each thread of this corslet, though itself very fine,
+was composed of 360 other threads all distinct.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did these beautiful manufactures lack the
+addition of equally beautiful needlework. Though
+the gold thread used at this time was, as we have
+intimated, solid metal, still the Egyptians had attained
+to such perfection in the art of moulding it,
+that it was fine enough not merely to embroider, but
+even to interweave with the linen. The linen corslet
+of Amasis, presented, as we have remarked, to the
+Lacedemonians, surpassingly fine as was the material,
+was worked with a needle in figures of animals
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>34]</a></span>
+in gold thread, and from the description given of
+the texture of the linen we may form some idea of
+the exquisite tenuity of the gold wire which was used
+to ornament it.</p>
+
+<p>Corslets of linen of a somewhat stronger texture
+than this one, which was doubtless meant for merely
+ornamental wear, were not uncommon amongst the
+ancients. The Greeks made thoraces of hide, hemp,
+linen, or twisted cord. Of the latter there are some
+curious specimens in the interesting museum of the
+United Service Club. Alexander had a double
+thorax of linen; and Iphicrates ordered his soldiers
+to lay aside their heavy metal cuirass, and go to
+battle in hempen armour. And among the arms
+painted in the tomb of Rameses III. at Thebes
+is a piece of defensive armour, a sort of coat or covering
+for the body, made of rich stuff, and richly embroidered
+with the figures of lions and other animals.</p>
+
+<p>The dress of the Egyptian ladies of rank was rich
+and somewhat gay: in its general appearance not
+very dissimilar from the gay chintzes of the present
+day, but of more value as the material was usually
+linen; and though sometimes stamped in patterns,
+and sometimes interwoven with gold threads, was
+much more usually worked with the needle. The
+richest and most elegant of these were of course selected
+to adorn the person of the queen; and when
+in the holy book the royal Psalmist is describing the
+dress of a bride, supposed to have been Pharaoh&rsquo;s
+daughter, and that she shall be brought to the king &ldquo;in
+raiment of needlework,&rdquo; he says, as proof of the gorgeousness
+of her attire, &ldquo;her clothing is of wrought
+gold.&rdquo; This is supposed to mean a garment richly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>35]</a></span>
+embroidered with the needle in figures in gold
+thread, after the manner of Egyptian stitchery.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps no royal lady was ever more magnificently
+dowered than the queen of Egypt; her apparel
+might well be gorgeous. Diodorus says that when
+M&oelig;ris, from whom the lake derived its name, and
+who was supposed to have made the canal, had arranged
+the sluices for the introduction of the water,
+and established everything connected with it, he assigned
+the sum annually derived from this source as
+a dowry to the queen for the purchase of jewels,
+ointments, and other objects connected with the
+toilette. The provision was certainly very liberal,
+being a talent every day, or upwards of &pound;70,700 a
+year; and when this formed only a portion of the
+pin-money of the Egyptian queens, to whom the revenues
+of the city of Anthylla, famous for its wines,
+were given for their dress, it is certain they had no
+reason to complain of the allowance they enjoyed.</p>
+
+<p>The Egyptian needlewomen were not solely occupied
+in the decoration of their persons. The deities
+were robed in rich vestments, in the preparation of
+which the proudest in the land felt that they were
+worthily occupied. This was a source of great gain
+to the priests, both in this and other countries, as, after
+decorating the idol gods for a time, these rich offerings
+were their perquisites, who of course encouraged
+this notable sort of devotion. We are told that it
+was carried so far that some idols had both winter
+and summer garments.</p>
+
+<p>Tokens of friendship consisting of richly embroidered
+veils, handkerchiefs, &amp;c., were then, as now,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>36]</a></span>
+passing from one fair hand to another, as pledges of
+affection; and as the last holy office of love, the bereaved
+mother, the desolate widow, or the maiden
+whose budding hopes were blighted by her lover&rsquo;s
+untimely death, might find a fanciful relief to her
+sorrows by decorating the garment which was to enshroud
+the spiritless but undecaying form. The
+chief proportion of the mummy-cloths which have
+been so ruthlessly torn from these outraged relics
+of humanity are coarse; but some few have been
+found delicately and beautifully embroidered; and it
+is not unnatural to suppose that this difference was the
+result of feminine solicitude and undying affection.</p>
+
+<p>The embroidering of the sails of vessels too was
+pursued as an article of commerce, as well as for the
+decoration of native pleasure-boats. The ordinary
+sails were white; but the king and his grandees on
+all gala occasions made use of sails richly embroidered
+with the ph&oelig;nix, with flowers, and various
+other emblems and fanciful devices. Many also
+were painted, and some interwoven in checks and
+stripes. The boats used in sacred festivals upon the
+Nile were decorated with appropriate symbols, according
+to the nature of the ceremony or the deity
+in whose service they were engaged; and the edges
+of the sails were finished with a coloured hem or
+border, which would occasionally be variegated with
+slight embroidery.</p>
+
+<p>Shakspeare&rsquo;s description of the barge of Cleopatra
+when she embarked on the river Cydnus to meet
+Antony, poetical as it is, seems to be rigidly correct
+in detail.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>37]</a></span>
+<span class="i1"><span class="smcap">Enobarbus.</span>&mdash;I will tell you.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The barge she sat in, like a burnish&rsquo;d throne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Burn&rsquo;d on the water: the poop was beaten gold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The water, which they beat, to follow faster,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It beggar&rsquo;d all description: she did lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In her pavilion (cloth of gold, of tissue),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O&rsquo;erpicturing that Venus, where we see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fancy outwork nature; on each side her<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With diverse-colour&rsquo;d fans, whose wind did seem<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And what they undid, did.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1"><span class="smcap">Agrippa.</span>&mdash;<span class="space020">&nbsp;</span>O, rare for Antony!<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1"><span class="smcap">Enobarbus.</span>&mdash;Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So many mermaids, tended her i&rsquo; the eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And made their bends adornings; at the helm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That yarely frame the office. From the barge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A strange invisible perfume hits the sense<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her people out upon her; and Antony,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bethroned in the market-place, did sit alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And made a gap in nature.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is said that the silver oars, &ldquo;which to the tune
+of flutes kept stroke,&rdquo; were pierced with holes of
+different sizes, so mechanically contrived, that the
+water, as it flowed through them at every stroke,
+produced a harmony in concord with that of the
+flutes and lyres on board.</p>
+
+<p>Such a description as the foregoing gives a more
+vivid idea than any grave declaration, of the elegant
+luxury of the Egyptians.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>38]</a></span>
+It were easy to collect instances from the Bible
+in which mention is made of Egyptian embroidery,
+but one verse (Ezek. xxvii. 7), when the prophet is
+addressing the Tyrians, specifically points to the
+subject on which we are speaking: &ldquo;Fine linen,
+with broidered work from Egypt, was that which
+thou spreadest forth to be thy sail,&rdquo; &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>A common but beautiful style of embroidery was
+to draw out entirely the threads of linen which
+formed the weft, and to re-form the body of the
+material, and vary its appearance, by working in
+various stitches and with different colours on the
+warp alone.</p>
+
+<p>Chairs and fauteuils of the most elegant form,
+made of ebony and other rare woods, inlaid with
+ivory, were in common use amongst the ancient
+Egyptians. These were covered, as is the fashion
+in the present day, with every variety of rich stuff,
+stamped leather, &amp;c.: but many were likewise embroidered
+with different coloured wools, with silk
+and gold thread. The couches too, which in the
+daytime had a rich covering substituted for the
+night bedding, gave ample scope for the display of
+the inventive genius and persevering industry of
+the busy-fingered Egyptian ladies.</p>
+
+<p>We have given sufficient proof that the Egyptian
+females were accomplished in the art of needlework,
+and we may naturally infer that they were fond of
+it. It is a gentle and a social occupation, and
+usefully employs the time, whilst it does not interfere
+with the current of the thoughts or the flow of
+conversation. The Egyptians were an intelligent
+and an animated race; and the sprightly jest or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>39]</a></span>
+the lively sally would be interspersed with the
+graver details of thoughtful and reflective conversation,
+or would give some point to the dull routine
+of mere womanish chatter. It seems almost impossible
+to have lived amidst the stupendous magnificence
+of Egypt in days of yore, without the
+mind assimilating itself in some degree to the
+greatness with which it was surrounded. The vast
+deserts, the stupendous mountains, the river Nile&mdash;the
+single and solitary river which in itself sufficed
+the needs of a mighty empire&mdash;these majestic
+monuments of nature seemed as emblems to which
+the people should fashion, as they did fashion, their
+pyramids, their tombs, their sphynxes, their mighty
+reservoirs, and their colossal statues. And we can
+hardly suppose that such ever-visible objects should
+not, during the time of their creation, have some
+elevating influence on the weakest mind; and that
+therefore frivolity of conversation amongst the
+Egyptian ladies was rather the exception than the
+rule. But a modern author has amused himself,
+and exercised some ingenuity in attempting to prove
+the contrary:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Many similar instances of a talent for caricature
+are observable in the compositions of Egyptian
+artists who executed the paintings on the tombs;
+and the ladies are not spared. We are led to infer
+that they were not deficient in the talent of conversation;
+and the numerous subjects they proposed
+are shown to have been examined with great animation.
+Among these the question of dress was not
+forgotten, and the patterns or the value of trinkets
+were discussed with proportionate interest. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>40]</a></span>
+maker of an earring, or the shop where it was
+purchased, were anxiously inquired; each compared
+the workmanship, the style, and the materials of
+those she wore, coveted her neighbour&rsquo;s, or preferred
+her own; and women of every class vied
+with each other in the display of &lsquo;jewels of silver
+and jewels of gold,&rsquo; in the texture of their &lsquo;raiment,&rsquo;
+the neatness of their sandals, and the arrangement
+or beauty of their plaited hair.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>We are too much indebted to this author&rsquo;s interesting
+volumes to quarrel with him for his ungallant
+exposition of a very simple painting; but we
+beg to place in juxta-position with the above
+(though otherwise somewhat out of its place) an
+extract from a work by no means characterised by
+unnecessary complacency to the fair sex.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">&lsquo;Cet homme passe sa vie &agrave; forger des nouvelles,&rsquo;
+me dit alors un gros Ath&eacute;nien qui &eacute;tait assis aupr&egrave;s
+de moi. &lsquo;Il ne s&rsquo;occupe que de choses qui ne le
+touchent point. Pour moi, mon int&eacute;rieur me suffit.
+J&rsquo;ai une femme que j&rsquo;aime beaucoup;&rsquo; et il me fit
+l&rsquo;&eacute;loge de sa femme. &lsquo;Hier je ne pus pas souper
+avec elle, j&rsquo;&eacute;tais pri&eacute; chez un de mes amis;&rsquo; et il
+me fit la description du repas. &lsquo;Je me retirai chez
+moi assez content. Mais j&rsquo;ai fait cette nuit un r&ecirc;ve
+qui m&rsquo;inqui&egrave;te;&rsquo; et il me raconta son r&ecirc;ve. Ensuite
+il me dit pesamment que la ville fourmillait
+d&rsquo;&eacute;trangers; que les hommes d&rsquo;aujourd&rsquo;hui ne
+valaient pas ceux d&rsquo;autrefois; que les denr&eacute;es
+&eacute;taient &agrave; bas prix; qu&rsquo;on pourrait esp&eacute;rer une bonne
+r&eacute;colte, s&rsquo;il venait &agrave; pleuvoir. Apr&egrave;s m&rsquo;avoir demand&eacute;
+le quanti&egrave;me du mois, il se leva pour aller
+souper avec sa femme.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>41]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">NEEDLEWORK OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;Supreme<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Sits the virtuous housewife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">The tender mother&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">O&rsquo;er the circle presiding,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And prudently guiding;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The girls gravely schooling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The boys wisely ruling;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Her hands never ceasing<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">From labours increasing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And doubling his gains<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">With her orderly pains.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With piles of rich treasure the storehouse she spreads,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And winds round the loud-whirring spindle her threads:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She winds&mdash;till the bright-polish&rsquo;d presses are full<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the snow-white linen and glittering wool:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blends the brilliant and solid in constant endeavour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And resteth never.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">J. H. Merivale.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>It was an admitted opinion amongst the classical
+nations of antiquity, that no less a personage than
+Minerva herself, &ldquo;a maiden affecting old fashions
+and formality,&rdquo; visited earth to teach her favourite
+nation the mysteries of those implements which are
+called &ldquo;the arms of every virtuous woman;&rdquo; viz.
+the distaff and spindle. In the use of these the
+Grecian dames were particularly skilled; in fact,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>42]</a></span>
+spinning, weaving, needlework, and embroidery,
+formed the chief occupation of those whose rank exonerated
+them, even in more primitive days, from the
+menial drudgery of a household.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek females led exceedingly retired lives,
+being far more charily admitted to a share of the
+recreations of the nobler sex than we of these privileged
+days. The ancient Greeks were very magnificent&mdash;very:
+magnificent senators, magnificent
+warriors, magnificent men; but they were a people
+trained from the cradle for exhibition and publicity;
+domestic life was quite cast into the shade. Consequently
+and necessarily their women were thrown
+to greater distance, till it happened, naturally
+enough, that they seemed to form a distinct community;
+and apartments the most distant and
+secluded that the mansion afforded were usually
+assigned to them. Of these, in large establishments,
+certain ones were always appropriated to the labours
+of the needle.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Je ne dirai</span>&rdquo; (says the sarcastic author of Anacharsis)
+&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">qu&rsquo;un mot sur l&rsquo;&eacute;ducation des filles. Suivant
+la diff&eacute;rence des &eacute;tats, elles apprennent &agrave; lire, &eacute;crire,
+coudre, filer, pr&eacute;parer la laine dont on fait les v&ecirc;temens,
+et veiller aux soins du m&eacute;nage. En g&eacute;n&eacute;ral,
+les m&egrave;res exhortent leurs filles &agrave; se conduire avec
+sagesse; mais elles insistent beaucoup plus sur la n&eacute;cessit&eacute;
+de se tenir droites, d&rsquo;effacer leurs &eacute;paules, de
+serrer leur sein avec un large ruban, d&rsquo;&ecirc;tre extr&ecirc;mement
+sobres, et de pr&eacute;venir, par toutes sortes de
+moyens, un embonpoint qui nuirait &agrave; l&rsquo;&eacute;l&eacute;gance
+de la taille et &agrave; la gr&acirc;ce des mouvemens.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Homer, the great fountain of ancient lore, scarcely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>43]</a></span>
+throughout his whole work names a female, Greek
+or Trojan, but as connected naturally and indissolubly
+with this feminine occupation&mdash;needlework.
+Thus, when Chryses implores permission to ransome
+his daughter, Agamemnon wrathfully replies&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;I will not loose thy daughter, till old age<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Find her far distant from her native soil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath my roof in Argos, at her task<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of tissue-work.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And Iris, the &ldquo;ambassadress of Heaven,&rdquo; finds
+Helen in her own recess&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;weaving there a gorgeous web,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Inwrought with fiery conflicts, for her sake<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wag&rsquo;d by contending nations.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Hector foreseeing the miseries consequent upon
+the destruction of Troy, says to Andromache&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">&ldquo;But no grief<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So moves me as my grief for thee alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doom&rsquo;d then to follow some imperious Greek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A weeping captive, to the distant shores<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Argos; there to labour at the loom<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a taskmistress.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And again he says to her&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Hence, then, to our abode; there weave or spin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And task thy maidens.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And afterwards&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">&ldquo;Andromache, the while,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Knew nought, nor even by report had learn&rsquo;d<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her Hector&rsquo;s absence in the field alone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She in her chamber at the palace-top<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A splendid texture wrought, on either side<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All dazzling bright with flow&rsquo;rs of various hues.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>44]</a></span>
+Though &ldquo;Penelope&rsquo;s web&rdquo; is become a proverb,
+it would be unpardonable here to omit specific mention
+of it. Antino&uuml;s thus complains of her:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Elusive of the bridal day, she gives<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fond hope to all, and all with hope deceives.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Did not the Sun, through heaven&rsquo;s wide azure roll&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For three long years the royal fraud behold?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While she, laborious in delusion, spread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The spacious loom, and mix&rsquo;d the various thread;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where, as to life the wondrous figures rise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus spoke th&rsquo; inventive queen with artful sighs:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&lsquo;Though cold in death Ulysses breathes no more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cease yet a while to urge the bridal hour;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cease, till to great Laertes I bequeath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A task of grief, his ornaments of death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lest, when the Fates his royal ashes claim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Grecian matrons taint my spotless fame:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When he, whom living mighty realms obey&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall want in death a shroud to grace his shade.&rsquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus she: At once the generous train complies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue&rsquo;s fair disguise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The work she plied; but, studious of delay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By night revers&rsquo;d the labours of the day.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While thrice the Sun his annual journey made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The conscious lamp the midnight fraud survey&rsquo;d;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unheard, unseen, three years her arts prevail;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fourth, her maid unfolds th&rsquo; amazing tale.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We saw, as unperceiv&rsquo;d we took our stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The backward labours of her faithless hand.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then urg&rsquo;d, she perfects her illustrious toils;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wondrous monument of female wiles.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Greek costume was rich and elegant; and
+though, from our familiarity with colourless statues,
+we are apt to suppose it gravely uniform in its hue,
+such was not the fact; for the tunic was often
+adorned with ornamental embroidery of all sorts.
+The toga was the characteristic of Roman costume:
+this gradually assumed variations from its primitive
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>45]</a></span>
+simplicity of hue, until at length the triumphant
+general considered even the royal purple too unpretending,
+unless set off by a rich embroidery of gold.
+The first embroideries of the Romans were but
+bands of stuff, cut or twisted, which they put on the
+dresses: the more modest used only one band;
+others two, three, four, up to seven; and from the
+number of these the dresses took their names, always
+drawn from the Greek: molores, dilores, trilores,
+tetralores, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Pliny seems to be the authority whence most
+writers derive their accounts of ancient garments
+and needlework.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The coarse rough wool with the round great haire
+hath been of ancient time highly commended and
+accounted of in tapestrie worke: for even Homer
+himself witnesseth that they of the old world used
+the same much, and tooke great delight therein.
+But this tapestrie is set out with colours in France
+after one sort, and among the Parthians after
+another. M. Varro writeth that within the temple
+of Sangus there continued unto the time that he
+wrote his booke the wooll that lady Tanaquil, otherwise
+named Caia Cecilia, spun; together with her
+distaff and spindle: as also within the chapel of
+Fortune, the very roiall robe or mantle of estate,
+made in her own hands after the manner of water
+chamlot in wave worke, which Servius Tullius used
+to weare. And from hence came the fashion and
+custome at Rome, that when maidens were to be
+wedded, there attended upon them a distaffe, dressed
+and trimmed with kombed wooll, as also a spindle
+and yearne upon it. The said Tanaquil was the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>46]</a></span>
+first that made the coat or cassocke woven right
+out all through; such as new beginners (namely
+young souldiers, barristers, and fresh brides) put
+on under their white plaine gowns, without any
+guard of purple. The waved water chamelot was
+from the beginning esteemed the richest and
+bravest wearing. And from thence came the
+branched damaske in broad workes. Fenestella
+writeth that in the latter time of Augustus C&aelig;sar
+they began at Rome to use their gownes of cloth
+shorne, as also with a curled nap.&mdash;As for those
+robes which are called crebr&aelig; and papaverat&aelig;,
+wrought thicke with floure worke, resembling poppies,
+or pressed even and smooth, they be of greater
+antiquitie: for even in the time of Lucilius the poet
+Torquatus was noted and reproved for wearing them.
+The long robes embrodered before, called pr&aelig;text&aelig;,
+were devised first by the Tuscanes. The Trabe&aelig;
+were roiall robes, and I find that kings and princes
+only ware them. In Homer&rsquo;s time also they used
+garments embrodered with imagerie and floure,
+work, and from thence came the triumphant robes.
+As for embroderie itselfe and needle-worke, it was
+the Phrygians invention: and hereupon embroderers
+in Latine bee called phrygiones. And in the
+same Asia king Attalus was the first that devised
+cloth of gold: and thence come such colours to be
+called Attalica. In Babylon they used much to weave
+their cloth of divers colours, and this was a great wearing
+amongst them, and cloths so wrought were called
+Babylonica. To weave cloth of tissue with twisted
+threeds both in woofe and warpe, and the same of
+sundrie colours, was the invention of Alexandria;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>47]</a></span>
+and such clothes and garments were called Polymita,
+But Fraunce devised the scutchion, square, or
+lozenge damaske worke. Metellus Scipio, among
+other challenges and imputations laid against Capito,
+reproached and accused him for this:&mdash;&lsquo;That his
+hangings and furniture of his dining chamber, being
+Babylonian work or cloth of Arras, were sold for
+800,000 sesterces; and such like of late days stood
+Prince Nero in 400,000 sesterces, <i>i.e.</i> forty millions.&rsquo;
+The embrodered long robes of Servius Tullius,
+wherewith he covered and arraied all over the image
+of Fortune, by him dedicated, remained whole and
+sound until the end of Sejanus. And a wonder it
+was that they neither fell from the image nor were
+motheaten in 560 yeares.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was long before silk was in general use, even
+for patrician garments. It has been supposed that
+the famous Median vest, invented by Semiramis,
+was silken, which might account for its great fame
+in the west. Be this as it may, it was so very
+graceful, that the Medes adopted it after they had
+conquered Asia; and the Persians followed their
+example. In the time of the Romans the price of
+silk was weight for weight with gold, and the first
+persons who brought silk into Europe were the
+Greeks of Alexander&rsquo;s army. Under Tiberius it
+was forbidden to be worn by men; and it is said
+that the Emperor Aurelian even refused the earnest
+request of his empress for a silken dress, on the
+plea of its extravagant cost. Heliogabalus was
+the first man that ever wore a robe entirely of silk.
+He had also a tunic woven of gold threads; such
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>48]</a></span>
+gold thread as we referred to in a prior chapter, as
+consisting of the metal alone beaten out and
+rounded, without any intermixture of silk or woollen.
+Tarquinius Priscus had also a vest of this gorgeous
+description, as had likewise Agrippina. Gold thread
+and wire continued to be made entirely of metal
+probably until the time of Aurelian, nor have
+there been any instances found in Herculaneum
+and Pompeii of the silken thread with a gold
+coating.</p>
+
+<p>These examples will suffice to show that it was
+not usually the <em>material</em> of the ancient garments
+which gave them so high a value, but the ornamental
+embellishments with which they were afterwards
+invested by the needle.</p>
+
+<p>The Medes and Babylonians seem to have been
+most highly celebrated for their stuffs and tapestries
+of various sorts which were figured by the needle;
+the Egyptians certainly rivalled, though they did not
+surpass them; and the Greeks seem also to have
+attained a high degree of excellence in this pretty
+art. The epoch of embroidery amongst the Romans
+went as far back as Tarquin, to whom the Etruscans
+presented a tunic of purple enriched with gold,
+and a mantle of purple and other colours, &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tels
+qu&rsquo;en portoient les rois de Perse et de Lydie</span>.&rdquo;
+But soon luxury banished the wonted austerity of
+Rome; and when C&aelig;sar first showed himself in a
+habit embroidered and fringed, this innovation
+appeared scandalous to those who had not been
+alarmed at any of his real and important innovations.</p>
+
+<p>We have referred in a former chapter to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>49]</a></span>
+practice of sending garments as presents, as marks
+of respect and friendship, or as propitiatory or deprecatory
+offerings. And the illustrious ladies of
+the classical times had such a prophetical talent of
+preparation, that they were ever found possessed,
+when occasion required, of store of garments richly
+embroidered by their own fair fingers, or under
+their auspices. Of this there are numerous examples
+in Homer.</p>
+
+<p>When Priam wishes to redeem the body of Hector,
+after preparing other propitiatory gifts,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;he open&rsquo;d wide the sculptur&rsquo;d lids<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of various chests, whence mantles twelve he took<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of texture beautiful; twelve single cloaks;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As many carpets, with as many robes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To which he added vests an equal store.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>When Telemachus is about to leave Menelaus&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The beauteous queen revolv&rsquo;d with careful eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her various textures of unnumber&rsquo;d dyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And chose the largest; with no vulgar art<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her own fair hands embroider&rsquo;d every part;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath the rest it lay divinely bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like radiant Hesper o&rsquo;er the gems of night.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>That much of this work was highly beautiful
+may be inferred from the description of the robe of
+Ulysses:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;In the rich woof a hound, Mosaic drawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bore on full stretch, and seiz&rsquo;d a dappled fawn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deep in the neck his fangs indent their hold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They pant and struggle in the moving gold.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And this robe, Penelope says,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;In happier hours her artful hand employ&rsquo;d.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>To invest a visitor with an embroidered robe was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>50]</a></span>
+considered the very highest mark of honour and
+regard.</p>
+
+<p>When Telemachus is at the magnificent court of
+Menelaus&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;a bright damsel train attend the guests<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With liquid odours and <em>embroider&rsquo;d vests</em>.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4"> <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Give to the stranger guest a stranger&rsquo;s dues:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bring gold, a pledge of love; a talent bring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A <em>vest</em>, a <em>robe</em>.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4"> <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;in order roll&rsquo;d<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The robes, the vests are rang&rsquo;d, and heaps of gold:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And adding <em>a rich dress inwrought with art</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A gift expressive of her bounteous heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus spoke (the queen) to Ithacus.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>When Cambyses wished to attain some point
+from an Ethiopian prince, he forwarded, amongst
+other presents, a rich vest. The Ethiopian, taking
+the garment, inquired what it was, and how it was
+made; but its glittering tracery did not decoy the
+unsophisticated prince. When Xerxes arrived at
+Acanthos, he interchanged the rites of hospitality
+with the people, and presented several with Median
+vests. Probably our readers will remember the
+circumstance of Alexander making the mother of
+Darius a present of some rich vestures, probably
+of woollen fabrics, and telling her that she might
+make her grandchildren learn the art of weaving
+them; at which the royal lady felt insulted and
+deeply hurt, as it was considered ignominious by
+the Persian women to work in wool. Hearing of
+her misapprehension, Alexander himself waited on
+her, and in the gentlest and most respectful terms
+told the illustrious captive that, far from meaning
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>51]</a></span>
+any offence, the custom of his own country had
+misled him; and that the vestments he had offered
+were not only a present from his royal sisters, but
+wrought by their own hands.</p>
+
+<p>Outr&eacute; as appear some of the flaring patterns of
+the present day, the boldest of them must be <em>quiet</em>
+and unattractive compared with those we read of
+formerly, when not only human figures, but birds
+and animals, were wrought not merely on hangings
+and carpets but on wearing apparel. Ciampini
+gives various instances.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>What changes, says he, do not a long course of
+years produce! Who now, except in the theatre,
+or at a carnival or masquerade (<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">spectaculis ac rebus
+ludiciis</span>), would endure garments inscribed with
+verses and titles, and painted with various figures?
+Nevertheless, it is plain that such garments were
+constantly used in ancient times. To say nothing
+of Homer, who assigns to Ulysses a tunic variegated
+with figures of animals; to say nothing of the
+Massaget&aelig;, whom Herodotus relates painted
+animals on their garments with the juice of herbs;
+we also read of these garments (though then considered
+very antiquated) being used under the
+C&aelig;sars of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>They say that Alcisthenes the Sybarite had a
+garment of such magnificence that when he exhibited
+it in the Temple of Juno at Lacinium, where
+all Italy was congregated, it attracted universal
+attention. It was purchased from the Carthaginians,
+by Dionysius the elder, for 120 talents. It
+was twenty-two feet in breadth, of a purple ground,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>52]</a></span>
+with animals wrought all over, except in the middle,
+where were Jupiter, Juno, Themis, Minerva, Apollo,
+Venus: on one sleeve it had a figure of Alcisthenes,
+on the other of his city Sybaris.</p>
+
+<p>That this description is not exaggerated may be
+inferred from the following passage from a homily
+on Dives and Lazarus by a Bishop of Amuasan in
+Pontus, given by Ciampini.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They have here no bounds to this foolish art,
+for no sooner was invented the useless art of weaving
+in figures in a kind of picture, such as animals
+of all sorts, than (rich persons) procure flowered
+garments, and also those variegated with an infinite
+number of images, both for themselves, their wives,
+and children.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Whensoever
+thus clothed they go abroad, they go, as it were,
+painted all over, and pointing out to one another
+with the finger the pictures on their garments.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For there are lions and panthers, and bears and
+bulls, and dogs and woods, and rocks and huntsmen;
+and, in a word, everything that can be
+thought of, all drawn to the life: for it was necessary,
+forsooth, that not only the walls of their houses
+should be painted, but their coats (<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">tunica</span>) also,
+and likewise the cloak (<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">pallium</span>) which covers it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The more pious of these gentry take their subjects
+from the Gospel history: <i>e.g.</i> Christ himself
+with his disciples, or one of the miracles, is depicted.
+In this manner you shall see the marriage of Cana
+and the waterpots; the paralytic carrying his bed
+on his shoulders; the blind man cured by clay; the
+woman with the issue of blood taking hold of the
+border (of Christ&rsquo;s garment); the harlot falling at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>53]</a></span>
+the feet of Jesus; Lazarus coming from the tomb:
+and they fancy there is great piety in all this, and
+that putting on such garments must be pleasing to
+God.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The palmated garment was figured with palm-leaves,
+and was a triumphal or festive garment. It
+is referred to in an epistle of Gratian to Augustus:
+&ldquo;I have sent thee a palmated garment, in which the
+name of our divine parent Constantine is interwoven.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In allusion to these lettered garments Ausonius
+celebrates Sabina (<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">textrice simul ac poetria</span>), whose
+name thus lives when those of more important personages
+are forgotten:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They who both webs and verses weave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The first to thee, O chaste Minerva, leave;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The latter to the Muses they devote:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To me, Sabina, it appears a sin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To separate two things so near akin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So I have wrote thy verses on my coat.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And again:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whether the Tyrian robe your praise demand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or the neat verse upon the edge descried,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Know both proceed from the same skilful hand:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In both these arts Sabina takes a pride.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is imagined that the embroidered vestments
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>54]</a></span>
+worn in Homer&rsquo;s time bore a strong resemblance
+to those now worn by the Moguls; and the custom
+of making presents, so discernible through his
+work, still prevails throughout Asia. It is not
+(says Sir James Forbes) so much the custom in
+India to present dresses ready made to the visitors
+as to offer the materials, especially to Europeans.
+In Turkey, Persia, and Arabia, it is generally the
+reverse. We find in Chardin that the kings of
+Persia had great wardrobes, where there were
+always many hundred habits, sorted, ready for presents,
+and that more than forty tailors were always
+employed in this service.</p>
+
+<p>It is not improbable that this ancient custom of
+presenting a visitor with a new dress as a token of
+welcome, a symbol of rejoicing at his presence, may
+have led to many of the general customs which
+have prevailed, and do still, of having new clothes
+at any season of joy or festivity. New clothes are
+thought by the people of the East <em>requisite</em> for the
+due solemnization of a time of rejoicing. The
+Turks, even the poorest of them, would submit to
+any privation rather than be without new clothes at
+the Bairam or Great Festival. There is an anecdote
+recorded of the Caliph Montanser Billah, that going
+one day to the upper roof of his palace he saw a
+number of clothes spread out on the flat roofs of
+the houses of Bagdat. He asked the reason, and
+was told that the inhabitants of Bagdat were drying
+their clothes, which they had newly washed, on
+account of the approach of the Bairam. The caliph
+was so concerned that any should be so poor as to
+be obliged to wash their old clothes for want of new
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>55]</a></span>
+ones with which to celebrate this festival, that he
+ordered a great quantity of gold to be instantly
+made into bullets, proper to be shot out of crossbows,
+which he and his courtiers threw, by this
+means, upon every terrace of the city where he saw
+garments spread to dry.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>
+Book viii. chap. 48.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>
+Ciampini, Vetera Monimenta, cap. xiii.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0" lang="la" xml:lang="la">&ldquo;Licia qui texunt, et Carmina; Carmina Musis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Licia contribuunt, casta Minerva, tibi.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ast ego rem sociam non dissociabo, Sabina,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Versibus inscripsi, qu&aelig; mea texta meis.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0" lang="la" xml:lang="la">&ldquo;Sive probas Tyrio textam sub tegmine vestem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Seu placet inscripti commoditas tituli.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ipsius h&aelig;c Domin&aelig; concennat utrumque venustas:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Has geminas artes una Sabina colet.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>56]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">THE DARK AGES.&mdash;&ldquo;SHEE-SCHOOLS.&rdquo;</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;There was an auncient house not far away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Renown&rsquo;d throughout the world for sacred lore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And pure unspotted life: so well they say<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">It govern&rsquo;d was, and guided evermore<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Through wisedome of a matrone grave and hore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose onely joy was to relieve the needes<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of wretched soules, and helpe the helplesse pore:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All night she spent in bidding of her bedes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the day in doing good and godly dedes.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Faerie Queene.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapblock">
+<p>&ldquo;Meantime, whilst monks&rsquo; <em>pens</em> were thus employed, nuns with
+their <em>needles</em> wrote histories also: that of <em>Christ his passion</em> for their
+altar-clothes; and other Scripture- (and more legend-) stories in hangings
+to adorn their houses.&rdquo;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Fuller, Ch. Hist., B. 6.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Needlework is an art so indissolubly connected
+with the convenience and comfort of mankind at
+large, that it is impossible to suppose any state of
+society in which it has not existed. Its modes varied,
+of course, according to the lesser or greater degrees
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>57]</a></span>
+of refinement in other matters with which it was
+connected; and when we find from Muratori that
+&ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">nulla s&rsquo;&egrave; detto fin qui dell&rsquo;Arte del Tessere dopo
+la declinazione del Romano Imperio; e solo in
+fuggire s&rsquo;&egrave; parlato di alcune vesti degli antichi</span>,&rdquo; we
+may fairly infer that the <em>ornamental</em> needlework of
+the time was not extensively encouraged, although
+never entirely laid aside.</p>
+
+<p>The desolation that overran the world was found
+alike in its greatest or most insignificant concerns;
+and the same torrent that swept monarchs from
+their thrones and peers from their halls did away
+with the necessity for professors of the decorative
+arts. There needed not the embroiderer of gold
+and purple to blazon the triumph of a conqueror
+who disdained other habiliment than the skin of
+some slaughtered beast.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>The matron who yet retained the principle of
+Roman virtue, or the fair and refined maiden of the
+eastern capital, far from seeking personal adornment,
+rather shunned any decoration which might attract
+the eyes and inflame the passions of untamed and
+ruthless conquerors. All usual habits were subverted,
+and for long years the history of the European
+world is but a bloody record of war and tumult,
+of bloodshed and strife. Few are the cases of peace
+and tranquillity in this desert of tumult and blood-guiltiness;
+but those few &ldquo;isles of the blessed&rdquo; in
+this ocean of discord, those few sunny spots in the
+gloomy landscape, are intimately connected with
+our theme. The use of the needle for the daily
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>58]</a></span>
+necessities of life could never, as we have remarked,
+be superseded; but the practice of ornamental
+needlework, in common with every ennobling science
+and improving art, was kept alive during this period
+of desolation by the church, and by the individual
+labours and collective zeal of the despised and contemned
+monks.</p>
+
+<p>Sharing that hallowed influence which hovered
+over and protected the church at this fearful season&mdash;for,
+from the carelessness or superstition of the
+barbarians, the ministers of religion were spared&mdash;nunneries,
+with some few exceptions, were now like
+refuges pointed out by Heaven itself. They were
+originally founded by the sister of St. Anthony, the
+hermit of the Egyptian desert, and in their primitive
+institution were meant solely for those who, abjuring
+the world for religious motives, were desirous to
+spend their whole time in devotional exercises. But
+their sphere of utility became afterwards widely extended.
+They became safe and peaceable asylums
+for all those to whom life&rsquo;s pilgrimage had been too
+thorny. The frail but repentant maiden was here
+sheltered from the scorn of an uncharitable world;
+the virtuous but suffering female, whose earthly
+hopes had, from whatever cause, been crushed,
+could here weep and pray in peace: while she to
+whom the more tangible trouble of poverty had descended
+might here, without the galling yoke of
+charity and dependence, look to a refuge for those
+evil days when the breaking of the golden bowl, the
+loosing of the silver cord, should disable her from
+the exertions necessary for her maintenance.</p>
+
+<p>Have we any&mdash;ay, with all their faults and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>59]</a></span>
+imperfections on their heads&mdash;have we, in these days
+of enlightenment, any sort of substitute for the blessings
+they held out to dependent and suffering woman
+of whatever rank?</p>
+
+<p>Convents became also schools for the education
+of young women of rank, who here imbibed in early
+youth principles of religion which might enable them
+to endure with patience and fortitude those after-trials
+of life from which no station or wealth could
+exempt them; and they acquired here those accomplishments,
+and were taught here those lighter occupations,
+amongst which fine needlework and embroidery
+occupied a conspicuous position, which would
+qualify them to beguile in a becoming manner the
+many hours of leisure which their elevated rank
+would confer on them.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nunneries,&rdquo; says Fuller, &ldquo;also were good shee-schools,
+wherein the girles and maids of the neighbourhood
+were taught to read and work; and sometimes
+a little Latine was taught them therein. Yea,
+give me leave to say, if such feminine foundations
+had still continued, provided no <em>vow</em> were obtruded
+upon them (virginity is least kept where it is most
+constrained), haply the weaker sex (besides the
+avoiding modern inconveniences) might be heightened
+to an higher perfection than hitherto hath
+been attained. That sharpnesse of their wits and
+suddenness of their conceits (which their enemies
+must allow unto them) might by education be improved
+into a judicious solidity, and that adorned
+with arts which now they want, not because they
+cannot learn, but are not taught them. I say, if
+such feminine foundations were extant now of dayes,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>60]</a></span>
+haply some virgins of highest birth would be glad
+of such places, and I am sure their fathers and elder
+brothers would not be sorry for the same.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lawrance gives a more detailed account of
+the duties taught in them. &ldquo;In consequence of
+convents being considered as establishments exclusively
+belonging to the Latin church, Protestant
+writers, as by common consent, have joined in censuring
+them, forgetful of the many benefits which,
+without any reference to their peculiar creed, they
+were calculated to confer. Although providing instruction
+for the young, the convent was a large
+establishment for various orders of women. There
+were the nuns, the lay sisters, always a numerous
+class, and a large body of domestics; while in those
+higher convents, where the abbess exercised manorial
+jurisdiction, there were seneschal, esquires, gentlemen,
+yeomen, grooms, indeed the whole establishment
+of a baronial castle, except the men-at-arms
+and the archer-band. Thus within the convent
+walls the pupil saw nearly the same domestic arrangement
+to which she had been accustomed in
+her father&rsquo;s castle; while, instead of being constantly
+surrounded with children, well born and
+intelligent women might be her occasional companions.
+And then the most important functions
+were exercised by women. The abbess presided in
+her manorial court, the cellaress performed the extensive
+offices of steward, the pr&aelig;centrix led the
+singing and superintended the library, and the infirmaress
+watched over the sick, affording them alike
+spiritual and medical aid. Thus, from her first
+admission, the pupil was taught to respect and to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>61]</a></span>
+emulate the talents of women. But a yet more important
+peculiarity did the convent school present.
+It was a noble, a well-endowed, and an independent
+institution; and it proffered education as a boon.
+Here was no eager canvassing for scholars, no promises
+of unattainable advantages; for the convent
+school was not a mercantile establishment, nor was
+education a trade. The female teachers of the
+middle ages were looked up to alike by parent and
+child, and the instruction so willingly offered was
+willingly and gratefully received; the character of
+the teacher was elevated, and as a necessary consequence
+so was the character of the pupil.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But in addition to those inmates who had dedicated
+their lives to religion, and those who were
+placed there specifically for education, convents
+afforded shelter to numbers who sought only temporary
+retirement from the world under the influence
+of sorrow, or temporary protection under the apprehension
+of danger. And this was the case not
+merely through the very dark era with which our
+chapter commences, but for centuries afterwards,
+and when the world was comparatively civilized.
+Our own &ldquo;good Queen Maude&rdquo; assumed the veil in
+the convent of Romsey, without however taking the
+vows, as the only means of escaping from a forced
+marriage; and in the subsequent reign, that of
+Stephen, so little regard was paid to law or decorum,
+that a convent was the only place where a
+maiden, even of gentle birth, if she had riches, could
+have a chance of shelter and safety from the machinations
+of those who resorted to any sort of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>62]</a></span>
+brutality or violence to compel her to a marriage which
+would secure her possessions to her ravisher.</p>
+
+<p>It was then in the convents, and in them alone,
+that, during the barbarism and confusion consequent
+upon the overthrow of the ancient empire, and the
+irruption of the untamed hordes who overran southern
+Europe from the north and west,&mdash;it was in the
+convents that some remnants of the ancient art of
+embroidery were still preserved. The nuns considered
+it an acceptable service to employ their
+time and talents in the construction of vestments
+which, being intended for the service of the church,
+were rich and sumptuous even at the time when
+richness and elegance of apparel were unknown
+elsewhere.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> It was no proof of either the ignorance
+or the bad taste or the irreligion of the &ldquo;<em>dark</em>&rdquo;
+ages, that the religious edifices were fitted up with
+a rich and gorgeous solemnity which are unheard of
+in these days of light and knowledge and economy.
+And besides the construction of rich and elaborately
+ornamented vestments for the priests, and hangings
+for the altars, shrines, &amp;c., besides these being peculiarly
+the occupation of the professed sisters of
+religious houses, it was likewise the pride and the
+delight of ladies of rank to devote both their money
+to the purchase and their time to the embroidering
+of sacerdotal garments as offerings to the church.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>63]</a></span>
+And whether temporarily sheltering within the walls
+of a convent, or happily presiding in her own lofty
+halls, it was oftentime the pride and pleasure of the
+high-born dame to embroider a splendid cope, a rich
+vest, or a gorgeous hanging, as a votive and grateful
+offering to that holy altar where perhaps she had
+prayed in sorrow, and found consolation and peace.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a>
+&ldquo;In the most inclement winter the hardy German was satisfied
+with a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal.&rdquo;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Gibbon.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a>
+Muratori (Diss. 25), speaking of the mean habiliments usual in
+Italy even so late as the 13th century, adds, &ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ma non per questo
+s&rsquo;hanno a credere cos&igrave; rozzi e nemici del Lusso que&rsquo; Secoli. A buon
+conto anche in Italia qui non era cieco, sovente potea mirare i pi&ugrave;
+delicati lavori di Seta, che <em>servivano di ornamenti alle Chiese e alle
+sacre funzioni</em></span>.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>64]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">NEEDLEWORK OF THE DARK AGES.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Last night I dreamt a dream; behold!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I saw a church was fret with gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">With arras richly dight:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There saw I altar, pall, and pix,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chalice, and font, and crucifix,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And tapers burning bright.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">W. S. Rose.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Over those memorials of the past which chance and
+mischance have left us, time hath drawn a thick
+curtain, obliterating all soft and gentle touches,
+which connected harmoniously the bolder features of
+the landscape, and leaving these but as landmarks
+to intimate what had been there. We would fain
+linger on those times, and call up the gentle spirits
+of the long departed to describe scenes of quiet but
+useful retirement at which we now only dimly guess.
+We would witness the hour of recreation in the convent,
+when the severer duties of the cloister gave
+place to the cheerful one of companionship; and the
+&ldquo;pale votary&rdquo; quitted the lonely cell and the solitary
+vigil, to instruct the blooming novice in the art of
+embroidery, or to ply her own accustomed and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>65]</a></span>
+accomplished fingers in its fairy creations. The
+younger ones would be ecstatic in their commendations,
+and eager in their exertions to rival the fair
+sempstress; whilst a gratified though sad smile
+would brighten her own pale cheek as the lady abbess
+laid aside the richly illuminated volume by which
+her own attention had been engrossed, and from
+which she had from time to time read short and instructive
+passages aloud, commenting on and enforcing
+the principles they inculcated; and holding
+the work towards the casement, so that the bright
+slanting rays of the setting sun which fell through
+the richly carved lattice might illumine the varied
+tints of the stitchery, she would utter some kind and
+encouraging words of admiration and praise.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the work was a broidered scarf for some
+spiritual father, a testimony of gratitude and esteem
+from the convent at large; perhaps it was a tunic or
+a girdle which some high and wealthy lady had bespoken
+for an offering, and which the meek and
+pious sisterhood were happy to do for hire, bestowing
+the proceeds on the necessities of the convent;
+or, if those were provided, on charity. Perhaps
+it was a pair of sandals, so magnificently
+wrought as to be destined as a present by some
+lofty abbot to the pope himself, like those which
+Robert, Abbot of St. Alban&rsquo;s, sent to the Pope
+Adrian the Fourth; and which alone, out of a multitude
+of the richest offerings, the pope retained;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>66]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>
+or if it were in England (for our domestic scene will
+apply to all the Christian world) it might be a magnificent
+covering for the high altar, with a scripture
+history embroidered in the centre, and the border,
+of regal purple, inwrought with gold and precious
+stones. We say, <em>if in England</em>, because so celebrated
+was the English work, the Opus Anglicum,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>
+that other nations eagerly desired to possess it.
+The embroidered vestments of some English clergymen
+were so much admired at the Papal Court, that
+the Pope, asking where they had been made, and
+being told &ldquo;in England,&rdquo; despatched bulls to several
+English abbots, commanding them to procure similar
+ones for him. Some of the vestments of these
+days were almost covered with gold and precious
+stones.</p>
+
+<p>Or it might be a magnificent pall, in the days in
+which this garment had lost its primitive character,
+that taxed the skill and the patience of the fair
+needlewoman. It was about the year <small>A.D.</small> 601 that
+Pope Gregory sent two archbishop&rsquo;s palls into
+England; the one for London, which see was afterwards
+removed to Canterbury, and the other to
+York. Fuller gives the following account of this
+garment primitively:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The pall is a pontificall vestment, considerable
+for the matter, making, and mysteries thereof. For
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>67]</a></span>
+the matter, it is made of lamb&rsquo;s-wooll and superstition.
+I say, <em>of lamb&rsquo;s-wooll, as it comes from the
+sheep&rsquo;s back, without any other artificiall colour</em>, spun
+(say some) by a peculiar order of nunnes, <em>first cast
+into the tombe of St. Peter</em>, taken from his body (say
+others); surely most sacred if from both; and (superstitiously)
+adorned with little black crosses. For
+the form thereof, the <em>breadth exceeded not three
+fingers</em> (one of our bachelor&rsquo;s lamb-skin hoods in
+Cambridge would make three of them), <em>having two
+labells hanging down before and behind</em>, which the
+archbishops onely, when going to the altar, put about
+their necks, above their other pontificall ornaments.
+Three mysteries were couched therein. First, humility,
+which beautifies the clergy above all their
+costly copes; secondly, innocency, to imitate lamb-like
+simplicitie; and thirdly, industry, to follow
+him who fetched his wandering sheep home on his
+shoulders. But to speak plainly, the mystery of
+mysteries in this pall was, that the archbishops
+receiving it showed therein their dependence on
+Rome; and a mote in this manner ceremoniously
+taken was a sufficient acknowledgment of their subjection.
+And, as it owned Rome&rsquo;s power, so in after
+ages it increased their profit. For, though now such
+palls were freely given to archbishops, whose places
+in Britain for the present were rather cumbersome
+than commodious, having little more than their
+paines for their labour; yet in after ages the archbishop
+of Canterburie&rsquo;s pall was sold for five thousand
+florenes:<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> so that the Pope might well have the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>68]</a></span>
+Golden Fleece, if he could sell all his lamb&rsquo;s-wooll at
+that rate.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+<p>The accounts of the rich embroidered ecclesiastical
+vestments&mdash;robes, sandals, girdles, tunics, vests,
+palls, cloaks, altar-cloths, and veils or hangings of
+various descriptions, common in churches in the dark
+ages&mdash;would almost surpass belief, if the minuteness
+with which they are enumerated in some few ancient
+authors did not attest the fact. Still these in the
+most diffuse writers are a mere catalogue of church
+properties, and, as such, would, in the dry detail, be
+but little interesting to our readers. There is enough
+said of them, however, to attest their variety, their
+beauty, their magnificence; and to impress one with
+a very favourable idea of the female ingenuity and
+perseverance of those days. The cost of many of
+these garments was enormous, for pearls and precious
+jewels were literally interwrought, and the time
+and labour bestowed on them was almost incredible.
+It was no uncommon circumstance for three years to
+be spent even by these assiduous and indefatigable
+votaries of the needle on one garment. But it is
+only casually, in the pages of the antiquarian, that
+there is any record of them:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">&ldquo;With their names<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No bard embalms and sanctifies his song:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And history, so warm on meaner themes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is cold on this.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Noi</span>&rdquo; (says Muratori) &ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">che ammiriamo, e con
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>69]</a></span>
+ragione, la belt&agrave; e variet&agrave; di tante drapperie dei
+nostri tempi, abbiam nondimeno da confessare un
+obbligo non lieve agli antichi, che ci hanno prima
+spianata la via, e senza i lumi loro non potremmo
+oggid&igrave; vantare un s&igrave; gran progresso nell&rsquo;Arti.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And that this was the case a few instances may
+suffice to show; and it may not be quite out of place
+here to refer to one out of a thousand articles of
+value and beauty which were lost in the great conflagration
+(&ldquo;which so cruelly laid waste the habitations
+of the servants of God&rdquo;) of the doomed and
+often suffering, but always magnificent, Croyland
+Abbey. It was &ldquo;that beautiful and costly sphere,
+most curiously constructed of different metals, according
+to the different planets. Saturn was of copper,
+Jupiter of gold, Mars of iron, the Sun of brass,
+Mercury of amber, Venus of tin, and the Moon of
+silver: the colours of all the signs of the Zodiac had
+their several figures and colours variously finished,
+and adorned with such a mixture of precious stones
+and metals as amused the eye, while it informed the
+mind of every beholder. Such another sphere was
+not known or heard of in England; and it was a
+present from the King of France.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>No insignificant proof this of the mechanical skill
+of the eleventh century.</p>
+
+<p>We are told that Pope Eutychianus, who lived in
+the reign of the Emperor Aurelian, buried in different
+places 342 martyrs with his own hands; and
+he ordained that a faithful martyr should on no
+account be interred without a dalmatic robe or a
+purple colobio. This is perhaps one of the earliest
+notices of ecclesiastical pomp or pride in vestments.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>70]</a></span>
+But some forty years afterwards Pope Silvester was
+invested by the hands of his attendants with a
+Phrygian robe of snowy white, on which was traced
+in sparkling threads by busy female hands the
+resurrection of our Lord; and so magnificent was
+this garment considered that it was ordained to be
+worn by his successors on state occasions: and to
+pass at once to the seventh century, there are
+records of various church hangings which had become
+injured by old age being carefully repaired at considerable
+expense; which expense and trouble
+would not, we may fairly infer, have been incurred
+if the articles in question, even at this more advanced
+period, had not been considered of value and of
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Leo the Third, in the eighth century, was a magnificent
+benefactor to the church. With the vessels
+of rich plate and jewels of various descriptions which
+were in all ages offering to the church we have
+nothing to do: amongst various other vestments,
+Leo gave to the high altar of the blessed Peter, the
+Prince of the Apostles, a covering spangled with
+gold (<em>chrysoclabam</em>) and adorned with precious
+stones; having the histories both of our Saviour
+giving to the blessed Apostle Peter the power of
+binding and loosing, and also representing the
+suffering of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and
+Paul. It was of great size, and exhibited on St.
+Peter and St. Paul&rsquo;s days.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>71]</a></span>
+Pope Paschal, early in the ninth century, had
+some magnificent garments wrought, which he presented
+to different churches. One of these was an
+altar-cloth of Tyrian purple, having in the middle a
+picture of golden emblems, with the countenance of
+our Lord, and of the blessed martyrs Cosman and
+Damian, with three other brothers. The cross
+was wrought in gold, and had round it a border of
+olive-leaves most beautifully worked. Another had
+golden emblems, with our Saviour, surrounded with
+archangels and apostles, of wonderful beauty and
+richness, being ornamented with pearls.</p>
+
+<p>In these ages robes and hangings with crimson
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>72]</a></span>
+or purple borders, called <em>blatta</em>, from the name of
+the insect from which the dye was obtained, were
+much in use. An insect, supposed to be the one so
+often referred to by this name in the writings of the
+ancients, is found now on the coasts of Guayaquil
+and Guatima. The dye is very beautiful, and is
+easily transferred. The royal purple so much
+esteemed of old was of very different shades, for the
+terms purple, red, crimson, scarlet, are often used
+indiscriminately; and a pretty correct conception
+may be acquired of the value of this imperial tint
+formerly from the circumstance that, when Alexander
+took possession of the city of Susa and of its
+enormous treasures, among other things there were
+found five thousand quintals of Hermione purple,
+the finest in the world, which had been treasured up
+there during the space of 190 years; notwithstanding
+which, its beauty and lustre were no way diminished.
+Some idea may be formed of the prodigious
+value of this store from the fact that this purple was
+sold at the rate of 100 crowns a pound, and the
+quintal is a hundredweight of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Pope Paschal had a robe worked with gold and
+gems, having the history of the Virgins with lighted
+torches beautifully related: he had another of
+Byzantine scarlet with a worked border of olive-leaves.
+This was a very usual decoration of ecclesiastical
+robes, and a very suitable one; for, from the
+time when in the beak of Noah&rsquo;s dove it was first an
+emblem of comfort, it has ever, in all ages, in all
+nations, at all times, been symbolical of plenty and
+peace. This pope had also a robe of woven gold,
+worn over a cassock of scarlet silk; a dress certainly
+worth the naming, though not so much as others
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>73]</a></span>
+indebted to our useful little implement which
+Cowper calls the &ldquo;threaded steel.&rdquo; But he had
+another rich and peculiar garment, which was entirely
+indebted to the needlewoman for its varied
+and radiant hues. This was a robe of an amber
+colour,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> <em>having peacocks</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Pope Leo the Fourth had a hanging worked with
+the needle, having the portrait of a man seated upon
+a peacock. Pope Stefano the Fifth had four magnificent
+hangings for the great altar, one of which was
+wrought in peacocks. We find in romance that
+there was a high emblematical value attached to
+peacocks; not so high, however, as to prevent our
+ancestors from eating them; but it is difficult to
+account for their being so frequently introduced in
+designs professedly religious. In romance and
+chivalry they were supereminent. &ldquo;To mention the
+peacock (says M. Le Grand) is to write its panegyrick.&rdquo;
+Many noble families bore the peacock as
+their crest; and in the Proven&ccedil;al Courts of Love the
+successful poet was crowned with a wreath formed of
+them. The coronation present given to the Queen
+of our Henry the Third, by her sister, the Queen of
+France, was a large silver peacock, whose train was
+set with sapphires and pearls, and other precious
+jewels, wrought with silver. This elegant piece of
+jewellery was used as a reservoir for sweet waters,
+which were forced out of its beak into a basin of
+white silver chased.</p>
+
+<p>As the knights associated these birds with all
+their ideas of fame, and made their most solemn
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>74]</a></span>
+vows over them, the highest honours were conferred
+on them. Their flesh is celebrated as the &ldquo;nutriment
+of lovers,&rdquo; and the &ldquo;viand of worthies;&rdquo; and
+a peacock was always the most distinguished dish
+at the solemn banquets of princes or nobles. On
+these occasions it was served up on a golden dish, and
+carried to table by a lady of rank, attended by a
+train of high-born dames and damsels, and accompanied
+by music. If it was on the occasion of a
+tournament, the successful knight always carved it,
+so regulating his portions that each individual, be
+the company ever so numerous, might taste. For
+the oath, the knight rising from his seat and extending
+his hand over the bird, vowed some daring
+enterprise of arms or love:&mdash;&ldquo;I vow to God, to the
+blessed Virgin, to the dames, and to the <em>peacock</em>,
+&amp;c. &amp;c.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In later and less imaginative times, the peacock,
+though still a favourite dish at a banquet, seems to
+have been regarded more from its affording &ldquo;good
+eating&rdquo; than from any more refined attribute.
+Massinger speaks of</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i9">&ldquo;the carcases<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Make sauce for a single peacock.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In Shakspeare&rsquo;s time the bird was usually put
+into a pie, the head, richly gilt, being placed at one
+end of the dish, and the tail, spread out in its full
+circumference, at the other. And alas! for the degeneracy
+of those days. The solemn and knightly
+adjuration of former times had even then dwindled
+into the absurd oath which Shakspeare puts into the
+mouth of Justice Shallow:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>75]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;By <em>cock</em> and <em>pye</em>, Sir, you shall not away to night.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In some of the French tapestries birds of all
+shapes, natural and unnatural, of all sizes and in all
+positions, form very important parts of the subjects
+themselves; though this remark is hardly in place
+here, as the tapestries are of later date, and not solely
+needlework. To return, however: mention is made
+in an old chronicle of <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">antiquitas Congregatio Ancilarum,
+qu&aelig; opere plumario ornamenta ecclesiam laborabant</i>.
+It has been a subject of much discussion
+whether this Opus Plumarium signified some arrangement
+of real feathers, or merely fanciful embroidery
+in imitation of them. Lytlyngton, Abbot of
+Croyland, in Edward the Fourth&rsquo;s time, gave to his
+church nine copes of cloth of gold, exquisitely
+feathered.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> This was perhaps embroidered imitation.
+A vestment which Cnute the Great presented
+to this abbey was made of silk embroidered
+with eagles of gold. Richard Upton, elected abbot
+in 1417, gave silk embroidered with falcons for
+copes; and about the same time John Freston gave
+a rich robe of Venetian blue embroidered with
+golden eagles. These were positively imitations
+merely; yet they evince the prevailing taste for
+feathered work, and, as we have shown, feathers
+themselves were much used. It is recorded that
+Pope Paul the Third sent King Pepin a present of
+a mantle interwoven with peacocks&rsquo; feathers.</p>
+
+<p>And from whatever circumstance the reverence
+for peacocks&rsquo; feathers originated,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> it is not, even yet,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>76]</a></span>
+quite exploded. There are some lingering remnants
+of a superstitious regard for them which may have
+had their origin in these very times and circumstances.
+For how surely, where they are rigidly
+traced, are our country customs, our vulgar ceremonies,
+our apparently absurd and senseless usages,
+found to emanate from some principle or superstition
+of general and prevailing adoption. In some
+counties we cannot enter a farm-house where the
+mantel-piece in the parlour is not decorated with a
+diadem of peacock feathers, which are carefully
+dusted and preserved. And in houses of more assuming
+pretensions the same custom frequently
+prevails; and we knew a lady who carefully preserved
+some peacock feathers in a drawer long after
+her association with people in a higher station than
+that to which she originally belonged had made her
+ashamed to display them in her parlour. <em>This</em> could
+not be for <em>mere</em> ornament: there is some idea of <em>luck</em>
+attached to them, which seems not improbably to
+have arisen from circumstances connected originally
+with the &ldquo;Vow of the Peacock.&rdquo; At any rate, the
+religious care with which peacocks&rsquo; feathers are preserved
+by many who care not for them as ornaments,
+is not a whit more ridiculous than to see people
+gravely turn over the money in their pockets when
+they first hear the cuckoo, or joyfully fasten a
+dropped horse-shoe on their threshold, or shudderingly
+turn aside if two straws lie across in their
+path, or thankfully seize an old shoe accidentally
+met with, heedless of the probable state of the beggared
+foot that may unconsciously have left it there,
+or any other of the million unaccountable customs
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>77]</a></span>
+which diversify and enliven country life, and which
+still prevail and flourish, notwithstanding the extensive
+travels and sweeping devastations of the
+modern &ldquo;schoolmaster.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Do not our readers recollect Cowper&rsquo;s thanksgiving
+&ldquo;on finding the heel of a shoe?&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Fortune! I thank thee, gentle goddess! thanks!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not that my muse, though bashful, shall deny<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She would have thanked thee rather, hadst thou cast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A treasure in her way; for neither meed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of early breakfast, to dispel the fumes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bowel-raking pains of emptiness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor noontide feast, nor ev&rsquo;ning&rsquo;s cool repast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hopes she from this&mdash;presumptuous, though perhaps<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cobbler, leather-carving artist, might.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nathless she thanks thee, and accepts thy boon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whatever; not as erst the fabled cock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vain-glorious fool! unknowing what he found,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spurned the rich gem thou gavest him. Wherefore, ah!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why not on me that favour, (worthier sure!)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conferr&rsquo;dst, goddess! thou art blind, thou sayest:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enough! thy blindness shall excuse the deed.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Return we to our needlework.</p>
+
+<p>We have clear proof that, before the end of the
+seventh century, our fair countrywomen were skilled
+not merely in the use of the needle as applied to
+necessary purposes, but also in its application to
+the varied and elegant embroidered garments to
+which we have so frequently alluded, as forming
+properties of value and consideration. They were
+chiefly executed by ladies of the highest rank and
+greatest piety&mdash;very frequently, indeed, by those of
+royal blood&mdash;and were usually (as we have before
+observed) devoted to the embellishment of the
+church, or the decoration of its ministers. It was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>78]</a></span>
+not unusual to bequeath such properties. &ldquo;I give,&rdquo;
+said the wife of the Conqueror, in her will, &ldquo;to the
+Abbey of the Holy Trinity, my tunic worked at
+Winchester by Alderet&rsquo;s wife, and the mantle embroidered
+with gold, which is in my chamber, to
+make a cope. Of my two golden girdles, I give that
+which is ornamented with emblems for the purpose
+of suspending the lamp before the great altar.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a>
+Amongst some costly presents sent by Isabella,
+Queen of Edward the Second, to the Pope, was a
+magnificent cope, embroidered and studded with
+large white pearls, and purchased of the executors
+of Catherine Lincoln, for a sum equivalent to between
+two and three thousand pounds of present
+money. Another cope, thought worthy to accompany
+it, was also the work of an Englishwoman,
+Rose de Bureford, wife of John de Bureford, citizen
+and merchant of London.</p>
+
+<p>Anciently, banners, either from being made of
+some relic, or from the representation on them of
+holy things, were held sacred, and much superstitious
+faith placed in them; consequently the pious and
+industrious finger was much occupied in working
+them. King Arthur, when he fought the eighth
+battle against the Saxons, carried the &ldquo;image of
+Christ and of the blessed Mary (always a virgin)
+upon his shoulders.&rdquo; Over the tomb of Oswald, the
+great Christian hero, was laid a banner of purple
+wrought with gold. When St. Augustine first came
+to preach to the Saxons, he had a cross borne before
+him, with a banner, on which was the image of our
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>79]</a></span>
+Saviour Christ. The celebrated standard of the
+Danes had the sacred raven worked on it; and the
+ill-fated Harold bore to the field of Hastings a
+banner with the figure of an armed man worked in
+gold thread: to the same field William bore a
+standard, a gift from the Pope, and blessed by his
+Holiness.</p>
+
+<p>It is recorded of St. Dunstan, who, as our readers
+well know, excelled in many pursuits, and especially
+in painting, for which he frequently forsook his
+peculiar occupation of goldsmith, that on one occasion,
+at the earnest request of a lady, he <em>tinted</em> a
+sacerdotal vestment for her, which she afterwards
+embroidered in gold thread in an exquisitely beautiful
+style. Most of these embroidered works were
+first tinted, very probably in the way in which they
+now are, or until the freer influx of the more beautiful
+German patterns, they lately were; and it is
+from this previous tinting that they are so frequently
+described in the old books as <em>painted</em> garments,
+<em>pictured</em> vestments, &amp;c., this term by no means
+seeming usually to imply that the use of the needle
+had been neglected or superseded in them. The
+garments of Edward the Confessor, which he wore
+upon occasions of great solemnity, were sumptuously
+embroidered with gold by the hands of Edgitha,
+his Queen. The four princesses, daughters of King
+Edward the Elder, were most carefully educated:
+their early years were chiefly devoted to literary
+pursuits, but they were nevertheless most assiduously
+instructed in the use of the needle, and are
+highly celebrated by historians for their assiduity
+and skill in spinning, weaving, and needlework.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>80]</a></span>
+This was so far, says the historian, from spoiling
+the fortunes of those royal spinsters, that it procured
+them the addresses of the greatest princes
+then in Europe, and one, &ldquo;in whom the whole
+essence of beauty had centered, was demanded from
+her brother by Hugh, King of the Franks.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Our fair readers may take some interest in knowing
+what were the propitiatory offerings of a noble
+suitor of those days.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perfumes, such as never had been seen in
+England before; jewels, but more especially emeralds,
+the greenness of which, reflected by the sun,
+illumined the countenances of the bystanders with
+agreeable light; many fleet horses, with their trappings,
+and, as Virgil says, &lsquo;champing their golden
+bits;&rsquo; an alabaster vase, so exquisitely chased, that
+the corn-fields really seemed to wave, the vines to
+bud, the figures of men actually to move, and so
+clear and polished, that it reflected the features like
+a mirror; the sword of Constantine the Great, on
+which the name of its original possessor was read in
+golden letters; on the pommel, upon thick plates
+of gold, might be seen fixed an iron spike, one of
+the four which the Jewish faction prepared for the
+crucifixion of our Lord; the spear of Charles the
+Great, which, whenever that invincible Emperor
+hurled in his expeditions against the Saracens, he
+always came off conqueror; it was reported to be
+the same which, driven into the side of our Saviour
+by the hand of the centurion, opened, by that precious
+wound, the joys of paradise to wretched
+mortals; the banner of the most blessed martyr
+Maurice, chief of the Theban legion, with which the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>81]</a></span>
+same King, in the Spanish war, used to break
+through the battalions of the enemy, however fierce
+and wedged together, and put them to flight; a
+diadem, precious from its quantity of gold, but
+more so for its jewels, the splendour of which threw
+the sparks of light so strongly on the beholders,
+that the more steadfastly any person endeavoured
+to gaze, so much the more dazzled he was&mdash;compelled
+to avert his eyes; part of the holy and
+adorable cross enclosed in crystal, where the eye,
+piercing through the substance of the stone, might
+discern the colour and size of the wood; a small
+portion of the crown of thorns enclosed in a similar
+manner, which, in derision of his government,
+the madness of the soldiers placed on Christ&rsquo;s sacred
+head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The King (Athelstan), delighted with such
+great and exquisite presents, made an equal return
+of good offices, and gratified the soul of the longing
+suitor by a union with his sister. With some of
+these presents he enriched succeeding kings; but to
+Malmesbury he gave part of the cross and crown; by
+the support of which, I believe, that place even now
+flourishes, though it has suffered so many shipwrecks
+of its liberty, so many attacks of its enemies.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is not to be supposed that at a time when the
+&ldquo;whole island&rdquo; was said to &ldquo;blaze&rdquo; with devotion,
+and when, moreover, her own fair daughters surpassed
+the whole world in needlework, that the
+English churches were deficient in its beautiful
+adornments. Far otherwise, indeed. We forbear
+to enumerate many, because our chapter has already
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>82]</a></span>
+exceeded its prescribed limits; but we may particularize
+a golden veil or hanging (vellum), embroidered
+with the destruction of Troy, which Witlaf,
+King of Mercia, gave to the abbey of Croyland;
+and the coronation mantle of Harold Harefoot, son
+of Cnute, which he gave to the same abbey, made
+of silk, and embroidered with &ldquo;Hesperian apples.&rdquo;
+Richard, who was abbot of St. Alban&rsquo;s from 1088 to
+1119, made a present to his monastery of a suit of
+hangings which contained the whole history of the
+primitive martyr of England, Alban.</p>
+
+<p>Croyland Abbey possessed many hangings for
+the altars, embroidered with golden birds; and a
+garment, which seems to have been a peculiar, and
+considered a valuable one, being a black gown
+wrought with gold letters, to officiate in at funerals.
+The enigmatical letters which were worked on ecclesiastical
+vestments in those days, were various and
+peculiar, and have given abundant scope for antiquarian
+research. We have heard it surmised that
+they took their rise in times of persecution, being
+indications (then, doubtless, slight and unostentatious
+ones) by which the Christians might know
+each other. But they came into more general use,
+not merely as symbolical characters, but individual
+names were wrought, and that not on personal garments
+alone, for Pope Leo the Fourth placed a cloth
+on the altar woven with gold, and spangled all over
+with pearls. It had on each side (right and left)
+a circle bounded with gold, within which the name
+of his Holiness was written in precious stones. In
+many old paintings a letter or letters have been
+noticed on the garment of the principal figure, and
+they have been taken for private marks of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>83]</a></span>
+painter, but it is more probable, says Ciampini,<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a>
+that they are either copied from old garments, or
+are intended to denote the dignity of the character
+to which they are attached.</p>
+
+<p>We will conclude the present chapter by remarking
+that one of the most magnificent specimens of
+ancient needlework in existence, and which is in
+excellent preservation, is the State Pall belonging
+to the Fishmongers Company. The end pieces are
+similar, and consist of a picture, wrought in gold and
+silk, of the patron, St. Peter, in pontificial robes,
+seated on a superb throne, and crowned with the
+papal tiara. Holding in one hand the keys, the
+other is in the posture of giving the benediction,
+and on each side is an angel, bearing a golden vase,
+from which he scatters incense over the Saint. The
+angel&rsquo;s wings, according to old custom, are composed
+of peacocks&rsquo; feathers in all their natural vivid colours;
+their outer robes are gold raised with crimson; their
+under vests white, shaded with sky blue; the faces
+are finely worked in satin, after nature, and they
+have long yellow hair.</p>
+
+<p>There are various designs on the side pieces; the
+most important and conspicuous is Christ delivering
+the keys to Peter. Among other decorations are, of
+course, the arms of the company, richly emblazoned,
+the supporters of which, the merman and mermaid,
+are beautifully worked, the merman in gold armour,
+the mermaid in white silk, with long tresses in
+golden thread.</p>
+
+<p>This magnificent piece of needlework has probably
+no parallel in this country.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a>
+When Robert, Abbot of St. Alban&rsquo;s, visited his countryman Pope
+Adrian the Fourth, he made him several valuable presents, and
+amongst other things three mitres and a pair of sandals of most admirable
+workmanship. His holiness refused his other presents, but
+thankfully accepted of the mitres and sandals, being charmed with
+their exquisite beauty. These admired pieces of embroidery were the
+work of Christina, Abbess of Markgate.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a>
+&ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Anglic&aelig; nationis femin&aelig; multum acu et auri textura, egregie
+viri in omni valeant artificio.</span> <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Per&ograve; fu renomato Opus Anglicum.</span>&rdquo;&mdash;From <span class="smcap">Muratori</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a>
+A florene is 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a>
+&ldquo;The pall was a bishop&rsquo;s vestment, going over the shoulders,
+made of sheep-skin, in memory of him who sought the lost sheep,
+and when he had found it laid it on his shoulders; and it was embroidered
+with crosses, and taken off the body or coffin of St. Peter.&rdquo;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Camden.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a>
+Anastasius Bibliothecarius. De Vitis Romanorum Pontificum.</p>
+
+<p>As this work is the fountain whence subsequent writers have chiefly
+obtained their information with regard to church vestments, that is
+to say, decorative ones, it may not be amiss to transcribe a passage,
+taken literally at random from scores of similar ones. It will give
+the reader some idea of the profusion with which the expensive garnitures
+were supplied:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sed et super altare majus fecit tetra vela holoserica alithina
+quatuor, cum astillis, et rosis chrysoclabis. Et in eodem altare
+fecit cum historiis crucifixi Domini vestem tyriam. Et in Ecclesia
+Doctoris Mundi beati Pauli Apostoli tetra vela holoserica alithyna
+quatuor, et vestem super altare albam chrysoclabam, habentem
+historiam Sanct&aelig; Resurrectionis, et aliam vestem chrysoclabam, habentem
+historiam nativitatis Domini, et Sanctorum Innocentium.
+Immo et aliam vestem tyriam, habentem historiam c&aelig;ci illuminati,
+et Resurrectionem. Idem autem sanctissimus Pr&aelig;sul fecit in basilica
+beat&aelig; Mari&aelig; ad Pr&aelig;sepe vestem albam chrysoclabam, habentem
+historiam sanct&aelig; Resurrectionis. Sed et aliam vestem in orbiculis
+chrysoclabis, habentem historias Annunciationis, et sanctorum Joachim,
+et Ann&aelig;. Fecit in Ecclesia beati Laurentii foris muros eidem
+Pr&aelig;sul vestem albam rosatam cum chrysoclabo. Sed et aliam vestem
+super sanctum corpus ejus albam de stauraci chrysoclabam, cum margaritis.
+Et in titulo Calixti vestem chrysoclabam ex blattin Byzanteo,
+habentem historiam nativitatis Domini, et sancti Simeonis. Item
+in Ecclesia sancti Pancratii vestem tyriam, habentem historiam Ascencionis
+Domini, seu et in sancta Maria ad Martyres fecit vestem tyriam
+ut supra. Et in basilica sanctorum Cosm&aelig; et Damiani fecit
+vestem de blatti Byzanteo, cum periclysin de chrysoclabo, et margaritis.</span>&rdquo;&mdash;i.
+285.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a>
+&ldquo;De staurace.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a>
+&ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Opere plumario exquitissime pr&aelig;paratas.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a>
+In the classical ages, they were in high repute. Juno&rsquo;s chariot
+is drawn by peacocks; and Olympian Jove himself invests his royal
+limbs with a mantle formed of their feathers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a>
+The name of Dame Leviet has descended to posterity as an embroiderer
+to the Conqueror and his Queen.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a>
+Will. of Malmesbury, 156.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a>
+Vet. Mon. cap. 13.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>84]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.&mdash;PART I.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Needlework sublime.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Cowper.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Great discussion has taken place amongst the
+learned with regard to the exact time at which the
+Bayeux tapestry was wrought. The question, except
+as a matter of curiosity, is, perhaps, of little
+account&mdash;fifty years earlier or later, nearly eight
+hundred years ago. It had always been considered
+as the work of Matilda, the wife of the conquering
+Duke of Normandy until a few years ago, when the
+Abb&eacute; de la Rue started and endeavoured to maintain
+the hypothesis that it was worked by or under the
+direction of the Empress Matilda, the daughter of
+Henry the First.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> But his positions, as Dibdin
+observes,<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> are all of a <em>negative</em> character, and,
+&ldquo;according to the strict rules of logic, it must not
+be admitted, that because such and such writers have
+<em>not</em> noticed a circumstance, therefore that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>85]</a></span>
+circumstance or event cannot have taken place.&rdquo; Hudson
+Gurney, Charles A. Stothard, and Thos. Amyot,
+Esqrs. have all published essays on the subject,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>
+which establish almost to certainty the fact of the
+production of this tapestry at the earlier of the two
+periods contended for, viz. from 1066 to 1068.</p>
+
+<p>In this we rejoice, because this Herculean labour
+has a halo of deep interest thrown round it,
+from the circumstance of its being the proud tribute
+of a fond and affectionate wife, glorying in her husband&rsquo;s
+glory, and proud of emblazoning his deeds.
+As the work of the Empress Matilda it would still
+be a magnificent production of industry and of skill;
+as the work of &ldquo;Duke William&rsquo;s&rdquo; wife these qualities
+merge in others of a more interesting character.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>This excellent and amiable princess was a most
+highly accomplished woman, and remarkable for her
+learning; she was the affectionate mother of a large
+family, the faithful wife of an enterprising monarch,
+with whom she lived for thirty-three years so harmoniously
+that her death had such an effect on her
+husband as to cause him to relinquish, never again
+to resume, his usual amusements.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>86]</a></span>
+Little did the affectionate wife think, whilst employed
+over this task, that her domestic tribute of
+regard should become an historical memento of her
+country, and blazon forth her illustrious husband&rsquo;s
+deeds, and her own unwearying affection, to ages
+upon ages hereafter to be born. For independently of
+the interest which may be attached to this tapestry as
+a pledge of feminine affection, a token of housewifely
+industry, and a specimen of ancient stitchery, it derives
+more historic value as the work of the Conqueror&rsquo;s
+wife, than if it were the production of a
+later time. For it holds good with these historical
+tapestries as with the written histories and romances
+of the middle ages;&mdash;authors wrote and ladies
+wrought (we mean no pun) their characters, <em>not</em> in
+the costume of the times in which the action or event
+celebrated took place, but in that in which they were at
+the time engaged; and thus, had Matilda the Empress
+worked this tapestry, it is more than probable
+that she would have introduced the armorial bearings
+which were in her time becoming common, and especially
+the Norman leopards, of which in the tapestry
+there is not the slightest trace. In her time too the
+hair was worn so long as to excite the censures of
+the church, whilst at the time of the Conquest the
+Normans almost shaved their heads; and this circumstance,
+more than the want of beards, is supposed
+by Mr. Stothard<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> to have led to the surmise of the
+Anglo-Saxon spies that the Normans were all priests.
+This circumstance is faithfully depicted in the tapestry,
+where also the chief weapon seen is a lance, which
+was little used after the Conquest. These peculiarities,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>87]</a></span>
+with several others which have been commented
+on by antiquarian writers, seem to establish
+the date of this production as coeval with the action
+which it represents, and therefore invaluable as an
+historical document.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is, perhaps,&rdquo; says one of the learned writers
+on the Bayeux tapestry, &ldquo;a characteristic of the
+literature of the present age to deduce history from
+sources of second-rate authority; from ballads
+and pictures rather than from graver and severer
+records. Unquestionably this is the preferable
+course, if amusement, not truth, be the object sought
+for. Nothing can be more delightful than to read
+the reigns of the Plantagenets in the dramas of
+Shakspeare, or the tales of later times in the ingenious
+fictions of the author of Waverley. But
+those who would draw historical facts from their
+hiding-places must be content to plod through many
+a ponderous worm-eaten folio, and many a half-legible
+and still less intelligible manuscript.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yet,&rdquo; continues he, &ldquo;if the Bayeux tapestry be
+not history of the first class, it is, perhaps, something
+better. It exhibits genuine traits, elsewhere sought
+in vain, of the costume and manners of that age
+which, of all others, if we except the period of the
+Reformation, ought to be the most interesting to
+us; that age which gave us a new race of monarchs,
+bringing with them new landholders, new laws, and
+almost a new language.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As in the magic pages of Froissart, we here behold
+our ancestors of each race in most of the occupations
+of life, in courts and camps, in pastime and
+in battle, at feasts and on the bed of sickness. These
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>88]</a></span>
+are characteristics which of themselves would call
+forth a lively interest; but their value is greatly
+enhanced by their connection with one of the most
+important events in history, the main subject of the
+whole design.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This magnificent piece of work is 227 feet in
+length by 20 inches in width, is now usually kept at
+the Town-hall in Rouen, and is treasured as the
+most precious relic. It was formerly the theme of
+some long and learned dissertations of antiquarian
+historians, amongst whom Montfaucon, perhaps,
+ranks most conspicuous.</p>
+
+<p>Still so little <em>local</em> interest does it excite, that Mr.
+Gurney, in 1814, was nearly leaving Bayeux without
+seeing it because he did not happen to ask for it
+by the title of &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Toile de St. Jean</span>,&rdquo; and so his
+request was not understood; and Ducarel, in his
+&ldquo;Tour,&rdquo; says, &ldquo;The priests of this cathedral to whom
+we addressed ourselves for a sight of this remarkable
+piece of antiquity, knew nothing of it; the circumstance
+only of its being annually hung up in
+their church led them to understand what we wanted;
+no person there knowing that the object of our inquiry
+any ways related to William the Conqueror,
+whom to this day they call Duke William.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>During the French Revolution its surrender was
+demanded for the purpose of covering the guns;
+fortunately, however, a priest succeeded in concealing
+it until that storm was overpast.</p>
+
+<p>Bonaparte better knew its value. It was displayed
+for some time in Paris, and afterwards at some seaport
+towns. M. Denon had the charge of it committed
+to him by Bonaparte, but it was afterwards
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>89]</a></span>
+restored to Bayeux. It was at the time of the usurper&rsquo;s
+threatened invasion of our country that so
+much value was attached to, and so much pains
+taken to exhibit this roll. &ldquo;Whether,&rdquo; says Dibdin,
+&ldquo;at such a sight the soldiers shouted, and, drawing
+their glittering swords,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,&mdash;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>confident of a second representation of the same
+subject by a second subjugation of our country&mdash;is
+a point which has not been exactly detailed to me!
+But the supposition may not be considered very violent
+when I inform you that I was told by a casual
+French visitor of the tapestry, that &lsquo;<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pour cela, si
+Bonaparte avait eu le courage, le r&eacute;sultat auroit &eacute;t&eacute;
+comme autrefois</i>.&rsquo; Matters, however, have taken
+<em>rather</em> a different turn.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The tapestry is coiled round a machine like that
+which lets down the buckets to a well, and a female
+unrols and explains it. It is worked in different
+coloured worsteds on white cloth, to which time has
+given the tinge of brown holland; the parts intended
+to represent flesh are left untouched by the needle.
+The colours are somewhat faded, and not very multitudinous.
+Perhaps it is the little variety of colours
+which Matilda and her ladies had at their
+disposal which has caused them to depict the horses
+of any colour&mdash;&ldquo;blue, green, red, or yellow.&rdquo; The
+outline, too, is of course stiff and rude.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> At the
+top and bottom of the main work is a narrow
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>90]</a></span>
+allegorical border; and each division or different action
+or event is marked by a branch or tree extending
+the whole depth of the tapestry; and most frequently
+each tableau is so arranged that the figures
+at the end of one and the beginning of the next are
+turned from each other, whilst above each the subject
+of the scene and the names of the principal
+actors are wrought in large letters. The subjects
+of the border vary; some of &AElig;sop&rsquo;s fables are depicted
+on it, sometimes instruments of agriculture,
+sometimes fanciful and grotesque figures and borders;
+and during the heat of the battle of Hastings,
+when, as Montfaucon says, &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le carnage est grand</span>,&rdquo;
+the appropriate device of the border is a <em>layer of
+dead men</em>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;From the fury of the Normans, good Lord deliver
+us,&rdquo; was, we are told, in the ninth, tenth, and
+eleventh centuries a petition in the Litanies of all
+nations.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> For long did England sorrow under their
+&ldquo;fury,&rdquo; though <em>in time</em> the Conquest produced advantageous
+results to the kingdom at large. Whether
+this Norman subjugation was in accordance
+with the will of the monarch Edward, or whether it
+was entirely the result of Duke William&rsquo;s ambition,
+must now ever remain in doubt. Harold asserted
+that Edward the Confessor appointed him his successor
+(of which, however, he could not produce
+proof); to this must be opposed the improbability
+of Edward thus ennobling a family of whom he felt,
+and with such abundant cause, so jealous.</p>
+
+<p>Probably the old chronicler (Fabyan) has hit the
+mark when he says, &ldquo;This Edgarre (the rightful
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>91]</a></span>
+heir) was yonge, and specyally for Harolde was
+stronge of knyghtes and rychesse, he wanne the
+reygne.&rdquo; Be this as it may, however, Harold on
+the very day of Edward&rsquo;s interment, and that was
+only the day subsequent to his death, was crowned
+king in St. Paul&rsquo;s; apparently with the concurrence
+of all concerned, for he was powerful and popular.
+And his government during the chief part of his
+short kingly career was such as to increase his popularity:
+he was wise, and just, and gracious. &ldquo;Anone
+as he was crowned, he began to fordoo euyll lawes
+and customes before vsed, and stablysshed the good
+lawes, and specyally whiche (suche) as were for the
+defence of holy churche, and punysshed the euyll
+doers, to the fere and example of other.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p>
+
+<p>But uncontrolled authority early began to produce
+its wonted results. He &ldquo;waxyd so prowd, and
+for couetouse wold not deuyde the prayes that he
+took to hys knyghtys, that had well deseruyd it,
+but kepte it to hymself, that he therby lost the
+fauour of many of his knyghtys and people.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> This
+defection from his party doubtless made itself felt
+in the mortal struggle with the Norman duke which
+issued in Harold&rsquo;s discomfiture and death.</p>
+
+<p>Proceed we to the tapestry.</p>
+
+<p>The first scene which the needlewoman has depicted
+is a conference between a person who, from
+his white flowing beard and regal costume, is easily
+recognized as the &ldquo;sainted Edward,&rdquo; and another,
+who, from his subsequent embarkation, is supposed
+to be Harold. The subject of the conference is, of
+course, only conjectured. Harold&rsquo;s visit to Normandy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>92]</a></span>
+is well known; but whether, as some suppose, he
+was driven thither by a tempest when on a cruise of
+pleasure; whether he went as ambassador from Edward
+to communicate the intentions of the Confessor
+in William&rsquo;s behoof; or whether, as the tapestry is
+supposed more strongly to indicate, he obtained
+Edward&rsquo;s reluctant consent to his visit to reclaim his
+brother who, a hostage for his own good conduct,
+had been sent to William by Edward; these are
+points which now defy investigation, even if they
+were of sufficient importance to claim it. Harold is
+then seen on his journey attended by cavaliers on
+horseback, surrounded by dogs, and, an emblem of
+his own high dignity, a hawk on his fist.</p>
+
+<p>One great value of this tapestry is the scrupulous
+regard paid to points and circumstances which at
+first view might appear insignificant, but which, as
+correlative confirmations of usages and facts, are of
+considerable importance. Thus, it is known to antiquarians
+that great personages formerly had two
+only modes of equipment when proceeding on a
+journey, that of war or the chase. Harold is here
+fully equipped for the chase, and consequently the
+first glimpse obtained of his person would show that
+his errand was one of peace. The hawk on the fist
+was a mark of high nobility: no inferior person is
+represented with one: Harold and Guy Earl of
+Ponthieu alone bear them.</p>
+
+<p>In former times this bird was esteemed so sacred
+that it was prohibited in the ancient laws for any
+one to give his hawk even as a part of his ransom.
+In the reign of Edward the Third it was made felony
+to steal a hawk; and to take its eggs, even in a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>93]</a></span>
+person&rsquo;s own ground, was punishable with imprisonment
+for a year and a day, besides a fine at the
+king&rsquo;s pleasure. Nay, more than this, by the laws
+of one part of the island, and probably of the whole,<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a>
+the price of a hawk, or of a greyhound, was once the
+very same with the price of a man; and there was
+a time when the robbing of a hawk&rsquo;s nest was as
+great a crime in the eye of the law, and as severely
+punished, as the murder of a Christian. And of
+this high value they were long considered. &ldquo;It is
+difficult,&rdquo; says Mr. Mills,<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> &ldquo;to fancy the extravagant
+degree of estimation in which hawks were held
+during the chivalric ages. As symbols of high
+estate they were constantly carried about by the
+nobility of both sexes. There was even a usage of
+bringing them into places appropriated to public
+worship; a practice which, in the case of some individuals,
+appears to have been recognised as a right.
+The treasurer of the church of Auxerre enjoyed the
+distinction of assisting at divine service on solemn
+days with a falcon on his fist; and the Lord of Sassai
+held the privilege of perching his upon the altar.
+Nothing was thought more dishonourable to a man
+of rank than to give up his hawks; and if he were
+taken prisoner he would not resign them even for
+liberty.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The different positions in which the hawk is
+placed in our needlework are worthy of remark.
+Here its head is raised, its wings fluttering, as if
+eager and ready for flight; afterwards, when Harold
+follows the Earl of Ponthieu as his captive, he is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>94]</a></span>
+not, of course, deprived of his bird, but by a beautiful
+fiction the bird is represented depressed, and
+with its head turned towards its master&rsquo;s breast as
+if trying to nestle and shelter itself there. Could
+sympathy be more poetically expressed? Afterwards,
+on Harold&rsquo;s release, the bird is again depicted as
+fluttering to &ldquo;soar elate.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The practice very prevalent in these &ldquo;barbarous
+times,&rdquo; as we somewhat too sweepingly term them,
+of entering on no expedition of war or pastime
+without imploring the protection of heaven, is intimated
+by a church which Harold is entering previously
+to his embarkation. That this observance
+might degenerate in many instances into mere form
+may be very true; and the &ldquo;hunting masses&rdquo; celebrated
+in song might, some of them, be more
+honoured in the breach than the observance: nevertheless
+in clearing away the dross of old times, we
+have, it is to be feared, removed some of the gold
+also; and the abolition of the custom of having the
+churches open at <em>all times</em>, so that at any moment
+the heart-prompted prayer might be offered up
+under the holy shelter of a consecrated roof, has
+tended very much, it is to be feared, to abolish the
+habit of frequent prayer. A habit in itself, and regarded
+even merely as a habit, fraught with inestimable
+good.</p>
+
+<p>We next see Harold and his companions refreshing
+themselves prior to their departure, pledging
+each other, and doubtless drinking to the success of
+their enterprise whatever it might be. The horns
+from which they are drinking have been the subject
+of critical remark. We find that horns were used
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>95]</a></span>
+for various purposes, and were of four sorts, drinking
+horns, hunting horns, horns for summoning the
+people, and of a mixed kind.</p>
+
+<p>They were used as modes of investiture, and this
+manner of endowing was usual amongst the Danes
+in England. King Cnute himself gave lands at
+Pusey in Berkshire to the family of that name, with
+a horn solemnly at that time delivered, as a confirmation
+of the grant. Edward the Confessor made
+a like donation to the family of Nigel. The celebrated
+horn of Alphus, kept in the sacristy in York
+Minster, was probably a drinking cup belonging to
+this prince, and was by him given together with all
+his lands and revenues to that church. &ldquo;When he
+gave the horn that was to convey it (his estate) he
+filled it with wine, and on his knees before the altar,
+&lsquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Deo et S. Petro omnes terras et redditus propinavit</span>.&rsquo;
+So that he drank it off, in testimony that
+thereby he gave them his lands.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> Many instances
+might be adduced to show that this mode of investiture
+was common in England in the time of the
+Danes, the Anglo-Saxons, and at the close of the
+reign of the Norman conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>The drinking horns had frequently a screw at the
+end, which being taken off at once converted them
+into hunting horns, which circumstance will account
+for persons of distinction frequently carrying their
+own. Such doubtless were those used of old by the
+Breton hunters about Brecheliant, which is poetically
+described as a forest long and broad, much famed
+throughout Brittany. The fountain of Berenton
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>96]</a></span>
+rises from beneath a stone there. Thither the
+hunters are used to repair in sultry weather, and
+drawing up water with their horns (those horns
+which had just been used to sound the animated
+warnings of the chase), they sprinkle the stone for
+the purpose of having rain, which is then wont to
+fall throughout the whole forest around. There too
+fairies are to be seen, and many wonders happen.
+The ground is broken and precipitous, and deer in
+plenty roam there, but the husbandmen have forsaken
+it. Our author<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> goes on to say that he personally
+visited this enchanted region, but that,
+though he saw the forest and the land, no marvels
+presented themselves. The reason is obvious. He
+had, before the time, contracted some of the scepticism
+of these matter-of-fact &ldquo;schoolmaster abroad&rdquo;
+days. He wanted faith, and therefore he did not
+<em>deserve</em> to see them.</p>
+
+<p>The use of drinking horns is very ancient. They
+were usually embellished or garnished with silver;
+they were in very common use among our Saxon
+ancestors, who frequently had them gilded and
+magnificently ornamented. One of those in use
+amongst Harold&rsquo;s party seems to be very richly
+decorated.</p>
+
+<p>The revellers are, however, obliged to dispatch,
+as their leader, Harold, is already wading through
+the water to his vessel. The character of Harold as
+displayed throughout this tapestry is a magnificent
+one, and does infinite credit to the generous and
+noble disposition of Matilda the queen, who
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>97]</a></span>
+disdained to depreciate the character of a fallen foe.
+He commences his expedition by an act of piety;
+here, on his embarkation at Bosham, he is kindly
+carrying his dog through the water. In crossing
+the sands of the river Cosno, which are dangerous,
+so very dangerous as most frequently to cause the
+destruction of those who attempt their transit, his
+whole concern seems to be to assist the passage of
+others, whose inferior natural powers do not enable
+them to compete with danger so successfully as himself;
+his character for undaunted bravery is such,
+that William condescends to supplicate his assistance
+in a feud then at issue between himself and
+another nobleman, and so nobly does he bear himself
+that the proud Norman with his own hands
+invests him with the emblems of honour (as seen in
+the tapestry); and, last scene of all, he disdained
+all submission, he repelled all the entreaties with
+which his brothers assailed him not personally to
+lead his troops to the encounter, and the corpses of
+15,000 Normans on this field, and of even a greater
+number on the English monarch&rsquo;s side, told in bloody
+characters that Harold had not quailed in the last
+great encounter.</p>
+
+<p>Unpropitious winds drive him and his attendants
+from their intended course. Many historians accuse
+the people of Ponthieu of making prisoners all
+whose ill fortune threw them upon their coast, and
+of treating them with great barbarity, in order to
+extort the larger ransom. Be this as it may, Harold
+has scarcely set his foot on shore ere he is forcibly
+captured by the vassals of Guy of Ponthieu, who is
+there on horseback to witness the proceeding. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>98]</a></span>
+tapestry goes on to picture the progress of the captured
+troop and their captors to Belrem or Beurain,
+and a conference when there between the earl and
+his prisoner, where the fair embroideresses have
+given a delicate and expressive feature by depicting
+the conquering noble with his sword elevated, and
+the princely captive, wearing indeed his sword, but
+with the point depressed.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that a fisherman of Ponthieu, who had
+been often in England and knew Harold&rsquo;s person,
+was the cause of his capture. &ldquo;He went privily to
+Guy, the Count of Pontif, and would speak to no
+other; and he told the Count how he could put a
+great prize in his way, if he would go with him; and
+that if he would give him only twenty livres he
+should gain a hundred by it, for he would deliver
+him such a prisoner as would pay a hundred livres
+or more for his ransome.&rdquo; The Count agreed to
+his terms, and then the fisherman showed him
+Harold.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing of Harold&rsquo;s captivity, William the Norman
+is anxious on all and every account to obtain
+possession of his person. He consequently sends
+ambassadors to Guy, who is represented on the
+tapestry as giving them audience. The person
+holding the horses is somewhat remarkable; he is a
+bearded dwarf. Dwarfs were formerly much sought
+after in the houses of great folks, and they were frequently
+sent as presents from one potentate to another.
+They were petted and indulged somewhat in
+the way of the more modern fool or jester. The
+custom is very old. The Romans were so fond of
+them, that they often used artificial methods to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>99]</a></span>
+prevent the growth of children designed for dwarfs, by
+enclosing them in boxes, or by the use of tight
+bandages. The sister of one of the Roman emperors
+had a dwarf who was only two feet and a
+hand breadth in height. Many relations concerning
+dwarfs we may look upon as not less fabulous than
+those of giants. They are, like the latter, indispensable
+in romances, where their feats, far from
+being dwarfish, are absolutely gigantic, though these
+diminutive heroes seldom occupy any more ostensible
+post than that of humble attendant.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Fill&rsquo;d with these views th&rsquo; <em>attendant dwarf</em> she sends:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the knight the dwarf respectful bends;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kind greetings bears as to his lady&rsquo;s guest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And prays his presence to adorn her feast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The knight delays not.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+<span class="i4"> <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;A hugye giaunt stiffe and starke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">All foule of limbe and lere;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two goggling eyen like fire farden,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A mouthe from eare to eare.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before him came a dwarffe full lowe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That <em>waited on his knee</em>.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Sir Cauline.<br /></span>
+</div>
+<span class="i4"> <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Behind her farre away a dwarfe did lag<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That lasie seem&rsquo;d, in being ever last,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or wearied with <em>bearing of her bag</em><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of needments at his backe.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poem smcap">Faerie Queene.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The dwarf worked in the tapestry has the name
+<span class="smcap">Tvrold</span> placed above him, and seems to have been
+a dependant of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, William the
+Conqueror&rsquo;s brother.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>100]</a></span>
+The first negotiations are unsuccessful; more
+urgent messages are forwarded, and in the end Duke
+William himself proceeds at the head of some troops
+to <em>compel</em> the surrender of the prisoner. Count Guy
+is intimidated, and the object is attained; every
+stage of these proceedings is depicted on the canvas,
+as well as William&rsquo;s courteous reception of Harold
+at his palace.</p>
+
+<p>The portraiture of a female in a sort of porch,
+with a clergyman in the act of pronouncing a benediction
+on her, is supposed to have reference to the
+engagement between William and his guest, that
+the latter should marry the daughter of the former.
+Many other circumstances and conditions were tacked
+to this agreement, one of which was that Harold
+should guard the English throne for William;
+agreements which one and all&mdash;under the reasonable
+plea that they were enforced ones&mdash;the Anglo-Saxon
+nobleman broke through. It is said that his desertion
+so affected the mind of the pious young
+princess,<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> that her heart broke on her passage to
+Spain, whither they were conveying her to a forced
+union with a Spanish prince. As this young lady
+was a mere child at the time of Harold&rsquo;s visit to
+Normandy, the story, though exceedingly pretty, is
+probably very apocryphal. Ducarel gives an entirely
+different explanation of the scene, and says
+that it is probably meant to represent a secretary or
+officer coming to William&rsquo;s duchess, to acquaint
+her with the agreement just made relative to her
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>101]</a></span>
+The Earl of Bretagne is at this moment at war
+with Duke William, and the latter attaching Harold
+to his party, from whom indeed he receives effectual
+service, arrives at Mount St. Michel, passes the
+river Cosno (to which we have before alluded), and
+arrives at Dol in Brittany. Parties are seen flying
+towards Rennes. William and his followers attack
+Dinant, of which the keys are delivered up, and the
+Normans come peaceably to Bayeux; William
+having previously, with his own hands, invested
+Harold with a suit of armour.</p>
+
+<p>Harold shortly returns to England, but not before
+a very important circumstance had taken place.
+William and Harold had mutually entered into an
+agreement by which the latter had pledged himself
+to be true to William, to acknowledge him as Edward&rsquo;s
+successor on the English throne, and to do
+all in his power to obtain for him the peaceable
+possession of that throne; and as Harold was, the
+reigning monarch excepted, the first man in England,
+this promised support was of no trifling moment.
+William resolved therefore to have the oath
+repeated with all possible solemnity. His brother
+Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux, assisted him in this
+matter. Accordingly we see Harold standing
+between two altars covered with cloth of gold, a
+hand on each, uttering the solemn adjuration, of
+which William, seated on his throne, is a delighted
+auditor; for he well knew that the oath was more
+fearful than Harold was at all aware of. For &ldquo;William
+sent for all the holy bodies thither, and put so
+many of them together as to fill a whole chest, and
+then covered them with a pall; but Harold neither
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>102]</a></span>
+saw them, nor knew of their being there, for nought
+was shown or told to him about it; and over all was
+a phylactery, the best that he could select. When
+Harold placed his hand upon it, the hand trembled
+and the flesh quivered; but he swore, and promised
+upon his oath, to take Ele to wife, and to deliver
+up England to the duke; and thereunto to do all in
+his power, according to his might and wit, after the
+death of Edward, if he should live, so help him God
+and the holy relics there! (meaning the Gospels,
+for he had none idea of any other). Many cried
+&lsquo;God grant it!&rsquo; and when Harold had kissed the
+saints, and had risen upon his feet, the duke led
+him up to the chest, and made him stand near it;
+and took off the chest the pall that had covered it,
+and showed Harold upon what holy relics he had
+sworn, and he was sorely alarmed at the sight.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a>
+Arch&aelig;ologia, vol. xvii.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a>
+Biblio. Tour, vol. i., 138.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Arch&aelig;ol. vols. xviii., xix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a>
+One writer, Bolton Corney, Esq., maintains that this work was
+provided at the expense of the Chapter of Bayeux, under their superintendence,
+and from their designs. &ldquo;If it had not (says he) been
+devised within the precincts of a church it could not have escaped
+female influence: it could not have contained such indications of
+<em>celibatic</em> superintendence. It is not without its domestic and festive
+scenes; and comprises, exclusive of the borders, about 530 figures;
+but in this number there are only three females.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a>
+Henry III., 25.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Arch&aelig;ol. vol. xix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a>
+The attempts to imitate the human figure were, at this period,
+stiff and rude: but arabesque patterns were now <em>chiefly</em> worked; and
+they were rich and varied.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a>
+Henry III., 554.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a>
+Fabyan&rsquo;s Chron.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Rastell&rsquo;s Chron.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a>
+Henry II., 515.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a>
+Hist. Chiv.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a>
+Arch&aelig;ol. 1 and 3.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a>
+Master Wace. Roman de Rou, &amp;c., by Taylor.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a>
+Arch&aelig;ologia, vol. xix.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a>
+&ldquo;Her knees were like horn with constant kneeling.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>103]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.&mdash;PART II.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;But bloody, bloody was the field,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere that lang day was done.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Hardyknute.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;King William bithought him alsoe of that<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Folke that was forlorne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And slayn also thoruz him<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In the bataile biforne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ther as the bataile was,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">An abbey he lite rere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Seint Martin, for the soules<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That there slayn were.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the monkes well ynoug<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Feffed without fayle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That is called in Englonde<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Abbey of Bataile.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Immediately after the solemn ceremony described
+in the foregoing chapter, Harold is depicted as returning
+to England and presenting himself before
+the king, Edward the Confessor. &ldquo;But the day
+came that no man can escape, and King Edward
+drew near to die.&rdquo; His deathbed and his funeral
+procession are both wrought in the tapestry, but by
+some accident have been transposed. His remains
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>104]</a></span>
+are borne in splendid procession to the magnificent
+house which he had builded (<i>i.e.</i> rebuilded), Westminster
+Abbey; over which, in the sky, a hand is
+seen to point as if in benediction. It is well known
+that the Abbey was barely finished at the time of
+the pious monarch&rsquo;s death, and this circumstance is
+intimated in an intelligible though homely manner
+in the tapestry by a person occupied in placing a
+weathercock on the summit of the building.</p>
+
+<p>The first pageant seen within its walls was the
+funeral array of the monarch who so beautifully
+rebuilt and so amply endowed it. Before the high
+altar, in a splendid shrine, where gems and jewelry
+flashed back the gleams of innumerable torches, and
+amid the solemn chant of the monks, whose &ldquo;Miserere&rdquo;
+echoed through the vaulted aisles, interrupted
+but by the subdued wail of the mourners, or the
+emphatic benediction of the poor whose friend he
+had been, were laid the remains of him who was
+called the Sainted Edward; whose tomb was considered
+so hallowed a spot that the very stones
+around it were worn down by the knees of the pilgrims
+who resorted thither for prayer; and the very
+dust of whose shrine was carefully swept and collected,
+exported to the continent, and bought by
+devotees at a high price.</p>
+
+<p>We next see in the tapestry the crown <em>offered</em> to
+Harold (a circumstance to be peculiarly remarked,
+since thus depicted by his opponent&rsquo;s wife), and
+then Harold shows right royally receiving the
+homage and gratulations of those around.</p>
+
+<p>But the next scene forbodes a change of fortune:
+&ldquo;<span class="smcap" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Isti mirant stella</span>,&rdquo; is the explanation wrought
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>105]</a></span>
+over it. For there appeared &ldquo;a blasing starre,
+which was seene not onelie here in England, but
+also in other parts of the world, and continued the
+space of seven daies. This blasing starre might be
+a prediction of mischeefe imminent and hanging
+over Harold&rsquo;s head; for they never appeare but as
+prognosticats of afterclaps.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Popular belief has generally invested these ill-omened
+bodies with peculiar terrors. &ldquo;These
+blasing starres&mdash;dreadful to be seene, with bloudie
+haires, and all over rough and shagged at the top.&rdquo;
+They vary, however, in their appearance. Sometimes
+they are pale, and glitter like a sword, without
+any rays or beams. Such was the one which is said
+to have hung over Jerusalem for near a year before
+its destruction, filling the minds of all who beheld it
+with awe and superstitious dread. A comet resembling
+a horn appeared when the &ldquo;whole manhood
+of Greece fought the battaile of Salamis.&rdquo;
+Comets foretold the war between C&aelig;sar and
+Pompey, the murder of Claudius, and the tyranny
+of Nero. Though <em>usually</em>, they were not <em>invariably</em>,
+considered as portents of evil omen: for the birth
+and accession of Alexander, of Mithridates, the
+birth of Charles Martel, and the accession of
+Charlemagne, and the commencement of the T&aacute;t&aacute;r
+empire, were all notified by blazing stars. A very
+brilliant one which appeared for seven consecutive
+nights soon after the death of Julius C&aelig;sar was
+supposed to be conveying the soul of the murdered
+dictator to Olympus. An author who wrote on one
+which appeared in the reign of Elizabeth was most
+anxious, as in duty bound, to apply the phenomenon
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>106]</a></span>
+to the queen. But here was the puzzle. &ldquo;To have
+foretold calamities might have been misprision of
+treason; and the only precedent for saying anything
+good of a comet was to be drawn from that
+which occurred after the death of Julius C&aelig;sar;&rdquo;
+but it so happened that at this time Elizabeth was
+by no means either ripe or willing for her apotheosis.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p>
+
+<p>Comets, one author writes, &ldquo;were made to the end
+the etherial regions might not be more void of
+monsters than the ocean is of whales and other
+great thieving fishes, and that a gross fatness being
+gathered together as excrements into an imposthume,
+the celestial air might thereby be purged,
+lest the sun should be obscured.&rdquo; Another says,
+they &ldquo;signifie corruption of the ayre. They are
+signes of earthquake, of warres, chaunging of kyngdomes,
+great dearth of corne, yea, a common death
+of man and beast.&rdquo; So a poet of the same age:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;There with long bloody hair a blazing star<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Threatens the world with famine, plague, and war;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To princes death, to kingdoms many crosses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To all estates inevitable losses;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To herdsmen rot, to plowmen hapless seasons,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To sailors storms, to cities civil treasons.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But a writer on comets in 1665 crowned all
+previous conjecture. &ldquo;As if God and Nature
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>107]</a></span>
+intended by comets to ring the knells of princes;
+esteeming the bells of churches upon earth not
+sacred enough for such illustrious and eminent performances.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>No wonder that the comet in Harold&rsquo;s days was
+regarded with fearful misgivings.</p>
+
+<p>It did not, however, dismay him. Duke William,
+as may be supposed, did not tamely submit to a
+usurpation of what he considered, or affected to consider,
+his own dominions&mdash;a circumstance which we
+see an envoy, probably from his party in England,
+makes him acquainted with. He holds a council,
+seemingly an earnest and animated one, which
+evidently results in the immediate preparation of
+a fleet; of which the tapestry delineates the various
+stages and circumstances, from the felling of the
+timber in its native woods to the launching of the
+vessels, stored and fully equipped in arms, provisions,
+and heroes for invasion and conquest.</p>
+
+<p>William in this expedition received unusual assistance
+from his own tributary chiefs, and from
+various other allies, who joined his standard, and
+without whom, indeed, he could not, with any
+chance of success, have made his daring attempt.
+A summer and autumn were spent in fitting-up the
+fleet and collecting the forces, &ldquo;and there was no
+knight in the land, no good serjeant, archer, nor
+peasant of stout heart, and of age for battle, that
+the duke did not summon to go with him to
+England; promising rents to the vavassors, and
+honours to the barons.&rdquo; Thus was an armament
+prepared of seven hundred ships, but the one which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>108]</a></span>
+bore William, the hero of the expedition, shone
+proudly pre-eminent over the rest. It was the gift
+of his affectionate queen. It is represented in the
+canvas of larger size than the others: the mast,
+surmounted by a cross, bears the banner which was
+sent to William by the Pope as a testimony of his
+blessing and approbation. On this mast also a
+beacon-light nightly blazed as a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">point d&rsquo;approche</i> of
+the remainder of the fleet. On the poop was the
+figure of a boy (supposed to be meant for the conqueror&rsquo;s
+youngest son), gilded, and looking earnestly
+towards England, holding in one hand a banner, in
+the other an ivory horn, on which he is sounding a
+joyful reveillee.</p>
+
+<p>But long the fleet waited at St. Valeri for a fair
+wind, until the barons became weary and dispirited.
+Then they prayed the convent to bring out the
+shrine of St. Valeri and set it on a carpet in the
+plain; and all came praying the holy relics that
+they might be allowed to pass over sea. They
+offered so much money, that the relics were buried
+beneath it; and from that day forth they had good
+weather and a fair wind. &ldquo;Than Willyam thanked
+God and Saynt Valary, and toke shortly after shyppynge,
+and helde his course towarde Englande.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>On the arrival of the fleet in England a banquet
+is prepared. The shape of the table at which
+William sits has been the theme of some curious
+remarks by Father Montfaucon, which have been
+copied by Ducarel and others. It is in form of a
+half-moon, and was called by the Romans <em>sigma</em>,
+from the Greek <ins class="greek" title="Greek letter final sigma, s">&#962;</ins>. It was calculated only for seven
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>109]</a></span>
+persons; and a facetious emperor once invited eight,
+on purpose to raise a laugh against the person for
+whom there would be no place.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A knight in that country (Britain) heard the
+noise and cry made by the peasants and villains
+when they saw the great fleet arrive. He well knew
+that the Normans were come, and that their object
+was to seize the land. He posted himself behind a
+hill, so that they should not see him, and tarried
+there watching the arrival of the great fleet. He
+saw the archers come forward from the ships, and
+the knights follow. He saw the carpenters with
+their axes, and the host of people and troops. He
+saw the men throw the materials for the fort out of
+the ships. He saw them build up and enclose the
+fort, and dig the fosse around it. He saw them
+land the shields and armour. And as he beheld all
+this his spirit was troubled; and he girt his sword
+and took his lance, saying he would go straightway
+to King Harold and tell the news. Forthwith he
+set out on his way, resting late and rising early;
+and thus he journeyed on by night and by day to
+seek Harold his lord.&rdquo; And we see him in the
+tapestry speeding to his beloved master.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Harold is not idle. But the fleet
+which, in expectation of his adversary&rsquo;s earlier arrival,
+he had stationed on the southern coast, had
+lately dispersed from want of provisions, and the
+King, occupied by the Norwegian invasion, had not
+been able to reinstate it; and &ldquo;William came
+against him (says the Saxon chronicle) unawares
+ere his army was collected.&rdquo; Thus the enemy found
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>110]</a></span>
+nor opposition nor hinderance in obtaining a footing
+in the island.</p>
+
+<p>Taken at such disadvantage, Harold did all that
+a brave man could do to repel his formidable adversary.
+The tapestry depicts, as well as may be
+expected, the battle.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The priests had watched all night, and besought
+and called upon God, and prayed to him in their
+chapels, which were fitted up throughout the host.
+They offered and vowed fasts, penances, and orisons;
+they said psalms and misereres, litanies and kyriels;
+they cried on God, and for his mercy, and said
+paternosters and masses; some the <span class="smcap" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Spiritus Domini</span>,
+others <span class="smcap" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Salus Populi</span>, and many <span class="smcap" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Salve Sancte
+Parens</span>, being suited to the season, as belonging to
+that day, which was Saturday.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">And now, behold! that battle was gathered
+whereof the fame is yet mighty.</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then Taillefer, who sang right well, rode,
+mounted on a swift horse, before the duke.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Loud and far resounded the bray of the horns,
+and the shocks of the lances, the mighty strokes of
+clubs, and the quick clashing of swords. One while
+the Englishmen rushed on, another while they fell
+back; one while the men from over sea charged
+onwards, and again at other times retreated. When
+the English fall, the Normans shout. Each side
+taunts and defies the other, yet neither knoweth
+what the other saith; and the Normans say the
+English bark, because they understand not their
+speech.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Some wax strong, others weak; the brave exult,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>111]</a></span>
+but the cowards tremble, as men who are sore dismayed.
+The Normans press on the assault, and the
+English defend their post well; they pierce the
+hauberks and cleave the shields; receive and return
+mighty blows. Again some press forwards, others
+yield, and thus in various ways the struggle proceeds.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The death of Harold&rsquo;s two brothers is depicted,
+and, finally, his own. It is said that his mother
+offered the weight of the body in gold to have the
+melancholy satisfaction of interring it, and that the
+Conqueror refused the boon. But other writers
+affirm, and apparently with truth, that William
+immediately transmitted the body, unransomed, to
+the bereaved parent, who had it interred in the
+monastery of Waltham.</p>
+
+<p>With the death of Harold the tapestry now ends,
+though some writers think it probable that it once
+extended as far as the coronation of William.
+There can be little doubt of its having been intended
+to extend so far, though it is impossible now
+to ascertain whether the Queen was ever enabled
+quite to complete her Herculean task. Enough
+there is, however, to stamp it as one of the &ldquo;most
+noble and interesting relics of antiquity;&rdquo; and, as
+Dibdin calls it, &ldquo;an exceedingly curious document
+of the conjugal attachment, and even enthusiastic
+veneration of Matilda, and a political record of more
+weight than may at first sight appear to belong to
+it.&rdquo; Taking it altogether, he adds, &ldquo;none but
+itself could be its parallel.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Almost all historians describe the Normans as
+advancing to the onset &ldquo;singing the song of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>112]</a></span>
+Roland,&rdquo; that is, a detail of the achievements of the
+slaughtered hero of Roncesvalles, which is well
+known to have been, for ages after the event to
+which it refers, a note of magical inspiration to
+deeds of &ldquo;derring do&rdquo;. On this occasion it is
+recorded that the spirit note was sung by the minstrel
+Taillefer, who was, however, little contented to
+lead his countrymen by voice alone. It is not possible
+that our readers can be otherwise than pleased
+with the following animated account of his deeds:<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4 smcap">The Onset of Taillefer<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Foremost in the bands of France,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arm&rsquo;d with hauberk and with lance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And helmet glittering in the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if a warrior-knight he were,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rushed forth the minstrel Taillefer&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Borne on his courser swift and strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He gaily bounded o&rsquo;er the plain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And raised the heart-inspiring song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Loud echoed by the warlike throng)<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of Roland and of Charlemagne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Oliver, brave peer of old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Untaught to fly, unknown to yield,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And many a knight and vassal bold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose hallowed blood, in crimson flood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Dyed Roncesvalles&rsquo; field.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Harold&rsquo;s host he soon descried,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clustering on the hill&rsquo;s steep side:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then turned him back brave Taillefer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thus to William urged his prayer:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&lsquo;Great Sire, it fits me not to tell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How long I&rsquo;ve served you, or how well;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet if reward my lays may claim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grant now the boon I dare to name;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Minstrel no more, be mine the blow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That first shall strike yon perjured foe.&rsquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>113]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&lsquo;Thy suit is gained,&rsquo; the Duke replied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&lsquo;Our gallant minstrel be our guide.&rsquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&lsquo;Enough,&rsquo; he cried, &lsquo;with joy I speed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Foremost to vanquish or to bleed.&rsquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;And still of Roland&rsquo;s deeds he sung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Norman shouts responsive rung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As high in air his lance he flung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">With well directed might;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Back came the lance into his hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like urchin&rsquo;s ball, or juggler&rsquo;s wand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And twice again, at his command,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Whirled its unerring flight.&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While doubting whether skill or charm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had thus inspired the minstrel&rsquo;s arm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Saxons saw the wondrous dart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fixed in their standard bearer&rsquo;s heart.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Now thrice aloft his sword he threw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">&rsquo;Midst sparkling sunbeams dancing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And downward thrice the weapon flew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like meteor o&rsquo;er the evening dew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">From summer sky swift glancing:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And while amazement gasped for breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Another Saxon groaned in death.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;More wonders yet!&mdash;on signal made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With mane erect, and eye-balls flashing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The well taught courser rears his head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">His teeth in ravenous fury gnashing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He snorts&mdash;he foams&mdash;and upward springs&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Plunging he fastens on the foe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And down his writhing victim flings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Crushed by the wily minstrel&rsquo;s blow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus seems it to the hostile band<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enchantment all, and fairy land.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Fain would I leave the rest unsung:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Saxon ranks, to madness stung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Headlong rushed with frenzied start,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hurling javelin, mace, and dart;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No shelter from the iron shower<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sought Taillefer in that sad hour;<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>114]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet still he beckoned to the field,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&lsquo;Frenchman, come on&mdash;the Saxons yield&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strike quick&mdash;strike home&mdash;in Roland&rsquo;s name&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For William&rsquo;s glory&mdash;Harold&rsquo;s shame.&rsquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then pierced with wounds, stretched side by side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The minstrel and his courser died.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>We have dwelt on the details of the tapestry with
+a prolixity which some may deem tedious. Yet
+surely the subject is worthy of it; for, in the first
+place, it is the oldest piece of needlework in the
+world&mdash;the only piece of that era now existing; and
+this circumstance in itself suggests many interesting
+ideas, on which, did our space permit, we could
+readily dilate. Ages have rolled away; and the
+fair hands that wrought this work have mouldered
+away into dust; and the gentle and affectionate
+spirit that suggested this elaborate memorial has
+long since passed from the scene which it adorned
+and dignified. In no long period after the battle
+thus commemorated, an abbey, consecrated to praise
+and prayer, raised its stately walls on the very field
+that was ploughed with the strife and watered with
+the blood of fierce and evil men. The air that erst
+rang with the sounds of wrath, of strife, of warfare,
+the clangour of armour, the din of war, was now
+made musical with the chorus of praise, or was
+gently stirred by the breath of prayer or the sigh of
+penitence; and where contending hosts were marshalled
+in proud array, or the phalanx rushed impetuous
+to the battle, were seen the stoled monks in
+solemn procession, or the holy brother peacefully
+wending on his errand of charity.</p>
+
+<p>But the grey and time-honoured walls waxed
+aged as they beheld generation after generation
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>115]</a></span>
+consigned to dust beneath their shelter. Time and
+change have done their worst. A few scattered
+ruins, seen dimly through the mist of years, are all
+that remain to point to the inquiring wanderer the
+site of the stupendous struggle of which the results
+are felt even after the expiration of eight hundred
+years.</p>
+
+<p>These may be deemed trite reflections: still it is
+worthy of remark, that many of the turbulent spirits
+who then made earth echo with their fame would
+have been literally and altogether as though they
+never had been&mdash;for historians make little or no
+mention of them&mdash;were it not for the lasting monument
+raised to them in this tapestry by woman&rsquo;s
+industry and skill.</p>
+
+<p>Matilda the Queen&rsquo;s character is pictured in
+high terms by both English and Norman historians.
+&ldquo;So very stern was her husband, and hot, that no
+man durst do anything against his will. He had
+earls in his custody who acted against his will.
+Bishops he hurled from their bishoprics, and abbots
+from their abbacies, and thanes into prison;&rdquo; yet it
+is recorded that even his iron temper was not proof
+against the good sense, the gentleness, the piety,
+and the affection of a wife who never offended him
+but once; and on this occasion there was so much
+to palliate and excuse her fault, proceeding as it did
+from a mother&rsquo;s yearnings towards her eldest son
+when he was in disgrace and sorrow, that the usually
+unyielding King forgave her immediately. She
+lived beloved, and she died lamented; and, from
+the time of her death, the King, says William of
+Malmsbury, &ldquo;refrained from every gratification.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>116]</a></span>
+Independently of the value of this tapestry as an
+historical authority, and its interest as being projected,
+and in part executed, by a lady as excellent
+in character as she was noble in rank, and its high
+estimation as the oldest piece of needlework extant&mdash;independently
+of all these circumstances, it is
+impossible to study this memorial closely, &ldquo;rude
+and skilless&rdquo; as it at first appears, without becoming
+deeply interested in the task. The outline engravings
+of it in the &ldquo;Tapisseries Anciennes Histori&eacute;es&rdquo;
+are beautifully executed, but are inferior in
+interest to Mr. Stothart&rsquo;s (published by the Society
+of Antiquarians), because these have the advantage
+of being coloured accurately from the original. In
+the study of these plates alone, days and weeks
+glided away, nor left us weary of our task.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a>
+The Comet of 1618 carried dismay and horror in its course. Not
+only mighty monarchs, but the humblest private individuals seem to
+have considered the sign as sent to them, and to have set a double
+guard on all their actions. Thus Sir Symonds D&rsquo;Ewes, the learned
+antiquary, having been in danger of an untimely end by entangling
+himself among some bell-ropes, makes a memorandum in his private
+diary never more to exercise himself in bell-ringing when there is a
+comet in the sky.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Aikin.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a>
+By Thomas Amyot, Esq., F.S.A.&mdash;Arch&aelig;ol., vol. xix</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>117]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER X.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">NEEDLEWORK OF THE TIMES OF ROMANCE AND CHIVALRY.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;As ladies wont<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To finger the fine needle and nyse thread.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poem smcap">Faerie Queene.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Though, during bygone ages, the fingers of the fair
+and noble were often sedulously employed in the
+decoration and embellishment of the church, and of
+its ministers, they were by no means universally so.
+Marvellous indeed in quantity, as well as quality,
+must have been the stitchery done in those industrious
+days, for the &ldquo;fine needle and nyse thread&rdquo;
+were not merely visible but conspicuous in every
+department of life. If, happily, there were not proof
+to the contrary, we might be apt to imagine that
+the women of those days came into the world <em>only</em>
+&ldquo;to ply the distaff, broider, card, and sew.&rdquo; That
+this was not the case we, however, well know; but
+before we turn to those embroideries which are more
+especially the subject of this chapter, we will transcribe,
+from a recent work,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> an interesting detail of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>118]</a></span>
+the household responsibilities of the mistress of a
+family in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;While to play on the harp and citole (a species
+of lute), to execute various kinds of the most costly
+and delicate needle-work, and in some instances to
+&lsquo;pourtraye,&rsquo; were, in addition to more literary pursuits,
+the accomplishments of the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, the functions which the mistress
+of an extensive household was expected to fulfil
+were never lost sight of.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Few readers are aware of the various qualifications
+requisite to form the &lsquo;good housewife&rsquo; during
+the middle ages. In the present day, when household
+articles of every kind are obtainable in any
+country town, and, with few exceptions, throughout
+the year, we can know little of the judgment, the
+forethought, and the nice calculation which were
+required in the mistress of a household consisting
+probably of three-score, or even more persons, and
+who, in the autumn, had to provide almost a twelvemonth&rsquo;s
+stores. There was the fire-wood, the rushes
+to strew the rooms, the malt, the oatmeal, the honey
+(at this period the substitute for sugar), the salt
+(only sold in large quantities), and, if in the country,
+the wheat and the barley for the bread&mdash;all to be
+provided and stored away. The greater part of the
+meat used for the winter&rsquo;s provision was killed and
+salted down at Martinmas; and the mistress had to
+provide the necessary stock for the winter and
+spring consumption, together with the stockfish
+and &lsquo;baconed herrings&rsquo; for Lent. Then at the
+annual fair, the only opportunity was afforded for
+purchasing those more especial articles of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>119]</a></span>
+housewifery which the careful housewife never omitted
+buying&mdash;the ginger, nutmegs, and cinnamon, for the
+Christmas posset, and Sheer-Monday furmety; the
+currants and almonds for the Twelfth-Night cake
+(an observance which dates almost as far back as
+the Conquest); the figs, with which our forefathers
+always celebrated Palm-Sunday; and the pepper,
+the saffron, and the cummin, so highly prized in
+ancient cookery. All these articles bore high prices,
+and therefore it was with great consideration and
+care that they were bought.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But the task of providing raiment for the family
+also devolved upon the mistress, and there were no
+dealers save for the richer articles of wearing apparel
+to be found. The wool that formed the chief
+clothing was the produce of the flock, or purchased
+in a raw state; and was carded, spun, and in some
+instances woven at home. Flax, also, was often
+spun for the coarser kinds of linen, and occasionally
+woven. Thus, the mistress of a household had most
+important duties to fulfil, for on her wise and prudent
+management depended not merely the comfort,
+but the actual well-being of her extensive household.
+If the winter&rsquo;s stores were insufficient, there
+were no markets from whence an additional supply
+could be obtained; and the lord of wide estates and
+numerous manors might be reduced to the most
+annoying privations through the mismanagement of
+the mistress of the family.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The &ldquo;costly and delicate needle-work&rdquo; is here,
+as elsewhere, passed over with merely a mention.
+It is, naturally, too insignificant a subject to task
+the attention of those whose energies are devoted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>120]</a></span>
+to describing the warfare and welfare of kingdoms
+and thrones. Thus did we look only to professed
+historians, though enough exists in their pages to
+evidence the existence of such productions as those
+which form the subject of our chapter, our evidence
+would be meagre indeed as to the minuter details:
+but as the &ldquo;novel&rdquo; now describes those minuti&aelig; of
+every day life which we should think it ridiculous to
+look for in the writings of the politician or historian,
+so the romances of the days of chivalry present us
+with descriptions which, if they be somewhat redundant
+in ornament, are still correct in groundwork;
+and the details gathered from romances have in, it
+may be, unimportant circumstances, that accidental
+corroboration from history which fairly stamps their
+faithfulness in more important particulars: and it
+has been shown, says the author of &lsquo;Godefridus,&rsquo; by
+learned men, in the memoirs of the French Academy
+of Inscriptions, that they may be used in common
+with history, and as of equal authority whenever
+an inquiry takes place respecting the <em>spirit
+and manners of the ages</em> in which they were composed.
+But we are writing a dissertation on romance
+instead of describing the &ldquo;clodes ryche,&rdquo; to which
+we must now proceed.</p>
+
+<p>So highly was a facility in the use of the needle
+prized in these &ldquo;ould ancient times,&rdquo; that a wandering
+damsel is not merely <em>tolerated</em> but <em>cherished</em>
+in a family in which she is a perfect stranger, solely
+from her skill in this much-loved art.</p>
+
+<p>After being exposed in an open boat, Emare was
+rescued by Syr Kadore, remained in his castle, and
+there&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>121]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;She tawghte hem to <em>sewe</em> and <em>marke</em><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All <em>maner of sylkyn werke</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of her they wer ful fayne.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Syr Kadore says of her&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;She ys the konnyngest wommon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I trowe, that be yn Crystendom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of <em>werk</em> that y have sene.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And again describing her&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;She <em>sewed sylke</em> werk yn bour.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>This same accomplished and luckless lady had,
+princess though she was, every advantage of early
+tuition in this notable art, having been sent in
+her childhood to a lady called Abro, who not only
+taught her &ldquo;curtesye and thewe&rdquo; (virtue and good
+manners), but also</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Golde and sylke for to sewe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amonge maydenes moo:&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>evidently an old dame&rsquo;s school; where, however,
+we may infer from the arrangement of the accomplishments
+taught, and the special mention of
+needlework, that the extra expense would be for
+the <em>sewing</em>; whereas, in our time and country (or
+county), the routine has been, &ldquo;<small>REDING AND SOING,
+THREE-PENCE A WEEK: A PENY EXTRA FOR MANNERS</small>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This expensive and troublesome acquirement&mdash;the
+art of sewing in &ldquo;golde and silke&rdquo;&mdash;was of general
+adoption: gorgeous must have been the appearance
+of the damsels and knights of those days,
+when their</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;Clothys wyth bestes &amp; byrdes wer <em>bete</em>,<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i4">All abowte for pryde.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>122]</a></span>
+&ldquo;By that light Amadis saw his lady, and she
+appeared more beautiful than man could fancy woman
+could be. She had on a robe of <em>Indian silk,
+thickly wrought with flowers of gold</em>; her hair was
+so beautiful that it was a wonder, and she had covered
+it only with a garland.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now when the fair Grasinda heard of the coming
+of the fleet, and of all that had befallen, she made
+ready to receive Oriana, whom of all persons in the
+world she most desired to see, because of her great
+renown that was everywhere spread abroad. She
+therefore wished to appear before her like a lady of
+such rank and such wealth as indeed she was: the
+robe which she put on was adorned with <em>roses
+of gold, wrought with marvellous skill, and bordered
+with pearls and precious stones</em> of exceeding
+value.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;His fine, soft garments, wove with cunning skill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All over, ease and wantonness declare;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These with her hand, such subtle toil well taught,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For him, in silk and gold, Alcina wrought.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Mayde Elene, al so tyte.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a robe of samyte,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Anoon sche gan her tyre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To do Lybeau&rsquo;s profyte<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In kevechers whyt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Arayde wyth golde wyre.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A velvwet mantyll gay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pelored<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> wyth grys and gray<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sche caste abowte her swyre;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sercle upon her molde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of stones and of golde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The best yn that empyre.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>123]</a></span>
+We read perpetually of &ldquo;kercheves well schyre,<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Arayde wyth ryche gold wyre.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But the labours of those days were not confined to
+merely good-appearing garments: the skill of the
+needlewoman&mdash;for doubtless it was solely attributable
+to that&mdash;could imbue them with a value far
+beyond that of mere outward garnish.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;She seyde, Syr Knight, gentyl and hende,<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wot thy stat, ord, and ende,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Be naught aschamed of me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If thou wylt truly to me take,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And alle wemen for me forsake<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ryche i wyll make the.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wyll the geve an alner,<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Imad of sylk and of gold cler,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wyth fayr ymages thre;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As oft thou puttest the hond therinne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A mark of gold thou schalt wynne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In wat place that thou be.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But infinitely more marvellous is the following:&mdash;&ldquo;King
+Lisuarte was so content with the tidings of
+Amadis and Galaor, which the dwarf had brought
+him, that he determined to hold the most honourable
+court that ever had been held in Great Britain. Presently
+three knights came through the gate, two of
+them armed at all points, the third unarmed, of good
+stature and well proportioned, his hair grey, but of
+a green and comely old age. He held in his hand a
+coffer; and, having inquired which was the king, dismounted
+from his palfrey and kneeled before him,
+saying, &lsquo;God preserve you, Sir! for you have made
+the noblest promise that ever king did, if you hold it.&rsquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>124]</a></span>
+&lsquo;What promise was that?&rsquo; quoth Lisuarte. &lsquo;To
+maintain chivalry in its highest honour and degree:
+few princes now-a-days labour to that end; therefore
+are you to be commended above all other.&rsquo;
+&lsquo;Certes, knight, that promise shall hold while I
+live.&rsquo; &lsquo;God grant you life to complete it!&rsquo; quoth
+the old man: &lsquo;and because you have summoned a
+great court to London, I have brought something
+here which becomes such a person, for such an occasion.&rsquo;
+Then he opened the coffer and took out a
+Crown of Gold, so curiously wrought and set with
+pearls and gems, that all were amazed at its beauty;
+and it well appeared that it was only fit for the brow
+of some mighty lord. &lsquo;Is it not a work which the
+most cunning artists would wonder at?&rsquo; said the
+old knight. Lisuarte answered, &lsquo;In truth it is.&rsquo;
+&lsquo;Yet,&rsquo; said the knight, &lsquo;it hath a virtue more to be
+esteemed than its rare work and richness: whatever
+king hath it on his head shall always increase his
+honour; this it did for him for whom it was made
+till the day of his death: since then no king hath
+worn it. I will give it you, sir, for one boon.&rsquo;&mdash;&mdash;&lsquo;You
+also, Lady,&rsquo; said the knight, &lsquo;should purchase
+a rich mantle that I bring:&rsquo; and he took from the
+coffer the richest and most beautiful mantle that
+ever was seen; for besides the pearls and precious
+stones with which it was beautified, there were
+figured on it all the birds and beasts in nature; so
+that it looked like a miracle. &lsquo;On my faith,&rsquo; exclaimed
+the Queen, &lsquo;this cloth can only have been
+made by that Lord who can do everything.&rsquo; &lsquo;It is
+the work of man,&rsquo; said the old knight; &lsquo;but rarely
+will one be found to make its fellow: it should belong
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>125]</a></span>
+to wife rather than maiden, for she that weareth it
+<em>shall never have dispute with her husband</em>.&rsquo; Britna
+answered, &lsquo;If that be true, it is above all price; I
+will give you for it whatsoever you ask.&rsquo; And
+Lisuarte bade him demand what he would for the
+mantle and crown.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p>
+
+<p>But the robe which occupied the busy fingers of
+the Saracen king&rsquo;s daughter for seven long years,
+and of which the jewelled ornaments inwrought in
+it&mdash;as was then very usual&mdash;were sought far and
+wide, has often been referred to (albeit wanting in
+fairy gifts) as a crowning proof of female industry
+and talent. We give the full description from the
+Romance of &lsquo;<span class="smcap">Emare</span>,&rsquo; in Ritson&rsquo;s collection:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Sone aftur yu a whyle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The ryche Kynge of Cesyle<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the Emperour gaun wende,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A ryche present wyth hym he browght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A cloth that was wordylye wroght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He wellcomed hym at the hende.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Syr Tergaunte, that nobyll knyghte hyghte,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He presented the Emperour ryght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sette hym on hys kne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wyth that cloth rychyly dyght.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full of stones ther hit was pyght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At thykke as hit myght be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Off topaze and rubyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And other stones of myche prys,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That semely wer to se,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of crapowtes and nakette,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As thykke ar they sette<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For sothe as y say the.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>126]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The cloth was displayed sone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Emperoer lokede therupone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And myght hyt not se,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For glysteryng of the ryche ston<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Redy syght had he non,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sayde, How may thys be?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Emperour sayde on hygh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sertes thys ys a fayry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or ellys a vanyte.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Kyng of Cysyle answered than,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So ryche a jewell ys ther non<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In all Crystyante.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The amerayle<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> dowghter of hethennes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made this cloth withouten lees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And wrowghte hit all with pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And purtreyed hyt with gret honour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wyth ryche golde and asowr,<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And stones on ylke a side;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, as the story telles in honde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stones that yn this cloth stonde<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sowghte they wer full wyde.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seven wynter hit was yn makynge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or hit was browght to endynge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In herte ys not to hyde.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;In that on korner made was<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Idoyne and Amadas,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With love that was so trewe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For they loveden hem wit honour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Portrayed they wer with trewe-love flour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of stones bryght of hewe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wyth carbankull and safere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kasydonys and onyx so clere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sette in golde newe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deamondes and rubyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And other stones of mychyll pryse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And menstrellys with her gle.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>127]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;In that other korner was dyght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trystram and Isowde so bryght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That semely wer to se,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for they loved hem ryght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As full of stones ar they dyght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As thykke as they may be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of topase and of rubyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And other stones of myche pryse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That semely wer to se,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With crapawtes and nakette,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thykke of stones ar they sette,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For sothe as y say the.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;In the thyrdde korner, with gret honour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was Florys and dame Blawncheflour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As love was hem betwene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For they loved wyth honour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Purtrayed they wer with trewe-love-flower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With stones bryght and shene.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ther wer knyghtes and senatowres,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Emerawdes of gret vertues,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To wyte withouten wene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deamondes and koralle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perydotes and crystall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And gode garnettes bytwene.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;In the fowrthe korner was oon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Babylone the sowdan sonne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The amerayle&rsquo;s dowghter hym by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For hys sake the cloth was wrowght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She loved hym in hert and thowght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As testy-moyeth thys storye.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fayr mayden her byforn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was purtrayed an unykorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With hys horn so hye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flowres and bryddes on ylke a syde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wyth stones that wer sowght wyde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stuffed wyth ymagerye.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>128]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;When the cloth to ende was wrought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the sowdan sone hit was browght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That semely was of syghte:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&lsquo;My fadyr was a nobyll man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the sowdan he hit wan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wyth maystrye and myghth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For gret love he yaf hyt me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I brynge hit the in specyalte,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thys cloth ys rychely dyght.&rsquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He yaf hit the Emperour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He receyved hit wyth gret honour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And thonkede hym fayr and ryght.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>We must not dismiss this subject without recording
+a species of mantle much celebrated in romance,
+and which must have tried the skill and patience of
+the fair votaries of the needle to the uttermost. We
+all have seen, perhaps we have some of us been
+foolish enough to manufacture, initials with hair, as
+tokens or souvenirs, or some other such fooleries.
+In our mothers&rsquo; and grandmothers&rsquo; days, when &ldquo;fine
+marking&rdquo; was the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">sine qu&acirc; non</i> of a good education,
+whole sets of linen were thus elaborately marked;
+and often have we marvelled when these tokens of
+grandmotherly skill and industry were displayed to
+our wondering and aching eyes. What then should
+we have thought of King Ryence&rsquo;s mantle, of rich
+scarlet, bordered round with the beards of kings,
+sewed thereon full craftily by accomplished female
+hands. Thus runs the anecdote in the &lsquo;Morte
+Arthur:&rsquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Came a messenger hastely from King Ryence,
+of North Wales, saying, that King Ryence had discomfited
+and overcomen eleaven kings, and everiche
+of them did him homage, and that was thus: they
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>129]</a></span>
+gave him their beards cleane flayne off,&mdash;wherefore
+the messenger came for King Arthur&rsquo;s beard, for
+King Ryence had purfeled a mantell with king&rsquo;s
+beards, and there lacked for one a place of the mantell,
+wherefore he sent for his beard, or else he
+would enter into his lands, and brenn and slay, and
+never leave till he have thy head and thy beard.
+&lsquo;Well,&rsquo; said King Arther, &lsquo;thou hast said thy message,
+which is the most villainous and lewdest message
+that ever man heard sent to a king. Also thou
+mayest see my beard is full young yet for to make
+a purfell of; but tell thou the king that&mdash;or it be
+long&mdash;he shall do to <em>me</em> homage on both his knees,
+or else he shall leese his head.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In Queen Elizabeth&rsquo;s day, when they were beginning
+to skim the cream of the ponderous tomes of
+former times into those elaborate ditties from which
+the more modern ballad takes its rise, this incident
+was put into rhyme, and was sung before her majesty
+at the grand entertainment at Kenilworth
+Castle, 1575, thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;As it fell out on a Pentecost day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">King Arthur at Camelot kept his Court royall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his faire queene dame Guenever the gay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And many bold barons sitting in hall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With ladies attired in purple and pall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heraults in hewkes,<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> hooting on high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cryed, <i>Largesse, largesse, Chevaliers tres hardie</i>.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;A doughty dwarfe to the uppermost deas<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Right pertlye gan pricke, kneeling on knee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With steven<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> fulle stoute amids all the preas,<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>130]</a></span>
+<span class="i1">Sayd, Nowe sir King Arthur, God save thee, and see!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sir Ryence of Northgales greeteth well thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bids thee thy beard anon to him send,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or else from thy jaws he will it off rend.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;For his robe of state is a rich scarlet mantle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With eleven kings beards bordered about,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there is room lefte yet in a kantle,<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For thine to stande, to make the twelfth out:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">This must be done, be thou never so stout;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This must be done, I tell thee no fable,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Maugre the teethe of all thy rounde table.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;When this mortal message from his mouthe past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Great was the noyse bothe in hall and in bower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The king fum&rsquo;d; the queen screecht; ladies were aghast;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Princes puff&rsquo;d; barons blustered; lords began lower;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Knights stormed; squires startled, like steeds in a stower;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pages and yeomen yell&rsquo;d out in the hall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then in came Sir Kay, the king&rsquo;s seneschal.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Silence, my soveraignes, quoth this courteous knight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And in that stound the stowre began still:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the dwarfe&rsquo;s dinner full deerely was dight;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of wine and wassel he had his wille:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And when he had eaten and drunken his fill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An hundred pieces of fine coyned gold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were given this dwarfe for his message bold.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;But say to Sir Ryence, thou dwarfe, quoth the king,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That for his bold message I do him defye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shortly with basins and pans will him ring<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Out of North Gales; where he and I<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With swords, and not razors, quickly shall trye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whether he or King Arthur will prove the best barbor:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And therewith he shook his good sword Excal&aacute;bor.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>131]</a></span>
+Drayton thus alludes to the same circumstance:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Then told they, how himselfe great Arthur did advance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To meet (with his Allies) that puissant force in France,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Lucius thither led; those Armies that while ere<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Affrighted all the world, by him strooke dead with feare:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Th&rsquo; report of his great Acts that over Europe ran,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In that most famous field he with the Emperor wan:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As how great Rython&rsquo;s selfe hee slew in his repaire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who ravisht Howell&rsquo;s Neece, young Helena the faire;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for a trophy brought the Giant&rsquo;s coat away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made of the beards of kings.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a>&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And Spenser is too uncourteous in his adoption
+of the incident; for he not only levels tolls on the
+gentlemen&rsquo;s beards, but even on the flowing and
+golden locks of the gentle sex:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Not farre from hence, upon yond rocky hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hard by a streight there stands a castle strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which doth observe a custom lewd and ill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And it hath long mayntaind with mighty wrong:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For may no knight nor lady passe along<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That way, (and yet they needs must passe that way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By reason of the streight, and rocks among,)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But they that Ladies locks doe shave away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And that knight&rsquo;s berd for toll, which they for passage pay.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;A shamefull use, as ever I did heare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Said Calidore, and to be overthrowne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But by what means did they at first it reare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And for what cause, tell, if thou have it knowne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sayd then that Squire: The Lady which doth owne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This Castle is by name Briana hight;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Then which a prouder Lady liveth none;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She long time hath deare lov&rsquo;d a doughty knight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sought to win his love by all the meanes she might.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>132]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;His name is Crudor, who through high disdaine<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And proud despight of his selfe-pleasing mynd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Refused hath to yeeld her love againe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Untill a Mantle she for him doe fynd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With beards of knights and locks of Ladies lynd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which to provide, she hath this Castle dight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And therein hath a Seneschall assynd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cald Maleffort, a man of mickle might,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who executes her wicked will, with worse despight.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To pluck the beard&rdquo; of another has ever been
+held the highest possible sign of scorn and contumely;
+but it was certainly a refinement on the
+matter, for which we are indebted to the Morte
+Arthur, or rather probably, according to Bishop
+Percy, to Geoffrey of Monmouth&rsquo;s history originally,
+for the unique and ornamental purpose to which
+these despoiled locks were applied. So particularly
+anxious was Charlemagne to shew this despite to
+an enemy that, as we read in Huon de Bordeaux,
+he despatched no less than fifteen successive messengers
+from France to Babylon to pull the beard
+of Admiral Gaudisse. And this, by no means pleasant
+operation, was to be accompanied by one even
+still less inviting.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Alors le duc Naymes, &amp; tres tous les Barons,
+s&rsquo;en retourn&egrave;rent au palais avec le Roy, lequel
+s&rsquo;assist sur un banc dor&eacute; de fin or, &amp; les Barons
+tous autour de luy. Si commanda qu&rsquo;on luy amenast
+Huon, lequel il vint, et se mist &agrave; genoux
+devant le roy, ou luy priant moult humblement que
+piti&eacute; &amp; mercy voulsist avoir de luy. Alors le roy
+le voyant en sa presence luy dist: Huon puisque
+vers moy veux estre accord&eacute;, si convient que faciez
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>133]</a></span>
+ce que je vous or donneray. Sire, ce dist Huon,
+pour obeir &agrave; vous, il n&rsquo;est aujourd&rsquo;huy chose en ce
+monde mortel, que corps humain puisse porter, que
+hardiment n&rsquo;osasse entreprendre, ne ia pour peur
+de mort ne le laisseray &agrave; faire, &amp; fust &agrave; aller jusques
+&agrave; l&rsquo;arbre sec, voire jusques aux portaux d&rsquo;enfer
+combattre aux infernaux, comme fist le fort Hercule:
+avant qu&rsquo;&agrave; vous ne fusse accord&eacute;. Huon, ce
+dist Charles, je cuide qu&rsquo;en pire lieu vous envoyeray,
+car, de quinze messages qui de par moy y ont este
+envoyez, n&rsquo;en est par revenu un seul homme. Si
+te diray ou tu iras, puis que tu veux qui de toy
+aye mercy, m&rsquo;a volont&eacute; est, qu&rsquo;il te convient aller
+en la cit&eacute; de Babylonne, par devers diray, &amp; gardes
+que sur ta vie ne face faute, quand l&agrave; seras venu
+tu monteras en son palais, l&agrave; ou tu attendras l&rsquo;heure
+de son disner &amp; que tu le verras assis &agrave; table. Si
+convient que tu sois arm&eacute; de toutes armes, l&rsquo;espee
+nu&euml; au poing, par tel si que le premier &amp; le plus
+grand baron que tu verras manger &agrave; sa table tu
+luy trencheras le chef quel qu&rsquo;il soit, soit Roy, ou
+Admiral. Et apres ce te convient tant faire que
+la belle Esclarmonde fille &agrave; l&rsquo;Amiral Gaudisse tu
+fiances, &amp; la baises trois fois en la presence de son
+pere, &amp; de tous sous qui la seront presens, car je
+veux que tu s&ccedil;aches que c&rsquo;est la plus belle pucelle
+qu&rsquo;aujourd&rsquo;huy soit en vie, puis apres diras de par
+moy &agrave; l&rsquo;Admiral qu&rsquo;il m&rsquo;envoye mille espreuiers,
+mille ours, mille viautres, tous enchainez, &amp; mille
+jeune valets, &amp; mille des plus belles pucelles de son
+royaume, &amp; avecques ce, convient <em>que tu me rapportes
+une poignee de sa barbe, et quatre de ses
+dents machoires</em>. Ha! Sire, dirent les Barons, bien
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>134]</a></span>
+desirez sa mort, quant de tel message faire luy
+enchargez, vous dites la verit&eacute; ce dit le Roy, car si
+tant ne fait que j&rsquo;aye la barbe &amp; les dents machoires
+sans aucune tromperie ne mensonge, jamais
+ne retourne en France, ne devant moi ne se monstre.
+Car je le ferois pendre &amp; trainer. Sire, ce dit
+Huon, m&rsquo;avez vous dit &amp; racompt&eacute; tout ce que
+voulez que je face. Oui dist le Roy Charles ma
+volont&eacute; est telle, si vers moy veux avoir paix. Sire
+ce dit Huon, au plaisir de nostre Seigneur, je feray
+&amp; fourniray vostre message.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In what precise way the beards were sewed on
+the mantles we are not exactly informed. Whether
+this royal exuberance was left to shine in its own
+unborrowed lustre, its own naked magnificence, as
+too valuable to be intermixed with the grosser
+things of earth: whether it was thinly scattered
+over the surface of the &ldquo;rich scarlet;&rdquo; or whether
+it was gathered into locks, perhaps gemmed round
+with orient pearl, or clustered together with brilliant
+emeralds, sparkling diamonds, or rich rubies&mdash;&ldquo;Sweets
+to the sweet:&rdquo; whether it was exposed to
+the vulgar gaze on the mantle, or whether it was
+so arranged that only at the pleasure of the mighty
+wearer its radiant beauties were visible:&mdash;on all
+these deeply interesting particulars we should rejoice
+in having any information; but, alas! excepting
+what we have recorded, not one circumstance
+respecting them has &ldquo;floated down the tide of
+years.&rdquo; But we may perhaps form a correct idea
+of them from viewing a shield of human hair in
+the museum of the United Service Club, which
+may be supposed to have been <em>compiled</em> (so to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>135]</a></span>
+speak) with the same benevolent feelings as that of
+the heroes to whom we have been alluding. It is
+from Borneo Island, and is formed of locks of hair
+placed at regular intervals on a ground of thin
+tough wood: a refined and elegant mode of displaying
+the scalps of slaughtered foes. These coincidences
+are curious, and may serve at any rate
+to show that King Ryence&rsquo;s mantle was not the
+<em>invention</em> of the penman; but, in all probability,
+actually existed.</p>
+
+<p>The ladies of these days did not confine their
+handiwork merely to the adornment of the person.
+We have seen that among the Egyptians the
+couches that at night were beds were in the daytime
+adorned with richly wrought coverlets. So
+amongst the classical nations</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;the menial fair that round her wait,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At Helen&rsquo;s beck prepare the room of state;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath an ample portico they spread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The downy fleece to form the slumberous bed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And o&rsquo;er soft palls of purple grain, unfold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><em>Rich tapestry, stiff with inwoven gold</em>.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And during the middle ages the beds, not
+excluded from the day apartments, often gave
+gorgeous testimony of the skill of the needlewoman,
+and were among the richest ornaments of the sitting
+room, so much fancy and expense were lavished on
+them. The curtains were often made of very rich
+material, and usually adorned with embroidery.
+They were often also trimmed with expensive furs:
+Philippa of Hainault had a bed on which sea-syrens
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>136]</a></span>
+were embroidered. The coverlid was often very
+rich:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The ladi lay in hire bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With riche clothes bespred,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of gold and purpre palle.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Here beds are seen adorned with silk and gold.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;on a bed design&rsquo;d<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With gay magnificence the fair reclin&rsquo;d;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">High o&rsquo;er her head, on silver columns rais&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With broidering gems her proud pavilion blaz&rsquo;d.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Thence pass&rsquo;d into a bow&rsquo;r, where stood a bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With milkwhite furs of Alexandria spread:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath, a richly broider&rsquo;d vallance hung;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pillows were of silk; o&rsquo;er all was flung<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A rare wrought coverlet of ph&oelig;nix plumes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which breathed, as warm with life, its rich perfumes.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The array of the knights of these days was gorgeous
+and beautiful; and though the materials
+might be in themselves, and frequently were costly,
+still were they entirely indebted to the female hand
+for the rich elegance of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tout ensemble</i>. And the
+custom of disarming and robing knights anew after
+the conflict, whether of real or mimic war, to which
+we have alluded as a practice of classical antiquity,
+was as much or even more practised now, and afforded
+to the ladies an admirable opportunity of
+exhibiting alike their preference, their taste, and
+their liberality.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Amadis and Agrayes proceeded till they came
+to the castle of Torin, the dwelling of that fair
+young damsel, where they were disarmed and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>137]</a></span>
+mantles given them, and they were conducted into
+the hall.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thus they arrived at the palace, and there was
+he (the Green Sword Knight) lodged in a rich
+chamber, and was disarmed, and his hands and face
+washed from the dust, and they gave him a rose-coloured
+mantle.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p>
+
+<p>The romance of &ldquo;Ywaine and Gawin&rdquo; abounds in
+instances:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;A damisel come unto me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The semeliest that ever I se,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lufsumer lifed never in land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hendly scho toke me by the hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sone that gentyl creature<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Al unlaced myne armure;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into a chamber scho me led,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with a mantil scho me cled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was of purpur, fair and fine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the pane of ermyne.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Again&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The maiden redies hyr fal rath,<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bilive sho gert syr Ywaine bath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cled him sethin<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> in gude scarlet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forord wele with gold fret,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A girdel ful riche for the nanes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of perry<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> and of precious stanes.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The mayden was bowsom and bayne<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forto unarme syr Ywayne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Serk and breke both sho hym broght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ful craftily war wroght,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of riche cloth soft als the sylk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tharto white als any mylk.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sho broght hym ful riche wedes to wer.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>138]</a></span>
+On the widely acknowledged principle of &ldquo;Love
+me, love my dog,&rdquo; the steed of a favoured knight
+was often adorned by the willing fingers of the fair.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Each damsel and each dame who her obeyed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She task&rsquo;d, together with herself, to sew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With subtle toil; and with fine gold o&rsquo;erlaid<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A piece of silk of white and sable hue:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With this she trapt the horse.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The tabards or surcoats which knights wore over
+their armour was the article of dress in which they
+most delighted to display their magnificence. They
+varied in form, but were mostly made of rich silk,
+or of cloth of gold or silver, lined or trimmed with
+choice and expensive furs, and usually, also, having
+the armorial bearings of the family richly embroidered.
+Thus were women even the heralds of
+those times. Besides the acknowledged armorial
+bearings, devices were often wrought symbolical of
+some circumstance in the life of the wearer. Thus
+we are told in Amadis that the Emperor of Rome,
+on his black surcoat, had a golden chain-work
+woven, which device he swore never to lay aside till
+he had Amadis in chains. The same romance gives
+the following incident regarding a surcoat.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then Amadis cried to Florestan and Agrayes,
+weeping as he spake, good kinsman, I fear we have
+lost Don Galaor, let us seek for him. They went to
+the spot where Amadis had smitten down King
+Cildadan, and seen his brother last on foot; but so
+many were the dead who lay there that they saw
+him not, till as they moved away the bodies, Florestan
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>139]</a></span>
+knew him by the sleeve of his <em>surcoat</em>, which
+was of azure, worked with silver flowers, and then
+they made great moan over him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The shape of them, as we have remarked, varied
+considerably; besides minor alterations they were
+at one time worn very short, at another so long as
+to trail on the ground. But this luxurious style
+was occasionally attended with direful effects.
+Froissart names a surcoat in which Sir John Chandos
+was attired, which was embroidered with his
+arms in white sarsnet, argent a field gules, one on
+his back and another on his breast. It was a long
+robe which swept the ground, and this circumstance,
+most probably, caused the untimely death of one of
+the most esteemed knights of chivalry.</p>
+
+<p>Sir John Chandos was one of the brightest of
+that chivalrous circle which sparkled in the reign
+of Edward the Third. He was gentle as well as
+valiant; he was in the van with the Black Prince
+at the battle of Cressy; and at the battle of Poictiers
+he never left his side. His death was unlooked
+for and sudden. Some disappointments had depressed
+his spirits, and his attendants in vain
+endeavoured to cheer them.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And so he stode in a kechyn, warmyng him by
+the fyre, and his servantes jangled with hym, to <ins class="contr" title="thentent">th&#275;tent</ins>
+to bring him out of his melancholy; his servantes
+had prepared for hym a place to rest hym:
+than he demanded if it were nere day, and <ins class="contr" title="therewith">therew<sup>t</sup></ins>
+there <ins class="contr" title="came">c&#257;e</ins> a man into the house, and came before
+hym, and sayd,</p>
+
+<p>&lsquo;Sir, I have brought you tidynges.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&lsquo;What be they, tell me?&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>140]</a></span>
+&lsquo;Sir, surely the <ins class="contr" title="frenchmen">fr&#275;chmen</ins> be rydinge abrode.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&lsquo;How knowest thou that?&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&lsquo;Sir,&rsquo; sayd he, &lsquo;I departed fro saynt Saluyn with
+them.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&lsquo;What way be they ryden?&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&lsquo;Sir, I can nat tell you the certentie, but surely
+they take the highway to Poiters.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&lsquo;What <ins class="contr" title="Frenchmen">Fr&#275;chmen</ins> be they; canst thou tell me?&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&lsquo;Sir, it is Sir Loys of Saynt Julyan, and Carlovet
+the Breton.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&lsquo;Well, quoth Sir Johan Chandos, I care nat, I
+have no lyst this night to ryde forthe: they may
+happe to be <ins class="contr" title="encountred">enco&#363;tred</ins> though I be nat ther.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And so he taryed there styll a certayne space in
+a gret study, and at last, when he had well aduysed
+hymselfe, he sayde, &lsquo;Whatsoever I have sayd here
+before, I trowe it be good that I ryde forthe; I
+must retourne to Poictiers, and anone it will be
+day.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&lsquo;That is true sir,&rsquo; quoth the knightes about
+hym.</p>
+
+<p>&lsquo;Then,&rsquo; he sayd, &lsquo;make redy, for I wyll ryde
+forthe.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And so they dyd.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The skirmish commenced; there had fallen a
+great dew in the morning, in consequence of which
+the ground was very slippery; the knight&rsquo;s foot
+slipped, and in trying to recover himself, it became
+entangled in the folds of his magnificent <em>surcoat</em>;
+thus the fall was rendered irretrievable, and whilst
+he was down he received his death blow.</p>
+
+<p>The barons and knights were sorely grieved.
+They &ldquo;lamentably complayned, and sayd, &lsquo;A, Sir
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>141]</a></span>
+Johan Chandos, the floure of all chivalry, vnhappely
+was that glayue forged that thus hath <ins class="contr" title="wounded">wo&#363;ded</ins> you,
+and brought you in parell of dethe:&rsquo; they wept
+piteously that were about hym, and he herde and
+vnderstode them well, but he could speke no
+worde.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;For his dethe, his frendes, and also
+some of his enemyes, were right soroufull; the Englysshmen
+loued hym, bycause all noblenesse was
+founde in hym; the frenchmen hated him, because
+they doubted hym; yet I herde his dethe greatly
+complayned among right noble and valyant knightes
+of France<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Across this surcoat was worn the scarf, the indispensable
+appendage of a knight when fully
+equipped: it was usually the gift of his &ldquo;ladye-love,&rdquo;
+and embroidered by her own fair hand.</p>
+
+<p>And a knight would encounter fifty deaths sooner
+than part with this cherished emblem. It is recorded
+of Garcia Perez de Vargas, a noble-minded
+Spanish knight of the thirteenth century, that he and
+a companion were once suddenly met by a party of
+seven Moors. His friend fled: but not so Perez;
+he at once prepared himself for the combat, and
+while keeping the Moors at bay, who hardly seemed
+inclined to fight, he found that his scarf had fallen
+from his shoulder.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;He look&rsquo;d around, and saw the Scarf, for still the Moors were near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And they had pick&rsquo;d it from the sward, and loop&rsquo;d it on a spear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&lsquo;These Moors,&rsquo; quoth Garci Perez, &lsquo;uncourteous Moors they be&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now, by my soul, the scarf they stole, yet durst not question me!<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>142]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&lsquo;Now, reach once more my helmet.&rsquo; The Esquire said him, nay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&lsquo;For a silken string why should you fling, perchance, your life away?&rsquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&lsquo;I had it from my lady,&rsquo; quoth Garci, &lsquo;long ago,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And never Moor that scarf, be sure, in proud Seville shall show.&rsquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;But when the Moslems saw him, they stood in firm array:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He rode among their armed throng, he rode right furiously.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&lsquo;Stand, stand, ye thieves and robbers, lay down my lady&rsquo;s pledge,&rsquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cried, and ever as he cried, they felt his faulchion&rsquo;s edge.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;That day when the lord of Vargas came to the camp alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The scarf, his lady&rsquo;s largess, around his breast was thrown:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bare was his head, his sword was red, and from his pommel strung<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seven turbans green, sore hack&rsquo;d I ween, before Garci Perez hung.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It casts a redeeming trait on this butchering
+sort or bravery to find that when the hero returned
+to the camp he steadily refused to reveal the name
+of the person who had so cravenly deserted him.</p>
+
+<p>But the favours which ladies presented to a knight
+were various; consisting of &ldquo;jewels, ensigns of
+noblesse, scarfs, hoods, sleeves, mantles, bracelets,
+knots of ribbon; in a word, some detached part of
+their dress.&rdquo; These he always placed conspicuously
+on his person, and defended, as he would have done
+his life. Sometimes a lock of his fair one&rsquo;s hair inspired
+the hero:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Than did he her heere unfolde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And on his helme it set on hye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With rede thredes of ryche golde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whiche he had of his lady.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full richely his shelde was wrought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With asure stones and beten golde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But on his lady was his thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The yelowe heere what he dyd beholde.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>143]</a></span>
+It is recorded in &ldquo;Perceforest,&rdquo; that at the end
+of one tournament &ldquo;the ladies were so stripped of
+their head attire, that the greatest part of them
+were quite bareheaded, and appeared with their
+hair spread over their shoulders yellower than the
+finest gold; their robes also were without sleeves;
+for all had been given to adorn the knights; hoods,
+cloaks, kerchiefs, stomachers, and mantuas. But
+when they beheld themselves in this woful plight,
+they were greatly abashed, till, perceiving every one
+was in the same condition, they joined in laughing
+at this adventure, and that they should have engaged
+with such vehemence in stripping themselves
+of their clothes from off their backs, as never to
+have perceived the loss of them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A sleeve (more easily detached than we should
+fancy those of the present day) was a very usual
+token.</p>
+
+<p>Elayne, the faire mayden of Astolat gave Syr
+Launcelot &ldquo;a reed sleeve of scarlet wel embroudred
+with grete perlys,&rdquo; which he wore for a token on
+his helmet; and in real life it is recorded that in a
+serious, but not desperate battle, at the court of
+Burgundy, in 1445, one of the knights received
+from his lady a sleeve of delicate dove colour, elegantly
+embroidered; and he fastened this favour on
+his left arm.</p>
+
+<p>Chevalier Bayard being declared victor at the
+tournament of Carignan, in Piedmont, he refused,
+from extreme delicacy, to receive the reward assigned
+him, saying, &ldquo;The honour he had gained was solely
+owing to the sleeve, which a lady had given him,
+adorned with a ruby worth a hundred ducats.&rdquo; The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>144]</a></span>
+sleeve was brought back to the lady in the presence
+of her husband; who knowing the admirable character
+of the chevalier, conceived no jealousy on the
+occasion: &ldquo;The ruby,&rdquo; said the lady, &ldquo;shall be
+given to the knight who was the next in feats of
+arms to the chevalier; but since he does me so
+much honour as to ascribe his victory to my sleeve,
+for the love of him I will keep it all my life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Another important adjunct to the equipment of a
+knight was the pennon; an ensign or streamer
+formed of silk, linen, or stuff, and fixed to the top
+of the lance. If the expedition of the soldier had
+for its object the Holy Land, the sacred emblem of
+the cross was embroidered on the pennon, otherwise
+it usually bore the owner&rsquo;s crest, or, like the surcoat,
+an emblematic allusion to some circumstance
+in the owner&rsquo;s life. Thus, Chaucer, in the &ldquo;Knighte&rsquo;s
+Tale,&rdquo; describes that of Duke Theseus:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;And by his banner borne is his <em>penon</em><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of gold ful riche, in which ther was ybete<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Minotaure which that he slew in Crete.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The account of the taking of Hotspur&rsquo;s pennon,
+and his attempt at its recapture, is abridged by
+Mr. Mills<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> from Froissart. It is interesting, as displaying
+the temper of the times about these comparatively
+trifling matters, and being the record of
+history, may tend to justify our quotations of a
+similar nature from romance.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In the reign of Richard the Second, the Scots
+commanded by James, Earl of Douglas, taking advantage
+of the troubles between the King and his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>145]</a></span>
+Parliament, poured upon the south. When they
+were sated with plunder and destruction they rested
+at Newcastle, near the English force which the
+Earl of Northumberland and other border chieftains
+had hastily levied.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Earl&rsquo;s two sons were young and lusty knights,
+and ever foremost at the barriers to skirmish. Many
+proper feats of arms were done and achieved. The
+fighting was hand to hand. The noblest encounter
+was that which occurred between the Earl Douglas
+and Sir Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur. The
+Scot won the pennon of his foeman; and in the
+triumph of his victory he proclaimed that he would
+carry it to Scotland, and set it on high on his castle
+of Dalkeith, that it might be seen afar off.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Percy indignantly replied, that Douglas should
+not pass the border without being met in a manner
+which would give him no cause for boasting.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;With equal spirit the Earl Douglas invited him
+that night to his lodging to seek for his pennon.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Scots then retired and kept careful watch,
+lest the taunts of their leader should urge the
+Englishmen to make an attack. Percy&rsquo;s spirit
+burnt to efface his reproach, but he was counselled
+into calmness.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Scots then dislodged, seemingly resolved
+to return with all haste to their own country. But
+Otterbourn arrested their steps. The castle resisted
+the assault; and the capture of it would have been
+of such little value to them that most of the Scotch
+knights wished that the enterprise should be
+abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Douglas commanded, however, that the assault
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>146]</a></span>
+should be persevered in, and he was entirely influenced
+by his chivalric feelings. He contended that
+the very difficulty of the enterprise was the reason
+of undertaking it; and he wished not to be too far
+from Sir Henry Percy, lest that gallant knight
+should not be able to do his devoir in redeeming
+his pledge of winning the pennon of his arms again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hotspur longed to follow Douglas and redeem
+his badge of honour; but the sage knights of the
+country, and such as were well expert in arms,
+spoke against his opinion, and said to him, &lsquo;Sir,
+there fortuneth in war oftentimes many losses. If
+the Earl Douglas has won your pennon, he bought
+it dear, for he came to the gate to seek it, and was
+well beaten: another day you shall win as much of
+him and more. Sir, we say this because we know
+well that all the power of Scotland is abroad in the
+fields; and if we issue forth and are not strong
+enough to fight with them (and perchance they have
+made this skirmish with us to draw us out of the
+town), they may soon enclose us, and do with us
+what they will. It is better to loose a pennon than
+two or three hundred knights and squires, and put
+all the country to adventure.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>By such words as these, Hotspur and his brother
+were refrained, but the coveted moment came.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The hostile banners waved in the night breeze,
+and the bright moon, which had been more wont to
+look upon the loves than the wars of chivalry,
+lighted up the Scottish camp. A battle ensued of
+as valiant a character as any recorded in the pages
+of history; for there was neither knight nor squire
+but what did his devoir and fought hand to hand.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>147]</a></span>
+The Scots remained masters of the field: but the
+Douglas was slain, and this loss could not be recompensed
+even by the capture of the Percy.</p>
+
+<p>Little did the &ldquo;gentle Kate&rdquo; anticipate this
+catastrophe when her fairy fingers with proud and
+loving alacrity embroidered on the flowing pennon
+the inspiring watchword of her chivalric husband
+and his noble family&mdash;<span class="smcap">Esperance</span>.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a>
+Historical Memoirs of Queens of England.&mdash;H. Lawrance.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a>
+Emare.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a>
+<i>Bete</i>&mdash;inlayed, embroidered.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a>
+Amadis of Gaul, bk. i. ch. xv.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a>
+Ibid. bk. iv. ch. iii.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a>
+Orl. Fur.: transl. by Rose.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a>
+<i>Samyte</i>&mdash;rich silk.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a>
+<i>Pelored</i>&mdash;furred.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a>
+Lybeaus Disconus.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a>
+<i>Schyre</i>&mdash;clear.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a>
+<i>Hende</i>&mdash;kind, obliging.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a>
+<i>Alner</i>&mdash;pouch, bag or purse.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a>
+Launfal.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a>
+Amadis of Gaul, bk. i. ch. xxx.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a>
+<i>Hende</i>&mdash;kind, civil, obliging.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a>
+Saracen king.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a>
+<i>Asowr</i>&mdash;azure.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a>
+<i>Hewke</i>&mdash;herald&rsquo;s coat.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a>
+<i>Steven</i>&mdash;voice, sound</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a>
+<i>Kantle</i>&mdash;a corner.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a>
+Drayton&rsquo;s Polyolbion, Song 4.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a>
+Faerie Queene. Book vi.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a>
+The Kyng of Tars.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a>
+Orl. Fur.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a>
+Partenopex of Blois.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a>
+Amadis of Gaul.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a>
+Ibid.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a>
+<i>Rath</i>&mdash;speedily.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a>
+<i>Sethin</i>&mdash;afterward.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a>
+<i>Perry</i>&mdash;jewels.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a>
+<i>Bayne</i>&mdash;ready.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a>
+Orl. Fur., canto 23.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a>
+Froissart, by Lord Berners, vol. i. p. 270.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a>
+The Fair Lady of Faguell.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a>
+Hist. Chivalry.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>148]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">TAPESTRY.</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>The term <em>tapestry</em> or <em>tapistry</em> (from <em>tapisser</em>, to
+line, from the Latin word <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">tapes</em>, a cover of a wall or
+bed), is now appropriated solely to woven hangings
+of wool and silk; but it has been applied to all sorts
+of hangings, whether wrought entirely with the
+needle (as originally indeed all were) or in the loom,
+whether composed of canvass and wool, or of painted
+cloth, leather, or even paper. This wide application
+of the term seems to be justified by the derivation
+quoted above, but its present use is much more
+limited.</p>
+
+<p>In the thirteenth century the decorative arts had
+attained a high perfection in England. The palace
+of Westminster received, under the fostering patronage
+of Henry III., a series of decorations, the remains
+of which, though long hidden, have recently
+excited the wonder and admiration of the curious.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a>
+&ldquo;Near this monastery (says an ancient Itinerary)
+stands the most famous royal palace of England; in
+which is that celebrated chamber, on whose walls all
+the warlike histories of the whole Bible are painted
+with inexpressible skill, and explained by a regular
+and complete series of texts, beautifully written in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>149]</a></span>
+French over each battle, to the no small admiration
+of the beholder, and the increase of royal magnificence.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Round the walls of St. Stephen&rsquo;s chapel effigies of
+the Apostles were painted in oil; (which was thus
+used with perfectness and skill two centuries before
+its presumed discovery by John ab Eyck in 1410,)
+on the western side was a grand composition of the
+day of Judgment: St. Edward&rsquo;s or the &ldquo;Painted
+Chamber,&rdquo; derived the latter name from the quality
+and profuseness of its embellishments, and the walls
+of the whole palace were decorated with portraits or
+ideal representations, and historical subjects. Nor was
+this the earliest period in which connected passages
+of history were painted on the wainscot of apartments,
+for the following order, still extant, refers to
+the <em>renovation</em> of what must previously&mdash;and at some
+considerable interval of time probably, have been
+done.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Anno, 1233, 17 Hen. 3. Mandatum est Vicecomiti
+South&rsquo;ton quod Cameram regis lambruscatam
+de castro Winton depingi faciat eisdem historiis
+quibus fuerat pri&rsquo;us depicta.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>About 1312, Langton, Bishop of Litchfield, commanded
+the coronation, marriages, wars, and funeral
+of his patron King Edward I., to be painted in the
+great hall of his episcopal palace, which he had
+newly built.</p>
+
+<p>Chaucer frequently refers to this custom of painting
+the walls with historical or fanciful designs.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;And soth to faine my chambre was<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ful wel depainted&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the wals with colours fine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were painted bothe texte and glose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the Romaunt of the Rose.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>150]</a></span>
+And again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;But when I woke all was ypast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For ther nas lady ne creture,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save on the wals old portraiture<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of horsemen, hawkis, and houndis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hurt dere all ful of woundis.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Often emblematical devices were painted, which
+gave the artist opportunity to display his fancy and
+exercise his wit. Dr. Cullum, in his History of
+Hawsted, gives an account of an old mansion,
+having a closet, the panels of which were painted with
+various sentences, emblems, and mottos. One of
+these, intended doubtless as a hint to female vanity,
+is a painter, who having begun to sketch out a female
+portrait, writes &ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dic mihi qualis eris</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But comfort, or at least a degree of comfort, had
+progressed hand in hand with decoration. Tapestry,
+that is to say needlework tapestry, which, like the
+Bayeux tapestry of Matilda, had been used solely for
+the decoration of altars, or the embellishment of other
+parts of sacred edifices on occasions of festival, or the
+performance of solemn rites, had been of much more
+general application amongst the luxurious inhabitants
+of the South, and was introduced into England as furniture
+hanging by Eleanor of Castile. In Chaucer&rsquo;s
+time it was common. Among his pilgrims to Canterbury
+is a tapestry worker who is mentioned in the
+Prologue, in common with other &ldquo;professors.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;An haberdasher and a carpenter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A webbe, a dyer, and a tapiser.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And, again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;I wol give him all that falles<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To his chambre and to his halles,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I will do painte him with pure golde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And <em>tapite</em> hem ful many a folde.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>151]</a></span>
+These modes of decorating the walls and chambers
+with paintings, and with tapestry, were indeed contemporaneous;
+though the greater difficulty of obtaining
+the latter&mdash;for as it was not made at Arras
+until the fourteenth century, all that we here refer
+to is the painful product of the needle alone&mdash;many
+have made it less usual and common than the former.
+Pithy sentences, and metrical stanzas were often
+wrought in tapestry: in Wresil Castle and other
+mansions, some of the apartments were adorned in
+the Oriental manner with metrical descriptions called
+Proverbs. And Warton mentions an ancient suit of
+tapestry, containing Ariosto&rsquo;s Orlando, and Angelica,
+where, at every group, the story was all along illustrated
+with short lines in Proven&ccedil;al or old French.</p>
+
+<p>It could only be from its superior comfort that an
+article so tedious in manufacture as needlework
+tapestry could be preferred to the more quickly-produced
+decorations of the pencil; it was also rude in
+design; and the following description of some tapestry
+in an old Manor House in King John&rsquo;s time, though
+taken from a work of fiction, probably presents a
+correct picture of the style of most of the pieces exhibited
+in the mansions of the middle ranks at that
+period.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In a corner of the apartment stood a bed, the
+tapestry of which was enwrought with gaudy colours
+representing Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
+Adam was presenting our first mother with a large
+yellow apple, gathered from a tree that scarcely
+reached his knee. Beneath the tree was an angel
+milking, and although the winged milkman sat on a
+stool, yet his head overtopped both cow and tree,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>152]</a></span>
+and nearly covered a horse, which seemed standing
+on the highest branches. To the left of Eve appeared
+a church; and a dark robed gentleman
+holding something in his hand which looked like a
+pincushion, but doubtless was intended for a book:
+he seemed pointing to the holy edifice, as if reminding
+them that they were not yet married. On the
+ground lay the rib, out of which Eve (who stood the
+head higher than Adam) had been formed; both
+of them were very respectably clothed in the ancient
+Saxon costume; even the angel wore breeches, which,
+being blue, contrasted well with his flaming red
+wings.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>No one who has read the real blunders of artists
+and existing anachronisms in pictures detailed in
+&ldquo;Percy Anecdotes,&rdquo; will think the above sketch at
+all too highly coloured; though doubtless the
+tapestry hangings introduced by Queen Eleanor
+which would be imitated and caricatured in ten
+thousand different forms, were in much superior style.
+The Moors had attained to the highest perfection in
+the decorative arts, and from them did the Spaniards
+borrow this fashion of hangings,<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> and &ldquo;the coldness
+of our climate (says her accomplished biographer,
+Miss Agnes Strickland, speaking of Eleanor,) must
+have made it indispensable to the fair daughter of
+the South, chilled with the damp stone walls of English
+Gothic halls and chambers.&rdquo; Of the chillness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>153]</a></span>
+of these walls we may form some idea, from a feeling
+description of a residence which was thought sufficient
+for a queen some centuries later. In the year
+1586, Mary, the unhappy Queen of Scots, writes
+thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In regard to my lodging, my residence is a place
+inclosed with walls, situated on an eminence, and
+consequently exposed to all the winds and storms of
+heaven. Within this inclosure there is, like as at Vincennes,
+a very old hunting seat, built of wood and
+plaister, with chinks on all sides, with the uprights;
+the intervals between which are not properly filled up,
+and the plaister dilapidated in the various places.
+The house is about six yards distant from the walls,
+and so low that the terrace on the other side is as
+high as the house itself, so that neither the sun nor
+the fresh air can penetrate it at that side. The damp,
+however, is so great there, that every article of furniture
+is covered with mouldiness in the space of four days.&mdash;In
+a word, the rooms for the most part are fit rather
+for a dungeon for the lowest and most abject criminals,
+than for a residence of a person of my rank,
+or even of a much inferior condition. I have for
+my own accommodation only wretched little rooms,
+and so cold, that were it not for the protection of the
+curtains and tapestries which I have had put up, I
+could not endure it by day, and still less by night.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p>
+
+<p>The tapestries, whether wrought or woven, did not
+remain on the walls as do the hangings of modern
+days: it was the primitive office of the grooms of
+the chamber to hang up the tapestry which in a royal
+progress was sent forward with the purveyor and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>154]</a></span>
+grooms of the chamber. And if these functionaries
+had not, to use a proverbial expression, &ldquo;heads on
+their shoulders,&rdquo; ridiculous or perplexing blunders
+were not unlikely to arise. Of the latter we have
+an instance recorded by the Duc de Sully.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The King (Henry IV.) had not yet quitted
+Monceaux, when the Cardinal of Florence, who had
+so great a hand in the treaty of the Vervins, passed
+through Paris, as he came back from Picardy, and to
+return from thence to Rome, after he had taken
+leave of his Majesty. The king sent me to Paris to
+receive him, commanding me to pay him all imaginable
+honours. He had need of a person near
+the Pope, so powerful as this Cardinal, who afterwards
+obtained the Pontificate himself: I therefore
+omitted nothing that could answer His Majesty&rsquo;s
+intentions; and the legate, having an inclination to
+see St. Germain-en-Laye, I sent orders to Momier,
+the keeper of the castle, to hang the halls and
+chambers with the finest tapestry of the Crown.
+Momier executed my orders with great punctuality,
+but with so little judgment, that for the legate&rsquo;s
+chamber he chose a suit of hangings made by the
+Queen of Navarre; very rich, indeed, but which
+represented nothing but emblems and mottos against
+the Pope and the Roman Court, as satirical as they
+were ingenious. The prelate endeavoured to prevail
+upon me to accept a place in the coach that was
+to carry him to St. Germain, which I refused, being
+desirous of getting there before him, that I might
+see whether everything was in order; with which
+I was very well pleased. I saw the blunder of the
+keeper, and reformed it immediately. The legate
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>155]</a></span>
+would not have failed to look upon such a mistake
+as a formed design to insult him, and to have represented
+it as such to the Pope. Reflecting afterwards,
+that no difference in religion could authorise such
+sarcasms, I caused all those mottos to be effaced.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the sixteenth century<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> a sort of hanging was
+introduced, which, partaking of the nature both of
+tapestry and painting on the walls, was a formidable
+rival to the former. Shakspeare frequently alludes
+to these &ldquo;painted cloths.&rdquo; For instance, when Falstaff
+persuades Hostess Quickly, not only to withdraw
+her arrest, but also to make him a further
+loan: she says&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be
+fain to pawn both my plate and the <em>tapestry</em> of my
+dining chambers!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Falstaff answers&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Glasses, glasses is the only drinking, and for
+thy walls a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the
+Prodigal, or a German Hunting in water-work, is
+worth a thousand of these fly-bitten tapestries. Let
+it be ten pounds if thou canst. If it were not for
+thy humours, there is not a better wench in England!
+Go wash thy face and draw thy action.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In another passage of the play he says that his
+troops are &ldquo;as ragged as Lazarus in the <em>painted
+cloth</em>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There are now at Hampton Court eight large
+pieces or hangings of this description; being &ldquo;The
+Triumphs of Julius C&aelig;sar,&rdquo; in water-colours, on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>156]</a></span>
+cloth, and in good preservation. They are by
+Andrea Mantegna, and were valued at 1000<i>l.</i> at the
+time, when, by some strange circumstance, the Cartoons
+of Raphael were estimated only at 300<i>l.</i></p>
+
+<p>Tapestry was common in the East at a very
+remote era, when the most grotesque compositions
+and fantastic combinations were usually displayed
+on it. Some authors suppose that the Greeks took
+their ideas of griffins, centaurs, &amp;c., from these
+Tapestries, which, together with the art of making
+them, they derived from the East, and at first they
+closely imitated both the beauties and deformities
+of their patterns. At length their refined taste
+improved upon these originals; and the old grotesque
+combinations were confined to the borders of
+the hanging, the centre of which displayed a more
+regular and systematic representation.</p>
+
+<p>It has been supposed by some writers that the invention
+of Tapestry, passed from the East into
+Europe; but Guicciardini ascribes it to the Netherlanders;
+and assuredly the Bayeux Tapestry, the
+work of the Conqueror&rsquo;s Queen, shows that this art
+must have acquired much perfection in Europe before
+the time of the Crusades, which is the time
+assigned by many for its introduction there. Probably
+Guicciardini refers to woven Tapestry, which
+was not practised until the article itself had become,
+from custom, a thing of necessity. Unintermitting
+and arduous had been the stitchery practised in the
+creation of these coveted luxuries long, very long
+before the loom was taught to give relief to the busy
+finger.</p>
+
+<p>The first manufactories of Tapestry of any note
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>157]</a></span>
+were those of Flanders, established there long before
+they were attempted in France or England. The
+chief of these were at Brussels, Antwerp, Oudenarde,
+Lisle, Tournay, Bruges, and Valenciennes. At
+Brussels and Antwerp they succeeded well both in
+the design and the execution of human figures and
+animals, and also in landscapes. At Oudenarde the
+landscape was more imitated, and they did not succeed
+so well in the figure. The other manufactories,
+always excepting those of Arras, were inferior to these.</p>
+
+<p>The grand era of general manufactories in France
+must be fixed in the reign of Henry the IV. Amongst
+others he especially devoted his attention to the
+manufacture of Tapestry, and that of the Gobelins,
+since so celebrated, was begun, though futilely, in
+his reign. His celebrated minister, Sully, was entangled
+in these matters somewhat more than he himself
+approved.</p>
+
+<p>1605. &ldquo;I laid, by his order, the foundations of the
+new edifices for his Tapestry weavers, in the horse-market.
+His Majesty sent for Comans and La
+Planche, from other countries, and gave them the
+care and superintendence of these manufactures:
+the new directors were not long before they made
+complaints, and disliked their situation, either because
+they did not find profits equal to their hopes
+and expectations, or, that having advanced considerable
+sums themselves, they saw no great probability
+of getting them in again. The king got rid
+of their importunity by referring them to me.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p>
+
+<p>1607. &ldquo;It was a difficult matter to agree upon a price
+with these celebrated Flemish tapestry workers, which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>158]</a></span>
+we had brought into France at so great an expense.
+At length it was resolved in the presence of Sillery
+and me, that a 100,000<i>l.</i> should be given them for
+their establishment. Henry was very solicitous
+about the payment of this sum; &lsquo;Having,&rsquo; said he,
+&lsquo;a great desire to keep them, and not to lose the advances
+we have made.&rsquo; He would have been better
+pleased if these people could have been paid out of
+some other funds than those which he had reserved
+for himself: however, there was a necessity for satisfying
+them at any price whatever. His Majesty made
+use of his authority to oblige De Vienne to sign an
+acquittal to the undertakers for linen cloth in imitation
+of Dutch Holland. This prince ordered a complete
+set of furniture to be made for him, which he
+sent for me to examine separately, to know if they
+had not imposed upon him. <em>These things were not
+at all in my taste</em>, and I was but a very indifferent
+judge of them: the price seemed to me to be excessive,
+as well as the quantity. Henry was of
+another opinion: after examining the work, and
+reading my paper, he wrote to me that there was
+not too much, and that they had not exceeded his
+orders; and that he had never seen so beautiful a
+piece of work before, and that the workman must
+be paid his demands immediately.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p>
+
+<p>The manufactory languished however, even if it
+did not become entirely extinct. But it was revived
+in the reign of Louis XIV., and has since dispersed
+productions of unequalled delicacy over the civilised
+world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>159]</a></span>
+It was called &ldquo;Gobelins,&rdquo; because the house in
+the suburbs of Paris, where the manufacture is carried
+on, was built by brothers whose names were
+Giles and John Gobelins, both excellent dyers, and
+who brought to Paris in the reign of Francis I. the
+secret of dying a beautiful scarlet colour, still known
+by their name.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1667 this place, till then called &ldquo;Gobelines&rsquo;
+Folly,&rdquo; changed its name into that of &ldquo;Hotel
+Royal des Gobelins,&rdquo; in consequence of an edict
+of Louis XIV. M. Colbert having re-established,
+and with new magnificence enriched and completed
+the king&rsquo;s palaces, particularly the Louvre and the
+Tuilleries, began to think of making furniture suitable
+to the grandeur of those buildings; with this
+view he called together all the ablest workmen in
+the divers arts and manufactures throughout the
+kingdom; particularly painters, tapestry makers
+from Flanders, sculptors, goldsmiths, ebonists, &amp;c.,
+and by liberal encouragement and splendid pensions
+called others from foreign nations.</p>
+
+<p>The king purchased the Gobelins for them to work
+in, and laws and articles were drawn up, amongst
+which is one that no other tapestry work shall be
+imported from any other country.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did there need; for the Gobelins has ever
+since remained the first manufactory of this kind in
+the world. The quantity of the finest and noblest
+works that have been produced by it, and the number
+of the best workmen bred up therein are incredible;
+and the present flourishing condition of the
+arts and manufactures of France is, in great measure,
+owing thereto.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>160]</a></span>
+Tapestry work in particular is their glory. During
+the superintendence of M. Colbert, and his successor
+M. de Louvois, the making of tapestry is said to
+have been practised to the highest degree of perfection.</p>
+
+<p>The celebrated painter, Le Brun, was appointed
+chief director, and from his designs were woven
+magnificent hangings of Alexander&rsquo;s Battles&mdash;The
+Four Seasons&mdash;the Four Elements&mdash;and a series of
+the principal actions of the life of Louis XIV. M. de
+Louvois, during his administration, caused tapestries
+to be made after the most beautiful originals in the
+king&rsquo;s cabinet, after Raphael and Julio Romano, and
+other celebrated Italian painters. Not the least interesting
+part of the process was that performed by
+the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rentrayeurs</i>, or fine-drawers, who so unite the
+breadths of the tapestry into one picture that no
+seam is discernible, but the whole appears like one
+design. The French have had other considerable
+manufactories at Auvergne, Felletin and Beauvais,
+but all sank beneath the superiority of the Gobelins,
+which indeed at one time outvied the renown of that
+far-famed town, whose productions gave a title to
+the whole species, viz., that of Arras.</p>
+
+<p>Walpole gives an intimation of the introduction
+of tapestry weaving into England, so early as the
+reign of Edward III., &ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">De inquirendo de myster&acirc;
+Tapiciorum, London</span>;&rdquo; but usually William Sheldon,
+Esq., is considered the introducer of it, and he
+allowed an artist, named Robert Hicks, the use of
+his manor-house at Burcheston, in Warwickshire;
+and in his will, dated 1570, he calls Hicks &ldquo;the only
+auter and beginner of tapistry and arras within
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>161]</a></span>
+this realm.&rdquo; At his house were four maps of Oxford,
+Worcester, Warwick, and Gloucestershires,
+executed in tapestry on a large scale, fragments of
+which are or were among the curiosities of Strawberry-hill.
+We meet with little further notice of
+this establishment.</p>
+
+<p>This beautiful art was, however, revived in the
+reign of James I., and carried to great perfection
+under the patronage of himself and his martyr son.
+It received its death blow in common with other
+equally beautiful and more important pursuits during
+the triumph of the Commonwealth. James gave
+&pound;2000 to assist Sir Francis Crane in the establishment
+of the manufactory at Mortlake, in Surry,
+which was commenced in the year 1619. Towards
+the end of this reign, Francis Cleyn, or Klein, a
+native of Rostock, in the duchy of Mecklenburg,
+was employed in forming designs for this institution,
+which had already attained great perfection.
+Charles allowed him &pound;100 a year, as appears from
+Rymer&rsquo;s F&oelig;dera: &ldquo;Know ye that we do give and
+grant unto Francis Cleyne a certain annuitie of one
+hundred pounds, by the year, during his natural
+life.&rdquo; He enjoyed this salary till the civil war, and
+was in such favour with the king, and in such reputation,
+that on a small painting of him he is described
+as &ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Il famosissimo pittore Francesco Cleyn, miracolo
+del secolo, e molto stimato del re Carlo della
+gran Britania, 1646</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Tapestry Manufacture at Mortlake was indeed
+a hobby, both of King James and Prince Charles,
+and of consequence was patronised by the Court.
+During Charles the First&rsquo;s romantic expedition to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>162]</a></span>
+Spain, when Prince of Wales, with the Duke of
+Buckingham, James writes&mdash;&ldquo;I have settled with
+Sir Francis Crane for my Steenie&rsquo;s business, and I
+am this day to speak with Fotherby, and by my
+next, Steenie shall have an account both of his business,
+and of Kit&rsquo;s preferment and supply in means;
+but Sir Francis Crane desires to know if my Baby
+will have him to hasten the making of that suit of
+Tapestry that he commanded him.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p>
+
+<p>The most superb hangings were wrought here after
+the designs of distinguished painters; and Windsor
+Castle, Hampton Court, Whitehall, St. James&rsquo;s, Nonsuch,
+Greenwich, and other royal seats, and many
+noble mansions were enriched and adorned by its productions.
+In the first year of his reign, Charles was
+indebted &pound;6000 to the establishment for three suits
+of gold tapestry; Five of the Cartoons were wrought
+here, and sent to Hampton Court, where they still
+remain. A suit of hangings, representing the Five
+Senses, executed here, was in the palace at Oatlands,
+and was sold in 1649 for &pound;270. Rubens sketched
+eight pieces in Charles the First&rsquo;s reign for tapestry,
+to be woven here, of the history of Achilles, intended
+for one of the royal palaces. At Lord Ilchester&rsquo;s,
+at Redlinch, in Somersetshire, was a suit
+of hangings representing the twelve months in compartments;
+and there are several other sets of the
+same design. Williams, Archbishop of York, and
+Lord Keeper, paid Sir Francis Crane &pound;2500 for the
+Four Seasons. At Knowl, in Kent, was a piece of the
+same tapestry wrought in silk, containing the portraits
+of Vandyck, and St. Francis himself. At
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>163]</a></span>
+Lord Shrewsbury&rsquo;s (Hoythorp, Oxfordshire) are,
+or were, four pieces of tapestry from designs by
+Vanderborght, representing the four quarters of the
+world, expressed by assemblages of the nations in
+various habits and employments, excepting Europe,
+which is in masquerade, wrought in chiaroscuro.
+And at Houghton (Lord Oxford&rsquo;s seat) were beautiful
+hangings containing whole lengths of King
+James, King Charles, their Queens, and the King of
+Denmark, with heads of the Royal Children in the
+borders. These are all mentioned incidentally as
+the production of the Mortlake establishment.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of Sir Francis Crane, his brother
+Sir Richard sold the premises to Charles I. During
+the civil wars, this work was seized as the property
+of the Crown; and though, after the Restoration,
+Charles II. endeavoured to revive the manufacture,
+and sent Verrio to sketch the designs, his intention
+was not carried into effect. The work, though languishing,
+was not altogether extinct; for in Mr. Evelyn&rsquo;s
+very scarce tract intituled &ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Mundus Muliebris</span>,&rdquo;
+printed in 1690, some of this manufacture is amongst
+the articles to be furnished by a gallant to his mistress.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first acts of the Protectorate after the
+death of the king, was to dispose of the pictures,
+statues, tapestry hangings, and other splendid ornaments
+of the royal palaces. Cardinal Mazarine enriched
+himself with much of this royal plunder; and
+some of the splendid tapestry was purchased by the
+Archduke Leopold. This however found its way
+again to England, being repurchased at Brussels for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>164]</a></span>
+&pound;3000 by Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of
+George III.</p>
+
+<p>In 1663 &ldquo;two well-intended statutes&rdquo; were made:
+one for the encouragement of the linen and <em>tapestry
+manufactures</em> of England, and discouragement of
+the importation of foreign tapestry:&mdash;and the other&mdash;start
+not, fair reader&mdash;the other &ldquo;for regulating
+the packing of herrings.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a>
+See Smith&rsquo;s History of the Ancient Palace of Westminster.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a>
+But not from them would be derived the art of painting with
+the needle the representation of the human figure. Hence, perhaps,
+the awkward and ungainly aspect of these, in comparison with the
+arabesque patterns. From a fear of its exciting a tendency to idolatry
+Mohammed prohibited his followers from delineating the form of men
+or animals in their pictorial embellishments of whatever sort.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a>
+Von Raumer&rsquo;s Contributions, 297.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a>
+Sully&rsquo;s Memoirs. We have, in a subsequent chapter, a more full
+account of this Tapestry.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a>
+Gent&rsquo;s Mag., 1830.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a>
+Sully&rsquo;s Memoirs, vol. ii.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a>
+Sully&rsquo;s Memoirs, vol. iii.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a>
+Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. i. No. 26.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a>
+&ldquo;The rich tapestry and arras hangings which belonged to St.
+James&rsquo;s Palace, Hampton Court, Whitehall, and other Royal Seats,
+were purchased for Cromwell: these were inventoried at a sum not
+exceeding &pound;30,000. One piece of eight parts at Hampton Court was
+appraised at &pound;8,260: this related to the History of Abraham. Another
+of ten parts, representing the History of Julius C&aelig;sar, was appraised
+at &pound;5019.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>165]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XII.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">ROMANCES WORKED IN TAPESTRY.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;And storied loves of knights and courtly dames,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pageants and triumphs, tournaments and games.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Rose&rsquo;s Partenopex.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>It has been a favourite practice of all antiquity to
+work with the needle representations of those subjects
+in which the imagination and the feelings were
+most interested. The labours of Penelope, of Helen,
+and Andromache, are proverbial, and this mode of
+giving permanency to the actions of illustrious individuals
+was not confined to the classical nations. The
+ancient islanders used to work&mdash;until the progress of
+art enabled them to weave the histories of their giants
+and champions in Tapestry; and the same thing is
+recorded of the old Persians; and this furniture is
+still in high request among many Oriental nations,
+especially in Japan and China. The royal palace of
+Jeddo has profusion of the finest Tapestry; this indeed
+is gorgeous, being wrought with silk, and
+adorned with pearls, gold, and silver.</p>
+
+<p>It was considered a right regal offering from one
+prince to another. Henry III., King of Castile, sent
+a present to Timour at Samarcand, of Tapestry
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>166]</a></span>
+which was considered to surpass even the works of
+Asiatic artists in beauty: and when the religious and
+military orders of some of the princes of France and
+Burgundy had plunged them into a kind of crusade
+against the Turkish Sultan Bajazet, and they became
+his prisoners in the battle of Nicopolis, the King of
+France sent presents to the Sultan, to induce him to
+ransom them; amongst which Tapestry representing
+the battles of Alexander the Great was the most
+conspicuous.</p>
+
+<p>Tapestry was not used in the halls of princes alone,
+but cut a very conspicuous figure on all occasions of
+festivity and rejoicing. It was customary at these
+times to hang ornamental needlework of all sorts from
+the windows or balconies of the houses of those streets
+through which a pageant or festal procession was to
+pass; and as the houses were then built with the
+upper stories far overhanging the lower ones, these
+draperies frequently hung in rich folds to the ground,
+and must have had, when a street was thus in its
+whole length appareled and partly roofed by the
+floating streamers and banners above&mdash;somewhat the
+appearance of a suite of magnificent saloons.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Then the high street gay signs of triumph wore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Covered with shewy cloths of different dye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which deck the walls, while Sylvan leaves in store,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And scented herbs upon the pavement lie.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Adorned in every window, every door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With carpeting and finest drapery;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But more with ladies fair, and richly drest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In costly jewels and in gorgeous vest.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>When the Black Prince entered London with King
+John of France, as his prisoner, the outsides of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>167]</a></span>
+houses were covered with hangings, consisting of
+battles in tapestry-work.</p>
+
+<p>And in tournaments the lists were always decorated
+&ldquo;with the splendid richness of feudal power.
+Besides the gorgeous array of heraldic insignia near
+the Champions&rsquo; tents, the galleries, which were made
+to contain the proud and joyous spectators, were
+covered with tapestry, representing chivalry both in
+its warlike and its amorous guise: on one side the
+knight with his bright faulchion smiting away hosts
+of foes, and on the other side kneeling at the feet of
+beauty.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But the subjects of the tapestry in which our ancestors
+so much delighted were not confined to <i>bon&acirc; fide</i>
+battles, and the matter-of-fact occurrences of every-day
+life. Oh no! The Lives of the Saints were frequently
+pourtrayed with all the legendary accompaniments
+which credulity and blind faith could invest
+them with. The &ldquo;holy and solitary&rdquo; St. Cuthbert
+would be seen taming the sea-monsters by his
+word of power: St. Dunstan would be in the very act
+of seizing the &ldquo;handle&rdquo; of his Infernal Majesty&rsquo;s
+face with the red-hot pincers; and St. Anthony in
+the &ldquo;howling wilderness,&rdquo; would be reigning omnipotent
+over a whole legion of sprites. Here was food
+for the imagination and taste of our notable great-grandmother!
+Yet let us do them justice. If some
+of their religious pieces were imbued even to a ridiculous
+result, with the superstitions of the time, there
+were others, numberless others, scripture pieces, as
+chaste and beautiful in design, as elaborate in execution.
+The loom and needle united indeed brought
+these pieces to the highest perfection, but many a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>168]</a></span>
+meek and saintly Madonna, many a lofty and energetic
+St. Paul, many a subdued and touching Magdalene
+were produced by the unaided industry of the
+pious needlewoman. Nay, the whole Bible was
+copied in needlework; and in a poem of the fifteenth
+century, by Henry Bradshaw, containing the Life of
+St. Werburgh, a daughter of the King of the Mercians,
+there is an account &ldquo;rather historical than legendary,&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a>
+of many circumstances of the domestic
+life of the time. Amongst other descriptions is that
+of the tapestry displayed in the Abbey of Ely, on the
+occasion of St. Werburgh taking the veil there. This
+Tapestry belonged to king Wulfer, and was brought
+to Ely Monastery for the occasion. We subjoin
+some of the stanzas:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;It were full tedyous, to make descrypcyon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the great tryumphes, and solempne royalte,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Belongynge to the feest, the honour and provysyon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By playne declaracyon, upon every partye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the sothe to say, withouten ambyguyte,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All herbes and flowres, fragraunt, fayre, and swete,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were strawed in halles, and layd under theyr fete.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Clothes of golde and arras<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> were hanged in the hall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Depaynted with pyctures, and hystoryes manyfolde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Well wroughte and craftely, with precious stones all<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glysteryng as Phebus, and the beten golde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lyke an erthly paradyse, pleasaunt to beholde:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As for the said moynes,<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> was not them amonge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But prayenge in her cell, as done all novice yonge.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>169]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The story of Adam, there was goodly wrought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And of his wyfe Eve, bytwene them the serpent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How they were deceyved, and to theyr peynes brought;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was Cayn and Abell, offerynge theyr present,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sacryfyce of Abell, accepte full evydent:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tuball and Tubalcain were purtrayed in that place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The inventours of musyke and crafte by great grace.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Noe and his shyppe was made there curyously<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sendynge forthe a raven, whiche never came again;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And how the dove returned, with a braunche hastely,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A token of comforte and peace, to man certayne:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Abraham there was, standing upon the mount playne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To offer in sacrifice Isaac his dere sone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And how the shepe for hym was offered in oblacyon.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The twelve sones of Jacob there were in purtrayture,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And how into Egypt yonge Josephe was solde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was imprisoned, by a false conjectour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">After in all Egypte, was ruler (as is tolde).<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was in pycture Moyses wyse and bolde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our Lorde apperynge in bushe flammynge as fyre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And nothing thereof brent, lefe, tree, nor spyre.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The ten plages of Egypt were well embost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The chyldren of Israel passyng the reed see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kynge Pharoo drowned, with all his proude hoost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And how the two table, at the Mounte Synaye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were gyven to Moyses, and how soon to idolatry<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The people were prone, and punysshed were therefore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How Datan and Abyron, for pryde were full youre.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then <em>Duke</em> Joshua leading the Israelites: the
+division of the promised land; Kyng Saull and David,
+and &ldquo;prudent Solomon;&rdquo; Roboas succeeding;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The good Kynge Esechyas and his generacyon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so to the Machabus, and dyvers other nacyon.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>170]</a></span>
+All these</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Theyr noble actes, and tryumphes marcyall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Freshly were browdred in these clothes royall.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i5"> <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;But over the hye desse, in the pryncypall place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the sayd thre kynges sate crowned all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The best hallynge<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> hanged, as reason was,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whereon were wrought the nine orders angelicall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dyvyded in thre ierarchyses, not cessynge to call<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus</i>, blessed be the Trynite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dominius Deus Sabaoth, three persons in one deyte.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then followed in order our Blessed Lady, the
+twelve Apostles, &ldquo;eche one in his figure,&rdquo; the four
+Evangelists &ldquo;wrought most curyously,&rdquo; all the disciples</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Prechynge and techynge, unto every nacyon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The faythtes<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> of holy chyrche, for their salvacyon.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Martyrs then followed, right manifolde;&rdquo; Confessors
+&ldquo;fressely embrodred in ryche tyshewe and
+fyne.&rdquo; Saintly virgins &ldquo;were brothered<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> the clothes
+of gold within,&rdquo; and the long array was closed on the
+other side of the hall by</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Noble auncyent storyes, and how the stronge Sampson<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Subdued his enemyes by his myghty power;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Hector of Troye, slayne by fals treason;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of noble Arthur, kynge of this regyon;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With many other mo, which it is to longe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Playnly to expresse this tyme you amonge.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But the powers of the chief proportion of needlewomen,
+and of many of the subsequent tapestry looms
+were devoted to giving permanence to those fables
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>171]</a></span>
+which, as exhibited in the Romances of Chivalry,
+formed the very life and delight of our ancestors in</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;that happy season<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere bright Fancy bent to reason;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the spirit of our stories,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Filled the mind with unseen glories;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Told of creatures of the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spirits, fairies, goblins rare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Guarding man with tenderest care.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>These fables, says Warton, were not only perpetually
+repeated at the festivals of our ancestors, but
+were the constant objects of their eyes. The very
+walls of their apartments were clothed with romantic
+history.</p>
+
+<p>We have mentioned the history of Alexander in
+Tapestry as forming an important part of the peace
+offering of the king of France to Bajazet, and probably
+there were few princes who did not possess a
+suit of tapestry on this subject; a most important
+one in romance, and consequently a desired one for
+the loom.</p>
+
+<p>There seems an innate propensity in the writers of
+the Romance of Chivalry to exaggerate, almost to
+distortion, the achievements of those whose heroic
+bearing needed no pomp of diction, or wild flow of
+imagination to illustrate it. Thus Charlemagne, one
+of the best and greatest of men, appears in romance
+like one whose thirst for slaughter it requires myriads
+of &ldquo;Paynims&rdquo; to quench.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur, on the contrary, a very (if history tell
+truth) a very &ldquo;so-so&rdquo; sort of a man, having not one
+tithe of the intellect or the magnanimity of him to
+whom we have just referred&mdash;Arthur is invested in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>172]</a></span>
+romance with a halo of interest and of beauty which
+is perfectly fascinating; and it seems almost impossible
+to divest oneself of these impressions and to
+look upon him only in the unattractive light in which
+history represents him.</p>
+
+<p>A person not initiated in romance would suppose
+that the real actions of Alexander&mdash;the subjugator of
+Greece, the conqueror of Persia, the captor of the
+great Darius, but the generous protector of his
+family&mdash;might sufficiently immortalize him. By no
+means. He cuts a considerable figure in many
+romances; but in one, appropriated more exclusively
+to his exploits, he &ldquo;surpasses himself.&rdquo; The world
+was conquered:&mdash;from north to south, and from east
+to west his sovereignty was acknowledged; so he
+forthwith flew up into the air to bring the aerial potentates
+to his feet. But this experiment not answering,
+he descended to the depths of the waters
+with much better success; for immediately all their
+inhabitants, from the whale to the herring, the cannibal
+shark, the voracious pike, the majestic sturgeon,
+the lordly salmon, the rich turbot, and the delicate
+trout, with all their kith, kin, relations, and allies,
+the lobster, the crab, and the muscle,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The sounds and seas with all their finny drove&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>crowd round him to do him homage: the oyster lays
+her pearl at his feet, and the coral boughs meekly
+wave in token of subjection. Doubtless in addition
+to the legitimate &ldquo;battles&rdquo; these exploits, if not
+fully displayed, were intimated by symbols in the
+Tapestry.</p>
+
+<p>The Tale of Troy was a very favourite subject for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>173]</a></span>
+Tapestry, and was found in many noble mansions,
+especially in France. It has indeed been conjectured,
+and on sufficient grounds, that the whole Iliad had
+been wrought in a consecutive series of hangings.
+Though during the early part of the middle ages
+Homer himself was lost, still the &ldquo;Tale of Troy
+divine&rdquo; was kept alive in two Latin works, which in
+1260 formed the basis of a prose romance by a
+Sicilian.</p>
+
+<p>The great original himself however, had become
+the companion not only of the studious and learned,
+but also of the fair and fashionable, while yet the
+Flemish looms were in the zenith of their popularity.
+This subject formed part of the decoration of Holyrood
+House, on the occasion of the marriage of Henry
+the Seventh&rsquo;s daughter to James, King of Scotland
+in 1503. We are told in an ancient record, that the
+&ldquo;hanginge of the queene&rsquo;s gret chammer represented
+the ystory of Troye toune, that the king&rsquo;s grett
+chammer had one table, wer was satt, hys chamerlayne,
+the grett sqyer, and many others, well served;
+the which chammer was haunged about with the
+story of Hercules, together with other ystorys.&rdquo;
+And at the same solemnity, &ldquo;in the hall wher the
+qwene&rsquo;s company wer satt in lyke as in the other,
+an wich was haunged of the history of Hercules.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The tragic and fearful story of Coucy&rsquo;s heart
+gave rise to an old metrical English Romance, called
+the &lsquo;Knight of Courtesy and the Lady of Faguel.&rsquo;
+It was entirely represented in tapestry. The incident,
+a true one, on which it was founded, occurred
+about 1180; and was thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Some hundred and odd years since, there was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>174]</a></span>
+in France one Captain Coucy, a gallant gentleman
+of an ancient extraction, and keeper of Coucy Castle,
+which is yet standing, and in good repair. He fell
+in love with a young gentlewoman, and courted her
+for his wife. There was a reciprocal love between
+them; but her parents understanding of it, by way
+of prevention, they shuffled up a forced match &rsquo;twixt
+her and one Monsieur Faiell who was a great heir:
+Captain Coucy hereupon quitted France in discontent,
+and went to the wars in Hungary against the
+Turk; where he received a mortal wound, not far
+from Bada. Being carried to his lodging, he languished
+for some days; but a little before his death
+he spoke to an ancient servant of his, that he had
+many proofs of his fidelity and truth; but now he
+had a great business to intrust him with, which he
+conjured him by all means to do, which was, That
+after his death, he should get his body to be opened
+and then to take his heart out of his breast, and put
+in an earthen pot, to be baked to powder; and then
+to put the powder in a handsome box, with that
+bracelet of hair he had worn long about on his left
+wrist, which was a lock of Mademoiselle Faiell&rsquo;s
+hair, and put it among the powder, together with a
+little note he had written with his own blood to her;
+and after he had given him the rites of burial, to
+make all the speed he could to France, and deliver
+the box to Mademoiselle Faiell. The old servant
+did as his master had commanded him, and so went
+to France; and coming one day to Monsieur Faiell&rsquo;s
+house, he suddenly met with him, who examined
+him because he knew he was Captain Coucy&rsquo;s servant,
+and finding him timorous and faltering in his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>175]</a></span>
+speech, he searched him, and found the said box in
+his pocket with the note, which expressed what was
+therein. He dismissed the bearer with menaces,
+that he should come no more near his house: Monsieur
+Faiell going in, sent for his cook, and delivered
+him the powder, charging him to make a little well-relished
+dish of it, without losing a jot of it, for it
+was a very costly thing; and commanded him to
+bring it in himself, after the last course at supper.
+The cook bringing in the dish accordingly, Monsieur
+Faiell commanded all to void the room, and
+began a serious discourse with his wife: However
+since he had married her, he observed she was
+always melancholy, and he feared she was inclining
+to a consumption; therefore he had provided for
+her a very precious cordial, which he was well assured
+would cure her. Thereupon he made her eat
+up the whole dish; and afterwards much importuning
+him to know what it was, he told her at last, she
+had eaten Coucy&rsquo;s heart, and so drew the box out
+of his pocket, and showed her the note and bracelet.
+In a sudden exultation of joy, she with a far-fetched
+sigh said, &lsquo;<em>This is precious indeed</em>,&rsquo; and so
+licked the dish, saying, &lsquo;<em>It is so precious, that &rsquo;tis
+pity to put ever any meat upon &rsquo;t</em>.&rsquo; So she went to
+bed, and in the morning she was found stone
+dead.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p>
+
+<p>But a more national, a more inspiriting, and a
+more agreeable theme for the alert finger or the
+busy loom is found in the life and adventures of
+that prince of combatants, that hero of all heroes,
+Guy Earl of Warwick. Help me, shades of renowned
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>176]</a></span>
+slaughterers, whilst I record his achievements! Bear
+witness to his deed, ye grisly phantoms, ye bloody
+ghosts of infidel Paynims, whom his Christian
+sword mowed down, even as corn falls beneath the
+the reaper&rsquo;s sickle, till the redoubtable champion
+strode breast deep in bodies over fifteen acres covered
+with slaughtered foes!<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> And all this from
+Christian zeal!</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;In faith of Christ a Christian true<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The wicked laws of infidels,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sought by power to subdue.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;So passed he the seas of Greece,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To help the Emperour to his right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against the mighty Soldan&rsquo;s host<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of puissant Persians for to fight:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where he did slay of Sarazens<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And heathen Pagans many a man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And slew the Soldan&rsquo;s cousin dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who had to name, Doughty Colbron.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Ezkeldered that famous knight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To death likewise he did pursue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Almain, king of Tyre also,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Most terrible too in fight to view:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He went into the Soldan&rsquo;s host,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Being thither on ambassage sent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And brought away his head with him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He having slain him in his tent.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Or passing by his</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Feats of arms<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In strange and sundry heathen lands,&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>note his beneficent progress at home&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>177]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;In Windsor forest he did slay<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A boar of passing might and strength;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The like in England never was,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For hugeness both in breadth and length.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some of his bones in Warwick yet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Within the castle there do lye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One of his shield bones to this day<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hangs in the city of Coventry.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;On Dunsmore heath he also slew<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A monstrous wild and cruel beast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Call&rsquo;d the dun cow of Dunsmore heath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Which many people had opprest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some of her bones in Warwick yet<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Still for a monument doth lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which unto every looker&rsquo;s view,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As wondrous strange they may espy.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;And the dragon in the land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He also did in flight destroy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which did both men and beasts oppress,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And all the country sore annoy:&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Or look we at him all doughty as he was, as the
+pilgrim of love, as subdued by the influence of the
+tender passion, a suppliant to the gentle Phillis,
+and ready to compass the earth to fulfil her wishes,
+and to prove his devotion:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Was ever knight for lady&rsquo;s sake<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">So tost in love, as I, Sir Guy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Phillis fair, that Lady bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As ever man beheld with eye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She gave me leave myself to try<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The valiant knight with shield and spear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere that her love she would grant me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who made me venture far and near.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Or, afterwards view him as&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;All clad in grey in Pilgrim sort,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">His voyage from her he did take,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unto that blessed, holy land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For Jesus Christ, his Saviour&rsquo;s sake.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>178]</a></span>
+Lastly, recal we the time when the fierce and ruthless
+Danes were ravaging our land, and there was
+scarce a town or castle as far as Winchester, which
+they had not plundered or burnt, and a proposal
+was made, and per force acceded to by the English
+king to decide the struggle by single combat. But
+the odds were great: Colbrand the Danish champion,
+was a giant, and ere he came to a combat he
+provided himself with a cart-load of Danish axes,
+great clubs with knobs of iron, squared barrs of steel
+lances and iron hooks wherewith to pull his adversary
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand the English&mdash;and sleepless
+and unhappy, the king Athelstan pondered the
+circumstance as he lay on his couch, on St. John
+Baptist&rsquo;s night&mdash;had no champion forthcoming,
+even though the county of Hants had been promised
+as a reward to the victor. Roland, the most valiant
+knight of a thousand, was dead; Heraud, the pride
+of the nation, was abroad; and the great and valiant
+Guy, Earl of Warwick, was gone on a pilgrimage.
+The monarch was perplexed and sorrowful; but an
+angel appeared to him and comforted him.</p>
+
+<p>In conformity with the injunctions of this gracious
+messenger, the king, attended by the Archbishop
+of Canterbury and the Bishop of Chichester, placed
+himself at the north gate of the city (Winchester)
+at the hour of prime. Divers poor people and pilgrims
+entered thereat, and among the rest appeared
+a man of noble visage and stalwart frame, but wan
+withal, pale with abstinence, and macerated by reason
+of journeying barefoot. His beard was venerably
+long and he rested on a staff; he wore a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>179]</a></span>
+pilgrim&rsquo;s garb, and on his bare and venerable head
+was strung a chaplet of white roses. Bending low,
+he passed the gate, but the king warned by the
+vision, hastened to him, and entreated him &ldquo;by his
+love for Jesus Christ, by the devotion of his pilgrimage,
+and for the preservation of all England,
+to do battle with the giant.&rdquo; The Palmer thus conjured,
+underwent the combat, and was victorious.</p>
+
+<p>After a solemn procession to the Cathedral, and
+thanksgiving therein, when he offered his weapon to
+God and the patron of the Church, before the High
+Altar, the pilgrim withdrew, having revealed himself
+to none but the king, and that under a solemn pledge
+of secrecy. He bent his course towards Warwick,
+and unknown in his disguise, took alms at the hands
+of his own lady&mdash;for, reader, this meek and holy pilgrim,
+was none other than the wholesale slayer,
+whose deeds we have been contemplating&mdash;and then
+retired to a solitary place hard by&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Where with his hand he hew&rsquo;d a house,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Out of a craggy rock of stone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lived like a palmer poor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Within that cave himself alone.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Nor was this at all an unusual conclusion to a life
+of butchery; all the heroes of romance turned hermits;
+and as they all, at least all of Arthur&rsquo;s Round
+Table, were gifted with a very striking development
+of the organ of combativeness, their profound piety
+at the end of their career might not improbably
+give rise to a very common adage of these days
+regarding sinners and saints.</p>
+
+<p>But here was a theme for Tapestry-workers! a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>180]</a></span>
+real original, genuine English romance; for though
+the only pieces now extant be, or may be, translated
+from the French, still there are many concurring
+circumstances to prove that the original, often
+quoted by Chaucer, was an ancient metrical English
+one. That it is difficult to find who Sir Guy was,
+or in fact, to prove that there ever was a Sir Guy
+at all, is nothing to the purpose; leave we that to
+antiquarians, and their musty folios. Guy of
+Warwick was well known from west to east, even as
+far as Jerusalem, where, in Henry the Fourth&rsquo;s time,
+Lord Beauchamp was kindly received by those in
+high stations, because he was descended from</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;A shadowy ancestor, so renowned as Guy.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>One tapestry on this attractive subject which was
+in Warwick Castle, before the year 1398, was so
+distinguished and valued a piece of furniture, that a
+special grant was made of it by King Richard II.
+conveying &ldquo;that suit of arras hangings in Warwick
+Castle, which contained the story of Guy Earl of
+Warwick,&rdquo; together with the Castle of Warwick and
+other possessions, to Thomas Holland, Earl of
+Kent. And in the restoration of forfeited property
+to this lord after his imprisonment, these hangings
+are particularly specified in the patent of King
+Henry IV., dated 1399.</p>
+
+<p>And the Castle wherein the tapestry was hung
+was worthy of the heroes it had sheltered. The
+first building on the site was supposed to be coeval
+with our Saviour, and was called Caer-leon; almost
+overthrown by the Picts and Scots, it lay in ruins
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>181]</a></span>
+till Caractacus built himself a manor-house, and
+founded a church to the honour of St. John the
+Baptist. Here was afterwards a Roman fort, and
+here again was a Pictish devastation. A cousin of
+King Arthur rebuilt it, and then lived in it&mdash;Arthgal,
+first Earl of Warwick, a Knight of the Round
+Table; this British title was equivalent to <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ursus</em> in
+Latin, whence Arthgal took the Bear for his ensign:
+and a successor of his, a worthy progenitor of our
+valiant Sir Guy, slew a mighty giant in a duel; and
+because this giant&rsquo;s delicate weapon was a tree pulled
+up by the roots, the boughs being snagged from it,
+the Earls of Warwick, successors of the victor, bore
+a ragged staff of silver in a sable shield for their
+cognisance.</p>
+
+<p>We are told that,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;When Arthur first in court began,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And was approved king,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By force of arms great victoryes wanne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And conquest home did bring.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then into England straight he came<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With fifty good and able<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Knights, that resorted unto him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And were of his round table.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of these the most renowned were Syr Perceval,
+Syr Tristan, Syr Launcelot du Lac, Syr Ywain,
+Syr Gawain, Syr Galaas, Syr Meliadus of Leonnoys,
+Sir Ysaie, Syr Gyron, &amp;c. &amp;c., and their various
+and wondrous achievements were woven into a
+series of tales which are known as the &ldquo;Romances
+of the Round Table.&rdquo; Of course the main subject
+of each tale is interrupted by ten thousand varied
+episodes, in which very often the original object
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>182]</a></span>
+seems entirely lost sight of. Then the construction
+of many of these Romances, or rather their want of
+construction, is marvellous; their genealogies are
+interminable, and their geography miraculous.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most marvellous and scarce of these
+Romances, and one, the principal passages of which
+were frequently wrought into Tapestry, was the
+&ldquo;Roman du Saint Greal,&rdquo; which is founded upon
+an incident, to say the least very peculiar, but
+which was perhaps once considered true as Holy
+Writ. St. Joseph of Arimath&oelig;a, a very important
+personage in many romances, having obtained the
+hanap, or cup from which our Saviour administered
+the wine to his disciples, caught in the same cup
+the blood which flowed from his wounds when on
+the Cross. After he had first achieved various adventures,
+and undergone an imprisonment of forty-two
+years, St. Joseph arrives in England with the
+sacred cup, by means of which numerous miracles
+are performed; he prepares the Round Table, and
+Arthur and his Knights all go in quest of the hanap,
+which by some, to us unaccountable, circumstance,
+had fallen into the hands of a sinner. All make the
+most solemn vow to devote their lives to its recovery;
+and this they must indeed have done, and
+not short lives either, if all recorded of them be
+true. None, however, but two, ever <em>see</em> the sacred
+symbol; though oftentimes a soft ray of light would
+stream across the lonesome wild, or the dark pathless
+forest, or unearthly strains would float on the
+air, or odours as of Paradise would entrance the
+senses, while the wandering and woeworn knight
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>183]</a></span>
+would feel all fatigue, all sense of personal inconvenience,
+of pain, of sickness, or of sorrow, vanish
+on the instant; and then would he renew his vows,
+and betake himself to prayer; for though all unworthy
+to see the Holy Grayle, he would feel that it
+had been borne on viewless pinions through the air
+for his individual consolation and hope. And Syr
+Galahad and Syr Perceval, the two chaste and
+favoured knights who, &ldquo;after the dedely flesshe had
+beheld the spiritual things,&rdquo; the holy St. Grael&mdash;never
+returned to converse with the world. The
+first departed to God, and &ldquo;flights of angels sang
+him to his rest;&rdquo; the other took religious clothing
+and retired to a hermitage, where, after living &ldquo;a
+full holy life for a yere and two moneths, he passed
+out of this world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But wide as is the range of the Romances of the
+&ldquo;Round Table,&rdquo; they form but a portion of those
+which solaced our ancestors. Charlemagne and his
+Paladins were, so to speak, the solar system round
+which another circle revolved; Alexander furnished
+the radiating star for another, derived chiefly perhaps
+from the East, where numbers of fictitious tales
+were prevalent about him; and many Romances were
+likewise woven around the mangled remains of
+classic heroes.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The mightiest chiefs of British song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scorn&rsquo;d not such legends to prolong;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They gleam through Spenser&rsquo;s elfic dream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mix in Milton&rsquo;s heavenly theme;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Dryden in immortal strain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had raised the &lsquo;Table Round&rsquo; again.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Stories of the Tapestry in the Royal Palaces
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>184]</a></span>
+of Henry VIII. are preserved in the British
+Museum.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p>
+
+<p>These are some of them re-copied from Warton:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>In the tapestry of the Tower of London, the
+original and most ancient seat of our monarchs,
+there are recited, Godfrey of Bulloign; the Three
+Kings of Cologne; the Emperor Constantine; St.
+George; King of Erkenwald; the History of Hercules;
+Fame and Honour; the Triumph of Divinity;
+Esther and Ahasueras; Jupiter and Juno; St.
+George; the Eight Kings; the Ten Kings of
+France; the Birth of our Lord; Duke Joshua; the
+Riche History of King David; the Seven Deadly
+Sins; the Riche History of the Passion; the Stem of
+Jesse; Our Lady and Son; King Solomon; the
+Woman of Canony; Meleager; and the Dance of
+Maccabee.</p>
+
+<p>At Durham Place were the Citie of Ladies (a
+French allegorical Romance); the Tapestrie of
+Thebes and of Troy; the City of Peace; the Prodigal
+Son; Esther, and other pieces of Scripture.</p>
+
+<p>At Windsor Castle the Siege of Jerusalem; Ahasueras;
+Charlemagne; the Siege of Troy; and
+Hawking and Hunting.</p>
+
+<p>At Nottingham Castle, Amys and Amelion.</p>
+
+<p>At Woodstock Manor, the tapestrie of Charlemagne.</p>
+
+<p>At the More, a palace in Hertfordshire, King
+Arthur, Hercules, Astyages, and Cyrus.</p>
+
+<p>At Richmond, the arras of Sir Bevis, and Virtue
+and Vice fighting.</p>
+
+<p>Among the rest we have also Hannibal, Holofernes,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>185]</a></span>
+Romulus and Remus, &AElig;neas, and Susannah.</p>
+
+<p>Many of these subjects were repeated at Westminster,
+Greenwich, Oatlands, Bedington in Surrey,
+and other royal seats, some of which are now
+unknown as such.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a>
+Warton.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a>
+Arras, a very common anachronism. After the production of
+the arras tapestries, arras became the common name for all tapestries:
+even for those which were wrought before the looms of Arras
+were in existence.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a>
+Moynes&mdash;nun. Lady Werburg</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a>
+<i>Spyre</i>&mdash;twig, branch.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a>
+<i>Youre</i>&mdash;burnt.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a>
+<i>Hallynge</i>&mdash;Tapestry.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a>
+<i>Faythtes</i>&mdash;feats, facts.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a>
+<i>Brothered</i>&mdash;embroidered.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a>
+<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Epistol&aelig; Ho-Elian&aelig;.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a>
+&ldquo;Fifteen acres were covered with the bodies of slaughtered
+Saracens; and so furious were the strokes of Sir Guy, that the pile
+of dead men, wherever his sword had reached, rose as high as his
+breast.&rdquo;&mdash;Ellis, vol. ii.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a>
+Harl. MSS. 1419.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>186]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">NEEDLEWORK IN COSTUME.&mdash;PART I.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;What neede these velvets, silkes, or lawne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Embrodery, feathers, fringe and lace.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Bp. Hall.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Time was, when clothing sumptuous or for use,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save their own painted skins, our Sires had none.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As yet black breeches were not.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Cowper.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Manifold indeed were the varieties in mode
+and material before that <i>beau ideal</i> of all that is
+graceful and becoming&mdash;the &ldquo;black breeches&rdquo;&mdash;were
+invented. For though in many parts of the globe
+costume is uniform, and the vest and the turban of
+a thousand years ago are of much the same make
+as now, this is not the case in the more polished
+parts of Europe, where that &ldquo;turncoat whirligig
+maniac, yclept Fashion,&rdquo; is the pole-star and beacon
+of the multitude of men, from him who has the
+&ldquo;last new cut from Stultz,&rdquo; to him who is magnificent
+and happy in the &ldquo;reg&rsquo;lar bang-up-go&rdquo; from
+the eastern parts of the metropolis.</p>
+
+<p>It would seem that England is peculiarly celebrated
+for her devotion at Fashion&rsquo;s shrine; for we
+are told that &ldquo;an Englishman, endevoring sometime
+to write of our attire, made sundrie platformes
+for his purpose, supposing by some of them to find
+out one stedfast ground whereon to build the summe
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>187]</a></span>
+of his discourse. But in the end (like an orator
+long without exercise) when he saw what a difficult
+peece of worke he had taken in hand, he gave over
+his travell, and onely drue the picture of a naked
+man, unto whome he gave a paire of sheares in the
+one hand, and a piece of cloth in the other, to the
+end he should shape his apparell after such fashion
+as himselfe liked, sith he could find no kind of
+garment that could please him anie while together,
+and this he called an Englishman. Certes this
+writer shewed himself herein not to be altogether
+void of iudgement, sith the phantasticall follie of our
+nation, even from the courtier to the carter, is such,
+that no forme of apparell liketh vs longer than the
+first garment is in the wearing, if it continue so long
+and be not laid aside, to receive some other trinket
+newlie devised.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And as these fashions are diverse, so likewise
+it is a world to see the costlinesse and the curiositie;
+the excesse and the vanitie; the pompe and the
+brauerie; the change and the varietie; and, finallie,
+the ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees;
+insomuch that nothing is more constant in England
+than inconstancie of attire.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In women, also, it in most to be lamented, that
+they doo now far exceed the lightnesse of our men
+(who nevertheless are transformed from the cap
+even to the verie shoo) and such staring attire as
+in time past was supposed meet for none but light
+housewives onlie, is now become a habit for chast
+and sober matrons.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thus <em>it is now come to passe, that women are
+become men, and men transformed into monsters</em>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>188]</a></span>
+This ever-revolving wheel is still turning; and
+so all-important now is <small>THE MODE</small> that one half of
+the world is fully occupied in providing for the personal
+embellishment of the other half and themselves;
+and could we contemplate the possibility of
+a return to the primitive simplicity of our ancient
+&ldquo;sires,&rdquo; we must look in the same picture on one half
+of the world as useless&mdash;as a drug on the face of creation.
+Why, what a desert would it be were all
+dyers, fullers, cleaners, spinners, weavers, printers,
+mercers and milliners, haberdashers and modistes,
+silk-men and manufacturers, cotton-lords and fustian-men,
+tailors and habit makers, mantuamakers and
+corset professors, exploded? We pass over pin and
+needle makers, comb and brush manufacturers,
+jewellers, &amp;c. The ladies would have nothing to
+live for; (for on grave authority it has been said,
+that &ldquo;woman is an animal that delights in the toilette;&rdquo;)
+the gentlemen nothing to solace them.
+&ldquo;The toilette&rdquo; is the very zest of life with both;
+and if ladies are more successful in the results of
+their devoirs to it, it is because &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">nous sommes faites
+pour embellir le monde</span>,&rdquo; and not because gentlemen
+practice its duties with less zeal, devotion, or assiduity&mdash;as
+many a valet can testify when contemplating
+his modish patron&rsquo;s daily heap of &ldquo;failures.&rdquo;
+Indeed to put out of view the more obvious, weighty,
+and important cares attached to the due selection
+and arrangement of coats, waistcoats, and indispensables,
+the science of &ldquo;Cravatiana&rdquo; alone is one
+which makes heavy claims on the time, talents, and
+energies of the thorough-going gentleman of
+fashion. He should be thoroughly versed in all its
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>189]</a></span>
+varieties&mdash;The Royal George: The Plain Bow:
+The Military: The Ball Room: The Corsican:
+The Hibernian Tie: The Eastern Tie: The Hunting
+Tie: The Yankee Tie: (the &ldquo;alone original&rdquo;
+one)&mdash;The Osbaldiston Tie: The Mail Coach Tie:
+The Indian Tie, &amp;c. &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Though of these and their numberless offshoots,
+the Yankee Tie lays most claim to originality, the
+Ball Room one is considered the most exquisite, and
+requires the greatest practice. It is thus described
+by a &ldquo;talented&rdquo; professor:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The cloth, of virgin white, well starched and
+folded to the proper depth, should be made to sit
+easy and graceful on the neck, neither too tight nor
+loose; but with a gentle pressure, curving inwards
+from the further extension of the chin, down the
+throat to the centre dent in the middle of the neck.
+This should be the point for a slight dent, extending
+from under each ear, between which, more immediately
+under the chin, there should be another slight
+horizontal dent just above the former one. It has
+no tie; the ends, crossing each other in broad folds
+in front, are secured to the braces, or behind the
+back, by means of a piece of white tape. A brilliant
+broach or pin is generally made use of to secure
+more effectually the crossing, as well as to give an
+additional effect to the neckcloth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>What a world of wit and invention&mdash;what a fund
+of fancy and taste&mdash;what a mine of zeal and ability
+would be lost to the world, &ldquo;if those troublesome
+disguises which we wear&rdquo; were reduced to their old
+simplicity of form and material! Industry and
+talent would be at discount, for want of materials
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>190]</a></span>
+whereon to display themselves; and money would
+be such a drug, that politicians would declaim on
+the miseries of being <em>without</em> a national debt. Commerce,
+in many of its most important branches, would
+be exploded; the &ldquo;manufacturing districts&rdquo; would
+be annihilated; the &ldquo;agricultural interest&rdquo; would,
+consequently and necessarily, be at a &ldquo;very low
+ebb;&rdquo; and the &ldquo;New World,&rdquo; the magnificent and
+imperial empress (that is to be) of the whole earth,
+might sink again to the embraces of those minute
+and wonderful artificers from whom, I suppose, she
+at first proceeded&mdash;the coral insects; for who would
+want cotton! No, no. Selfish preferences, individual
+wishes, must merge in the general good of the human
+race; and however &ldquo;their own painted skins&rdquo; might
+suffice our &ldquo;sires,&rdquo; clothing, &ldquo;sumptuous,&rdquo; as well
+as &ldquo;for use,&rdquo; must decorate ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>To whom, then, are the fullers, the dyers, the
+cleaners&mdash;to whom are the spinners and weavers,
+and printers and mercers, and milliners and haberdashers,
+and modistes, and silk-men and manufacturers,
+cotton lords and fustian men, mantuamakers
+and corset professors, indebted for that nameless
+grace, that exquisite finish and appropriateness, which
+gives to all their productions their charm and their
+utility?&mdash;To the <span class="smcap">Needlewoman</span>, assuredly. For
+though the raw materials have been grown at Sea
+Island and shipped at New York,&mdash;have been consigned
+to the Liverpool broker and sold to the Manchester
+merchant, and turned over to the manufacturer,
+and spun and woven, and bleached and printed, and
+placed in the custody of the warehouseman, or on
+the shelf of the shopkeeper&mdash;of what good would it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>191]</a></span>
+be that we had a fifty-yard length of calico to shade
+our oppressed limbs on a &ldquo;dog-day,&rdquo; if we had not
+the means also to render that material agreeably
+available? Yet not content with merely rendering
+it available, this beneficent fairy, the needlewoman,
+casts, &ldquo;as if by the spell of enchantment, that ineffable
+grace over beauty which the choice and
+arrangement of dress is calculated to bestow.&rdquo; For
+the love of becoming ornament&mdash;we quote no less
+an authority than the historian of the &lsquo;State of
+Europe in the Middle Ages,&rsquo;&mdash;&ldquo;is not, perhaps, to
+be regarded in the light of vanity; it is rather an
+instinct which woman has received from Nature to
+give effect to those charms which are her defence.&rdquo;
+And if it be necessary to woman with her charms, is
+it not tenfold necessary to those who&mdash;Heaven help
+them!&mdash;have few charms whereof to boast? For, as
+Harrison says, &ldquo;it is now come to passe that men
+are transformed into monsters.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Better be out of the world than out of the
+fashion,&rdquo; is a proverb which, from the universal assent
+which has in all ages been given to it, has now
+the force of an axiom. It was this self evident proposition
+which emboldened the beau of the fourteenth
+century, in spite of the prohibitions of popes
+and senators,&mdash;in spite of the more touching personal
+inconvenience, and even risk and danger, attendant
+thereupon&mdash;to persist in wearing shoes of
+so preposterous a length, that the toes were obliged
+to be fastened with chains to the girdle ere the
+happy votary of fashion could walk across his own
+parlour! Happy was the favourite of Cr&oelig;sus, who
+could display chain upon chain of massy gold wreathed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>192]</a></span>
+and intertwined from the waistband to the shoe,
+until he seemed almost weighed down by the burthen
+of his own wealth. Wrought silver did excellently
+well for those who could not produce gold; and for
+those who possessed not either precious metal, and
+who yet felt they &ldquo;might as well be out of the world
+as out of the fashion,&rdquo; latteen chains, silken cords,
+aye, and cords of even less costly description, were
+pressed into service to tie up the <em>crackowes</em>, or piked
+shoes. For in that day, as in this, &ldquo;the squire endeavours
+to outshine the knight, the knight the
+baron, the baron the earl, the earl the king, in
+dress.&rdquo; To complete the outrageous absurdity of
+these shoes, the upper parts of them were cut in imitation
+of a church-window, to which fashion Chaucer
+refers when describing the dress of Absalom, the
+Parish Clerk. He&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Had Paul &rsquo;is windowes corven on his shose.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Despite the decrees of councils, the bulls of the
+Pope, and the declamations of the Clergy, this ridiculous
+fashion was in vogue near three centuries.</p>
+
+<p>And the party-coloured hose, which were worn
+about the same time, were a fitting accompaniment
+for the crackowes. We feel some difficulty in realising
+the idea that gentlemen, only some half century
+ago, really dressed in the gay and showy habiliments
+which are now indicative only of a footman; but it
+is more difficult to believe, what was nevertheless
+the fact, that the most absurd costume in which the
+&ldquo;fool&rdquo; by profession can now be decked on the stage,
+can hardly compete in absurdity with the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">outr&eacute;</i> costume
+of a beau or a belle of the fourteenth century.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>193]</a></span>
+The shoes we have referred to: the garments, male
+or female, were divided in the middle down the whole
+length of the person, and one half of the body was
+clothed in one colour, the other half in the most
+opposite one that could be selected. The men&rsquo;s
+garments fitted close to the shape; and while one
+leg and thigh rejoiced in flaming yellow or sky-blue,
+the other blushed in deep crimson. John of Gaunt
+is portrayed in a habit, one half white, the other a
+dark blue; and Mr. Strutt has an engraving of a
+group assembled on a memorable occasion, where
+one of the figures has a boot on one leg and a shoe
+on the other. The Dauphiness of Auvergne, wife
+to Louis the Good, Duke of Bourbon, born 1360, is
+painted in a garb of which one half all the way down
+is blue, powdered with gold fleurs-de-lys, and the
+other half to the waist is gold, with a blue fish or
+dolphin (a cognizance, doubtless) on it, and from the
+waist to the feet is crimson, with white &ldquo;fishy&rdquo; ornaments;
+one sleeve is blue and gold, the other
+crimson and gold.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to these absurd garments, the women
+dressed their heads so high that they were obliged
+to wear a sort of curved horn on each side, in order
+to support the enormous superstructure of feathers
+and furbelows. And these are what are meant by
+the &ldquo;horned head-dresses&rdquo; so often referred to in
+old authors. It is said that, when Isabel of Bavaria
+kept her court at Vincennes, <small>A.D.</small> 1416, it was necessary
+to make all the doors of the palace both
+higher and wider, to admit the head-dresses of the
+queen and her ladies, which were all of this horned
+kind.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>194]</a></span>
+This high bonnet had been worn, under various
+modifications, ever since the fashion was brought
+from the East in the time of the Crusades. Some
+were of a sugar-loaf form, three feet in height;
+and some cylindrical, but still very high. The
+French modistes of that day called this formidable
+head-gear <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bonnet &agrave; la Syrienne</i>. But our author
+says, if female vanity be violently restrained in one
+point, it is sure to break out in another; and Romish
+anathemas having abolished curls from shading fair
+brows, so much the more attention was paid to head-gear,
+that the bonnets and caps increased every year
+most awfully in height and size, and were made in
+the form of crescents, pyramids, and horns of such
+tremendous dimensions, that the old chronicler
+Juvenal des Ursins makes this pathetic lamentation
+in his History of Charles VI.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et avoient les dames et damoyselles de chacun
+cost&eacute;, deux grandes oreilles si larges, que quand
+elles vouloient passer par l&rsquo;huis d&rsquo;une chambre il
+fallait qu&rsquo;elles se tournassent de cost&eacute; et baisassent,
+ou elles n&rsquo;eussent pu passer:</span>&rdquo; that is, &ldquo;on every
+side old ladies and young ladies were seen with such
+high and monstrous ears (or horns), that when they
+wanted to enter a room they were obliged perforce
+to stoop and crouch sideways, or they could not
+pass.&rdquo; At last a regular attack was made on the
+high head-gear of the fifteenth century by a popular
+monk, in his sermons at N&ocirc;tre Dame, in which he
+so pathetically lamented the sinfulness and enormities
+of such a fashion, that the ladies, to show their
+contrition, made <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">auto da f&eacute;s</i> of their Syrian bonnets
+in the public squares and market-places; and as the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>195]</a></span>
+Church fulminated against them all over Europe,
+the example of Paris was universally followed.</p>
+
+<p>Many attempts had previously been made by
+zealous preachers to effect this alteration. In the
+previous century a Carmelite in the province of
+Bretagne preached against this fashion, without the
+power to annihilate it: all that the ladies did was to
+change the particular shape of the huge coiffures
+after every sermon. &ldquo;No sooner,&rdquo; says the chronicler,
+&ldquo;had he departed from one district, than the
+dames and damoyselles, who, like frightened snails,
+had drawn in their horns, shot them out again longer
+than ever; for nowhere were the <em>hennins</em> (so called,
+abbreviated from <em>gehinnin</em>, incommodious,) larger,
+more pompous or proud, than in the cities through
+which the Carmelite had passed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All the world was totally reversed and disordered
+by these fashions, and above all things by the strange
+accoutrements on the heads of the ladies. It was a
+portentous time, for some carried huge towers on
+their foreheads an ell high; others still higher caps,
+with sharp points, like staples, from the top of which
+streamed long crapes, fringed with gold, like banners.
+Alas, alas! ladies, dames, and demoiselles
+were of importance in those days! When do we
+hear, in the present times, of Church and State interfering
+to regulate the patterns of their bonnets?&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is no wonder that fashions so very extreme and
+absurd should call forth animadversion from various
+quarters. Thus wrote Petrarch in 1366:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who can see with patience the monstrous, fantastical
+inventions which the people of our times
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>196]</a></span>
+have invented to deform, rather than adorn, their
+persons? Who can behold without indignation
+their long pointed shoes; their caps with feathers;
+their hair twisted and hanging down like tails; the
+foreheads of young men, as well as women, formed
+into a kind of furrows with ivory-headed pins; their
+bellies so cruelly squeezed with cords, that they suffer
+as much pain from vanity as the martyrs suffered for
+religion? Our ancestors would not have believed,
+and I know not if posterity will believe, that it was
+possible for the wit of this vain generation of ours to
+invent so many base, barbarous, horrid, ridiculous
+fashions (besides those already mentioned) to disfigure
+and disgrace itself, as we have the mortification
+to see every day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And thus Chaucer, a few years later:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Alass! may not a man see as in our daies the
+sinnefull costlew array of clothing, and namely in
+too much superfluite, or else in too disordinate scantinese:
+as to the first, not only the cost of embraudering,
+the disguysed indenting, or barring, ounding,
+playting, wynding, or bending, and semblable waste
+of clothe in vanitie.&rdquo; The common people also
+&ldquo;were besotted in excesse of apparell, in wide surcoats
+reaching to their loines, some in a garment
+reaching to their heels, close before and strowting
+out on the sides, so that on the back they make men
+seem women, and this they called by a ridiculous
+name, <em>gowne</em>,&rdquo; &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Before this time the legislature had interfered,
+though with little success: they passed laws at Westminster,
+which were said to be made &ldquo;to prevent
+that destruction and poverty with which the whole
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>197]</a></span>
+kingdom was threatened, by the outrageous, excessive
+expenses of many persons in their apparel, above
+their ranks and fortunes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Sumptuary edicts, however, are of little avail, if
+not supported in &ldquo;influential quarters.&rdquo; King
+Richard II. affected the utmost splendour of attire,
+and he had one coat alone which was valued at
+30,000 marks: it was richly embroidered and inwrought
+with gold and precious stones. It is not in
+human nature, at least in human nature of the &ldquo;more
+honourable&rdquo; gender, to be outdone, even by a king.
+Gorgeous and glittering was the raiment adopted by
+the satellites of the court, and, heedless of &ldquo;that
+destruction and poverty with which the whole kingdom
+was threatened,&rdquo; they revelled in magnificence.
+Of one alone, Sir John Arundel, it is recorded, that
+he had at one time fifty-two suits of cloth of gold
+tissue. At this time, says the old Chronicle,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Cut werke was great bothe in court and tounes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bothe in mens hoddes, and also in their gounes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brouder and furres, and gold smith werke ay newe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In many a wyse, eche day they did renewe.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Unaccountable as it may seem, this rage of expense
+and show in apparel reached even the (then)
+poverty-stricken sister country Scotland; and in
+1457 laws were enacted to suppress it.</p>
+
+<p>It is told of William Rufus, that one morning
+while putting on his new boots he asked his chamberlain
+what they cost; and when he replied &ldquo;three
+shillings,&rdquo; indignantly and in a rage he cried out,
+&ldquo;you&mdash;how long has the king worn boots of so
+paltry a price? Go, and bring me a pair worth a
+mark of silver.&rdquo; He went, and bringing him a much
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>198]</a></span>
+cheaper pair, told him falsely that they cost as much
+as he had ordered: &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said the king, &ldquo;these
+are suitable to royal majesty.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This is merely a specimen of the monarch&rsquo;s shallow-headed
+extravagance; but the costume of his time
+and that immediately preceding it was infinitely
+superior in grace and dignity to that of the fantastical
+period we have been describing. The English
+at this period were admired by all other nations, and
+especially <em>by the French</em>, from whom in subsequent
+periods <em>we</em> have copied so servilely, for the richness
+and elegance of their attire. With a tunic simply
+confined at the waist, over this, when occasion required,
+a full and flowing mantle, with a veil confined
+to the back of the head with a golden circlet,
+her dark hair simply braided over her beautiful
+and intelligent brow and waving on her fair throat,
+the wife of the Conqueror looked every inch a queen,
+and what was more, she looked a modest, a dignified,
+and a beautiful woman.</p>
+
+<p>The male attire was of the same flowing and
+majestic description: and the &ldquo;brutal&rdquo; Anglo-Saxons
+and the &ldquo;barbarous&rdquo; Normans had more
+delicacy than to display every division of limb or
+muscle which nature formed, and more taste than
+to invent divisions where, Heaven knows, nature
+never meant them to be. The simple <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coiffure</i> required
+little care and attendance, but if a fastening
+did happen to give way, the Anglo-Norman lady
+could raise her hand to fasten it if she chose. The
+arm was not pinioned by the fiat of a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">modiste</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And the material of a dress of those days was as
+rich as the mode was elegant. Silk indeed was not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>199]</a></span>
+common; the first that was seen in the country was
+in 780, when Charlemagne sent Offa, King of Mercia,
+a belt and two vests of that beautiful material;
+but from the particular record made of silk mantles
+worn by two ladies at a ball at Kenilworth in 1286,
+we may fairly infer that till this period silk was not
+often used but as</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;a robe pontifical,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ne&rsquo;er seen but wonder&rsquo;d at.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Occasionally indeed it was used, but only by persons
+of the highest rank and wealth. But the woollens
+were of beautiful texture, and Britain was early
+famous in the art of producing the richest dyes. The
+Welsh are still remarkable for extracting beautiful
+tints from the commonest plants, such most probably
+as were used by the Britons anciently; and it is
+worthy of note that the South Sea cloths, manufactured
+from the inner bark of trees, have the same
+stripes and chequers, and indeed the identical
+patterns of the Welsh, and, as supposed, of the ancient
+Britons. Linen was fine and beautiful; and
+if it had not been so, the rich and varied embroidery
+with which it was decorated would have set off a
+coarser material.</p>
+
+<p>Furs of all sorts were in great request, and a
+mantle of regal hue, lined throughout with vair or
+sable, and decorated with bands of gold lace and
+flowers of the richest embroidery, interspersed with
+pearls, clasped on the shoulder with the most precious
+gems, and looped, if requisite, with golden
+tassels, was a garment at which a nobleman, even of
+these days, need not look askance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>200]</a></span>
+Robert Bloet, second bishop of Lincoln, made a
+present to Henry I. of a cloak of exquisitely fine
+cloth, lined with black sables with white spots,
+which cost a sum equivalent to &pound;1500 of our money.
+The robes of females of rank were always bordered
+with a belt of rich needlework; their embroidered
+girdles were inlaid, or rather inwrought, with gold,
+pearls, and precious stones, and from them was
+usually suspended a large purse or pouch, on which
+the skill of the most accomplished needlewomen was
+usually expended.</p>
+
+<p>This rich and becoming mode of dress was gradually
+innovated upon until caprice reigned paramount
+over the national wardrobe. For &ldquo;fashion
+is essentially caprice; and fashion in dress the
+caprice of milliners and tailors, with whom <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">recherche</i>
+and exaggeration supply the place of education and
+principle.&rdquo; That this modern definition applied as
+accurately to former times as these, an instance may
+suffice to show. Richard I. had a cloak made, at
+enormous cost, with precious and shining metals
+inlaid <em>in imitation of the heavenly bodies</em>; and
+Henry V. wore, on a very memorable occasion, when
+Prince of Wales, a mantle or gown of rich blue satin,
+full of small eyelet-holes, as thickly as they could be
+put, and a needle hanging by a silk thread <em>from
+every hole</em>.</p>
+
+<p>The following incident, quoted from Miss Strickland&rsquo;s
+Life of Berengaria, will show the esteem
+in which a rich, and especially a furred garment was
+held. Richard I. quarrelled with the virtuous St.
+Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, on the old ground of exacting
+a simoniacal tribute on the installation of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>201]</a></span>
+prelate into his see. Willing to evade the direct
+charge of selling the see, King Richard intimated
+that a present of a fur mantle worth a thousand
+marks might be a composition. St. Hugh said he
+was no judge of such gauds, and therefore sent the
+king a thousand marks, declaring, if he would devour
+the revenue devoted to the poor, he must have his
+wilful way. But as soon as Richard had pocketed
+the money he sent for the fur mantle. St. Hugh set
+out for Normandy to remonstrate with the king on
+this double extortion. His friends anticipated that
+he would be killed; but St. Hugh said, &ldquo;I fear him
+not,&rdquo; and boldly entered the chapel where Richard
+was at mass, when the following scene took place:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Give me the embrace of peace, my son,&rdquo; said
+St. Hugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That you have not deserved,&rdquo; replied the king.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Indeed I have,&rdquo; said St. Hugh, &ldquo;for I have
+made a long journey on purpose to see my son.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he took hold of the king&rsquo;s sleeve and
+drew him on one side. Richard smiled and embraced
+the old man. They withdrew to the recess
+behind the altar and sate down.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In what state is your conscience?&rdquo; asked the
+bishop.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very easy,&rdquo; said the king.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How can that be, my son,&rdquo; said the bishop,
+&ldquo;when you live apart from your virtuous queen, and
+are faithless to her; when you devour the provision
+of the poor, and load your people with heavy exactions?
+Are those light transgressions, my son?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The king owned his faults, and promised amendment;
+and when he related this conversation to his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>202]</a></span>
+courtiers he added, &ldquo;Were all our prelates like
+Hugh of Lincoln, both king and barons must submit
+to their righteous rebukes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Furs were much used now as coverings for beds;
+and they were considered a <em>necessary</em> part of dress
+for a very considerable period.</p>
+
+<p>In Sir John Cullum&rsquo;s Hawsted, mention is made
+that in 1281 Cecilia, widow of William Talmache,
+died, and, amongst other bequests, left &ldquo;to Thomas
+Battesford, for black coats for poor people, xxx<i>s.</i> in
+part.&rdquo; &ldquo;To John Camp, of Bury St. Edmunds,
+furrier, for furs for the black coats, viij<i>s.</i> xj<i>d.</i>&rdquo; On
+which the reverend and learned author remarks,
+&ldquo;We should now indeed think that a black coat
+bestowed on a poor person wanted not the addition
+of fur: such, however, was the fashion of the time;
+and a sumptuary law of Edward III. allows handicraft
+and yeomen to wear no manner of furre, nor of
+bugg,<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> but only lambe, coney, catte, and foxe.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The distinction in rank was expressly shown by
+the kind of fur displayed on the dress, and these
+distinctions were regulated by law and rigidly enforced.
+By a statute passed in 1455, for regulating
+the dress of the Scottish lords of parliament, the
+gowns of the earls are appointed to be furred with
+ermine, while those of the other lords are to be lined
+with &ldquo;criestay, gray, griece, or purray.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The more precious furs, as ermine and sable, were
+reserved exclusively for the principal nobility of
+both sexes. Persons of an inferior rank wore the
+<em>vair</em> or <em>gris</em> (probably the Hungarian squirrel); the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>203]</a></span>
+citizens and burgesses, the common squirrel and
+lamb skins; and the peasants, cat and badger skins.
+The mantles of our kings and peers, and the furred
+robes of the several classes of our municipal officers,
+are the remains of this once universal fashion.</p>
+
+<p>Furs often formed an important part of the ransom
+of a prisoner of rank:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; quoth Count Bongars, &ldquo;war&rsquo;s disastrous hour<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hath cast my lot within my foeman&rsquo;s power.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Name ransome as you list; gold, silver bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Palfreys, or dogs, or falcons train&rsquo;d to flight;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or choose you <em>sumptuous furs, of vair or gray</em>;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I plight my faith the destin&rsquo;d price to pay.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Certain German nobles who had slain a bishop
+were enjoined, amongst other acts of penance, &ldquo;ut
+varium, griseum, ermelinum, et pannos coloratos,
+non portent.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The skin of the wild cat was much used by the
+clergy. Bishop Wolfstan preferred lambskin; saying
+in excuse, &ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Crede mihi, nunquam audivi, in
+ecclesia, cantari <em>catus</em> Dei, sed <em>agnus</em> Dei; ideo
+calefieri agno volo</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The monk of Chaucer had</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;his sleeves purfiled, at the hond,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With gris, and that the finest of the lond.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is not till about the year 1204 that there is any
+specific enumeration of the royal apparel for festival
+occasions. The proper officers are appointed to bring
+for the king on this occasion &ldquo;a golden crown, a red
+satin mantle adorned with sapphires and pearls,
+a robe of the same, a tunic of white damask;
+and slippers of red satin edged with goldsmith&rsquo;s
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>204]</a></span>
+work; a balbrick set with gems; two girdles
+enamelled and set with garnets and sapphires; white
+gloves, one with a sapphire and one with an amethist;
+various clasps adorned with emeralds, turquois,
+pearls, and topaz; and sceptres set with
+twenty-eight diamonds.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p>
+
+<p>So much for the king:&mdash;And for the queen&mdash;oh!
+ye enlightened legislators of the earth, ye
+omnipotent and magisterial lords of creation, look
+on that picture&mdash;and on this.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For our lady the queen&rsquo;s use, sixty ells of fine
+linen cloth, forty ells of dark green cloth, a skin
+of minever, a <em>small brass pan</em>, and <em>eight towels</em>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But John, who in addition to his other amiable
+propensities was the greatest and most extravagant
+fop in Europe, was as parsimonious towards others
+as selfish and extravagant people usually are. Whilst
+even at the ceremony of her coronation he only afforded
+his Queen &ldquo;three cloaks of fine linen, one of
+scarlet cloth, and one grey pelisse, costing together
+12<i>l.</i> 5<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>;&rdquo; he himself launched into all sorts of
+expenditure. He ordered the minutest articles for
+himself and the queen; but the wardrobe accounts
+of the sovereigns of the middle ages prove that they
+kept a royal warehouse of mercery, haberdashery,
+and linen, from whence their officers measured out
+velvets, brocades, sarcenets, tissue, gauzes, and
+trimmings, of all sorts. A queen, says Miss Strickland,
+had not the satisfaction of ordering her own
+gown when she obtained leave to have a new one; the
+warlike hand of her royal lord signed the order for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>205]</a></span>
+the delivery of the materials from his stores, noting
+down with minute precision the exact quantity to a
+quarter of a yard of the cloth, velvet, or brocade, of
+which the garment was composed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Blessed be the memory of King Edward III.
+and Philippa of Hainault his queen, who first invented
+clothes,&rdquo; was, we are told, the grateful
+adjuration of a monkish historian, who referred
+probably not to the first assumption of apparel, but
+to the charter which was granted first by that
+monarch to the &ldquo;cutters and linen armourers,&rdquo; subsequently
+known as the merchant-tailors, who at
+that period were usually the makers of all garments,
+silk, linen, or woollen. Female fingers had sufficient
+occupation in the finer parts of the work; in
+the &ldquo;silke broiderie&rdquo; with which every garment of
+fashion was embellished; in the tapestry; in the
+spinning of wool and flax, every thread of which was
+drawn by female hands, and in the weaving of which
+a great portion was also executed by them.</p>
+
+<p>In the forty-fourth year of this king, &ldquo;as the
+book of Worcester reporteth, they began to use
+cappes of divers coloures, especially red, with costly
+lynings; and in the year 1372, the forty-seventh of
+the above prince, they first began to wanton it in a
+new round curtall weede, which they call a cloake, and
+in Latin <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">armilausa</i>, as only covering the shoulders,
+and this notwithstanding the king had endeavoured
+to restrain all these inordinances and expenses in
+clothing; as appears by the law by Parliament
+established in the thirty-sixth year of his reign.
+All ornaments of gold or silver, either on the daggers,
+girdles, necklaces, rings, or other ornaments for the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>206]</a></span>
+body, were forbid to all that could not spend ten
+pounds a-year; and farther, that no furre or pretious
+and costly apparel, should be worne by any
+but men possessed of 100<i>l.</i> a year.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Besides the rigid enactments of the law, and the
+anathemas of divines, other and gentler means were
+from time to time resorted to as warnings from that
+sin of dress which seems inherent in our nature, or
+as inducements to a more becoming one. We quote
+a specimen of both:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There was a lady whiche had her lodgynge by
+the chirche. And she was alweye accustomed for to be
+longe to araye her, and to make her freshe and gay,
+insomuch that it annoyed and greued moche the
+parson of the chirche, and the parysshens. And it
+happed on a Sonday that she was so longe, that she
+sent to the preeste that he shod tarye for her, lyke
+as she had been accustomed. And it was thenne
+ferforthe on the day. And it annoyed the peple.
+And there were somme that said, How is hit? shall
+not this lady this day be pynned ne wel besene in a
+Myrroure? And somme said softely, God sende to
+her an evyll syght in her myrroure that causeth us
+this day and so oftymes to muse and to abyde for
+her. And thene as it plesyd God for an ensample,
+as she loked in the myrroure she sawe therein
+the Fende, whiche shewed hymselfe to her so fowle
+and horryble, that the lady wente oute of her wytte,
+and was al demonyak a long tyme. And after God
+sente to her helthe. And after she was not so longe
+in arayeng but thanked God that had so suffered
+her to be chastysed.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>207]</a></span>
+The &lsquo;Garment of Gude Ladyis&rsquo; is a lecture of a
+most beguiling kind, and an exquisite picture.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Wald my gud lady lufe me best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And wirk after my will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I suld ane garment gudliest<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Gar mak hir body till.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Of he honour suld be her hud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Upoun hir heid to weir,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Garneist with governance so gud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Na demyng<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> suld hir deir.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Hir kirtill suld be of clene constance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Lasit with lesum lufe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mailyeis<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> of continwance<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For nevir to remufe.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Her gown suld be of gudliness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Weill ribband with renowne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Purfillit<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> with plesour in ilk place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Furrit with fyne fassoun.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Her belt suld be of benignitie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">About hir middill meit;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hir mantill of humilitie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To tholl<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> bayth wind and weit.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Hir hat suld be of fair having<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And her tepat of trewth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hir patelet<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> of gude pansing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hir hals-ribbane of rewth.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Hir slevis suld be of esperance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To keip hir fra dispair;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hir gluvis of the gud govirnance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To hyd hir fingearis fair.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>208]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Hir schone suld be of sickernes<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In syne that scho nocht slyd;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hir hois of honestie, I ges,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I suld for hir provyd.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Wald scho put on this garmond gay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I duret sweir by my seill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That scho woir nevir grene nor gray<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That set hir half so weill.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a>
+Lady&rsquo;s Magazine.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a>
+Bugg&mdash;buge, lamb&rsquo;s furr.&mdash;Dr. Jamieson.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a>
+Ancassin and Nicolette.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a>
+The first instance in which the name of this stone is found.&mdash;Miss
+Lawrence.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a>
+The Knyght of the Toure.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a>
+<i>Demyng</i>&mdash;censure.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a>
+<i>Deir</i>&mdash;dismay.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a>
+<i>Mailyeis</i>&mdash;network.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a>
+<i>Purfillit</i>&mdash;furbelowed.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a>
+<i>Fassoun</i>&mdash;address, politeness.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a>
+<i>Tholl</i>&mdash;endure.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a>
+<i>Having</i>&mdash;behaviour.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a>
+<i>Patelet</i>&mdash;run.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a>
+<i>Sickernes</i>&mdash;steadfastness.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>209]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">NEEDLEWORK IN COSTUME.&mdash;PART II.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="chapblock">
+<p>&ldquo;And the short French breeches make such a comelie vesture
+that, except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see anie so
+disguised as are my countriemen of England.&rdquo;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Holinshed.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Out from the Gadis to the eastern morne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not one but holds his native state forlorne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When comelie striplings wish it were their chance<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Cenis&rsquo; distaffe to exchange their lance;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And weare curl&rsquo;d periwigs, and chalk their face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still are poring on their pocket glasse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tyr&rsquo;d with pinn&rsquo;d ruffs, and fans, and partlet strips,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And buskes and verdingales about their hips:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tread on corked stilts a prisoner&rsquo;s pace.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Bp. Joseph Hall.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;They brought in fashions strange and new,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With golden garments bright;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The farthingale and mighty ruff,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With gowns of rich delight.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">A Warning-Piece to England.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The queen (Anne Neville) of Richard III. seems
+to have been somewhat more regally accoutred than
+those of her royal predecessors to whom we referred
+in the last chapter. Among &ldquo;the stuff delivered to
+the queen at her coronation are twenty-seven yards
+of white cloth of gold for a kirtle and train, and a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>210]</a></span>
+mantle of the same, richly furred with ermine. This
+was the dress in which she rode in her litter from
+the Tower to the palace of Westminster. This was
+an age of long trains, and the length was regulated
+by the rank of the wearer; Anne, for her whole
+purple velvet suit, had fifty-six yards. From the entries
+of scarlet cloth given to the nobility for mantles
+on this occasion, we find that duchesses had thirteen
+yards, countesses ten, and baronesses eight.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The costume of Henry VII.&rsquo;s day differed little
+from that of Edward IV., except in the use of shirts
+bordered with lace and richly trimmed with ornamental
+needlework, which continued a long time in
+vogue amongst the nobility and gentry.</p>
+
+<p>A slight inspection of the inventories of Henry
+VIII.&rsquo;s apparel will convince us of a truth which we
+should otherwise, readily have guessed, viz., that no
+expense and no splendour were spared in the &ldquo;swashing
+costume&rdquo; of his day. Its general aspect is too
+familiar to us to require much comment. We may
+remark, however, that four several acts were passed
+in his reign for the reformation of apparel, and that
+all but the royal family were prohibited from wearing
+&ldquo;any cloth of gold of purpure colour, or silk of
+the same colour,&rdquo; upon pain of forfeiture of the same
+and &pound;20 for every offence. Shirt bands and ruffles
+of gold were worn by the privileged, but none under
+the degree of knight were permitted to decorate
+their shirts with silk, gold, or silver. Henry VIII.&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;knitte gloves of silk&rdquo; are particularly referred to,
+and also his &ldquo;handkerchers&rdquo; edged with gold, silver,
+or fine needlework. These handkerchiefs, wrought
+with gold and silver, were not uncommon in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>211]</a></span>
+after-times. In the ballad of George Barnwell, it is
+said of Milwood&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;A handkerchief she had,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">All wrought with silk and gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which she, to stay her trickling tears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Before her eyes did hold.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the east these handkerchiefs are common, and it
+is still a favourite occupation of the Egyptian ladies
+to embroider them.</p>
+
+<p>We are surprised now to find to what minute particulars
+legal enactments descended. &ldquo;No husbandman,
+shepherd, or common labourer to any artificer,
+out of cities or boroughs (having no goods of their
+own above the value of &pound;10), shall use or wear any
+cloth the broad yard whereof passeth 2<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>, or any
+hose above the price of 12<i>d.</i> the yard, upon pain of
+imprisonment in the stocks for three days.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was in a subsequent reign, that of Mary, that a
+proclamation was issued that no man should &ldquo;weare
+his shoes above sixe inches <em>square</em> at the toes.&rdquo; We
+have before seen that the attention of the grave and
+learned members of the Senate, the &ldquo;Conscript Fathers&rdquo;
+of England, was devoted to the due regulation
+of this interesting part of apparel, when the
+shoe-toes were worn so long that they were obliged to
+be tied up to the waist ere the happy and privileged
+wearer could set his foot on the ground. Now,
+however, &ldquo;a change came o&rsquo;er the spirit of the day,&rdquo;
+and it became the duty of those who exercised a
+paternal surveillance over the welfare of the community
+at large to legislate regarding the <em>breadth</em>
+of the shoe-toes, that they should not be above &ldquo;sixe
+inches square.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great,&rdquo; was anciently the cry&mdash;&ldquo;Great is Diana of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>212]</a></span>
+the Ephesians;&rdquo; but how immeasurably greater and
+mightier has been, through that and all succeeding
+ages, the supreme potentate who with a mesh of
+flimsy gauze or fragile silk has constrained nations
+as by a shackle of iron, that shadowy, unsubstantial,
+ever-fleeting, yet ever-exacting deity&mdash;<span class="smcap">Fashion</span>! At
+her shrine worship all the nations of the earth. The
+savage who bores his nose or tattooes his tawny skin
+is impelled by the same power which robes the
+courtly Eastern in flowing garments; and the dark-hued
+beauty who smears herself with blubber is influenced
+by the selfsame motive which causes the
+fair-haired daughter of England to tint her delicate
+cheek with the mimic rose.</p>
+
+<p>And it is not merely in the shape and form of
+garments that this deity exercises her tyrannic sway,
+transforming &ldquo;men into monsters,&rdquo; and women likewise&mdash;if
+it were possible: her vagaries are infinite
+and unaccountable; yet, how unaccountable soever,
+have ever numberless and willing votaries. It was
+once the <em>fashion</em> for people who either were or fancied
+themselves to be in love to prove the sincerity
+of their passion by the fortitude with which they
+could bear those extremes of heat and cold from
+which unsophisticated <em>nature</em> would shrink. These
+&ldquo;penitents of love,&rdquo; for so the fraternity&mdash;and a
+pretty numerous one it was&mdash;was called, would clothe
+themselves in the dog-days in the thickest mantles
+lined throughout with the warmest fur: when the
+winds howled, the hail beat, and snow invested the
+earth with a freezing mantle, they wore the thinnest
+and most fragile garments. It was forbidden to
+wear fur on a day of the most piercing cold, or to
+appear with a hood, cloak, gloves, or muff. They
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>213]</a></span>
+supposed or pretended that the deity whom they
+thus propitiated was <span class="smcap">Love</span>: we aver that the autocrat
+under whose irreversible decrees they thus succumbed&mdash;was
+<span class="smcap">Fashion</span>.</p>
+
+<p>And, after all, who is this all-powerful genius?
+What is her appearance? Whence does she arise?
+Did she alight from the skies, while rejoicing stars
+sang P&aelig;ans at her birth? Was she born of the
+Sunbeams while a glittering Rainbow cast a halo of
+glory around her? or did she spring from Ocean
+while Nereids revelled around, and Mermaids
+strung their Harps with their own golden locks, soft
+melodies the while floating along the glistering
+waves, and echoing from the Tritons&rsquo; booming shells
+beneath? No. Alas, no! She is subtle as the air;
+she is evanescent as a sunbeam, and unsubstantial
+as the ocean&rsquo;s froth;&mdash;but she is none of these.
+She is&mdash;but we will lay aside our own definition in
+order that the reader may have the advantage of
+that of one of the greatest and wisest of statesmen.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Quelqu&rsquo;un qui voudrait un peu &eacute;tudier d&rsquo;o&ugrave;
+part en premi&egrave;re source ce qu&rsquo;on appelle <span class="smcap">les Modes</span>
+verrait, &agrave; notre honte, qu&rsquo;un petit nombre de gens,
+de la plus m&eacute;prisable esp&egrave;ce qui soit dans une ville,
+laquelle renferme tout indiff&eacute;remment dans son sein;
+pour qui, si nous les connaissions, nous n&rsquo;aurions
+que le m&eacute;pris qu&rsquo;on a pour les gens sans m&oelig;urs, ou
+la piti&eacute; qu&rsquo;on a pour les fous, disposent pourtant
+de nos bourses, et nous tiennent assujettis &agrave; tous
+leurs caprices.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Can this indeed be that supereminent deity for
+whom so &ldquo;many do shipwrack their credits,&rdquo; and
+make themselves &ldquo;ridiculous apes, or at best but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>214]</a></span>
+like the cynnamon-tree, whose bark is more worth
+than its body.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Clothes&rdquo; writes a venerable historian, &ldquo;are for
+necessity; warm clothes for health; cleanly for
+decency; lasting for thrift; and rich for magnificence.
+Now, there may be a fault in their number,
+if too various; making, if too vain; matter, if too
+costly; and mind of the wearer, if he takes pride
+therein.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<em>He that is proud of the russling of his silks, like
+a madman laughs at the rattling of his fetters.</em> For,
+indeed, clothes ought to be our remembrancers of
+our lost innocency. Besides, why should any brag
+of what&rsquo;s but borrowed? Should the Estrige snatch
+off the Gallant&rsquo;s feather, the Beaver his hat, the
+Goat his gloves, the Sheep his sute, the Silkworm
+his stockings, and Neat his shoes (to strip him no farther
+than modesty will give leave), he would be left
+in a cold condition. And yet &rsquo;tis more pardonable
+to be proud, even of cleanly rags, than (as many are)
+of affected slovennesse. The one is proud of a molehill,
+the other of a dunghill.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But the worthy Fuller&rsquo;s ideal picture of suitable
+dress was the very antipodes of the reality of Elizabeth&rsquo;s
+day, when that rage for foreign fashions
+existed which has since frequently almost inundated
+the island, and our ancestors masked themselves</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&ldquo;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;in garish gaudery<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To suit a fool&rsquo;s far-fetched livery.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A French hood join&rsquo;d to neck Italian,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thighs from Germany and breast from Spain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An Englishman in none, a fool in all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Many in one, and one in several.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>215]</a></span>
+And Shakspeare, who has perhaps suffered no
+peculiarity of his time to escape observation, makes
+Portia satirize this affectation in her English admirer:&mdash;&ldquo;How
+oddly he is suited! I think he bought
+his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his
+bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A reverend critic thus remarks on the luxurious
+modes of his time: &ldquo;These tender Parnels must
+have one gown for the day, another for the night;
+one long, another short; one for winter, another for
+summer. One furred through, another but faced;
+one for the workday, another for the holiday. One
+of this colour, another of that. One of cloth, another
+of silk or damask. Change of apparel; one afore
+dinner, another at after: one of Spanish fashion,
+another of Turkey. And to be brief, never content
+with enough, but always devising new fashions and
+strange. Yea, a ruffian will have more in his ruff
+and his hose than he should spend in a year. He
+which ought to go in a russet coat spends as much
+on apparel for him and his wife as his father would
+have kept a good house with.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The following is of later date, and seems, somewhat
+unjustly we think, to satirize the fair sex
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why do women array themselves in such fantastical
+dresses and quaint devices; with gold, with
+silver, with coronets, with pendants, bracelets, earrings,
+chains, rings, pins, spangles, embroideries,
+shadows, rebatoes, versicoloured ribbons, feathers,
+fans, masks, furs, laces, tiffanies, ruffs, falls, calls,
+cuffs, damasks, velvets, tassels, golden cloth, silver
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>216]</a></span>
+tissue, precious stones, stars, flowers, birds, beasts,
+fishes, crisped locks, wigs, painted faces, bodkins,
+setting sticks, cork, whalebone, sweet odours, and
+whatever else Africa, Asia, and America can produce;
+flaying their faces to produce the fresher
+complexion of a new skin, and using more time in
+dressing than C&aelig;sar took in marshalling his army,&mdash;but
+that, like cunning falconers, they wish to
+spread false lures to catch unwary larks, and lead
+by their gaudy baits and dazzling charms the minds
+of inexperienced youth into the traps of love?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Though the costume of Elizabeth&rsquo;s day, especially
+at the period of her coronation was, splendid, it had
+not attained to the ridiculous extravagance which
+at a later period elicited the above-quoted strictures;
+and we are told that her own taste at an early period
+of life was simple and unostentatious. Her dress
+and appearance are thus described by Aylmer, Lady
+Jane Grey&rsquo;s tutor, and afterwards Bishop of
+London.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The king (Henry VIII.) left her rich clothes
+and jewels; and I know it to be true, that, in seven
+years after her father&rsquo;s death, she never in all that
+time looked upon that rich attire and precious
+jewels but once, and that against her will. And
+that there never came gold or stone upon her head,
+till her sister forced her to lay off her former soberness,
+and bear her company in her glittering gayness.
+And then she so wore it as every man might
+see that her body carried that which her heart misliked.
+I am sure that her maidenly apparel, which
+she used in King Edward&rsquo;s time, made noblemen&rsquo;s
+daughters and wives to be ashamed to be dressed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>217]</a></span>
+and painted like peacocks; being more moved with
+her most virtuous example than with all that ever
+Paul or Peter wrote touching that matter. Yea, this
+I know, that a great man&rsquo;s daughter (Lady Jane
+Grey) receiving from Lady Mary, before she was
+queen, good apparel of tinsel, cloth of gold and velvet,
+laid on with parchment-lace of gold, when she saw it,
+said, &lsquo;What shall I do with it?&rsquo; &lsquo;Marry!&rsquo; said a
+gentlewoman, &lsquo;wear it.&rsquo; &lsquo;Nay,&rsquo; quoth she, &lsquo;that
+were a shame, to follow my Lady Mary against
+God&rsquo;s Word, and leave my Lady Elizabeth, which
+followeth God&rsquo;s Word.&rsquo; And when all the ladies,
+at the coming of the Scots&rsquo; Queen Dowager, Mary
+of Guise, (she who visited England in Edward&rsquo;s
+time), went with their hair frownsed, curled, and
+double-curled, she altered nothing, but kept her old
+maidenly shame-facedness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And there is a print from a portrait of her when
+young, in which the hair is without a single ornament,
+and the whole dress remarkably simple.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this is the lady whose passion for dress in
+after life could not be sated; to whom, or at least
+before whom (and the Queen was not slow in appropriating
+and resenting the hint<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a>), Latimer,
+Bishop of London, thought it necessary to preach
+on the vanity of decking the body too finely; and
+who finally left behind her a wardrobe containing
+three thousand dresses. A modern fair one may
+wonder how such a profusion of dresses could be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>218]</a></span>
+accommodated at all, even in a royal wardrobe, with
+fitting respect to the integrity of puffs and furbelows.
+But clothes were not formerly kept in drawers,
+where but few can be laid with due regard to the
+safety of each, but were hung up on wooden pegs,
+in a room appropriated to the sole purpose of receiving
+them; and though such cast-off things as
+were composed of rich substances were occasionally
+<em>ripped</em> for domestic uses (viz., mantles for infants,
+vests for children, and counterpanes for beds), articles
+of inferior quality were suffered to <em>hang by the
+walls</em> till age and moths had destroyed what pride
+would not permit to be worn by servants or poor
+relations. To this practice, also, does Shakspeare
+allude: Imogen exclaims, in &lsquo;Cymbeline,&rsquo;&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I must be ripp&rsquo;d&mdash;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The following regulations may be interesting;
+and the knowledge of them will doubtless excite
+feelings of joy and gratitude in our fair readers that
+they are born in an age where &ldquo;will is free,&rdquo; and
+the dustman&rsquo;s wife may, if it so please her, outshine
+the duchess, without the terrors of Parliament before
+her eyes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>&ldquo;By the Queene.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whereas the Queene&rsquo;s Maiestie, for avoyding of
+the great inconvenience that hath growen and dayly
+doeth increase within this her Realme, by the inordinate
+excesse in Apparel, hath in her Princely
+wisdome and care for reformation thereof, by sundry
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>219]</a></span>
+former Proclamations, straightly charged and commanded
+those in Authoritie under her to see her
+Lawes provided in that behalfe duely executed;
+Whereof notwithstanding, partly through their negligence,
+and partly by the manifest contempt and
+disobedience of the parties offending, no reformation
+at all hath followed; Her Maiestie, finding by experience
+that by Clemencie, whereunto she is most
+inclinable, so long as there is any hope of redresse,
+this increasing evill hath not beene cured, hath
+thought fit to seeke to remedie the same by correction
+and severitie, to be used against both these
+kindes of offenders, in regard of the present difficulties
+of this time; wherein the decay and lacke
+of hospitalitie appeares in the better sort in all
+countreys, principally occasioned by the immeasurable
+charges and expenses which they are put to
+in superfluous apparelling their wives, children, and
+families, the confusion also of degrees in all places
+being great; where the meanest are as richly apparelled
+as their betters, and the pride that such
+inferior persons take in their garments, driving
+many for their maintenance to robbing and stealing
+by the hieway, &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Her Maiestie doth straightly charge and command&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That none under the degree of a Countess wear:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Cloth of gold or silver tissued;</p>
+
+<p>Silke of coulor purple.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Under the degree of a Baronesse:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Cloth of golde;</p>
+
+<p>Cloth of silver;</p>
+
+<p>Tinselled satten;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>220]</a></span>
+Sattens branched with silver or golde;</p>
+
+<p>Sattens striped with silver or golde;</p>
+
+<p>Taffaties brancht with silver or golde;</p>
+
+<p>Cipresses flourisht with silver or golde;</p>
+
+<p>Networks wrought in silver or golde;</p>
+
+<p>Tabines brancht with silver or golde;</p>
+
+<p>Or any other silke or cloth mixt or embroidered
+with pearle, golde, or silver.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Under the degree of a Baron&rsquo;s eldest sonne&rsquo;s wife:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Any embroideries of golde or silver;</p>
+
+<p>Passemaine lace, or any other lace, mixed with
+golde, silver, or silke;</p>
+
+<p>Caules, attires, or other garnishings for the head
+trimmed with pearle.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Under the degree of a Knighte&rsquo;s wife:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Velvet in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other
+uppermost garments;</p>
+
+<p>Embroidery with silke.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Under the degree of a Knighte&rsquo;s eldest sonne&rsquo;s
+wife:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Velvet in kirtles and petticoates;</p>
+
+<p>Sattens in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other
+uppermost garments.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="negmargin">&ldquo;Under the degree of a Gentleman&rsquo;s wife, bearing
+armes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="List of fabrics">
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tdl" rowspan="6" style="font-size: 750%;">}</td>
+    <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Satten in kirtles,</td>
+    <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Damaske,</td>
+    <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Tuft taffetie,</td>
+    <td class="tdl">in gownes.&rdquo;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Plaine taffetie,</td>
+    <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">Grograine</td>
+    <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>221]</a></span>
+Venice and Paris seem to have been the chief
+sources of fashion; from these dep&ocirc;ts of taste were
+derived the flaunting head-dresses, the &ldquo;shiptire,&rdquo;
+the &ldquo;tire valiant,&rdquo; &amp;c., which were commonly worn
+in these days of gorgeous finery, and which were
+rendered still more <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">outr&eacute;</i> and unnatural by the <em>dyed</em>
+locks which they surmounted. The custom of dyeing
+the hair is of great antiquity, and was very prevalent
+in the East. Mohammed dyed his hair red; Abu
+Bekr his successor did the same, and it is a custom
+among the Scenite Arabs even to this day.</p>
+
+<p>The ancients often mixed gold dust in their hair,
+and the Gauls used to wash the hair with a liquid
+which had a tendency to redden it. It was doubtless
+in personal compliment to Queen Elizabeth, that all
+the fashionables of her day dyed their locks of a hue
+which is generally considered the reverse of attraction.
+Periwigs, which were introduced into England
+about 1572, were to be had of <em>all colours</em>. It is in
+allusion to this absurd fashion that Benedick says of
+the lady whom he might chuse to marry:&mdash;&ldquo;Her
+hair shall be of what colour it please God.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Men first wore wigs in Charles the Second&rsquo;s time;
+and these were gradually increased in size, until they
+reached the acme of their magnificence in the reign
+of William and Mary, when not only men, but even
+young lads and children were disguised in enormous
+wigs. And though in the reign of Queen Anne this
+latter custom was not so common, yet the young
+men had the want of wigs supplied by artificial curlings,
+and dressing of the hair, which was then only
+performed by the women.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>222]</a></span>
+One Bill preserved amongst the Harl. MSS.
+runs thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Next door to the Golden Ball, in St. Bride&rsquo;s
+Lane, Fleet Street, Lyveth Lidia Beercraft. Who
+cutteth and curleth ladies, gentlemen, and children&rsquo;s
+hair. She sells a fine pomatum, which is mixed with
+ingredients of her own making, that if the hair be
+never so thin, it makes it grow thick; and if short,
+it makes it grow long. If any gentleman&rsquo;s or children&rsquo;s
+hair be never so lank, she makes it curle in a
+little time, and to look like a periwig.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And this, indeed, the looking like a periwig, seems
+to have been then the very <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">beau ideal</i> of all beauty
+and perfection, for another fair tonsoress advertises
+to cut and curl hair after the French fashion, &ldquo;after
+so fine a manner, that <em>you shall not know it to be their
+own hair</em>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>How applicable to these absurdities are the lines
+of an amiable censor of a later day!&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">&ldquo;We have run<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through ev&rsquo;ry change, that Fancy, at the loom<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exhausted, has had genius to supply;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, studious of mutation still, discard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A real elegance, a little us&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For monstrous novelty and strange disguise.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>To return to Elizabeth:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The best known, and most distinguishing characteristic
+of the costume of her day was the ruff; which
+was worn of such enormous size that a lady in full
+dress was obliged to feed herself with a spoon two feet
+long. In the year 1580, sumptuary laws were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>223]</a></span>
+published by proclamation, and enforced with great exactness,
+by which the ruffs were reduced to legal
+dimensions. Extravagant prices were paid for them,
+and they were made at first of fine holland, but early
+in Elizabeth&rsquo;s reign they began to wear lawn and
+cambric, which were brought to England in very
+small quantities, and sold charily by the yard or
+half yard; for there was then hardly one shopkeeper
+in fifty who dared to speculate in a whole piece of
+either. So &ldquo;strange and wonderful was this stuff,&rdquo;
+says Stowe, speaking of lawn, &ldquo;that thereupon rose
+a general scoff or byeword, that shortly they would
+wear ruffs of a spider&rsquo;s web.&rdquo; And another difficulty
+arose; for when the Queen had ruffs made of this
+new and beautiful fabric, there was nobody in England
+who could starch or stiffen them; but happily
+Her Grace found a Dutchwoman possessed of that
+knowledge which England could not supply, and
+&ldquo;Guillan&rsquo;s wife was the first starcher the Queen had,
+as Guillan himself was the first coachman.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Afterward, in 1564, (16th of Elizabeth), one
+Mistress Dinghen Vauden Plasse, born at Teenen in
+Flanders, daughter of a worshipful knight of that
+province, with her husband, came to London, and
+there professed herself a starcher, wherein she excelled;
+unto whom her own nation presently repaired
+and employed her, rewarding her very liberally for
+her work. Some of the curious ladies of that time,
+observing the neatness of the Dutch, and the nicety
+of their linen, made them cambric ruffs, and sent
+them to Mistress Dinghen to starch; soon after they
+began to send their daughters and kinswomen to
+Mistress Dinghen, to learn how to starch; her usual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>224]</a></span>
+price was, at that time, 4<i>l.</i> or 5<i>l.</i> to teach them to
+starch, and 20<i>s.</i> to learn them to see the starch. This
+Mrs. Dinghen was the first that ever taught starching
+in England.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The <small>RUFFS</small> were adjusted by poking sticks of iron,
+steel, or silver, heated in the fire&mdash;(probably something
+answering to our Italian iron), and in May
+1582 a lady of Antwerp, being invited to a wedding,
+could not, although she employed two celebrated
+laundresses, get her ruff plaited according to her
+taste, upon which &ldquo;she fell to sweare and teare, to
+curse and ban, casting the ruffes under feete, and
+wishing that the devill might take her when shee
+did wear any neckerchers againe.&rdquo; This gentleman,
+whom it is said an invocation will always summon,
+now appeared in the likeness of a favoured suitor,
+and inquiring the cause of her agitation, he &ldquo;took
+in hande the setting of her ruffes, which he performed
+to her great contentation and liking; insomuch, as
+she, looking herself in a glasse (as the devill bade
+her) became greatly enamoured with him. This
+done, the young man kissed her, in the doing whereof,
+he writhed her neck in sunder, so she died
+miserably.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But here comes the marvel: four men tried in
+vain to lift her &ldquo;fearful body&rdquo; when coffined for
+interment; six were equally unsuccessful; &ldquo;whereat
+the standers-by marvelling, caused the coffin to be
+opened to see the cause thereof: where they found
+the body to be taken away, and a blacke catte, very
+leane and deformed, sitting in the coffin, <em>setting of
+great ruffes and frizling of haire</em>, to the great
+feare and woonder of all the beholders.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>225]</a></span>
+The large hoop farthingales were worn now, but
+they were said to be adopted by the ladies from a
+laudable spirit of emulation, a praiseworthy desire
+on their parts to be of equal standing with the &ldquo;nobler
+sex,&rdquo; who now wore breeches, stuffed with rags
+or other materials to such an enormous size, that a
+bench of extraordinary dimension was placed round
+the parliament house, (of which the traces were
+visible at a very late period) solely for their accommodation.</p>
+
+<p>Strutt quotes an instance of a man whom the
+judges accused of wearing breeches contrary to the
+law (for a law was made against them): he, for his
+excuse, drew out of his slops the contents; at first a
+pair of sheets, two table-cloths, ten napkins, four
+shirts, a brush, a glass, and a comb; with nightcaps
+and other things of use, saying, &ldquo;Your worship may
+understand, that because I have no safer a storehouse,
+these pockets do serve me for a room to lay
+up my goods in,&mdash;and, though it be a strait prison,
+yet it is big enough for them, for I have many
+things of value yet within it.&rdquo; His excuse was
+heartily laughed at and accepted.</p>
+
+<p>This ridiculous fashion was for a short time disused,
+but revived again in 1614. The breeches
+were then chiefly stuffed with hair. Many satirical
+rhymes were written upon them; amongst others, &ldquo;A
+lamentable complaint of the poore Countrye Men
+agaynst great hose, for the loss of their cattelles
+tales.&rdquo; In which occur these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;What hurt, what damage doth ensue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And fall upon the poore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For want of wool and flaxe, of late,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whych monstrous hose devoure.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>226]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;But haire hath so possess&rsquo;d, of late,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The bryche of every knave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That no one beast, nor horse can tell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whiche way his taile to save.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Henry VIII. had received a few pairs of silk
+stockings from Spain, but knitted silk ones were
+not known until the second year of Elizabeth,
+when her silk-woman, Mrs. Montague, presented
+to Her Majesty a pair of black knit silk stockings,
+for a new-year&rsquo;s gift, with which she was
+so much pleased that she desired to know if the
+donor could not help her to any more, to which
+Mrs. Montague answered, &ldquo;I made them carefully
+on purpose for your Majestie; and seeing
+they please you so well, I will presently set more in
+hand.&rdquo; &ldquo;Do so (said the Queen), for I like silk
+stockings so well, that I will not henceforth wear
+any more cloth hose.&rdquo; These shortly became common;
+though even over so simple an article as a
+stocking, Fashion asserted her supremacy, and
+at a subsequent period they were two yards
+wide at the top, and made fast to the &ldquo;petticoat
+breeches,&rdquo; by means of strings through eyelet
+holes.</p>
+
+<p>But Elizabeth&rsquo;s predilection for rich attire is well
+known, and if the costume of her day was fantastic,
+it was still magnificent. A suit trimmed with sables
+was considered the richest dress worn by men; and
+so expensive was this fur, that, it is said a thousand
+ducats were sometimes given for &ldquo;a face of sables.&rdquo;
+It was towards the close of her reign that the celebrated
+Gabrielle d&rsquo;Estr&eacute;es wore on a festive occasion
+a dress of black satin, so ornamented with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>227]</a></span>
+pearls and precious stones, that she could scarcely
+move under its weight. She had a handkerchief,
+for the embroidering of which she engaged to pay
+1900 crowns. And such it was said was the influence
+of her example in Paris, that the ladies ornamented
+even their shoes with jewels.</p>
+
+<p>Yet even this costly magnificence was afterwards
+surpassed by that of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham,
+with whom it was common, even at an ordinary
+dancing, to have his clothes trimmed with great
+diamond buttons, and to have diamond hatbands,
+cockades, and earrings, to be yoked with great and
+manifold ropes and knots of pearl; in short, to be
+manacled, fettered, and imprisoned in jewels: insomuch
+that at his going to Paris in 1625, he had
+twenty-seven suits of clothes made, the richest that
+embroidery, lace, silk, velvet, gold, and gems could
+contribute; one of which was a white uncut velvet
+set all over, both suit and cloak, with diamonds
+valued at fourscore thousand pounds, besides a great
+feather, stuck all over with diamonds, as were also
+his sword, girdle, hatband, and spurs.<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a></p>
+
+<p>It would but weary our readers were we to dwell
+on the well-known peculiarities of the &ldquo;Cavalier
+and Roundhead&rdquo; days; and tell how the steeple-crowned
+hat was replaced at the Restoration by the
+plumed and jewelled velvet; the forlorn, smooth,
+methodistical pate, by the curled ringlets and flowing
+lovelock; the sober, sombre, &ldquo;sad&rdquo; coloured
+garment, with its starched folds, by the gay, varied,
+flowing drapery of all hues. Then, how the plume
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>228]</a></span>
+of feathers gave way to the simpler band and
+buckle, and the thick large curling wig and full
+ruffle, to the bagwig, the tie, and stock.</p>
+
+<p>The dashing cloak and slashed sleeves were succeeded
+by the coat of ample dimensions, and the
+waistcoat with interminable pockets resting on the
+knees; the &ldquo;breeches&rdquo; were in universal use,
+though they were not of the universal &ldquo;black&rdquo;
+which Cowper immortalises; but &ldquo;black breeches&rdquo;
+and &ldquo;powder&rdquo; have had their reign, and are succeeded
+by the &ldquo;inexpressible&rdquo; costume of the present
+day. We will conclude a chapter, which we fear to
+have spun out tediously, by Lady Morgan&rsquo;s animated
+account of the introduction, in France, of
+that universally-coveted article of dress&mdash;a Cashmir
+shawl:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;While partaking of a sumptuous collation (at
+Rouen), the conversation naturally turned on the
+splendid views which the windows commanded, and
+on the subjects connected with their existence. The
+flocks, which were grazing before us had furnished
+the beautiful shawls which hung on the backs of the
+chairs occupied by our fair companions, and which
+might compete with the turbans of the Grand
+Signor. It would be difficult now to persuade a
+Parisian <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">petite maitresse</i> that there was a time when
+French women of fashion could exist without a
+cashmir, or that such an indispensable article of
+the toilet and <em>sultan</em> was unknown even to the most
+elegant. &lsquo;The first cashemir that appeared in
+France,&rsquo; said Madame D&rsquo;Aubespine, (for an educated
+French woman has always something worth
+hearing to say on all subjects,) &lsquo;was sent over by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>229]</a></span>
+Baron de Tott, then in the service of the Porte, to
+Madame de Tess&eacute;. When they were produced in
+her society, every body thought them very fine, but
+nobody knew what use to make of them. It was
+determined that they would make pretty <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">couvre-pieds</i>
+and veils for the cradle; but the fashion wore
+out with the shawls, and ladies returned to their
+eider-down quilts.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Monsieur Ternaux observed that &lsquo;though the
+produce of the Cashmerian looms had long been
+known in Europe, they did not become a vogue
+until after Napoleon&rsquo;s expedition to Egypt; and
+that even then they took, in the first instance, but
+slowly.&rsquo; The shawl was still a novelty in France,
+when Josephine, as yet but the wife of the First
+Consul, knew not how to drape its elegant folds,
+and stood indebted to the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">brusque</i> Rapp for the
+grace with which she afterwards wore it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">&lsquo;Permettez que je vous fasse l&rsquo;observation,&rsquo; said
+Rapp, as they were setting off for the opera; &lsquo;que
+votre schall n&rsquo;est pas mis avec cette gr&acirc;ce qui vous
+est habituelle.&rsquo;</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Josephine laughingly let him arrange it in the
+manner of the Egyptian women. This impromptu
+toilette caused a little delay, and the infernal machine
+exploded in vain!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What destinies waited upon the arrangement
+of this cashemir! A moment sooner or later, and
+the shawl might have given another course to
+events, which would have changed the whole face
+of Europe.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>230]</a></span>
+The Empress Josephine (says her biographer)
+had quite a passion for shawls, and I question whether
+any collection of them was ever as valuable as
+hers. At Navarre she had one hundred and fifty,
+all extremely beautiful and high-priced. She sent
+designs to Constantinople, and the shawls made
+after these patterns were as beautiful as they were
+valuable. Every week M. Lenormant came to Navarre,
+and sold her whatever he could obtain that
+was curious in this way. I have seen white shawls
+covered with roses, bluebells, perroquets, peacocks,
+&amp;c., which I believe were not to be met with any
+where else in Europe; they were valued at 15,000
+and 20,000 francs each.</p>
+
+<p>The shawls were at length sold <em>by auction</em> at
+Malmaison, at a rate much below their value. All
+Paris went to the sale.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a>
+&ldquo;Her Majesty told the ladies, that if the Bishop held more
+discourse on such matters, she would fit him for heaven; but he
+should walk thither without a staff, and leave his mantle behind
+him.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a>
+Life of Raleigh, by Oldys.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a>
+Lady Morgan&rsquo;s France in 1829-30.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>231]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XV.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Where are the proud and lofty dames,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their jewell&rsquo;d crowns, their gay attire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their odours sweet?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where are the love-enkindled flames,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bursts of passionate desire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Laid at their feet?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where are the songs, the troubadours,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The music which delighted then?&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It speaks no more.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where is the dance that shook the floors,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the gay and laughing train,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all they wore?<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The royal gifts profusely shed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The palaces so proudly built,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With riches stor&rsquo;d;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The roof with shining gold o&rsquo;erspread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The services of silver gilt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The secret hoard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Arabian pards, the harness bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bending plumes, the crowded mews,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lacquey train,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where are they?&mdash;where!&mdash;all lost in night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And scatter&rsquo;d as the early dews<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across the plain.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Bowring&rsquo;s Anc. Span. Romances.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Romance and song have united to celebrate the
+splendours of the &ldquo;Field of the Cloth of Gold.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>232]</a></span>
+The most scrupulously minute and faithful of recorders
+has detailed day by day, and point by point,
+its varied and showy routine, and every subsequent
+historian has borrowed from the pages of the old
+chronicler; and these dry details have been so expanded
+by the breath of Fancy, and his skeleton
+frame has been so fleshed by the magical drapery of
+talent, that there seems little left on which the
+imagination can dilate, or the pen expatiate.</p>
+
+<p>The astonishing impulse which has in various
+ways within the last few years been given to the
+searching of ancient records, and the development
+of hitherto obscure and comparatively uninteresting
+details, and vesting them in an alluring garb, has
+made us as familiar with the domestic records of the
+eighth Henry, as in our school-days we were with
+the orthodox abstract of necessary historical information,&mdash;that
+&ldquo;Henry the Eighth ascended the
+throne in the 18th year of his age;&rdquo; that &ldquo;he
+became extremely corpulent;&rdquo; that &ldquo;he married
+six wives, and beheaded two.&rdquo; Not even affording
+gratuitously the codicil which the talent of some
+writer hath educed&mdash;that &ldquo;if Henry the Eighth
+had not beheaded his wives, there would have been
+no impeachment on his gallantry to the fair sex.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But in describing this, according to some, &ldquo;the
+most magnificent spectacle that Europe ever beheld,&rdquo;
+and to others, &ldquo;a heavy mass of allegory and frippery,&rdquo;
+historians have been contented to pourtray
+the outward features of the gorgeous scene, and
+have slightly, if at all, touched on the contending
+feelings which were veiled beneath a broad though
+thin surface of concord and joy. Truly, it were a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>233]</a></span>
+task of deep interest, even slightly to picture them,
+or to attempt to enter into the feelings of the chief
+actors on that field.</p>
+
+<p>First and foremost, as the guiding spirit of the
+whole, as the mighty artificer of that pageant on
+which, however gaudy in its particulars the fates of
+Europe were supposed to depend, and the earnest
+eyes of Europe were certainly fixed&mdash;comes <span class="smcap">Wolsey</span>.&mdash;Gorgeously
+habited himself, and the burnished
+gold of his saddle cloth only partially relieved by the
+more sombre crimson velvet; nay, his very shoes
+gleaming with brilliants, and himself withal so lofty
+in bearing, of so noble a presence, that this very
+magnificence seemed but a natural appendage,
+Wolsey took his lofty way from monarch to monarch;
+and so well did he become his dignity, that none
+but kings, and such kings as Henry and Francis,
+would have drawn the eyes of the myriad spectators
+from himself. And surely he was now happy;
+surely his ambition was now gratified to the uttermost;
+now, in the eyes of all Europe did the two
+proudest of her princes not merely associate with
+him almost as an equal, but openly yield to his
+suggestions&mdash;almost bow to his decisions. No&mdash;loftily
+as he bore himself, courtly as was his demeanour,
+rapid and commanding as was his eloquence,
+and influential as seemed his opinions on all
+and every one around&mdash;the cardinal had a mind ill
+at ease, as, despite his self-control, was occasionally
+testified by his contracted brow and thoughtful
+aspect. After exerting all the might of his mighty
+influence, and for his own aggrandisement, to procure
+this meeting between the two potentates, he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>234]</a></span>
+had at the last moment seen fit to alter his policy.
+He had sold himself to a higher bidder; he had
+pledged himself to Charles in the very teeth of his
+solemn engagement to Francis. Even whilst celebrating
+this league of amity, he was turning in his
+own mind the means by which to rupture it; and
+was yet withal, nervously fearful of any accident
+which should prematurely break it, or lead to a discovery
+of his own faithlessness.&mdash;So much for his
+enjoyment!</p>
+
+<p>Our <span class="smcap">King Henry</span> was all delight, and eager impetuous
+enjoyment. He had not outlived the good
+promise of his youth; nor had his foibles become,
+by indulgence, vices. He loved to see all around
+him happy; he loved, more especially, to make them
+so. He delighted in all the exercises of the field;
+he was unrivalled in the tilt and the tournament;
+and when engaged in them forgot kings and kingdoms.
+His vanity, outrageous as it was, hardly sat
+ungracefully on him, so much was it elevated then
+by buoyant good humour&mdash;so much was it softened
+at that time by his noble presence, his manly grace,
+his kingly accomplishments, and his regal munificence.
+The stern and selfish tyrant whom one
+shudders to think upon, was then only &ldquo;bluff King
+Hal,&rdquo; loving and beloved, courted and caressed by
+an empire. He gave himself up to the gaieties of
+the time without a care for the present, a thought
+for the future. Could he have glanced dimly into
+that future! But he could not, and he was happy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Francis</span> was admirably qualified to grace this
+scene, and to enjoy it, as probably he did enjoy it,
+vividly. Yet was this gratification by no means
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>235]</a></span>
+unalloyed. His gentle manly nature was irritated at
+certain stipulations of Henry&rsquo;s advisers, by which
+their most trivial intercourse was subjected to
+specific regulations. There were recorded instances
+enough of treacherous advantages taken to justify
+fully this conduct on the part of Henry&rsquo;s ministers;
+but Francis felt its injustice, as applied to himself,
+and at that time, made use of a generous and well-known
+stratagem to convince others. But in the
+midst of his enjoyments he had misgivings on his
+mind of a more serious nature, caused by the Emperor&rsquo;s
+recent visit to Dover. These misgivings
+were increased by the meeting between Henry and
+Charles at Gravelines; and too surely confirmed by
+quickly-following circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>The gentle and good <span class="smcap">Katharine</span> of England,
+and the equally amiable Queen <span class="smcap">Claude</span>, the carefully-trained
+stepdaughter of the noble and admirable
+Anne of Bretagne, probably derived their
+chief gratification here from the pleasure of seeing
+their husbands amicable and happy. For queens
+though they were, their happiness was in domestic
+life, and their chief empire was over the hearts of
+those domesticated with them.</p>
+
+<p>Not so the <span class="smcap">Dowager Queen</span> of France&mdash;the lively,
+and graceful, and beautiful Duchess of Suffolk; for
+though very fond of her royal brother, and devoted
+to her gallant husband, she had yet an eye and an
+ear for all the revelries around, and had a radiant
+glance and a beaming smile for all who crowded to
+do homage to her charms. And yet her heart must
+have been somewhat hard&mdash;and that we know it was
+not&mdash;if she could have inhaled the air of France, or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>236]</a></span>
+trod its sunny soil, without recollections which must
+have dimmed her eye at the thoughts of the past,
+even whilst breathing a thanksgiving for the present.
+Somewhat less than five years ago, she had been
+taken thither a weeping bride; youth, nature, inclination,
+nay, hope itself, sacrificed to that expediency
+by which the actions of monarchs are regulated.
+We are accustomed to read these things so
+much as mere historical memoranda, to look upon
+them in their cold unvarnished simplicity of detail,
+like the rigid outlines of stiff old portraits which we
+can scarcely suppose were ever meant to represent
+living flesh and blood&mdash;that it requires a strong
+effort to picture these circumstances to our eyes as
+actually occurring.</p>
+
+<p>In considering the state policy of the thing&mdash;and
+the apparent national advantage of the King of
+England&rsquo;s sister being married to the King of
+France&mdash;we forget that this King of England&rsquo;s
+sister was a fair young creature, with warm heart,
+gushing affections, and passions and feelings just
+opening in all the vividness of early womanhood;
+and that she was condemned to marry a sickly,
+querulous, elderly man, who began his loving rule
+by dismissing at once, even while she was &ldquo;a
+stranger in a foreign land,&rdquo; every endeared friend
+and attendant who had accompanied her thither;
+and that, worse than all, her young affections had
+been sought and gained by a noble English gentleman,
+the favourite of the English king, and the
+pride of his Court.</p>
+
+<p>Surely her lot was hard; and well might she
+weepingly exclaim, &ldquo;Where is now my hope?&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>237]</a></span>
+Little could she suppose (for Louis, though infirm,
+was not aged) that three or four short months would
+see her not only at liberty from her enforced vows,
+but united to the man of her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Must there not, while watching the tilting of her
+graceful and gallant husband, must there not have
+been melancholy in her mirth?&mdash;must there not, in
+the keen encounter of wits during the banquet or
+the ball&mdash;must there not have mingled method with
+her madness?</p>
+
+<p>Who shall record, or even refer to the hopes, and
+feelings, and wishes, and thoughts, and reflections
+of the thousands congregated thither; each one
+with feelings as intense, with hopes as individually
+important as those which influenced the royal King
+of France, or the majestic monarch of England!
+The loftiest of Christendom&rsquo;s knights, the loveliest
+of Christendom&rsquo;s daughters were assembled here;
+and the courteous Bayard, the noble Tremouille, the
+lofty Bourbon, felt inspired more gallantly, if possible,
+than was even their wont, when contending in
+all love and amity with the proudest of England&rsquo;s
+champions, in presence of the fairest of her blue-eyed
+maidens,&mdash;the noblest of her courtly dames.</p>
+
+<p>Nor were the lofty and noble alone there congregated.
+After the magnificent structure for the king
+and court, after every thing in the shape of a tenement
+in, out, or about the little town of Guisnes,
+and the neighbouring hamlets, were occupied, two
+thousand eight hundred tents were set up on the
+side of the English alone. No noble or baron
+would be absent; but likewise knights, and squires,
+and yeomen flocked to the scene: citizens and city
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>238]</a></span>
+wives disported their richest silks and their heaviest
+chains; jews went for gain, pedlars for knavery,
+tradespeople for their craft, rogues for mischief.
+Then there were &ldquo;vagaboundes, plowmen, laborers,
+wagoners, and beggers, that for drunkennes lay in
+routes and heapes, so great resorte thether came,
+that bothe knightes and ladies that wer come to see
+the noblenes, were faine to lye in haye and strawe,
+and hold theim thereof highly pleased.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The accommodations provided for the king and
+privileged members of his court on this occasion
+were more than magnificent; a vast and splendid
+edifice that seemed to be endued with the magnificence,
+and to rise almost with the celerity of that
+prepared by the slaves of the lamp, where the
+richest tapestry and silk embroidery&mdash;the costliest
+produce of the most accomplished artisans, were
+almost unnoticed amid the gold and jewellery by
+which they were surrounded&mdash;where all that art
+could produce, or riches devise had been lavished&mdash;all
+this has been often described. And the tent
+itself, the nucleus of the show, the point where the
+&ldquo;brother&rdquo; kings were to confer, was hung round
+with cloth of gold: the posts, the cones, the cords,
+the tents, were all of the same precious metal, which
+glittered here in such excessive profusion as to give
+that title to the meeting which has superseded all
+others&mdash;&ldquo;The Field of the Cloth of Gold.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This gaudy pageant was the prelude to an era of
+great interest, for while dwelling on the &ldquo;galanty
+shew&rdquo; we cannot forget that now reigned Solyman
+the magnificent, and that this was the age of Leo
+the Tenth; that Charles the Fifth was now beginning
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>239]</a></span>
+his influential course; that a Sir Thomas More
+graced England; and that in Germany there was
+&ldquo;one Martin Luther,&rdquo; who &ldquo;belonged to an order of
+strolling friars.&rdquo; Under Leo&rsquo;s munificent encouragement,
+Rafaello produced those magnificent
+creations which have been the inspiration of subsequent
+ages; and at home, under Wolsey&rsquo;s enlightened
+patronage, colleges were founded, learning
+was encouraged, and the College of Physicians first
+instituted in 1518, found in him one of its warmest
+advocates and firmest supporters.</p>
+
+<p>A modern writer gives the following amusing
+picture of part of the bustle attendant on the event
+we are considering. &ldquo;The palace (of Westminster)
+and all its precincts became the elysium of tailors,
+embroiderers, and sempstresses. There might you
+see many a shady form gliding about from apartment
+to apartment, with smiling looks and extended
+shears, or armed with ell-wands more potent than
+Mercury&rsquo;s rod, driving many a poor soul to perdition,
+and transforming his goodly acres into velvet
+suits, with tags of cloth of gold. So continual were
+the demands upon every kind of artisan, that the
+impossibility of executing them threw several into
+despair. One tailor who is reported to have undertaken
+to furnish fifty embroidered suits in three
+days, on beholding the mountain of gold and velvet
+that cumbered his shop-board, saw, like Brutus, the
+impossibility of victory, and, with Roman fortitude,
+fell on his own shears. Three armourers are said
+to have been completely melted with the heat of
+their furnaces; and an unfortunate goldsmith
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>240]</a></span>
+swallowed molten silver to escape the persecutions of
+the day.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The road from London to Canterbury was covered
+during one whole week with carts and waggons,
+mules, horses, and soldiers; and so great was
+the confusion, that marshals were at length stationed
+to keep the whole in order, which of course increased
+the said confusion a hundred fold. So many were
+the ships passing between Dover and Calais, that
+the historians affirm they jostled each other on the
+road like a herd of great black porkers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The King went from station to station like a
+shepherd, driving all the better classes of the country
+before him, and leaving not a single straggler behind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Though we do not implicitly credit every point of
+this humorous statement, we think a small portion
+of description from the old chronicler Hall (we will
+really inflict <em>only</em> a small portion on our readers)
+will justify a good deal of it; but more especially it
+will enlighten us as to some of the elaborate conceits
+of the day, in which, it seems, the needle was
+as fully occupied as the pen.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, what would the &ldquo;Field of the Cloth of
+Gold&rdquo; have been without the skill of the needlewoman?
+<em>Would it have been at all?</em></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Frenche kyng sette hymself on a courser
+barded, covered with purple sattin, broched with
+golde, and embraudered with corbyns fethers round
+and buckeled; the fether was blacke and hached
+with gold. Corbyn is a rauen, and the firste silable
+of corbyn is <em>Cor</em>, whiche is a harte, a penne in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>241]</a></span>
+English, is a fether in Frenche, and signifieth pain, and
+so it stode; this fether round was endles, the buckels
+wherwith the fethers wer fastened, betokeneth
+sothfastnes, thus was the devise, <em>harte fastened in
+pain endles, or pain in harte fastened endles</em>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wednesdaie the 13 daie of June, the twoo
+hardie kynges armed at all peces, entered into the
+feld right nobly appareled, the Frenche kyng and
+all his parteners of chalenge were arraied in purple
+sattin, broched with golde and purple velvet, embrodered
+with litle rolles of white sattin wherein
+was written <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">quando</em>, all bardes and garmentes wer
+set full of the same, and all the residue where was
+no rolles, were poudered and set with the letter ell
+as thus, L, whiche in Frenche is she, which was interpreted
+to be <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">quando elle</em>, when she, and ensuyng
+the devise of the first daie it signifieth together,
+<em>harte fastened in pain endles, when she</em>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Frenche kyng likewise armed at al pointes
+mounted on a courser royal, all his apparel as wel
+bardes as garmentes were purple velvet, entred the
+one with the other, embrodred ful of litle bookes of
+white satten, and in the bokes were written <em>a me</em>;
+aboute the borders of the bardes and the borders of
+the garmentes, a chaine of blewe like iron, resemblyng
+the chayne of a well or prison chaine, whiche
+was enterpreted to be <em>liber</em>, a booke; within this
+boke was written as is sayed, <em>a me</em>, put these two
+together, and it maketh <em>libera me</em>; the chayne betokeneth
+prison or bondes, and so maketh together
+in Englishe, <em>deliver me of <ins class="contr" title="bondes">b&#335;des</ins></em>; put
+to <ins class="contr" title="the">y<sup>e</sup></ins> reason,
+the fyrst day, second day, and third day of chaunge,
+for he chaunged but the second day, and it is <em>hart
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>242]</a></span>
+fastened in paine endles, when she deliuereth me not
+of bondes</em>; thus was thinterpretation made, but
+whether it were so in all thinges or not I may not
+say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The following animated picture from an author
+already quoted, has been drawn of this spirit-stirring
+scene:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Upon a large open green, that extended on the
+outside of the walls, was to be seen a multitude of
+tents of all kinds and colours, with a multitude of
+busy human beings, employed in raising fresh pavilions
+on every open space, or in decorating those
+already spread with streamers, pennons, and banners
+of all the bright hues under the sun. Long lines of
+horses and mules, loaded with armour or baggage,
+and ornamented with gay ribbons to put them in
+harmony with the scene, were winding about all over
+the plain, some proceeding towards the town, some
+seeking the tents of their several lords, while mingled
+amongst them, appeared various bands of
+soldiers, on horseback and on foot, with the rays of
+the declining sun catching upon the heads of their
+bills and lances; and together with the white cassock
+and broad red cross, marking them out from
+all the other objects. Here and there, too, might
+be seen a party of knights and gentlemen cantering
+over the plain, and enjoying the bustle of the scene,
+or standing in separate groups, issuing their orders
+for the erection and garnishing of their tents; while
+couriers, and poursuivants, and heralds, in all their
+gay dresses, mingled with mule drivers, lacqueys,
+and peasants, armourers, pages, and tent stretchers,
+made up the living part of the landscape.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>243]</a></span>
+&ldquo;The sounding of the trumpets to horse, the
+shouts of the various leaders, the loud cries of
+the marshals and heralds, and the roaring of artillery
+from the castle, as the king put his foot in the
+stirrup, all combined to make one general outcry
+rarely equalled. Gradually the tumult subsided,
+gradually also the confused assemblage assumed a
+regular form. Flags, and pennons, and banderols,
+embroidered banners, and scutcheons; silver pillars,
+and crosses, and crooks, ranged themselves in long
+line; and the bright procession, an interminable
+stream of living gold, began to wind across the
+plain. First came about five hundred of the gayest
+and wealthiest gentlemen of England, below the
+rank of baron; squires, knights, and bannerets, rivalling
+each other in the richness of their apparel
+and the beauty of their horses; while the pennons
+of the knights fluttered above their heads, marking
+the place of the English chivalry. Next appeared
+the proud barons of the realm, each with his banner
+borne before him, and followed by a custrel with the
+shield of his arms. To these again succeeded the
+bishops, not in the simple robes of the Protestant
+clergy, but in the more gorgeous habits of the
+Church of Rome; while close upon their steps rode
+the higher nobility, surrounding the immediate
+person of the king, and offering the most splendid
+mass of gold and jewels that the summer sun ever
+shone upon.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Slowly the procession moved forward to allow
+the line of those on foot to keep an equal pace. Nor
+did this band offer a less gay and pleasing sight
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>244]</a></span>
+than the cavalcade, for here might be seen the
+athletic forms of the sturdy English yeomanry,
+clothed in the various splendid liveries of their
+several lords, with the family cognisance embroidered
+on the bosom and arm, and the banners and
+banderols of their particular houses carried in the
+front of each company. Here also was to be seen
+the picked guard of the King of England, magnificently
+dressed for the occasion, with the royal
+banner carried in their centre by the deputy standard
+bearer, and the banner of their company by their
+own ancient. In the rear of all, marshalled by
+officers appointed for the purpose, came the band
+of those whose rank did not entitle them to take
+place in the cavalcade, but who had sufficient interest
+at court to be admitted to the meeting.
+Though of an inferior class, this company was not
+the least splendid in the field; for here were all the
+wealthy tradesmen of the court, habited in many a
+rich garment, furnished by the extravagance of
+those that rode before; and many a gold chain
+hung round their necks, that not long ago had lain
+in the purse of some prodigal customer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But we cease, being fully of opinion with the old
+chronicler that &ldquo;to tell the apparel of the ladies,
+their riche attyres, their sumptuous juelles, their
+diversities of beauties, and their goodly behaviour
+from day to day sithe the fyrst metyng, I assure
+you ten mennes wittes can scarce declare it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And in a few days, a few short days, all was at
+an end; and the pomp and the pageantry, the mirth
+and the revelry, was but as a dream&mdash;a most bitter,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>245]</a></span>
+indeed, and painful dream to hundreds who had
+bartered away their substance for the sake of a
+transient glitter:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;We seken fast after felicite<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But we go wrong ful often trewely,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus may we sayen alle.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Homely indeed, after the paraphernalia of the
+&ldquo;Field of the Cloth of Gold,&rdquo; would appear the
+homes of England on the return of their masters.
+For though the nobles had begun to remove the
+martial fronts of their castles, and endeavoured to
+render them more commodious, yet in architecture
+the nation participated neither the spirit nor the
+taste of its sovereign. The mansions of the gentlemen
+were, we are told, still sordid; the huts of the
+peasantry poor and wretched. The former were
+generally thatched buildings composed of timber,
+or, where wood was scarce, of large posts inserted in
+the earth, filled up in the interstices with rubbish,
+plastered within, and covered on the outside with
+coarse clay. The latter were light frames, prepared
+in the forest at small expense, and when erected,
+probably covered with mud. In cities the houses
+were constructed mostly of the same materials, for
+bricks were still too costly for general use; and the
+stories seem to have projected forward as they rose
+in height, intercepting sunshine and air from the
+streets beneath. The apartments were stifling,
+lighted by lattices, so contrived as to prohibit the
+occasional and salutary admission of external air.
+The floors were of clay, strewed with rushes, which
+often remained for years a receptacle of every pollution.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>246]</a></span>
+In an inventory of the goods and chattels of Sir
+Andrew Foskewe, Knight, dated in the 30th year of
+King Henry the Eighth, are the following furnitures.
+We select the hall and the best parlour, in
+which he entertained company, first premising that
+he possessed a large and noble service of rich
+plate worth an amazing sum, and so much land as
+proved him to be a wealthy man:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The hall.&mdash;A hangin of greine say, bordered
+with darneng (or needlework); item a grete side
+table, with standinge tressels; item a small joyned
+cuberde, of waynscott, and a short piece of counterfett
+carpett upon it; item a square cuberde, and a
+large piece of counterfett wyndowe, and five formes,
+&amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perler.&mdash;Imprim., a hangynge of greene say and
+red, panede; item a table with two tressels, and a
+greyne verders carpet upon it; three greyne verders
+cushyns; a joyned cupberd, and a carpett upon it;
+a piece of verders carpet in one window, and a piece
+of counterfeit carpett in the other; one Flemishe
+chaire; four joyned stooles; a joyned forme; a
+wyker skryne; two large awndyerns, a fyer forke,
+a fyer pan, a payer of tonges; item a lowe joyned
+stole; two joyned foote-stoles; a rounde table of
+cipress; and a piece of counterfeitt carpett upon it;
+item a paynted table (or picture) of the Epiphany
+of our Lord.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p>
+
+<p>But notwithstanding this apparent meagreness of
+accommodation, luxury in architecture was making
+rapid strides in the land. Wolsey was as magnificent
+in this taste as in others, as Hampton Court,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>247]</a></span>
+&ldquo;a residence,&rdquo; says Grotius, &ldquo;befitting rather a
+god than a king,&rdquo; yet remains to attest. The walls of
+his chambers at York Place, (Whitehall,) were hung
+with cloth of gold, and tapestry still more precious,
+representing the most remarkable events in sacred
+history&mdash;for the easel was then subordinate to the
+loom.</p>
+
+<p>The subjects of the tapestry in York Place consisted,
+we are told, of triumphs, probably Roman;
+the story of Absalom, bordered with the cardinal&rsquo;s
+arms; the Petition of Esther, and the Honouring of
+Mordecai; the History of Sampson, bordered with
+the cardinal&rsquo;s arms; the History of Solomon; the
+History of Susannah and the Elders, bordered with
+the cardinal&rsquo;s arms; the History of Jacob, also bordered;
+Holofernes and Judith, bordered; the Story
+of Joseph, of David, of St. John the Baptist; the
+History of the Virgin; the Passion of Christ; the
+Worthies; the Story of Nebuchadnezzar; a Pilgrimage;
+all bordered.</p>
+
+<p>This place&mdash;Whitehall&mdash;Henry decorated magnificently;
+erected splendid gateways, and threw a
+gallery across to the Park, where he erected a tilt-yard,
+with all royal and courtly appurtenances, and
+converted the whole into a royal manor. This was
+not until after fire had ravaged the ancient, time-honoured,
+and kingly palace of Westminster, a place
+which perhaps was the most truly regal of any
+which England ever beheld. Recorded as a royal residence
+as early&mdash;almost&mdash;as there is record of the
+existence of our venerable abbey; inhabited by
+Knute the Dane; rebuilt by Edward the Confessor;
+remodelled by Henry the Third; receiving lustre
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>248]</a></span>
+from the residence, and ever-added splendour from
+the liberality of a long line of illustrious monarchs,
+it had obtained a hold on the mind which is even
+yet not passed away, although the ravages of time,
+and of fire, and the desecrations of subsequent
+ages, have scarcely left stone or token of the original
+structure.</p>
+
+<p>After the fire, however, Henry forsook it. He it
+was who first built St. James&rsquo;s Palace on the site of
+an hospital which had formerly stood there. He also
+possessed, amongst other royal retreats, Havering
+Bower, so called from the legend of St. Edward receiving
+a ring from St. John the Evangelist on this
+spot by the hands of a pilgrim from the Holy Land;
+which legend is represented at length in Westminster
+Abbey; Eltham, in Kent, where the king frequently
+passed his Christmas; Greenwich, where Elizabeth
+was born; and Woodstock, celebrated for</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">&ldquo;the unhappy fate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Rosamond, who long ago<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Prov&rsquo;d most unfortunate.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The ancient palace of the Savoy had changed its
+destination as a royal residence only in his father&rsquo;s
+time. With the single exception of Westminster&mdash;if
+indeed that&mdash;the most magnificent palace which
+the hand of liberality ever raised, which the finger
+of taste ever embellished. Various indeed have been
+the changes to which it has been doomed, and now
+not one stone remains on another to say that such
+things have been. Now&mdash;of the thousands who
+traverse the spot, scarce one, at long and far distant
+intervals, may glance at the dim memories of the
+past, to think of the plumed knights and high-born
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>249]</a></span>
+dames who revelled in its halls; the crowned and
+anointed kings who, monarch or captive, trod its
+lofty chambers; the gleaming warriors who paced its
+embattled courts; the gracious queen who caused its
+walls to echo the sounds of joy; the subtle heads
+which plodded beneath its gloomy shades; the unhappy
+exiles who found a refuge within its dim
+recesses; or<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> the lame, the sick, the impotent, who
+in the midst of suffering blessed the home that
+sheltered them, the hands that ministered to their
+woes.</p>
+
+<p>No. The majestic walls of the Savoy are in the
+dust, and not merely all trace, but all idea of its
+radiant gardens and sunny bowers, its sparkling
+fountains and verdant lawns, is lost even to the
+imagination in the matter-of-fact, business-like demeanour
+of the myriads of plodders who are ever
+traversing the dusty and bustling environs of Waterloo-bridge.
+In our closets we may perchance compel
+the unromantic realities of the present to yield
+beneath the brilliant imaginations of the past; but
+on the spot itself it is impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Who can stand in Wellington-street, on the verge
+of Waterloo-bridge, and fancy it a princely mansion
+from the lofty battlements of which a royal banner
+is flying, while numerous retainers keep watch below?
+Probably the sounds of harp and song may be heard
+as lofty nobles and courtly dames are seen to tread
+the verdant alleys and flower-bestrewn paths which
+lead to the bright and glancing river, where a costly
+barge (from which the sounds proceed) is waiting
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>250]</a></span>
+its distinguished freight. Ever and anon are these
+seen gliding along in the sunbeams, or resting at
+the avenue leading to one or other of the noble
+mansions with which the bright strand is sprinkled.</p>
+
+<p>Of these, perhaps, the most gorgeous is York-place,
+while farthest in the distance rise the fortified
+walls of the old palace of Westminster, inferior only
+to those of the ancient abbey, which are seen to
+rise, dimmed, yet distinct, in the soft but glowing
+haze cast around by the setting sun.</p>
+
+<p>And that building seen on the opposite side of
+the river? Strangely situated it seems, and in a
+swamp, and with none of the felicity of aspect appertaining
+to its loftier neighbour, the Savoy. Yet
+its lofty tower, its embattled gateway, seem to infer
+some important destination. And such it had.
+The unassuming and unattractively placed edifice
+has outlived its more aspiring neighbours; and
+while the stately palace of the Savoy is extinct, and
+the slight remains of Westminster are desecrated,
+the time-honoured walls of Lambeth yet shelter the
+head of learning and dignify the location in which
+they were reared.</p>
+
+<p>Eastward of our position the city looks dim and
+crowded; but, with the exception of the sprinkled
+mansions to which we have alluded, there is little to
+break the natural characteristics of the scene between
+Temple-bar and the West Minster. The hermitage
+and hospital on the site of Northumberland
+House harmonise well with the scene; the little
+cluster of cottages at Charing has a rural aspect;
+and that beautiful and touching memento of unfailing
+love and undiminished affection&mdash;that tribute
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>251]</a></span>
+to all that was good and excellent in woman&mdash;the
+Cross, which, formed of the purest and, as yet, unsoiled
+white marble, raised its emblem of faith and
+hope, gleaming like silver in the brilliant sky&mdash;that&mdash;would
+that we had it still!</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat nearer, the May-pole stands out in gay
+relief from the woods which envelop the hills northward,
+where yet the timid fawn could shelter, and
+the fearful hare forget its watch; where yet perchance
+the fairies held their revels when the moon
+shone bright; where they filled to the brim the
+&ldquo;fairy-cups&rdquo; and pledged each other in dew; where
+they played at &ldquo;hide and seek&rdquo; in the harebells,
+ran races in the branches of the trees, and nestled
+on the leaves, on which they glittered like diamonds;
+where they launched their tiny barks on the sparkling
+rivulets, breathing ere morning&rsquo;s dawn on the
+flowers to awaken them, tinting the gossamer&rsquo;s web
+with silver, and scattering pearls over the drops of
+dew.</p>
+
+<p>Closer around, among meadows and pastures, are
+all sounds and emblems of rural life; which as yet
+are but agreeably varied, not ruthlessly annihilated,
+by the encroachments of population and the increase
+of trade.</p>
+
+<p>Truly this is a difficult picture to realise on
+Waterloo-bridge, yet is it nevertheless a tolerably
+correct one of this portion of our metropolis at the
+time of &ldquo;The Field of the Cloth of Gold.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a>
+Henry.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a>
+Strutt&rsquo;s Manners and Customs.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a>
+It was at length converted into an hospital.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>252]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">THE NEEDLE.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;A grave Reformer of old Rents decay&rsquo;d.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">J. Taylor.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;His garment&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With thornes together pind and patched was.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Faerie Queene.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Tush, tush, her neele, her neele, her neele, man; neither flesh nor fish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">&nbsp;&nbsp;A lytle thing with an hole in the ende, as bright as any syller,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">&nbsp;&nbsp;Small, long, sharp at the point, and straight as any piller.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Diccon.</i> &ldquo;I know not what it is thou menest, thou bringst me more in doubt.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Knowest not what Tom tailor&rsquo;s man sits broching thro&rsquo; a clout?<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">&nbsp;&nbsp;A neele, a neele, a neele, my gammer&rsquo;s neele is gone.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Gammer Gurton&rsquo;s Needle.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>It is said in the old chronicles that previous to the
+arrival of Anne of Bohemia, Queen of Richard the
+Second, the English ladies fastened their robes with
+skewers; but as it is known that pins were in use
+among the early British, since in the barrows that
+have been opened numbers of &ldquo;neat and efficient&rdquo;
+ivory pins were found to have been used in arranging
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>253]</a></span>
+the grave-clothes, it is probable that this remark
+is unfounded.</p>
+
+<p>The pins of a later date than the above were made
+of boxwood, bone, ivory, and some few of silver.
+They were larger than those of the present day,
+which seem to have been unknown in England till
+about the middle of the fifteenth century. In 1543,
+however, the manufacture of brass pins had become
+sufficiently important to claim the attention of the
+legislature, an Act having been passed that year by
+which it was enacted, &ldquo;That no person shall put to
+sale any pins, but only such as shall be double
+headed and have the head soldered fast to the
+shank, the pins well smoothed, and the shank well
+sharpened.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Gloucestershire is noted for the number of its pin
+manufactories. They were first introduced in that
+county, in 1626, by John Tilsby; and it is said that
+at this time they employ 1,500 hands, and send up
+to the metropolis upwards of &pound;20,000 of pins annually.</p>
+
+<p>Our motto says, however, that his garment</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;With thornes together pind and <em>patched</em> was;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>and a French writer says, that before the invention
+of steel needles people were obliged to make use of
+thorns, fish bones, &amp;c., but that since &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">l&rsquo;&eacute;tablissement
+des soci&eacute;t&eacute;s, ce petit outil est devenu d&rsquo;un
+usage indispensable dans une infinit&eacute; d&rsquo;arts et d&rsquo;occasions</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He proceeds:&mdash;&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">De toutes les mani&egrave;res d&rsquo;attacher
+l&rsquo;un &agrave; l&rsquo;autre deux corps flexibles, celle qui se
+pratique avec l&rsquo;aiguille est une des plus universellement
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>254]</a></span>
+r&eacute;pandues: aussi distingue-t-on un grand
+nombre d&rsquo;aiguilles diff&eacute;rentes. On a les aiguilles &agrave;
+coudre, ou de tailleur; les aiguilles de chirurgie,
+d&rsquo;artillerie, de bonnetier, ou faiseur de bas au m&eacute;tier,
+d&rsquo;horloger, de cirier, de drapier, de gainier, de
+perruquier, de coiffeuse, de faiseur de coiffe &agrave; perruques,
+de piqueur d&rsquo;&eacute;tuis, tabati&egrave;res, et autres
+semblables ouvrages; de sellier, d&rsquo;ouvrier en soie,
+de brodeur, de tapissier, de chandelier, d&rsquo;emballeur;
+&agrave; matelas, &agrave; empointer, &agrave; tricoter, &agrave; enfiler, &agrave; presser,
+&agrave; brocher, &agrave; relier, &agrave; natter, &agrave; boussole ou aimant&eacute;e,
+&amp;c. &amp;c.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Needles are said to have been first made in England
+by a native of India, in 1545, but the art was
+lost at his death; it was, however, recovered by
+Christopher Greening, in 1560, who was settled with
+his three children, Elizabeth, John, and Thomas, by
+Mr. Damar, ancestor of the present Lord Milton,
+at Long Crendon, in Bucks, where the manufactory
+has been carried on from that time to the present
+period.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></p>
+
+<p>Thus our readers will remark, that until far on in
+the sixteenth century, there was not a needle to be
+had but of foreign manufacture; and bearing this
+circumstance in mind, they will be able to enter
+more fully into the feelings of those who set such
+inestimable value on a needle. And, indeed, <em>if</em> all
+we are told of them be true, needles could not be
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>255]</a></span>
+too highly esteemed. For instance, we were told of
+an old woman who had used one needle so long and
+so constantly for mending stockings, that at last the
+needle was able to do them of itself. At length,
+and while the needle was in the full perfection of its
+powers, the old woman died. A neighbour, whose
+numerous &ldquo;olive branches&rdquo; caused her to have a
+full share of matronly employment, hastened to
+possess herself of this domestic treasure, and gathered
+round her the weekly accumulation of sewing,
+not doubting but that with her new ally, the
+wonder-working needle, the unwieldy work-basket
+would be cleared, &ldquo;in no time,&rdquo; of its overflowing
+contents. But even the all-powerful needle was of
+no avail without thread, and she forthwith proceeded
+to invest it with a long one. But thread it she could
+not; it resisted her most strenuous endeavours. In
+vain she turned and re-turned the needle, the eye
+was plain enough to be seen; in vain she cut and
+screwed the thread, she burnt it in the candle, she
+nipped it with the scissars, she rolled it with her
+lips, she twizled it between her finger and thumb:
+the pointed end was fine as fine could be, but enter
+the eye of the needle it would not. At length, determined
+not to relinquish her project whilst any
+hope remained of its accomplishment, she borrowed
+a magnifying glass to examine the &ldquo;little weapon&rdquo;
+more accurately. And there, &ldquo;large as life and
+twice as natural,&rdquo; a pearly gem, a translucent drop,
+a crystal <em>tear</em> stood right in the gap, and filled to
+overflowing the eye of the needle. It was weeping
+for the death of its old mistress; it refused consolation;
+it was never threaded again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>256]</a></span>
+We give this incident on the testimony of a gallant
+naval officer; an unquestionable authority,
+though we are fully aware that some of our readers
+may be ungenerously sceptical, and perhaps even
+rude enough to attempt some vile pun about the
+brave sailor&rsquo;s &ldquo;drawing a long yarn.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>If, however, Gammer Gurton&rsquo;s needle resembled
+the one we have just referred to, and that, too, at a
+time when a needle, even not supernaturally endowed,
+was not to be had of English manufacture,
+and therefore could only be purchased probably at
+a high price, we cannot wonder at the aggrieved
+feelings of her domestic circle when the catastrophe
+occurred which is depicted as follows:&mdash;The parties
+interested were the Dame Gammer Gurton herself;
+Hodge, her farming man; Tib, her maid; Cocke,
+her boy; and Gib, her cat. The play from which
+our quotation is taken is not without some pretensions
+to wit, though of the coarsest kind: it is supposed
+to have been first performed at Christ&rsquo;s College,
+Cambridge, in 1566; and Warton observes on
+it, that while Latimer&rsquo;s sermons were in vogue at
+court, Gammer Gurton&rsquo;s needle might well be
+tolerated at the university.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6 smcap">Act I. Scene 3. Hodge and Tib.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;I am agast, by the masse, I wot not what to do;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I had need blesse me well before I go them to:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Perchance, some felon spirit may haunt our house indeed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And then I were but a noddy to venter where&rsquo;s no need.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Tib.</i><span class="space">&nbsp; </span>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m worse than mad, by the masse, to be at this stay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I&rsquo;m chid, I&rsquo;m blam&rsquo;d, and beaten all th&rsquo; hours on the day.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Lamed and hunger starved, pricked up all in jagges,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Having no patch to hide my backe, save a few rotten ragges.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>257]</a></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;I say, Tib, if thou be Tib, as I trow sure thou be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">What devil make ado is this between our dame and thee?&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Tib.</i><span class="space">&nbsp; </span>&ldquo;Truly, Hodge, thou had a good turn thou wart not here this while;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">It had been better for some of us to have been hence a mile:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">My Gammer is so out of course, and frantike all at once,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That Cocke, our boy, and I poor wench, have felt it on our bones.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;What is the matter, say on, Tib, whereat she taketh so on?&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Tib.</i><span class="space">&nbsp; </span>&ldquo;She is undone, she saith (alas) her life and joy is gone:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">If she hear not of some comfort, she is she saith but dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Shall never come within her lips, on inch of meat ne bread.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And heavy, heavy is her grief, as, Hodge, we all shall feel.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;My conscience, Tib, my Gammer has never lost her neele?&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Tib.</i><span class="space">&nbsp; </span>&ldquo;Her neele.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Her neele?&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Tib.</i><span class="space">&nbsp; </span>&ldquo;Her neele, by him that made me!&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;How a murrain came this chaunce (say Tib) unto her dame?&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Tib.</i><span class="space">&nbsp; </span>&ldquo;My Gammer sat her down on the pes, and bade me reach thy breches,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And by and by, a vengeance on it, or she had take two stitches<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To clout upon the knee, by chaunce aside she lears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And Gib our cat, in the milk pan, she spied over head and ears.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Ah! out, out, theefe, she cried aloud, and swapt the breeches down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Up went her staffe, and out leapt Gib at doors into the town:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And since that time was never wight cold set their eyes upon it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">God&rsquo;s malison she have Cocke and I bid twentie times light on it.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;And is not then my breches sewed up, to-morrow that I shuld wear?&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>258]</a></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Tib.</i><span class="space">&nbsp; </span>&ldquo;No, in faith, Hodge, thy breches lie, for all this never the near.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Now a vengeance light on al the sort, that better shold have kept it;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The cat, the house, and Tib our maid, that better should have swept it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Se, where she cometh crawling! Come on, come on thy lagging way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Ye have made a fair daies worke, have you not? pray you, say.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"> <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6 smcap">Act I. Scene 4. Gammer, Hodge, Tib, Cocke.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Gammer.</i> &ldquo;Alas, alas, I may well curse and ban<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">This day, that ever I saw it, with Gib and the milke pan.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For these, and ill lucke together, as knoweth Cocke my boy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Have stacke away my dear neele, and rob&rsquo;d me of my joy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">My fair long straight neele, that was mine only treasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The first day of my sorrow is, and last of my pleasure.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Might ha kept it when ye had it; but fools will be fools still:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Lose that is fast in your hands? ye need not, but ye will.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Gammer.</i> &ldquo;Go hie the, Tib, and run along, to th&rsquo; end here of the town.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Didst carry out dust in thy lap? seek where thou porest it down;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And as thou sawest me roking in the ashes where I morned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">So see in all the heap of dust thou leave no straw unturned.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Your neele lost? it is pitie you shold lacke care and endles sorrow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Tell me, how shall my breches be sewid? shall I go thus to-morrow?&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Gammer.</i> &ldquo;Ah, Hodge, Hodge, if that I could find my neele, by the reed,<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>259]</a></span>
+<span class="i4">I&rsquo;d sew thy breches, I promise the, with full good double threed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And set a patch on either knee, shall last this months twain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Now God, and Saint Sithe, I pray, to send it back again.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Whereto served your hands and eyes, but your neele keep?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">What devil had you els to do? ye keep, I wot, no sheep.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I&rsquo;m fain abrode to dig and delve, in water, mire and clay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Sossing and possing in the dirt, still from day to day<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A hundred things that be abroad, I&rsquo;m set to see them weel;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And four of you sit idle at home, and cannot keep a neele.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Gammer.</i> &ldquo;My neele, alas, I lost, Hodge, what time I me up hasted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To save milk set up for thee, which Gib our cat hath wasted.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Hodge.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;The devil he take both Gib and Tib, with all the rest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I&rsquo;m always sure of the worst end, whoever have the best.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Where ha you ben fidging abroad, since you your neele lost?&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Gammer.</i> &ldquo;Within the house, and at the door, sitting by this same post;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Where I was looking a long hour, before these folke came here;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">But, wel away! all was in vain, my neele is never the near!&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gammer Gurton&rsquo;s Needle,&rdquo; says Hazlitt, &ldquo;is a
+regular comedy, in five acts, built on the circumstance
+of an old woman having lost her needle
+which throws the whole village into confusion, till it
+is at last providentially found sticking in an unlucky
+part of Hodge&rsquo;s dress. This must evidently
+have happened at a time when the manufactures of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>260]</a></span>
+Sheffield and Birmingham had not reached the
+height of perfection which they have at present
+done. Suppose that there is only one sewing needle
+in a village, that the owner, a diligent notable old
+dame, loses it, that a mischief-making wag sets it
+about that another old woman has stolen this valuable
+instrument of household industry, that strict
+search is made every where in-doors for it in vain,
+and that then the incensed parties sally forth to
+scold it out in the open air, till words end in blows,
+and the affair is referred over to the higher authorities,
+and we shall have an exact idea (though,
+perhaps, not so lively a one) of what passes in this
+authentic document between Gammer Gurton and
+her gossip Dame Chat; Dickon the Bedlam (the
+causer of these harms); Hodge, Gammer Gurton&rsquo;s
+servant; Tyb, her maid; Cocke, her &rsquo;prentice boy;
+Doll Scapethrift; Master Baillie, his master; Dr.
+Rat, the curate; and Gib, the cat, who may fairly
+be reckoned one of the <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i>, and performs
+no mean part.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>From the needle itself the transition is easy to
+the needlework which was in vogue at the time when
+this little implement was so valuable and rare a
+commodity. We are told that the various kinds of
+needlework practised at this time would, if enumerated,
+astonish even the most industrious of our
+modern ladies. The lover of Shakspeare will remember
+that the term <em>point device</em> is often used by
+him, and that, indeed, it is a term frequently met
+with in the writers of that age with various applications;
+and it is originally derived, according to
+Mr. Douce, from the fine stitchery of the ladies.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>261]</a></span>
+It has been properly stated, that <em>point device</em> signifies
+<em>exact</em>, <em>nicely</em>, <em>finical</em>; but nothing has been
+offered concerning the etymology, except that we
+got the expression from the French. It has, in
+fact, been supplied from the labours of the needle.
+<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Poinct</i>, in the French language, denotes a <em>stitch</em>;
+<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">devise</i> any thing <em>invented</em>, disposed, or <em>arranged</em>.
+<em>Point devise</em> was, therefore, a particular sort of patterned
+lace worked with the needle; and the term
+<em>point lace</em> is still familiar to every female. They
+had likewise their <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">point-coup&eacute;</em>, <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">point-compt&eacute;</em>, <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dentelle
+au point devant l&rsquo;aiguille</em>, &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>But it is apparent, he adds, that the expression
+<em>point devise</em> became applicable, in a <em>secondary</em> sense,
+to whatever was uncommonly exact, or constructed
+with the nicety and precision of stitches made or
+devised with the needle.</p>
+
+<p>Various books of patterns of needlework for the
+assistance and encouragement of the fair stitchers
+were published in those days. Mr. Douce<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> enumerates
+some of them, and the omission of any part of
+his notation would be unpardonable in the present
+work.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest on the list is an Italian book, under
+the title of &ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Esemplario di lavori: dove le tenere
+fanciulle et altre donne nobile potranno facilmente
+imparare il modo et ordine di lavorare, cusire, raccamare,
+et finalmente far tutte quelle gentillezze et
+lodevili opere, le quali p&ograve; fare una donna virtuosa
+con laco in mano, con li suoi compasse et misure.
+Vinegia, per Nicolo D&rsquo;Aristotile detto Zoppino,
+<small>MDXXIX</small>.</span> 8vo.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>262]</a></span>The next that occurs was likewise set forth by an
+Italian, and entitled, &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les singuliers et nouveaux
+pourtraicts du Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo Venitien,
+pour toutes sortes d&rsquo;ouvrages de lingerie</span>.
+Paris, 1588. 4to.&rdquo; It is dedicated to the Queen of
+France, and had been already twice published.</p>
+
+<p>In 1599 a second part came out, which is much
+more difficult to be met with than the former, and
+sometimes contains a neat portrait, by Gaultier, of
+Catherine de Bourbon, the sister of Henry the
+Fourth.</p>
+
+<p>The next is &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Nouveaux pourtraicts de point
+coup&eacute; et dantelles en petite moyenne et grande
+forme, nouvellement inventez et mis en lumi&egrave;re.
+Imprim&eacute; &agrave; Montbeliard</span>, 1598. 4to.&rdquo; It has an address
+to the ladies, and a poem exhorting young
+damsels to be industrious; but the author&rsquo;s name
+does not appear. Vincentio&rsquo;s work was published
+in England, and printed by John Wolfe, under the
+title of &ldquo;New and Singular Patternes and Workes
+of Linnen, serving for paternes to make all sortes of
+lace, edginges, and cutworkes. Newly invented for
+the profite and contentment of ladies, gentilwomen,
+and others that are desireous of this Art. 1591. 4to.&rdquo;
+He seems also to have printed it with a French
+title.</p>
+
+<p>We have then another English book, of which
+this is the title: &ldquo;Here foloweth certaine Patternes
+of Cutworkes; newly invented and never published
+before. Also, sundry sortes of spots, as flowers,
+birdes, and fishes, &amp;c., and will fitly serve to be
+wrought, some with gould, some with silke, and
+some with crewell in coullers; or otherwise at your
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>263]</a></span>
+pleasure. And never but once published before.
+Printed by Rich. Shorleyker.&rdquo; No date. In oblong
+quarto.</p>
+
+<p>And lastly, another oblong quarto, entitled, &ldquo;The
+Needle&rsquo;s Excellency, a new booke, wherein are divers
+admirable workes wrought with the needle.
+Newly invented and cut in copper for the pleasure
+and profit of the industrious.&rdquo; Printed for James
+Boler, &amp;c., 1640. Beneath this title is a neat engraving
+of three ladies in a flower garden, under
+the names of Wisdom, Industrie, and Follie. Prefixed
+to the patterns are sundry poems in commendation
+of the needle, and describing the characters
+of ladies who have been eminent for their skill in
+needlework, among whom are Queen Elizabeth and
+the Countess of Pembroke. The poems were composed
+by John Taylor the water poet. It appears
+that the work had gone through twelve impressions,
+and yet a copy is now scarcely to be met with. This
+may be accounted for by supposing that such books
+were generally cut to pieces, and used by women to
+work upon or transfer to their samplers. From the
+dress of a lady and gentleman on one of the patterns
+in the last mentioned book, it appears to have
+been originally published in the reign of James the
+First. All the others are embellished with a multitude
+of patterns elegantly cut in wood, several of which are
+eminently conspicuous for their taste and beauty.</p>
+
+<p>We are happy to add a little further information
+on some of these works, and on others preserved in
+the British Museum.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les singuliers et nouveaux Pourtraicts du Seigneur
+Federic de Vinciolo Venitien, pour toutes
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>264]</a></span>
+sortes d&rsquo;ouvrages de Lingerie. D&eacute;di&eacute; &agrave; la Reyne.
+A Paris</span>, 1578.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a></p>
+
+<p>The book opens with a sonnet to the fair, which
+announces to them an admirable motive for the
+work itself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pour tromper vos ennuis, et l&rsquo;esprit employer.</span>&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Aux Dames et Damoyselles.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7 smcap" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Sonnet.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">&ldquo;L&rsquo;un s&rsquo;efforce &agrave; gaigner le c&oelig;ur des <ins class="contr" title="grands">gr&atilde;ds</ins> Seigneurs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pour posseder en fin une exquise richesse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L&rsquo;autre aspire aux estats, pour monter en altesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et l&rsquo;autre, par la guerre all&eacute;che les honneurs.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">&ldquo;Quand &agrave; moy, seulement pour chasser mes langueurs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Je me sen satisfaict de vivre en petitesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et de faire si bien, qu&rsquo;aux Dames ie delaisse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Un grand contentement en mes graves labeurs.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">&ldquo;Prenez doncques en gr&eacute; (mes Dames) ie vous prie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ces pourtrais ouvragez lesquels ie vous dedie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pour tromper vos ennuis, et l&rsquo;esprit employer.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">&ldquo;En ceste nouveaut&eacute;, pourrez beaucoup apprendre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et maistresses en fin en cest &oelig;uvre vous rendre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le travail est plaisant: Si grand est le loyer.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Which, barring elegant diction and poetic rule,
+may be read thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whilst one man worships lordly state<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As yielding all that he desires&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This, fertile acres begs from fate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Another, bloody laurels fires.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To dissipate my devils blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trifles, I&rsquo;m satisfied to do;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For surely if the fair I please,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My very labours smack of ease.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>265]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Take then, fair ladies, I you pray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The book which at your feet I lay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To make you happy, brisk and gay.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There&rsquo;s much you here may learn anew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">comme il faut</i> will render you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bring you joy and honour too.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Proceed we to the&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ouvrages de point Coup&eacute;</span>,&rdquo; of which there are
+thirty-six. Some birds, animals, and figures are
+introduced; but the patterns are chiefly arabesque,
+set off in white, on a thick black ground.</p>
+
+<p>Then, with a repetition of the ornamented title-page,
+come about fifty patterns, which are represented
+much like the German patterns of the present
+day, in squares for stitches, but not so finely wrought
+as some which we shall presently notice. These
+patterns consist of arabesques, figures, birds, beasts,
+flowers, in every variety. To many the stitches are
+ready counted (as well as pourtrayed), thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ce P&eacute;lican contient en longueur 70 mailles, et
+en hauteur 65.</span>&rdquo; This pattern of maternity is represented
+as pecking her breast, towards which three
+young ones are flying; their course being indicated
+by the three lines of white stitches, all converging
+to the living nest.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ce Griffon <ins class="contr" title="contient">c&otilde;tient</ins> en hauteur 58 mailles, et en
+<ins class="contr" title="longueur">l&otilde;gueur</ins> 67.</span>&rdquo; Small must be the skill of the needlewoman
+who does not make this a very rampant
+animal indeed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ce Paon contient en longueur 65 mailles, et en
+hauteur 61.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La Licorne en hauteur <ins class="contr" title="contient">c&otilde;ti&#7869;t</ins> 44 mailles, et en
+longueur 62</span>, &amp;c. &amp;c.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>266]</a></span>
+&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La bordure contient 25 mailles.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La bordure de haut <ins class="contr" title="contient">c&otilde;ti&#7869;t</ins> 35 mailles.</span>&rdquo; This is
+a very handsome one, resembling pine apples.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ce quarr&eacute; contient 65 mailles.</span>&rdquo; There are several
+of these squares, and borders appended, of
+very rich patterns.</p>
+
+<p>But the book contains far more ambitious designs.
+There are Sol, Luna, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus,
+Saturn, Neptune, and others, whose dignities and
+vocation must be inferred from the emblematical
+accompaniments.</p>
+
+<p>There is &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La D&eacute;esse des fleurs repr&eacute;sentant le
+printemps</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La D&eacute;esse des Bleds representant l&rsquo;est&eacute;.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ce Bacchus representant l&rsquo;Autonne.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ceste figure representant l&rsquo;hiver</span>,&rdquo; &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Appended is this &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Extraict du Privilege</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Per grace et privelege du Roy, est permis a Jean
+le Clerc le jeune, tailleur d&rsquo;histoires &agrave; Paris, d&rsquo;imprimer
+ou faire imprimer <ins class="contr" title="vendre">v&#7869;dre</ins> et distribuer un livre
+intitul&eacute; livre de patrons de Lingerie, <span class="smcap">Dedie a la
+Royne</span>, nouvellement invent&eacute; par le Seigneur Federic
+de Vinciolo Venitien, avec deffences &agrave; tous
+Libraires, Imprimeurs, ou autres, de quelque condition
+et qualit&eacute; quilz soyent, de faire ny contrefaire,
+aptisser ny <ins class="contr" title="agrandir">agr&atilde;dir</ins>, ou pocher lesdits figures, ny
+exposer en vente ledict Livre sans le <ins class="contr" title="cong&eacute;">c&otilde;g&eacute;</ins> ou permission
+dudict le Clerc, et ce jusques au temps et
+terme de neuf ans finis et accomplis, sur peine de
+confiscation de tous les livres qui se trouveront imprimez,
+et damande arbitraire: comme plus a plein
+est declar&eacute; en lettres patentes, donn&eacute;es &agrave; Paris ce
+douziesme jour de Novembre, 1587.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>267]</a></span>
+Another work, preserved in the British Museum,
+was published at Strasbourg, 1596, seemingly from
+designs of the same Vinciolo. These consist of
+about six-and-thirty plates, with patterns in white
+on a black ground, consisting of a few birds and
+figures, but chiefly of stars and wreaths pricked out
+in every possible variety; and at the end of the
+book a dozen richly wrought patterns, without any
+edging, were seemingly designed for what we should
+now call &ldquo;insertion&rdquo; work or lace.</p>
+
+<p>There is another, by the same author, printed at
+Basil in 1599, which varies but slightly from the
+foregoing.</p>
+
+<p>This Frederick de Vinciolo is doubtless the same
+person who was summoned to France, by Catherine
+de Medicis, to instruct the ladies of the court in the
+art of netting the lace of which the then fashionable
+ruffs were made.</p>
+
+<p>In another volume we have&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Corona delle Nobili et virtuose Donne, nel
+quale si dimostra in varij Dissegni tutte le sorti di
+Mostre di punti tagliati, punti in Aria, punti Fiamenghi,
+punti &agrave; Reticelle, e d&rsquo;ogni altre sorte, cosi
+per Freggi, per Merli, e Rosette, che con l&rsquo;Aco si
+usano hoggid&igrave; per tutta l&rsquo;Europa.</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">E molte delle quali Mostre possono servire ancora
+per opere a Mazzette.</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Con le dichiarationi a le Mostre a Lavori fatti
+da Lugretia Romana.</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">In Venetia appresso Alessandro di Vecchi, 1620.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The plates here are very similar to those in the
+above-mentioned works. Some are accompanied by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>268]</a></span>
+short explanations, saying where they are most used
+and to whom they are best suited, as&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Hopera Bellissima, che per il pi&ugrave; le Signore
+Duchese, et altre Signore si servono per li suoi
+lavori.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Queste bellissime Rosette usano anco le gentildonne
+Venetiane da far traverse.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But certainly the best work of the kind is, &ldquo;The
+Needle&rsquo;s Excellency,&rdquo; referred to in Mr. Douce&rsquo;s
+list. It contains a variety of plates, of which the
+patterns are all, or nearly all, arabesque. They are
+beautifully executed, many of them being very similar
+to, and equally fine with, the German patterns
+before the colouring is put on, which, though it
+guides the eye, defaces the work. These are seldom
+seen uncoloured, the Germans having a jealousy of
+sending them; but we have seen, through the polite
+attention of Mr. Wilks, of Regent Street, one or two
+in this state, and we could not but admire the extreme
+delicacy and beauty of the work. Some few
+of the patterns in the book we are now referring to
+are so extremely similar, that we doubt not the modern
+artists have borrowed the <em>idea</em> of their beautifully
+traced patterns from this or some similar work;
+thereby adding one more proof of the truth of the
+oft quoted proverb, &ldquo;There is nothing new under
+the sun.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As a fitting close to this chapter, we give the
+Needle&rsquo;s praises in full, as sung by the water poet,
+John Taylor, and prefixed to the last-mentioned
+work.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>269]</a></span>
+<span class="i3 smcap">The Praise of the Needle.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;To all dispersed sorts of arts and trades,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I write the needles prayse (that never fades)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So long as children shall be got or borne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So long as garments shall be made or worne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So long as hemp or flax, or sheep shall bear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their linnen wollen fleeces yeare by yeare:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So long as silkwormes, with exhausted spoile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of their own entrailes for man&rsquo;s gaine shall toyle:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yea till the world be quite dissolv&rsquo;d and past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So long at least, the needles use shall last:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And though from earth his being did begin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet through the fire he did his honour win:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And unto those that doe his service lacke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He&rsquo;s true as steele and mettle to the backe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He hath indeed, I see, small single sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet like a pigmy, <em>Polipheme</em> in fight:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As a stout captaine, bravely he leades on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Not fearing colours) till the worke be done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through thicke and thinne he is most sharpely set,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With speed through stitch, he will the conquest get.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as a souldier (Frenchefyde with heat)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Maim&rsquo;d from the warres is forc&rsquo;d to make retreat;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So when a needles point is broke, and gone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><em>No point Mounsieur</em>, he&rsquo;s maim&rsquo;d, his worke is done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And more the needles honour to advance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It is a tailor&rsquo;s javelin, or his lance;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for my countries quiet, I should like,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That women kinde should use no other pike.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It will increase their peace, enlarge their store,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To use their tongues lesse, and their needles more.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The needles sharpnesse, profit yields, and pleasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But sharpnesse of the tongue, bites out of measure.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A needle (though it be but small and slender)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet it is both a maker and a mender:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A grave Reformer of old rents decay&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stops holes and seames and desperate cuts display&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thus without the needle we may see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We should without our bibs and biggins bee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No shirts or smockes, our nakednesse to hide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No garments gay, to make us magnifide:<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>270]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">No shadowes, shapparoones, caules, bands, ruffs, kuffs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No kerchiefes, quoyfes, chinclouts, or marry-muffes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No croscloaths, aprons, handkerchiefes, or falls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No table-cloathes, for parlours or for halls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No sheetes, no towels, napkins, pillow beares,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor any garment man or woman weares.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus is a needle prov&rsquo;d an instrument<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of profit, pleasure, and of ornament.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which mighty queenes have grac&rsquo;d in hand to take,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And high borne ladies such esteeme did make,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That as their daughters daughters up did grow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The needles art, they to the children show.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as &rsquo;twas then an exercise of praise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So what deserves more honour in these dayes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than this? which daily doth itselfe expresse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A mortall enemy to idlenesse.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The use of sewing is exceeding old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As in the sacred text it is enrold:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our parents first in Paradise began,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who hath descended since from man to man:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mothers taught their daughters, sires their sons<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus in a line successively it runs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For generall profit, and for recreation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From generation unto generation.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With work like cherubims embroidered rare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The covers of the tabernacle were.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And by the Almighti&rsquo;s great command, we see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Aaron&rsquo;s garments broidered worke should be;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And further, God did bid his vestments should<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be made most gay, and glorious to behold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus plainly and most truly is declar&rsquo;d<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The needles worke hath still bin in regard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For it doth art, so like to nature frame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if it were her sister, or the same.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flowers, plants and fishes, beasts, birds, flyes, and bees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hills, dales, plaines, pastures, skies, seas, rivers, trees;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There&rsquo;s nothing neere at hand, or farthest sought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But with the needle may be shap&rsquo;d and wrought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In clothes of arras I have often seene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men&rsquo;s figur&rsquo;d counterfeits so like have beene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That if the parties selfe had been in place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet art would vie with nature for the grace;<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>271]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Moreover, posies rare, and anagrams,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Signifique searching sentences from names,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">True history, or various pleasant fiction,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In sundry colours mixt, with arts commixion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All in dimension, ovals, squares, and rounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arts life included within natures bounds:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So that art seemeth merely naturall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In forming shapes so geometricall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And though our country everywhere is fild<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With ladies, and with gentlewomen, skild<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In this rare art, yet here they may discerne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some things to teach them if they list to learne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as this booke some cunning workes doth teach,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Too hard for meane capacities to reach)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So for weake learners, other workes here be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As plaine and easie as are A B C.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus skilful, or unskilful, each may take<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This booke, and of it each good use may make,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All sortes of workes, almost that can be nam&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here are directions how they may be fram&rsquo;d:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for this kingdomes good are hither come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the remotest parts of Christendome,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Collected with much paines and industrie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From scorching <em>Spaine</em> and freezing <em>Muscovie</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From fertill <em>France</em>, and pleasant <em>Italy</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From <em>Poland</em>, <em>Sweden</em>, <em>Denmark</em>, <em>Germany</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And some of these rare patternes have beene fet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond the bounds of faithlesse <em>Mahomet</em>:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From spacious <em>China</em>, and those kingdomes East,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from great <em>Mexico</em>, the Indies West.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus are these workes, <em>farrefetcht</em> and <em>dearely bought</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And consequently <em>good for ladies thought</em>.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor doe I derogate (in any case)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or doe esteeme of other teachings base,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For <em>tent worke</em>, <em>rais&rsquo;d worke</em>, <em>laid worke</em>, <em>frost works</em>, <em>net worke</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Most curious <em>purles</em>, or rare <em>Italian cut worke</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fine, <em>ferne stitch</em>, <em>finny stitch</em>, <em>new stitch</em>, and <em>chain stitch</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brave <em>bred stitch</em>, <em>Fisher stitch</em>, <em>Irish stitch</em>, and <em>Queen stitch</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The <em>Spanish stitch</em>, <em>Rosemary stitch</em>, and <em>Mowse stitch</em><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The smarting <em>whip stitch</em>, <em>back stitch</em>, and the <em>crosse stitch</em><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All these are good, and these we must allow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And these are everywhere in practise now:<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>272]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And in this booke there are of these some store,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With many others, never seene before.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here practise and invention may be free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as a squirrel skips from tree to tree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So maids may (from their mistresse or their mother)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Learne to leave one worke, and to learne another,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For here they may make choice of which is which,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And skip from worke to worke, from stitch to stitch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until, in time, delightful practise shall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(With profit) make them perfect in them all.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus hoping that these workes may have this guide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To serve for ornament, and not for pride:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To cherish vertue, banish idlenesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For these ends, may this booke have good successe.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a>
+It is worth while to remark the circumstance, that by a machine
+of the simplest construction, being nothing in fact but a tray, 20,000
+needles thrown promiscuously together, mixed and entangled in every
+way, are laid parallel, heads to heads, and points to points, in the
+course of three or four minutes.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a>
+Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 92.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a>
+This seems to be a somewhat earlier edition of the second book
+in Mr. Douce&rsquo;s list.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>273]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">TAPESTRY FROM THE CARTOONS.</span></h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">&ldquo;For, round about, the walls yclothed were<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With goodly Arras of great majesty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Woven with gold and silk so close and nere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That the rich metal lurked privily,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As faining to be hidd from envious eye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Yet here, and there, and every where unwares<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">It shew&rsquo;d itselfe and shone unwillingly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Like to a discolour&rsquo;d Snake, whose hidden snares<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the greene gras his long bright burnisht back declares.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Faerie Queene.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>Raphael, whose name is familiar to all &ldquo;as a household
+word,&rdquo; seems to have been equally celebrated
+for a handsome person, an engaging address, an
+amiable disposition, and high talents. Language
+exhausts itself in his eulogy.<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> But the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>274]</a></span>
+extravagant encomiums of Lanzi and others must
+be taken in a very modified sense, ere we arrive at
+the rigid truth. The tone of morals in Italy &ldquo;did
+not correspond with evangelical purity;&rdquo; and Raphael&rsquo;s
+follies were not merely permitted, but encouraged
+and fostered by those who sought eagerly
+for the creations of his pencil. His thousand engaging
+qualities were disfigured by a licentiousness
+which probably shortened his career, for he died at
+the early age of thirty-seven.</p>
+
+<p>Great and sincere was the grief expressed at
+Rome for his untimely death, and no testimony of
+sorrow could be more affecting, more simple, or
+more highly honourable to its object than the
+placing his picture of the Transfiguration over his
+mortal remains in the chamber wherein he died.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>275]</a></span>
+It was probably within two years of the close of
+his short life when he was engaged by Pope Leo the
+Tenth to paint those cartoons which have more than
+all his works immortalised his name, and which
+render the brief hints we have given respecting him
+peculiarly appropriate to this work.</p>
+
+<p>The cartoons were designs, from Scripture chiefly,
+from which were to be woven hangings to ornament
+the apartments of the Vatican; and their dimensions
+being of course proportioned to the spaces they
+were designed to fill, the tapestries, though equal in
+height, differed extremely in breadth.</p>
+
+<p>The designs were,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>1. The Nativity.</p>
+
+<p class="negmargin">2. The Adoration of the Magi.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Numbers 3, 4 and 5 bracketed with the same title">
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tdl" rowspan="4" style="font-size: 500%;">}</td>
+    <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">3.</td>
+    <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">4.</td>
+    <td class="tdl">The Slaughter of the Innocents.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl">5.</td>
+    <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>6. The Presentation in the Temple.</p>
+
+<p>7. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes.</p>
+
+<p>8. St. Peter receiving the Keys.</p>
+
+<p>9. The Descent of Christ into Limbus.</p>
+
+<p>10. The Resurrection.</p>
+
+<p>11. Noli me tangere.</p>
+
+<p>12. Christ at Emmaus.</p>
+
+<p>13. The Ascension.</p>
+
+<p>14. The Descent of the Holy Ghost.</p>
+
+<p>15. The Martyrdom of St. Stephen.</p>
+
+<p>16. The Conversion of St. Paul.</p>
+
+<p>17. Paul and Barnabas at Lystra.</p>
+
+<p>18. Paul Preaching.</p>
+
+<p>19. Death of Ananias.</p>
+
+<p>20. Elymas the Sorcerer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>276]</a></span>
+21. An earthquake; showing the delivery of Paul
+and Silas from prison: named from the
+earthquake which shook the foundations of
+the building. The artist endeavours to
+render it ideally visible to the spectator by
+placing a gigantic figure, which appears to
+be raising the superincumbent weight on
+his shoulders; but the result is not altogether
+successful.</p>
+
+<p>22. St. Peter healing the cripple.</p>
+
+<p>23-24. Contain emblems alluding to Leo the
+Tenth. These are preserved in one of
+the private apartments of the Vatican
+palace.</p>
+
+<p>25. Justice. In this subject the figures of Religion,
+Charity, and Justice are seen above
+the papal armorial bearings. The last
+figure gives name to the whole.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>When the cartoons were finished they were sent
+into Flanders to be woven (at the famous manufactory
+at Arras) under the superintendence of Barnard
+Van Orlay of Brussels, and Michael Coxis, artists
+who had been for some years pupils of Raphael at
+Rome. Two sets were executed with the utmost
+care and cost, but the death of Raphael, the murder
+of the Pope, and subsequent intestine troubles seem
+to have delayed their appropriation. They cost
+seventy thousand crowns, a sum which is said to
+have been defrayed by Francis the First of France,
+in consideration of Leo&rsquo;s having canonised St.
+Francis of Paola, the founder of the Minims.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian the Second was a man &ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">alienissimo
+da ogni bell&rsquo;arte;</span>&rdquo; an indifference which may
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>277]</a></span>
+account for the cartoons not being sent with the
+tapestries to Rome, though some accounts say that
+the debt for their manufacture remained unliquidated,
+and that the paintings were kept in Flanders
+as security for it. They were carried away by the
+Spanish army in 1526-7 during the sack of Rome,
+but were restored by the zeal and spirit of Montmorenci
+the French general, as set forth in the
+woven borders of the tapestries Nos. 6 and 9. Pope
+Paul the Fourth (1555) first introduced them to the
+gaze of the public by exhibiting them before the
+Basilica of St. Peter on the festival of Corpus Domini,
+and also at the solemn &ldquo;function of Beatification.&rdquo;
+This use of them was continued through
+part of the last century, and is now resumed.</p>
+
+<p>In 1798 they were taken by the French from
+Rome and sold to a Jew at Leghorn, and one of
+them was burnt by him in order to extract the gold
+with which they were richly interwoven; but happily
+they did not furnish so much spoil as the speculator
+hoped, and this devastation was arrested. The one
+that was destroyed represented Christ&rsquo;s Descent into
+Limbus; the rest were repurchased for one thousand
+three hundred crowns, and restored to the
+Vatican in 1814.</p>
+
+<p>We have alluded to two sets of these tapestries,
+and it is believed that there were two; whether
+<em>exactly</em> counterparts has not been ascertained. We
+have traced the migrations of one set. The other
+was, according to some authorities, presented by
+Pope Leo the Tenth to our Henry the Eighth;
+whilst others say that our king purchased it from
+the state of Venice. It was hung in the Banqueting
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>278]</a></span>
+House of Whitehall, and after the unhappy execution
+of Charles the First, was put up, amongst other
+royal properties, to sale. Being purchased by the
+Spanish ambassador, it became the property of the
+house of Alva, and within a few years back was sold
+by the head of that illustrious house to Mr. Tupper,
+our consul in Spain, and by him sent back to this
+country.</p>
+
+<p>These tapestries were then exhibited for some
+time in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, and were
+afterwards repurchased by a foreigner. Probably
+they have been making a &ldquo;progress&rdquo; throughout
+the kingdom, as within this twelvemonth we had
+the satisfaction of viewing them at the principal
+town in a northern county. The motto of our chapter
+might have been written expressly for these tapestries,
+so exquisitely accurate is the description as
+applied to them of the gold thread:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&ldquo;As here and there, and every where unwares<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It shew&rsquo;d itselfe and shone unwillingly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like to a discolour&rsquo;d snake, whose hidden snares<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the greene gras his long bright burnisht back declares.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The cartoons themselves, the beautiful originals
+of these magnificent works, remained in the Netherlands,
+and were all, save seven, lost and destroyed
+through the ravages of time, and chance, and revolution.
+These seven, much injured by neglect, and
+almost pounced into holes by the weaver tracing his
+outlines, were purchased by King Charles the First,
+and are now justly considered a most valuable possession.
+It is supposed that the chief object of
+Charles in the purchase was to supply the then
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>279]</a></span>
+existing tapestry manufactory at Mortlake with
+superior designs for imitation. Five of them were
+<em>certainly</em> woven there, and it is far from improbable
+that the remaining ones were also.<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a></p>
+
+<p>There was also a project for weaving them by a
+person of the name of James Christopher Le Blon,
+and houses were built and looms erected at Chelsea
+expressly for that purpose, but the design failed.</p>
+
+<p>The &ldquo;British Critic,&rdquo; for January, this year, has
+the following spirited remarks with regard to the
+present situation of the cartoons. &ldquo;The cartoons
+of Raffaelle are very unfairly seen in their present
+locale; a long gallery built for the purpose by William
+the Third, but in which the light enters through
+common chamber windows, and therefore is so much
+below the cartoons as to leave the greater part of
+them in shade. We venture to say there is no
+country in Europe in which such works as these&mdash;unique,
+and in their class invaluable&mdash;would be
+treated with so little honour. It has been decided
+by competent opinions, that their removal to London
+would be attended with great risk to their preservation,
+from the soot, damp, accumulation of dust,
+and other inconveniences, natural or incident to a
+crowded city. This, however, is no fair reason for
+their being shut up in their present ill-assorted
+apartment. There is not a petty state in Germany
+that would not erect a gallery on purpose for them;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>280]</a></span>
+and a few thousand pounds would be well bestowed
+in providing a fitting receptacle for some of the
+finest productions of human genius in art; and of the
+full value of which we <em>alone</em>, their possessors, seem
+to be comparatively insensible. Various portions
+of cartoons by Raffaelle, part of the same series or
+set, exist in England; and it is far from unlikely
+that, were there a proper place to preserve and exhibit
+the whole in, these would in time, by presentation
+or purchase, become the property of the country,
+and we should then possess a monument of the
+greatest master of his art, only inferior to that
+which he has left on the walls of the Vatican.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Of all these varied and beautiful paintings, that of
+the Adoration of the Magi, from the variety of character
+and expression, the splendor and oriental
+pomp of the whole, the multitude of persons, between
+forty and fifty, the various accessaries, elephants,
+horses, &amp;c., with the variety of splendid and ornamental
+illustrations, and the exquisite grouping, is
+considered as the most attractive and brilliant in
+tapestry. As a piece of general and varied interest
+it may be so; but we well remember being, not so
+suddenly struck, as attracted and fascinated by the
+figure of the Christ when, after his resurrection, he
+is recommending the care of his flock to St. Peter.
+The colours have faded gradually and equably&mdash;(an
+advantage not possessed by the others, where some
+tints which have stood the ravages of time better
+than those around them, are in places strikingly and
+painfully discordant)&mdash;but in this figure the colours,
+though greatly faded, have yet faded so harmoniously
+as to add very much to the illusion, giving
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>281]</a></span>
+to the figure really the appearance of one risen from
+the dead. The outline is majestic; turn which way
+we would, we involuntarily returned to look again.
+At length we mentioned our admiration to the
+superintendent, and the reply of the enthusiastic
+foreigner precluded all further remark&mdash;for nothing
+further could be said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Madam, I should have been astonished if you
+had not admired that figure: <em>it is itself</em>; it is precisely
+<em>the finest thing in the world</em>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a>
+For example:&mdash;&ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Egli avea tenuto sempre un contegno da guadagnarsi
+il cuore di tutto. Rispettoso verso il maestro, ottenne dal
+Papa che le sue pitture in una volta delle camere Vaticane rimanessero
+intatte; giusto verso i suoi emuli ringraziava Dio d&rsquo;averlo fatto
+nascere a&rsquo; tempi del Bonarruoti; grazioso verso i discepoli gl&rsquo;istru&igrave;
+e gli am&ograve; come figli; cortese anche verso gl&rsquo;ignoti, a chiunque
+ricorse a lui per consiglio prest&ograve; liberalmente l&rsquo;opera sua, e per far
+disegni ad altrui o dar gl&rsquo;indirizzo lasci&ograve; indietro talvolta i lavori
+propri, non sapendo non pure di negar grazia, ma differirla.</span>&rdquo;&mdash;Lanzi,
+vol. ii.</p>
+
+<p>Consequently when his body before interment lay in the room in
+which he was accustomed to paint, &ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Non v&rsquo;ebbe s&igrave; duro artefice che
+a quello spettacolo non lagrimasse.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Ne pianse il Papa.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Of his works:&mdash;&ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Le sue figure veramente amano, languiscono, temono,
+sperano, ardiscono; mostrano ira, placabilit&agrave;, umilt&agrave;, orgoglio,
+come mette bene alla storia: spesso chi mira que&rsquo; volti, que&rsquo; guardi,
+quelle mosse, non si ricorda che ha innanzi una immagine; si sente
+accendere, prende partito, crede di trovarsi in sul fatto.&mdash;Tutto parla
+nel silenzio; ogni attore, <em>Il cor negli occhi e nella fronte ha scritto</em>; i
+piccioli movimenti degli occhi, degli narici, della bocca, delle dita
+corrispondono a&rsquo; primi moti d&rsquo;ogni passione; i gesti pi&ugrave; animati e
+pi&ugrave; vivi ne descrivono la violenza; e ci&ograve; ch&rsquo;&egrave; pi&ugrave;, essi variano in
+cento modi senza uscir mai del naturale, e si attemperano a cento caratteri
+senza uscir mai dalla propriet&agrave;. L&rsquo;eroe ha movimenti da eroe,
+il volgar da volgare; e quel che non descriverebbe lingua n&egrave; penna,
+descrive in pochissimi tratti l&rsquo;ingegno e l&rsquo;arte di Raffaello.</span>&rdquo;&mdash;p. 65.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Il paese, gli elementi, gli animali, le fabbriche, le manifatture,
+ogni et&agrave; dell&rsquo;uomo, ogni condizione, ogni affetto, tutte comprese con
+la divinit&agrave; del suo ingegno, tutto ridusse pi&ugrave; bello.</span>&rdquo;&mdash;p. 71.</p>
+
+<p>I have thought this long extract pardonable as applied to one
+whose finest designs are now, through so many channels, rendered familiar
+to us.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a>
+In a priced catalogue of His Majesty&rsquo;s collection of &ldquo;Limnings,&rdquo;
+edited by Vertue, is the following entry. &ldquo;Item, in a slit box-wooden
+case, some <small>TWO CARTOONS</small> of Raphael Urbinus for hangings to be
+made by, and <em>the other <small>FIVE</small> are by the King&rsquo;s appointment delivered
+to Mr. Francis Cleen at Mortlake, to make hangings by</em>.&rdquo;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cartonensia.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>282]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">THE DAYS OF &ldquo;GOOD QUEEN BESS.&rdquo;</span></h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;A worthie woman judge, a woman sent for staie.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;When Fame resounds with thundring trump, which rends the ratling skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And pierceth to the hautie Heavens, and thence descending flies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through flickering ayre: and so conjoines the sea and shore togither,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In admiration of thy grace, good Queene, thou&rsquo;rt welcome hither.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet"><i>The Receyving of the Queene&rsquo;s Maiestie into hir Citie of Norwich.</i><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapblock">
+<p>&ldquo;We may justly wonder what has become of the industry of the
+English ladies; we hear no more of their rich embroiderings, and
+curious needlework. Is all the domestic simplicity of the former
+ages entirely vanished?&rdquo;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Aikin.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The age of Elizabeth presents a never-failing field
+of variety through which people of all tastes may
+delightedly rove, gathering flowers at will. The
+learned statesman, the acute politician, the subtle
+lawyer, will find in the measures of her Burleigh,
+her Walsingham, her Cecil, abundant food for approbation
+or for censure; the heroic sailor will glory
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>283]</a></span>
+over the achievements of her time; the adventurous
+traveller will explore the Eldoradic regions with
+Raleigh, or plough the waves with Drake and Frobisher;
+the soldier will recal glorious visions of
+Essex and Sidney, while poesy wreathes a bay
+round the memory of the last, which shines freshly
+and bright even in the age which produced a Ben
+Jonson, and him &ldquo;who was born with a star on his
+forehead to last through all time&rdquo;&mdash;Shakspeare.</p>
+
+<p>The age of Elizabeth was especially a learned
+age. The study of the dead languages had hitherto
+been confined almost exclusively to ecclesiastics and
+scholars by profession, but from the time of Henry
+the Seventh it had been gradually spreading
+amongst the higher classes. The great and good
+Sir Thomas More gave his daughters a learned
+education, and they did honour to it; Henry the
+Eighth followed his example; Lady Jane Grey
+made learning lovely; and Elizabeth&rsquo;s pedantry
+brought the habit into full fashion.</p>
+
+<p>If a queen were to talk Sanscrit, her court would
+endeavour to do so likewise. The example of
+learned studies was given by the queen herself, who
+translated from the Greek a play of Euripides, and
+parts of Isocrates, Xenophon, and Plutarch; from
+the Latin considerable portions of Cicero, Seneca,
+Sallust, Horace, &amp;c. She wrote many Latin letters,
+and is said to have spoken five languages with
+facility. As a natural consequence the nobility and
+gentry, their wives and daughters, became enthusiasts
+in the cause of letters. The novelty which
+attended these studies, the eager desire to possess
+what had been so long studiously and jealously
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>284]</a></span>
+concealed, and the curiosity to explore and rifle the
+treasures of the Greek and Roman world, which
+mystery and imagination had swelled into the marvellous,
+contributed to excite an absolute passion
+for study and for books. The court, the ducal
+castle, and the baronial hall were suddenly converted
+into academies, and could boast of splendid
+tapestries. In the first of these, according to
+Ascham, might be seen the queen reading &ldquo;more
+Greeke every day than some prebendarie of this
+church doth read <em>Latin</em> in a whole week;&rdquo; and while
+she was translating Isocrates or Seneca, it may be
+easily conceived that her maids of honour found it
+convenient to praise and to adopt the disposition of
+her time. In the second, observes Warton, &ldquo;the
+daughter of a duchess was taught not only to distil
+strong waters, but to construe Greek; and in the
+third, every young lady who aspired to be fashionable
+was compelled, in imitation of the greater
+world, to exhibit similar marks of erudition.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A contemporary writer says, that some of the
+ladies of the court employ themselves &ldquo;in continuall
+reading either of the holie Scriptures, or histories
+of our owne or forren nations about us, and diverse
+in writing volumes of their owne, or translating of
+other mens into our English and Latine toongs. I
+might here (he adds) make a large discourse of such
+honorable and grave councellors, and noble personages,
+as give their dailie attendance upon the
+queene&rsquo;s majestie. I could in like sort set foorth a
+singular commendation of the vertuous beautie, or
+beautiful vertues of such ladies and gentlewomen
+as wait upon his person, betweene whose amiable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>285]</a></span>
+countenances and costlinesse of attire there seemeth
+to be such a dailie conflict and contention, as that it
+is verie difficult for me to gesse whether of the twaine
+shall beare awaie the preheminence. This further
+is not to be omitted, to the singular commendation
+of both sorts and sexes of our courtiers here in England,
+that there are verie few of them which have
+not the use and skill of sundrie speaches, beside an
+excellent veine of writing before-time not regarded.
+Would to God the rest of their lives and conversations
+were correspondent to these gifts! for as our
+common courtiers (for the most part) are the best
+lerned and endued with excellent gifts, so are manie
+of them the worst men when they come abroad, that
+anie man shall either heare or read of. Trulie it is
+a rare thing with us now to heare of a courtier which
+hath but his owne language. And to saie how
+many gentlewomen and ladies there are, that beside
+sound knowledge of the Greeke and Latine toongs,
+are thereto no lesse skilful in the Spanish, Italian,
+and French, or in some one of them, it resteth not
+in me. Sith I am persuaded, that as the noblemen
+and gentlemen doo surmount in this behalfe, so
+these come verie little or nothing at all behind them
+for their parts, which industrie God continue, and
+accomplish that which otherwise is wanting!&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p>
+
+<p>At this time the practice (derived from the chivalrous
+ages, when every baronial castle was the
+resort of young persons of gentle birth, of both
+sexes) was by no means discontinued of placing
+young women, of gentle birth, in the establishment
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>286]</a></span>
+of ladies of rank, where, without performing any
+menial offices, they might be supposed to have their
+own understood duties in the household, and had in
+return the advantage of a liberal education, and
+constant association with the best company. Persons
+of rank and fortune often retained in their
+service many young people of both sexes of good
+birth, and bestowed on them the fashionable education
+of the time. Indeed their houses were the
+best, if not then the only schools of elegant learning.
+The following letter, written in 1595, is from a
+young lady thus situated:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">&ldquo;To my good mother Mrs. Pake, at Broumfield,
+deliver this.</p>
+
+<p class="smcap">&ldquo;Deare Mother,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My humble dutye remembred unto my
+father and you, &amp;c. I received upon Weddensday
+last a letter from my father and you, whereby, I
+understand, it is your pleasures that I should certifie
+you what times I do take for my lute, and the rest
+of my exercises. I doe for the most part playe of
+my lute after supper, for then commonlie my lady
+heareth me; and in the morninges, after I am
+reddie, I play an hower; and my wrightinge and
+siferinge, after I have done my lute. For my drawinge
+I take an hower in the afternowne, and my
+French at night before supper. My lady hath not
+bene well these tooe or three dayes: she telleth me,
+when she is well, that she will see if Hilliard will
+come and teche me; if she can by any means she
+will, &amp;c. &amp;c.&mdash;As touchinge my newe corse in service,
+I hope I shall performe my dutye to my lady
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>287]</a></span>
+with all care and regard to please her, and to behave
+myselfe to everye one else as it shall become me.
+Mr. Harrisone was with me upone Fridaye; he heard
+me playe, and brought me a dusson of trebles; I
+had some of him when I came to London. Thus
+desiring pardone for my rude writinge, I leave you
+to the Almightie, desiringe him to increase in you
+all health and happines.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">&ldquo;Your obedient daughter,<br />
+&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Rebecca Pake</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Could any thing afford a stronger contrast to the
+grave and certainly severe study to which Elizabeth
+had habituated herself, than the vain and fantastic
+puerility of many of her recreations and habits,&mdash;the
+unintellectual brutality of the bearbaits which she
+admired, or the gaudy and glittering pageants in
+which she delighted? She built a gallery at Whitehall
+at immense expense, and so superficially, that it
+was in ruins in her successor&rsquo;s time; but it was
+raised, in order to afford a magnificent reception to
+the ambassadors who, in 1581, came to treat of an
+alliance with the Duke of Anjou. It was framed of
+timber, covered with painted canvas, and decorated
+with the utmost gaudiness. Pendants of fruit of
+various kinds (amongst which cucumbers and even
+carrots are enumerated) were hung from festoons
+of flowers intermixed with evergreens, and the whole
+was powdered with gold spangles; the ceiling was
+painted like a sky with stars, sunbeams, and clouds,
+intermixed with scutcheons of the royal arms; and
+glass lustres and ornaments were scattered all
+around. Here were enacted masques and pageants
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>288]</a></span>
+chiefly remarkable for their pedantic prolixity of
+composition, and the fulsome and gross flattery
+towards the queen with which they were throughout
+invested.</p>
+
+<p>Everything, in accordance with the rage of the
+day, assumed an erudite, or, more truly speaking, a
+pedantic cast. When the queen (says Warton)
+paraded through a country town, almost every
+pageant was a pantheon. When she paid a visit at
+the house of any of her nobility, at entering the hall
+she was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to
+her privy chamber by Mercury. Even the pastry
+cooks were expert mythologists. At dinner, select
+transformations of Ovid&rsquo;s metamorphoses were exhibited
+in confectionary; and the splendid iceing of
+an immense historic plum-cake was embossed with a
+delicious basso-relievo of the destruction of Troy.
+In the afternoon, when she condescended to walk in
+the garden, the lake was covered with Tritons and
+Nereids; the pages of the family were converted
+into wood-nymphs, who peeped from every bower;
+and the footmen gambolled over the lawns in the
+figure of satyrs.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely we think could even the effusions of
+Euphues&mdash;a fashion also of this period&mdash;be more
+wearisome to the spirit than a repetition of these
+dull delights.</p>
+
+<p>This predilection for learning, and the time perforce
+given to its acquisition, must necessarily have
+subtracted from those hours which might otherwise
+have been bestowed on the lighter labours and
+beguiling occupations of the needle. Nor does it
+appear that after her accession Elizabeth did much
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>289]</a></span>
+patronise this gentle art. She was cast in a more
+stirring mould. In her father&rsquo;s court, under her
+sister&rsquo;s jealous eye, within her prison&rsquo;s solitary walls,
+her needle might be a prudent disguise, a solacing
+occupation, &ldquo;woman&rsquo;s pretty excuse for thought.&rdquo;
+But after her own accession to the throne <em>action</em> was
+her characteristic.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless we are not to suppose that, because
+needlework was not &ldquo;a rage,&rdquo; it was frowned upon
+and despised. By no means. It is perhaps fortunate
+that Elizabeth did not especially patronise
+it; for so dictatorial and absolute was she, that by
+virtue of the &ldquo;right divine&rdquo; she would have made
+her statesmen embroider their own robes, and her
+warriors lay aside the sword for the distaff. But
+as, happily, it now only held a secondary place in
+her esteem, we have Raleigh&rsquo;s poems instead of his
+sampler, and Bacon&rsquo;s learning instead of his stitchery.
+But it was not in her nature to suffer any
+thing in which she excelled to lie quite dormant.
+She was an accomplished needlewoman; some exquisite
+proofs of her skill were then glowing in all
+their freshness, and her excellence in this art was
+sufficiently obvious to prevent the ladies of her
+court from entirely forsaking it. Many books, with
+patterns for needlework, were published about this
+time, and in a later one Queen Elizabeth is especially
+celebrated in a laudatory poem for her skill in it.
+That proficiency in ornamental needlework was an
+absolute requisite in the accomplishments of a
+country belle, may be inferred from the prominent
+place it holds in Drayton&rsquo;s description of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>290]</a></span>
+well-educated daughter of a country knight in Elizabeth&rsquo;s
+days:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The silk well couth she twist and twine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And make the fine march pine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And with the needlework:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she couth help the priest to say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mattins on a holy day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sing a psalm in kirk.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;She wore a frock of frolic green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might well become a maiden queen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Which seemly was to see;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A hood to that so neat and fine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In colour like the columbine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ywrought full featously.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The march pine or counterpanes here alluded to,
+taxed in these days to the fullest extent both the
+purse of the rich and the fingers of the fair. Elizabeth
+had several most expensively trimmed with
+ermine as well as needlework; the finest and richest
+embroidery was lavished on them; and it was no
+unusual circumstance for the counterpane for the
+&ldquo;standing&rdquo; or master&rsquo;s bed to be so lavishly adorned
+as to be worth a thousand marks.</p>
+
+<p>At no time was ornamental needlework more admired,
+or in greater request in the every-day concerns
+of life, than now. Almost every article of
+dress, male and female, was adorned with it. Even
+the boots, which at this time had immense tops
+turned down and fringed, and which were commonly
+made of russet cloth or leather, were worn by some
+exquisites of the day of very fine cloth (of which
+enough was used to make a shirt), and were embroidered
+in gold or silver, or in various-coloured
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>291]</a></span>
+silks, in the figures of birds, animals, or antiques;
+and the ornamental needlework alone of a pair of
+these boots would cost from four to ten pounds.
+The making of a single shirt would frequently cost
+10<i>l.</i>, so richly were they ornamented with &ldquo;needleworke
+of silke, and so curiously stitched with other
+knackes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Woman&rsquo;s triflings,&rdquo; too, their handkerchiefs,
+reticules, workbags, &amp;c., were decorated richly. We
+have seen within these few days a workbag which
+would startle a modern fair one, for, as far as regards
+<em>size</em>, it has a most &ldquo;industrious look,&rdquo; but which,
+despite the ravages of near three centuries, yet gives
+token of much original magnificence. It is made of
+net, lined with silk; the material, the net itself, (a
+sort of honeycomb pattern, like what we called a
+few years ago the Grecian lace,) was made by the
+fair workwoman in those days, and was a fashionable
+occupation both in France and England. This bag
+is wrought in broad stripes with gold thread, and
+between the stripes various flowers are embroidered
+in different coloured silks. The bag stands in a
+sort of card-board basket, covered in the same style;
+it is drawn with long cords and tassels, and is large
+enough perhaps, on emergency, to hold a good sized
+baby.</p>
+
+<p>It is more than probable that female skill was in
+request in various matters of household decoration.
+The Arras looms, indeed, had long superseded the
+painful fingers of notable dames in the construction
+of hangings for walls, which were universally
+used, intermingled and varied in the palaces and
+nobler mansions by &ldquo;painted cloth,&rdquo; and cloth of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>292]</a></span>
+gold and silver. Thus Shakspeare describes Imogen&rsquo;s
+chamber in Cymbeline:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Her bed-chamber was hanged<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With tapestry of silk and silver.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>We have remarked that Henry the Eighth&rsquo;s
+palaces were very splendid; Elizabeth&rsquo;s were
+equally so, and more consistently finished in minor
+conveniences, as it is particularly remarked that
+&ldquo;easye quilted and lyned formes and stools for the
+lords and ladyes to sit on&rdquo; had superseded the
+&ldquo;great plank forms, that two yeomen can scant
+remove out of their places, and waynscot stooles so
+hard, that since great breeches were layd asyde
+men can skant indewr to sitt on.&rdquo; Her two presence
+chambers at Hampton Court shone with
+tapestry of gold and silver, and silk of various
+colours; her bed was covered with costly coverlids
+of silk, wrought in various patterns, by the needle;
+and she had many &ldquo;chusions,&rdquo; moveable articles of
+furniture of various shapes, answering to our large
+family of tabourets and ottomans, embroidered with
+gold and silver thread.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not merely in courts and palaces that
+arras was used; it was now, of a coarser fabric,
+universally adopted in the houses of the country
+gentry. &ldquo;The wals of our houses on the inner
+sides be either hanged with tapisterie, arras-work,<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a>
+or painted cloths, wherein either diverse histories,
+or hearbes, beasts, knots, and such like are stained,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>293]</a></span>
+or else they are seeled with oke of our owne, or
+wainescot brought hither out of the east countries.&rdquo;
+The tapestry was now suspended on frames, which,
+we may infer, were often at a considerable distance
+from the walls, since the portly Sir John Falstaff
+ensconced himself &ldquo;behind the arras&rdquo; on a memorable
+occasion; Polonius too met his death there;
+and indeed Shakspeare presses it into the service
+on numerous occasions.</p>
+
+<p>The following quotation will give an accurate
+idea of properties thought most valuable at this
+time; and it will be seen that ornamental needlework
+cuts a very distinguished figure therein. It
+is a catalogue of his wealth given by Gremio when
+suing for Bianca to her father, who declares that the
+wealthiest lover will win her, in the Taming of the
+Shrew.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Gremio.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;First, as you know, my house within the city<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Is richly furnished with plate and gold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Basons and ewers, to lave her dainty hands;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In ivory coffers I have stuff&rsquo;d my crowns;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In cypres chests my <em>arras</em>, counterpoints,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Fine linen, <em>Turkey cushions boss&rsquo;d with pearl,</em><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><em>Valence of Venice gold, in needlework</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Pewter and brass, and all things that belong<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To house or house-keeping.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The age of Elizabeth was one which powerfully
+appeals to the imagination in various ways. The
+&aelig;ra of warlike chivalry was past; but many of its
+lighter observances remained, and added to the
+variety of life, and perhaps tended to polish it. We
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>294]</a></span>
+are told, for instance, that as the Earl of Cumberland
+stood before Elizabeth she dropped her glove; and
+on his picking it up graciously desired him to keep
+it. He caused the trophy to be encircled with
+diamonds; and ever after, at all tilts and tourneys,
+bore it conspicuously placed in front of his high
+crowned hat. Jousting and tilting in honour of the
+ladies (by whom prizes were awarded) continued
+still to be a favourite diversion. There were annual
+contentions in the lists in honour of the sovereign,
+and twenty-five persons of the first rank established
+a society of arms for this purpose, of which the
+chivalric Sir Henry Lee was for some time president.</p>
+
+<p>The &ldquo;romance of chivalry&rdquo; was sinking to be succeeded
+by the heavier tomes of Gomberville, Scudery,
+&amp;c., but the extension of classical knowledge, the
+vast strides in acquirement of various kinds, the
+utter change, so to speak, in the system of literature,
+all contributed to the downfall of the chivalric
+romance. Sir Philip Sidney&rsquo;s Arcadia introduced a
+rage for high-flown pastoral effusions; and now too
+was re-born that taste for metaphorical effusion and
+spiritual romance, which was first exhibited in the
+fourth century in the Bishop of Tricca&rsquo;s romance of
+&ldquo;Barlaam and Josaphat,&rdquo; and which now pervaded
+the fast-rising puritan party, and was afterwards
+fully developed in that unaccountably fascinating
+work, &ldquo;The Pilgrim&rsquo;s Progress.&rdquo; Nevertheless, as
+yet</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">&ldquo;Courted and caress&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">High placed in hall, a welcome guest,&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>295]</a></span>
+the harper poured to lord and lady gay not indeed
+&ldquo;his unpremeditated lay,&rdquo; but a poetical abridgment
+(the precursor of a fast succeeding race of
+romantic ballads) of the doughty deeds of renowned
+knights, so amply expatiated upon in the time-honoured
+folios of the &ldquo;olden time.&rdquo; The wandering
+harper, if fallen somewhat from his &ldquo;high
+estate,&rdquo; was still a recognised and welcome guest;
+his &ldquo;matter being for the most part stories of old
+time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of Bevis
+of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and
+Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances
+or historical rhimes.&rdquo; Though the character of the
+minstrel gradually lost respectability, yet for a considerable
+part of Elizabeth&rsquo;s reign it was one so
+fully acknowledged, that a peculiar garb was still
+attached to the office.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Mongst these, some bards there were that in their sacred rage<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Recorded the descents and acts of everie age.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some with their nimbler joynts that strooke the warbling string;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In fingering some unskild, but onelie vsed to sing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Vnto the other&rsquo;s harpe: of which you both might find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great plentie, and of both excelling in their kind.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The superstitions of various kinds, the omens, the
+warnings, the charms, the &ldquo;potent spells&rdquo; of the
+wizard seer, which</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Could hold in dreadful thrall the labouring moon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or draw the fix&rsquo;d stars from their eminence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still the midnight tempest,&rdquo;&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>the supernatural agents, the goblins, the witches,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>296]</a></span>
+the fairies, the satyrs, the elves, the fauns, the
+&ldquo;shapes that walk,&rdquo; the</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&ldquo;Uncharnel&rsquo;d spectres, seen to glide<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along the lone wood&rsquo;s unfrequented path&rdquo;&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>the being and active existence of all these was considered
+&ldquo;true as holy writ&rdquo; by our ancestors of the
+Elizabethan age. On this subject we will transcribe
+a beautifully illustrative passage from Warton:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Every goblin of ignorance&rdquo; (says he) &ldquo;did not
+vanish at the first glimmerings of the morning of
+science. Reason suffered a few demons still to
+linger, which she chose to retain in her service under
+the guidance of poetry. Men believed, or were
+willing to believe, that spirits were yet hovering
+around, who brought with them <em>airs from heaven, or
+blasts from hell</em>; that the ghost was duly relieved
+from his prison of torment at the sound of the curfew,
+and that fairies imprinted mysterious circles on
+the turf by moonlight. Much of this credulity was
+even consecrated by the name of science and profound
+speculation. Prospero had not yet <em>broken
+and buried his staff</em>, nor <em>drowned his book deeper
+than did ever plummet sound</em>. It was now that the
+alchemist and the judicial astrologer conducted his
+occult operations by the potent intercourse of some
+preternatural being, who came obsequious to his call,
+and was bound to accomplish his severest services,
+under certain conditions, and for a limited duration
+of time. It was actually one of the pretended feats
+of these fantastic philosophers to evoke the queen
+of the fairies in the solitude of a gloomy grove, who,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>297]</a></span>
+preceded by a sudden rustling of the leaves, appeared
+in robes of transcendant lustre. The Shakspeare
+of a more instructed and polished age would not
+have given us a magician darkening the sun at noon,
+the sabbath of the witches, and the cauldron of
+incantation.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It were endless, and indeed out of place here, to
+attempt to specify the numberless minor superstitions
+to which this credulous tendency of the public
+mind gave birth or continuation; or the marvels of
+travellers,&mdash;as the Anthropophagi, the Ethiops with
+four eyes, the Hippopodes with their nether parts
+like horses, the Arimaspi with one eye in the forehead,
+and the Monopoli who have no head at all,
+but a face in their breast&mdash;which were all devoutly
+credited. One potent charm, however, we are constrained
+to particularise, since its infallibility was
+mainly dependent on the needlewoman&rsquo;s skill. It
+was a waistcoat which rendered its owner invulnerable:
+we believe that if duly prepared it would be
+found proof not only against &ldquo;silver bullets,&rdquo; but
+also against even the &ldquo;charmed bullet&rdquo; of German
+notoriety. Thus runs the charm:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On Christmas daie at night, a thread must be
+sponne of flax, by a little virgine girle, in the name
+of the divell; and it must be by hir woven, and also
+<em>wrought with the needle</em>. In the brest or forepart
+thereof must be made <em>with needleworke</em> two heads;
+on the head at the right side must be a hat and a
+long beard, and the left head must have on a crowne,
+and it must be so horrible that it maie resemble
+Belzebub; and on each side of the wastcote must
+be <em>wrought</em> a crosse.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>298]</a></span>
+The newspaper, that now mighty political engine,
+that &ldquo;thewe and sinew&rdquo; of the fourth estate of the
+realm, took its rise in Elizabeth&rsquo;s day. How would
+her legislators have been overwhelmed with amazement
+could they have beheld, in dim perspective, this
+child of the press, scarcely less now the offspring of
+the imagination than those chimeras of their own
+time to which we have been alluding; and would
+not the wrinkled brow of the modern politician be
+unconsciously smoothened, would not the careworn
+and profound diplomatist &ldquo;gather up his face into
+a smile before he was aware,&rdquo; if the <span class="smcap">First Newspaper</span>
+were suddenly placed before him? It is not
+indeed in existence, but was published under the
+title of &ldquo;<i>The English Mercurie</i>,&rdquo; in April, 1588, on
+the first appearance near the shores of England of
+the Spanish Armada, a crisis which caused this innovation
+on the usual public news-letter circulated in
+manuscript. No. 50, dated July 23, 1588, is the
+first now in existence; and as the publication only
+began in April, it shows they must have been issued
+frequently. We have seen this No. 50, which is
+preserved in the British Museum.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p>
+
+<p>In it are no advertisements&mdash;no fashions&mdash;no law
+reports&mdash;no court circular&mdash;no fashionable arrivals&mdash;no
+fashionable intelligence&mdash;no murders&mdash;no robberies&mdash;no
+reviews&mdash;no crim. cons.&mdash;no elopements&mdash;no
+price of stocks&mdash;no mercantile intelligence&mdash;no
+police reports&mdash;no &ldquo;leaders,&rdquo;&mdash;no literary memoranda&mdash;no
+poets&rsquo; corner&mdash;no spring meetings&mdash;no
+radical demonstrations&mdash;no conservative dinners&mdash;but</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>299]</a></span>
+&ldquo;The</p>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;English Mercurie,</p>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;Published by <span class="smcap">Authoritie</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="center">&ldquo;For the Prevention of False Reportes,</p>
+
+<p class="center smlpadl">&ldquo;<i>Whitehall, July 23, 1588.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Contains three pages and a half, small quarto, of
+matter of fact information.</p>
+
+<p>Two pages respecting the Armada then seen
+&ldquo;neare the Lizard, making for the entrance of the
+Channell,&rdquo; and appearing on the surface of the water
+&ldquo;like floating castles.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A page of news from Ostend, where &ldquo;nothing
+was talked of but the intended invasion of England.
+His Highnesse the Prince of Parma having compleated
+his preparationes, of which the subjoined
+Accounte might be depended upon as <em>exacte and
+authentique</em>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Something to say&mdash;for a newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>And a few lines dated &ldquo;London, July 13, of the
+lord mayor, aldermen, common councilmen, and
+lieutenancie of this great citie&rdquo; waiting on Her Majesty
+with assurances of support, and receiving a
+gracious reception from her.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the newspaper of 1588.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<p>The great events of Elizabeth&rsquo;s reign, in war, in
+politics, in legislation, belong to the historian; the
+great march of mind, the connecting link which that
+age formed between the darkness of the preceding
+ones (for during the period of the wars of the Roses
+all sorts of art and science retrograded), and the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>300]</a></span>
+high cultivation of later days, it is the province of
+the metaphysician and philosopher to analyse; and
+even the lighter characteristics of the time have
+become so familiar through the medium of many
+modern and valuable works, that we have ventured
+only to touch very superficially on some few of the
+more prominent of them.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a>
+Harrison.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a>
+From this separate mention of <em>tapisterie</em> and <em>arras-work</em> by so
+accurate a describer as Harrison, it would seem that tapestry of the
+needle alone was not, even yet, quite exploded.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a>
+Sloane MSS. No. 4106.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>301]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">TAPESTRY OF THE SPANISH ARMADA, BETTER KNOWN
+AS TAPESTRY OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS.</span></h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;He did blow with his wind, and they were scattered.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">&lsquo;Inscription on the Medal.&rsquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The year 1588 had been foretold by astrologers to
+be a wonderful year, the &ldquo;climacterical year of the
+world;&rdquo; and the public mind of England was at that
+period sufficiently credulous and superstitious to be
+affected with vague presentiments, even if the preparation
+of an hostile armada so powerful as to be
+termed &ldquo;invincible,&rdquo; had not seemed to engraft on
+these vague surmises too real and fearful a groundwork
+of truth.</p>
+
+<p>The preparations of Philip II. in Spain, combined
+with those of the Duke of Parma in the Low
+Countries, and furthered by the valued and effective
+benediction of the shaken and tottering, but
+still influential and powerful head of the Roman
+church, had produced a hostile array which, with
+but too much probability of success, threatened the
+conquest of England, and its subjugation to the
+papal yoke. Not since the Norman Conquest had
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>302]</a></span>
+any event occurred which, if successful, would be
+fraught with results so harassing and distressing to
+the established inhabitants of the island. Though
+the Norman Conquest had, undoubtedly, <em>in the
+course of time</em>, produced a beneficial and civilising
+and ennobling influence on the island, it was long
+and bitter years ere the groans of the subjugated
+and oppressed Anglo-Saxons had merged in the
+contented peacefulness of a united people.</p>
+
+<p>Yet William was certainly of a severe temper,
+and was incited by the unquenchable opposition of
+the English to a cruel and exterminating policy.
+Philip of Spain seemed not to promise milder measures.
+He was a bigot, and moreover hated the
+English with an utter hatred. During his union
+with Mary he had utterly failed to gain their good
+will, and his hatred to them increased in an exact
+ratio to the failure of his desired influence with
+them. Neither time, nor trouble, nor care, nor expense,
+was spared in this his decided invasion; and
+it is said that from Italy, Sicily, and even America,
+were drafted the most experienced captains and soldiers
+to aid his cause. Well, then, might England
+look with anxiety, and even with terror, to this
+threatened and fast approaching event.</p>
+
+<p>But her energies were fully equal to the emergency.
+Elizabeth, now in the full plenitude of her
+power, was at the acme of her influence over the
+wills, and in a great degree over the affections of
+her subjects, at least over by far the greater portion
+of them; one factious and discontented party there
+was, but too insufficient to be any effectual barrier
+to her designs. And the cause was a popular one:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>303]</a></span>
+Protestants and Romanists joined in deprecating a
+foreign yoke. Her powerful and commanding energies
+did not forsake her. Her appeal to her subjects
+was replied to with heart-thrilling readiness,
+the city of London setting a noble example; for
+when ministers desired from it five thousand men
+and fifteen ships, the lord mayor, in behalf of the
+city, craved their sovereign to accept of ten thousand
+soldiers and thirty ships.</p>
+
+<p>This spirited precedent was followed all through
+the empire, all classes vied with each other in contributing
+their utmost quota of aid, by means and
+by personal service, and amongst many similar instances
+it is recorded of &ldquo;that noble, vertuous, honourable
+man, the Viscount Montague, that he now
+came, though he was very sickly, and in age, with a
+full resolution to live and dye in defence of the
+queene, and of his countrie, against all invaders,
+whether it were pope, king, and potentate whatsoever,
+and in that quarrell he would hazard his life,
+his children, his landes and goods. And to shew his
+mynde agreeably thereto, he came personally himselfe
+before the queene, with his band of horsemen,
+being almost two hundred; the same being led by
+his owne sonnes, and with them a yong child, very
+comely, seated on horseback, being the heire of his
+house, that is, ye eldest sonne to his sonne and heire;
+a matter much noted of many, to see a grandfather,
+father, and sonne, at one time on horsebacks afore a
+queene for her service.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>For three years had Philip been preparing, in all
+parts of his dominions, for this overwhelming expedition,
+and his equipments were fully equal to his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>304]</a></span>
+extensive preparations; and so popular was the
+project in Spain, and so ardent were its votaries,
+that there was not a family of any note which had not
+contributed some of its dearest and nearest members;
+there were also one hundred and eighty Capuchins,
+Dominicans, Jesuits, and Mendicant friars; and
+so great was the enthusiastic anticipation, that even
+females hired vessels to follow the fleet which contained
+those they loved; two or three of these were
+driven by the storm on the coast of France.</p>
+
+<p>This Armada consisted of about one hundred and
+fifty ships, most of which were of an uncommon size,
+strength, and thickness, more like floating castles
+than anything else; and to this unwieldy size may,
+probably, be attributed much of their discomfiture.
+For the greater holiness of their action, twelve were
+called the Twelve Apostles; and a pinnace of the
+Andalusian squadron, commanded by Don Pedro de
+Valdez, was called the &ldquo;Holy Ghost.&rdquo; The fleet is
+said to have contained thirty-two thousand persons,
+and to have cost every day thirty thousand ducats.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Parma&rsquo;s contemporary preparations
+were also prodigious, and of a nature which plainly
+declared the full certainty and confidence in which
+the invaders indulged of making good their object.
+But the preparations were doomed not to be even
+tried. The finesse and man&oelig;uvres of the shrewd
+Sir Francis Walsingham<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> had caused the invasion
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>305]</a></span>
+to be retarded for a whole year, and by this time
+England was fully prepared for her foes. The result
+is known. The hollow treaty of peace into which
+Parma had entered in order, when all preparations
+were completed, to take her by surprise, was entered
+into with an equal share of hypocritical policy by Elizabeth.
+&ldquo;So (says an old historian) as they seemed
+on both sides to sew the foxe&rsquo;s skin to the lion&rsquo;s.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>So powerful was the effect on the public mind,
+not only of this projected enterprise, but of its
+almost unhoped for discomfiture, that all possible
+means were taken to commemorate the event. One
+method resorted to was the manufacture of tapestry
+representing a series of subjects connected with it.
+At that time Flanders excelled all others in the
+manufacture of tapestry, it was scarcely indeed introduced
+into England; and our ancestors had a
+series of ten charts, designed by Henry Cornelius
+Vroom, a celebrated painter of Haarlem, from
+which their Flemish neighbours worked beautiful
+draperies, which ornamented the walls of the House
+of Lords.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of the Union with Ireland, when
+considerable repairs and alterations were made
+here, these magnificent tapestries were taken down,
+cleaned, and replaced, with the addition of large
+frames of dark stained wood, which set off the work
+and colouring to advantage. They formed a series
+of ten pictures, round which portraits of the distinguished
+officers who commanded the fleet were
+wrought into a border.</p>
+
+<p>With a prescience, which might now almost seem
+prophetic, Mr. John Pine, engraver, published in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>306]</a></span>
+1739 a series of plates taken from these tapestries;
+and &ldquo;because,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;time, or accident, or moths
+may deface these valuable shadows, we have endeavoured
+to preserve their likeness in the preceding
+prints, which, by being multiplied and dispersed
+in various hands, may meet with that security from
+the closets of the curious, which the originals must
+scarce always hope for, even from the sanctity of
+the place they are kept in.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On the 17th day of July, 1588, the English discovered
+the Spanish fleet with lofty turrets like
+castles, in front like a half moon, the wing thereof
+spreading out about the length of seven miles, sailing
+very slowly, though with full sails, the winds
+being as it were tired with carrying them, and the
+ocean groaning under the weight of them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This forms the subject of the first tableau. The
+English commanders suffered the Spaniards to pass
+them unmolested, in order that they might hang
+upon their rear, and harass them when they should
+be involved in the Channel; for the English navy
+were unable to confront such a power in direct and
+close action. The second piece represents them
+thus, near Fowey, the English coast displayed in the
+back-ground, diversified perhaps somewhat too elaborately
+into hill and dale, and the foliage scattered
+somewhat too regularly in lines over each hill, but
+very pretty nevertheless. A small village with its
+church and spire appears just at the water edge,
+Eddystone lighthouse lifts its head above the waters,
+and, fit emblem of the patriotism which now burned
+throughout the land, and even glowed on the waters,
+a huge sea monster uprears itself in threatening
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>307]</a></span>
+attitude against the invading host, and shows a
+countenance hideous enough to scare any but Spaniards
+from its native shores.</p>
+
+<p>No. 3 represents the first engagement between
+the hostile fleets, and also the subsequent sailing of
+the Spanish Armada up the channel, closely followed
+by the English, whose ships were so much
+lighter, that in a running warfare of this kind they
+had greatly the advantage. The sea is alive too
+with dolphins and other strange fish, with right
+British hearts, as it has been said that &ldquo;they
+seemed to oppose themselves with fierce and grim
+looks to the progress of the Spanish fleet.&rdquo; The
+view of the coast here is very good; and, where it
+retires from Start Point so as to form a bay or harbour,
+the perspective is really admirably indicated
+by two vessels dimly defined in the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>The views of the coast are varied and interesting;
+and the distances and perspective views are much
+more accurately delineated than was usual at the
+time; but, as we have remarked, they were designed
+by an eminent painter, and one whose particular
+<i>forte</i> was the delineation of shipping and naval
+scenes.</p>
+
+<p>The pictures are certainly as a series devoid of
+variety. In two of them the Calais shore is introduced;
+and the intermixture of fortifications,
+churches, houses, and animated spectators, eagerly
+crowding to behold the fleets sailing by, produces
+an enlivening and busy scene, which, set off by the
+varied, lively, and appropriate colouring of the tapestry,
+would have a most striking effect. But the
+man who, unmoved by the excitement about him, is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>308]</a></span>
+calmly fishing under the walls, without even turning
+his head toward the scene of tumult, must be blessed
+with an apathy of disposition which the poor enraged
+dolphins and porpoises might have envied.</p>
+
+<p>With these exceptions the tapestries are all sea
+pieces with only a distant view of the coast, and
+portray the two fleets in different stages of their
+progress, sometimes with engagements between
+single ships, but generally in an apparent state of
+truce, the English always the pursuers, and the
+Spaniards generally drawn up in form of a crescent.
+The last however shows the invading fleet hurriedly
+and in disorder sailing away, when bad weather,
+the Duke of Parma&rsquo;s delay, and a close engagement
+of fourteen hours, in which they &ldquo;suffered grievously,&rdquo;
+having &ldquo;had to endure all the heavy cannonading
+of their triumphant opponents, while they
+were struggling to get clear of the shallows,&rdquo; convinced
+them of the impossibility of a successful close
+to their enterprise, and made them resolve to take
+advantage of a southern breeze to make their passage
+up the North sea, and round Scotland home.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;He that fights and runs away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May live to fight another day.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>So, however, did <em>not</em> the Spaniards. &ldquo;About these
+north islands their mariners and soldiers died daily
+by multitudes, as by their bodies cast on land did
+appear. The Almighty ordered the winds to be so
+contrary to this proud navy, that it was, by force,
+dissevered on the high seas west upon Ireland;
+and so great a number of them driven into sundry
+dangerous bays, and upon rocks, and there cast
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>309]</a></span>
+away; some sunk, some broken, some on the sands,
+and some burnt by the Spaniards themselves.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Misfortune clung to them; storm and tempest on
+the sea, and inhospitable and cruel treatment when
+they were forced on shore so reduced them, that of
+this magnificent Armada only sixty shattered vessels
+found their home; and their humbled commander,
+the Duke de Medina Sidonia, was led to understand
+that his presence was not desired at court, and that
+a private country residence would be the most
+suitable.</p>
+
+<p>It was on this occasion, when the instant danger
+was past but by no means entirely done away, as
+for some time it was supposed that the Armada, after
+recruiting in some northern station, would return,
+that Elizabeth with a general&rsquo;s truncheon in her
+hand rode through the ranks of her army at Tilbury,
+and addressed them in a style which caused
+them to break out into deafening and tumultuous
+shouts and cries of love, and honour, and obedience
+to death. Thus magnificently the English heroine
+spoke:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My loving People,&mdash;We have been persuaded
+by some that are careful of our safety to take heed
+how we commit ourselves to armed Multitudes; but
+I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my
+faithful and loving People. Let Tyrants fear; I have
+always so behaved myself that, under <span class="smcap">God</span>, I have
+placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal
+Hearts and Goodwill of my Subjects; and therefore I
+am come amongst you, as you see at this time, not for
+my Recreation and Disport, but being resolved, in the
+midst and heat of the Battle, to live and die amongst
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>310]</a></span>
+you all; to lay down for my <span class="smcap">God</span>, and for my kingdom,
+and for my People, my Honour, and my Blood, even
+in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak
+and feeble Woman, but I have the Heart and Stomach
+of a King, and of a King of England too; and
+think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince
+of Europe should dare to invade the Borders of
+my Realm; to which, rather than any Dishonour
+shall grow by me, I myself will take up Arms, I myself
+will be your General, Judge, and Rewarder of
+every one of your Virtues in the Field; I know
+already, for your forwardness, you have deserved
+Rewards and Crowns; and we do assure you, in the
+word of a Prince, they shall be duly paid you. In
+the mean time my Lieutenant-general shall be in my
+stead, than whom never Prince commanded a more
+noble or worthy subject; not doubting but, by your
+obedience to my General, by your Concord in the
+camp, and your Valour in the Field, we shall shortly
+have a famous victory over those Enemies of my
+GOD, of my Kingdoms, and of my People.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The tapestry, the magnificent memorial of this
+great event, was lost irreparably in the devastating
+fire of 1834. Some fragments, it is said, were preserved,
+but we have not been able to ascertain this
+fact. One portion still exists at Plymouth, though
+shorn of its pristine brilliancy, as some of the silver
+threads were drawn out by the economists of the
+time of the Commonwealth. This piece was cut out
+to make way for a gallery at the time of the trial of
+Queen Caroline, was secreted by a German servant
+of the Lord Chamberlain, and sold by him to a
+broker who offered it to Government for 500<i>l.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>311]</a></span>
+Some inquiry was made into the circumstances,
+which, however, do not seem to have excited very
+great interest, since the relic was ultimately bought
+by the Bishop of Landaff (Van Mildert) for 20<i>l.</i>
+By him it was presented to the corporation of Plymouth,
+who still possess it.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a>
+He contrived, by means of a Venetian priest, his spy, to obtain
+a copy of a letter from Philip to the Pope; a gentleman of the bedchamber
+taking the keys of the cabinet from the pockets of his holiness
+as he slept. Upon intelligence thus obtained, Walsingham got
+those Spanish bills protested at Genoa which should have supplied
+money for the preparations.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>312]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XX.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">ON STITCHERY.</span></h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Here have I cause in men just blame to find,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That in their proper praise too partial bee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And not indifferent to womankind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"> * <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> * <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> * <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> * <span class="space">&nbsp;</span> *<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Scarse do they spare to one, or two, or three,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rowme in their writtes; yet the same writing small<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Does all their deedes deface, and dims their glories all.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Faerie Queene.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapblock">
+<p>&ldquo;Christine, whiche understode these thynges of Dame Reason, replyed
+upon that in this manere. Madame Ise wel <ins class="contr" title="that">y<sup>t</sup></ins> ye myght
+fynde ynowe &amp; of grete nombre of women praysed in scyences and
+in crafte; but knowe ye ony that by <ins class="contr" title="the">y<sup>e</sup></ins> vertue of their felynge &amp;
+of subtylte of wytte <em>haue founde of themselfe</em> ony newe craftes and
+scyences necessary, good, &amp; couenable that were neuer founde before
+nor knowne? for it is not so grete maystry to folowe and to
+lerne after ony other scyence founde and comune before, as it is
+to fynde of theymselfe some newe thynge not accustomed before.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Answere.</i>&mdash;Ne doubte ye not <ins class="contr" title="the">y<sup>e</sup></ins> contrary my dere frende but many
+craftes and scyences ryght notable hathe ben founde by the wytte
+and subtylte of women, as moche by speculacyon of understandynge,
+the whiche sheweth them by wrytynge, as in craftes, <ins class="contr" title="that">y<sup>t</sup></ins>
+sheweth theym <em>in werkynge of handes</em> &amp; of laboure.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>The
+Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Again we must lament that the paucity of historical
+record lays us under the necessity of concluding, by
+inference, what we would fain have displayed by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>313]</a></span>
+direct testimony. The respectable authority quoted
+above affirms that &ldquo;many craftes and scyences ryght
+notable hathe ben founde by the wytte and subtylte
+of women,&rdquo; and it specifies particularly &ldquo;werkynge
+of handes,&rdquo; by which we suppose the &ldquo;talented&rdquo;
+author means needlework. That the necessity for
+this pretty art was first created by woman, no one, we
+think, will disallow; and that it was first practised,
+as it has been subsequently perfected, by her, is
+a fact of which we feel the most perfect conviction.</p>
+
+<p>This conviction has been forced upon us by a train
+of reasoning which will so readily suggest itself to
+the mind of all our readers, that we content ourselves
+with naming the result, assured that it is
+unnecessary to trouble them with the intervening
+steps. One only link in the chain of &ldquo;circumstantial
+evidence&rdquo; will we adduce, and that is afforded by
+the ancient engraving to which we have before alluded
+in our remarks upon Eve&rsquo;s needle and thread.
+There whilst our &ldquo;general mother&rdquo; is stitching
+away at the fig-leaves in the most edifying manner
+possible, our &ldquo;first father,&rdquo; far from trying to &ldquo;put
+in a stitch for himself,&rdquo; is gazing upon her in the
+most utter amazement. And while she plies her
+busy task as if she had been born to stitchery, his
+eyes, <em>not</em> his fingers,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Follow the nimble fingers of the fair,&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>with every indication of superlative wonder and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, it is no slight argument in favour of the
+original invention of sewing by women, that men
+very rarely have wit enough to learn it, even when
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>314]</a></span>
+invented. There has been no lack of endeavour,
+even amongst the world&rsquo;s greatest and mightiest,
+but poor &ldquo;work&rdquo; have they made of it. Hercules
+lost all the credit of his mighty labours from his
+insignificance at the spinning wheel, and the sceptre
+of Sardanapalus passed from his grasp as he was
+endeavouring to &ldquo;finger the fine needle and nyse
+thread.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>These love-stricken heroes might have said with
+Gower&mdash;had he then said it&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;What things she bid me do, I do,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And where she bid me go, I go.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And where she likes to call, I come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I serve, I bow, I look, I lowte,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My eye followeth her about.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What so she will, so will I,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When she would set, I kneel by.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when she stands, then will I stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><em>And when she taketh her work in hand</em>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of <em>wevyng or of embroidrie</em>.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then can I <em>only</em> muse and prie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon her fingers long and small.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Our modern Hercules, the Leviathan of literature,
+was not more successful.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Johnson.</i>&mdash;&ldquo;Women have a great advantage
+that they may take up with little things, without
+disgracing themselves; a man cannot, except with
+fiddling. Had I learnt to fiddle I should have done
+nothing else.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Boswell.</i>&mdash;&ldquo;Pray, Sir, did you ever play on any
+musical instrument?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Johnson.</i>&mdash;&ldquo;No, Sir; I once bought a flageolet,
+but I never made out a tune.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Boswell.</i>&mdash;&ldquo;A flageolet, Sir! So small an instrument?
+I should have liked to hear you play on the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>315]</a></span>
+violoncello. <em>That</em> should have been your instrument.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Johnson.</i>&mdash;&ldquo;Sir, I might as well have played
+on the violoncello as another; but I should have
+done nothing else. No, Sir; a man would never
+undertake great things could he be amused with
+small. I once tried knotting; Dempster&rsquo;s sister
+undertook to teach me, but <em>I could not learn it</em>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Boswell.</i>&mdash;&ldquo;So, Sir; it will be related in pompous
+narrative, &lsquo;once for his amusement he tried knotting,
+nor did this Hercules disdain the distaff.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. Johnson.</i>&mdash;&ldquo;Knitting of stockings is a good
+amusement. As a freeman of Aberdeen, I should
+be a knitter of stockings.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Nor was Dr. Johnson singular in his high appreciation
+of the value of some sort of stitchery to his
+own half of the human race, if their intellects unfortunately
+had not been too obtuse for its acquisition.
+The great censor of the public morals and
+manners a century ago, the Spectator, recommends
+the same thing, though with his usual policy he
+feigns merely to be the medium of another&rsquo;s advice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Spectator,&mdash;You are always ready to receive
+any useful hint or proposal, and such, I believe,
+you will think one that may put you in a way to
+employ the most idle part of the kingdom; I mean
+that part of mankind who are known by the name
+of the women&rsquo;s men, beaux, &amp;c. Mr. Spectator,
+you are sensible these pretty gentlemen are not
+made for any manly employments, and for want of
+business are often as much in the vapours as the
+ladies. Now what I propose is this, that since knotting
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>316]</a></span>
+is again in fashion, which has been found a
+very pretty amusement, that you will recommend it
+to these gentlemen as something that may make
+them useful to the ladies they admire. And since
+it is not inconsistent with any game or other diversion,
+for it may be done in the playhouse, in their
+coaches, at the tea-table, and, in short, in all places
+where they come for the sake of the ladies (except
+at church, be pleased to forbid it there to prevent
+mistakes), it will be easily complied with. It is
+besides an employment that allows, as we see by
+the fair sex, of many graces, which will make the
+beaux more readily come into it; and it shows a
+white hand and a diamond ring to great advantage;
+it leaves the eyes at full liberty to be employed as
+before, as also the thoughts and the tongue. In
+short, it seems in every respect so proper that it is
+needless to urge it further, by speaking of the satisfaction
+these male knotters will find when they see
+their work mixed up in a fringe, and worn by the
+fair lady for whom, and with whom, it was done.
+Truly, Mr. Spectator, I cannot but be pleased I
+have hit upon something that these gentlemen are
+capable of; for it is sad so considerable a part of
+the kingdom (I mean for numbers) should be of no
+manner of use. I shall not trouble you further at
+this time, but only to say, that I am always your
+reader and generally your admirer.<span class="space">&nbsp;</span>C.B.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;P.S.&mdash;The sooner these fine gentlemen are set
+to work the better; there being at this time several
+fringes that stay only for more hands.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But, alas! the sanguine writer was mistaken in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>317]</a></span>
+supposing that at last gentlemen had found a something
+&ldquo;of which they were capable.&rdquo; The days of
+knotting passed away before they had made any
+proficiency in it; nor have we ever heard that
+they have adopted any other branch or stitch of
+this extensive art. There is variety enough to
+satisfy anybody, and there are gradations enough
+in the stitches to descend to any capacity but a
+man&rsquo;s. There are tambour stitch&mdash;satin&mdash;chain&mdash;finny&mdash;new&mdash;bred&mdash;ferne&mdash;and
+queen-stitches;
+there is slabbing&mdash;veining&mdash;and button stitch; seeding&mdash;roping&mdash;and
+open stitch: there is sockseam&mdash;herring-bone&mdash;long
+stitch&mdash;and cross stitch: there is
+rosemary stitch&mdash;Spanish stitch&mdash;and Irish stitch:
+there is back stitch&mdash;overcast&mdash;and seam stitch:
+hemming&mdash;felling&mdash;and basting: darning&mdash;grafting&mdash;and
+patching: there is whip stitch&mdash;and fisher
+stitch: there is fine drawing&mdash;gathering&mdash;marking&mdash;trimming&mdash;and
+tucking.</p>
+
+<p>Truly all this does require some <ins class="greek" title="nous">&#957;&#959;&#965;&#962;</ins>, and the
+lords of the creation are more to be pitied than
+blamed for that paucity of intellect which deprives
+them of &ldquo;woman&rsquo;s pretty excuse for thought.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Raillery apart, sewing is in itself an agreeable
+occupation, it is essentially a useful one; in many
+of its branches it is quite ornamental, and it is a
+gentle, a graceful, an elegant, and a truly feminine
+occupation. It causes the solitary hours of domestic
+life to glide more smoothly away, and in those social
+unpretending reunions which in country life and in
+secluded districts are yet not abolished, it takes
+away from the formality of sitting for conversation,
+abridges the necessity for scandal, or, to say the least
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>318]</a></span>
+of it, as we have heard even ungallant lordly man
+allow, it keeps us out of mischief.</p>
+
+<p>And there are frequent and oft occurring circumstances
+which invest it with characteristics of a still
+higher order. How many of &ldquo;the sweet solicitudes
+that life beguile&rdquo; are connected with this interesting
+occupation! either in preparing habiliments for
+those dependent on our care, and for love of whom
+many an unnecessary stitch which may tend to extra
+adornment is put in; or in those numberless pretty
+and not unuseful tokens of remembrance, which,
+passing from friend to friend, soften our hearts by
+the intimation they convey, that we have been cared
+for in our absence, and that while the world looked
+dark and desolate about us, unforgetting hearts far,
+far away were holding us in remembrance, busy
+fingers were occupied in our behoof. Oh! a reticule,
+a purse, a slipper, how valueless soever in itself,
+is, when fraught with these home memories,
+worth that which the mines of Golconda could not
+purchase. And of such a nature would be the feelings
+which suggested these well-known but exquisite
+lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;The twentieth year is well nigh past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since first our sky was overcast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, would that this might be the last!<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">My Mary!<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Thy spirits have a fainter flow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I see thee daily weaker grow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&rsquo;Twas my distress that brought thee low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">My Mary!<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Thy needles, once a shining store,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For my sake restless heretofore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now rust disused and shine no more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">My Mary!<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>319]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;For though thou gladly would&rsquo;st fulfil<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The same kind office for me still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy sight now seconds not thy will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">My Mary!<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;But well thou play&rsquo;dst the housewife&rsquo;s part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all thy threads with magic art,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have wound themselves about this heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">My Mary!&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>An interesting circumstance connected with needlework
+is mentioned in the delightful memoir written
+by lady Murray, of her mother, the excellent and
+admirable Lady Grisell Baillie. The allusion itself
+is very slight, merely to the making of a frill or a
+collar; but the circumstances connected with it are
+deeply interesting, and place before us a vivid picture
+of the deprivations of a family of rank and
+consequence in &ldquo;troublous times,&rdquo; and moreover
+offer us a portrait from <em>real life</em> of true feminine
+excellence, of a young creature of rank and family,
+of cultivated and refined tastes and of high connexions,
+utterly forgetting all these in the cheerful
+and conscientious discharge, for years, of the most
+arduous and humble duties, and even of menial and
+revolting offices. It may be that my readers all
+are not so well acquainted with this little book as
+ourselves, and, if so, they will not consider the following
+extract too long.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They lived three years and a half in Holland,
+and in that time she made a second voyage to Scotland
+about business. Her father went by the borrowed
+name of Dr. Wallace, and did not stir out for
+fear of being discovered, though who he was, was
+no secret to the wellwishers of the revolution. Their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>320]</a></span>
+great desire was to have a good house, as their
+greatest comfort was at home; and all the people
+of the same way of thinking, of which there were
+great numbers, were continually with them. They
+paid for their house what was very extravagant for
+their income, nearly a fourth part; they could not
+afford keeping any servant, but a little girl to wash
+the dishes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All the time they were there, there was not a
+week that my mother did not sit up two nights, to
+do the business that was necessary. She went to
+market, went to the mill to have the corn ground,
+which it seems is the way with good managers there,
+dressed the linen, cleaned the house, made ready
+the dinner, mended the children&rsquo;s stockings and
+other clothes, made what she could for them, and,
+in short, did everything.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Her sister, Christian, who was a year or two
+younger, diverted her father and mother and the
+rest who were fond of music. Out of their small
+income they bought a harpsichord for little money,
+but is a <em>Rucar</em> now in my custody, and most valuable.
+My aunt played and sang well, and had a
+great deal of life and humour, but no turn to business.
+Though my mother had the same qualifications,
+and liked it as well as she did, she was forced
+to drudge; and many jokes used to pass betwixt
+the sisters about their different occupations. Every
+morning before six my mother lighted her father&rsquo;s
+fire in his study, then waked him (she was ever a
+good sleeper, which blessing, among many others,
+she inherited from him); then got him, what he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>321]</a></span>
+usually took as soon as he got up, warm small beer
+with a spoonful of bitters in it, which he continued
+his whole life, and of which I have the receipt.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then she took up the children and brought
+them all to his room, where he taught them everything
+that was fit for their age; some Latin, others
+French, Dutch, geography, writing, reading, English,
+&amp;c.; and my grandmother taught them what
+was necessary on her part. Thus he employed and
+diverted himself all the time he was there, not being
+able to afford putting them to school; and my
+mother, when she had a moment&rsquo;s time, took a lesson
+with the rest in French and Dutch, and also diverted
+herself with music. I have now a book of songs of
+her writing when there; many of them interrupted,
+half-writ, some broke off in the middle of a sentence.
+She had no less a turn for mirth and society than
+any of the family, when she could come at it without
+neglecting what she thought more necessary.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Her eldest brother, Patrick, who was nearest
+her age, and bred up together, was her most dearly
+beloved. My father was there, forfeited and exiled,
+in the same situation with themselves. She had seen
+him for the first time in the prison with his father,
+not long before he suffered;<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> and from that time
+their hearts were engaged. Her brother and my
+father were soon got in to ride in the Prince of
+Orange&rsquo;s Guards, till they were better provided for
+in the army, which they were before the Revolution.
+They took their turn in standing sentry at the
+Prince&rsquo;s gate, but always contrived to do it together,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>322]</a></span>
+and the strict friendship and intimacy that then
+began, continued to the last.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Though their station was then low, they kept
+up their spirits; the prince often dined in public,
+then all were admitted to see him: when any pretty
+girl wanted to go in they set their halberts across
+the door and would not let her pass till she gave
+each of them a kiss, which made them think and
+call them very pert soldiers. I could relate many
+stories on this subject; my mother could talk for
+hours and never tire of it, always saying it was the
+happiest part of her life. Her <em>constant attention was
+to have her brother appear right in his linen and
+dress</em>; they wore little point cravats and cuffs, which
+many a night she sat up to have in as good order
+for him as any in the place; and one of their greatest
+expenses was in dressing him as he ought to be.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As their house was always full of the unfortunate
+people banished like themselves, they seldom
+went to dinner without three, four, or five of them
+to share it with them; and many a hundred times
+I have heard her say she could never look back upon
+their manner of living there without thinking it a
+miracle. They had no want, but plenty of everything
+they desired, and much contentment, and
+always declared it the most pleasing part of her life,
+though they were not without their little distresses;
+but to them they were rather jokes than grievances.
+The professors and men of learning in the place
+came often to see my grandfather; the best entertainment
+he could give them was a glass of alabast
+beer, which was a better kind of ale than common.
+He sent his son Andrew, the late Lord Kimmerghame,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>323]</a></span>
+a boy, to draw some for them in the cellar,
+and he brought it up with great diligence, but in
+the other hand the spigot of the barrel. My grandfather
+said, &lsquo;Andrew! what is that in your hand?&rsquo;
+When he saw it he ran down with speed, but the
+beer was all run out before he got there. This occasioned
+much mirth, though perhaps they did not
+well know where to get more.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is the custom there to gather money for the
+poor from house to house, with a bell to warn people
+to give it. One night the bell came, and no money
+was there in the house but a orkey, which is a doit,
+the smallest of all coin; everybody was so ashamed
+no one would go to give it, it was so little, and put it
+from one to the other: at last my grandfather said,
+&lsquo;Well, then, I&rsquo;ll go with it; we can do no more
+than give all we have.&rsquo; They were often reduced
+to this by the delay of the ships coming from Scotland
+with their small remittances; then they put
+the little plate they had (all of which they carried
+with them) in the lumber, which is pawning it, till
+the ships came: and that very plate they brought
+with them again to Scotland, and left no debt behind
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This is a long but not an uninteresting digression,
+and we were led to it from the recollection that
+Lady Grisell Baillie, when encompassed with heavy
+cares, not only sat up a night or two every week,
+but felt a satisfaction, a pleasure, in doing so, to
+execute the needlework required by her family.
+And when sewing with a view to the comfort and
+satisfaction of others, the needlewoman&mdash;insignificant
+as the details of her employment may
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>324]</a></span>
+appear&mdash;has much internal satisfaction; she has a definite
+vocation, an important function.</p>
+
+<p>Nor few nor insignificant are her handmaidens,
+one or other of whom is ever at her side, inspiriting
+her to her task. Her most constant attendant is a
+matron of stayed and sober appearance, called <span class="smcap">Utility</span>.
+The needlewoman&rsquo;s productions are found
+to vary greatly, and this variation is ascribed with
+truth to the influencing suggestions of the attendant
+for the time being.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, for instance, when Utility is her companion
+all her labours are found to result in articles of which
+the material is unpretending, and the form simple;
+for however she may be led wandering by the vagaries
+of her other co-mates, it is always found that
+in moments of steady reflection she listens with the
+most implicit deference to the intimations of this
+her experienced and most respectable friend.</p>
+
+<p>But occasionally, indeed frequently, Utility brings
+with her a fair and interesting relative, called <span class="smcap">Taste</span>;
+a gentle being, of modest and retiring mien, of most
+unassuming deportment, but of exquisite grace;
+and it is even observed that the needlewoman is
+more happy in her labours, and more universally
+approved when accompanied by these two friends,
+than by any other of the more eccentric ones who
+occasionally take upon themselves to direct her
+steps.</p>
+
+<p>Of these latter, <span class="smcap">Fashion</span> is one of her most frequent
+visitors, and it is very often found that as she
+approaches Utility and Taste retire. This is not,
+however, invariably the case. Sometimes the three
+agree cordially together, and their united suffrages
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>325]</a></span>
+and support enhance the fame of the needlewoman
+to the very highest pitch; but this happy cordiality
+is of infrequent occurrence, and usually of short
+duration. Fashion is fickle, varying, inconstant;
+given to sudden partialities and to disruptions unlooked
+for, and as sudden. She laughs to scorn
+Utility&rsquo;s grave maxims, and exaggerates the graceful
+suggestions of Taste until they appear complete
+caricatures. Consequently they, offended, retire;
+and Fashion, heedless, holds on her own course,
+keeping the needlewoman in complete subjection to
+her arbitrary rule, which is often enforced in her
+transient absence by her own peculiar friend and
+intimate&mdash;<span class="smcap">Caprice</span>. This fantastic being has the
+greatest influence over Fashion, who having no staple
+character of her own, is easily led every way at the
+beck of this whimsical and absurd dictator. The
+productions which emanate from the hands of the
+needlewoman under their guidance are much sought
+for, much looked at, but soon fall into utter contempt.</p>
+
+<p>But there is another handmaiden created for the
+delight and solace of mankind in general, and who
+from the earliest days, even until now, has been the
+loving friend of the needlewoman; ever whispering
+suggestions in her ear, or tracing patterns on
+her work, or gently guiding her finger through the
+fantastic maze. She is of the most exquisite beauty:
+fragile in form as the gossamer that floats on a summer&rsquo;s
+breath&mdash;brilliant in appearance as the colours
+that illumine the rainbow. So light, that she floats
+on an atom; so powerful that she raises empires,
+nay, the whole earth by her might. Her habits
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>326]</a></span>
+are the most vagrant imaginable; she is indeed
+the veriest little gossip in creation, but her disposition
+to roam is not more boundless than her power
+to gratify it.</p>
+
+<p>One instant she is in the depths of the ocean,
+loitering upon coral beds; the next above the stars,
+revelling in the immensity of space; one moment
+she tracks a comet in his course, the next hobnobs
+with the sea-king, or foots a measure with mermaids.
+A most skilful architect, she will build palaces on
+the clouds radiant with splendour and beautiful as
+herself; then, demolishing them with a breath, she
+flies to some moss-grown ruin of the earth, where a
+glimpse of her countenance drives away the bat and
+the owl; the wallflower, the moss, and the ivy, are
+displaced by the rose, the lily, and the myrtle; the
+damp building is clothed in freshness and splendour,
+the lofty halls resound with the melody of the lute
+and the harp, and the whole scene is vivid with light
+and life, with brilliancy and beauty. Again, in an
+instant, all is mute, and dim, and desolate, and the
+versatile sorceress is hunting the otter with an Esquimaux;
+or, pillowed on roses whose fragrance is
+wafted by softest zephyrs around, she listens to the
+strain which the Bulbul pours; or, wrapped in
+deepest maze of philosophic thought, she &ldquo;treads
+the long extent of backward time,&rdquo; by the gigantic
+sepulchres of Egyptian kings; or else she flies
+&ldquo;from the tempest-rocked Hebrides or the icebound
+Northern Ocean&mdash;from the red man&rsquo;s wilderness
+of the west&mdash;from the steppes of Central Asia&mdash;from
+the teeming swamps of the Amazon&mdash;from
+the sirocco deserts of Africa&mdash;from the tufted islands
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>327]</a></span>
+of the Pacific&mdash;from the heaving flanks of &AElig;tna&mdash;or
+from the marbled shores of Greece;&rdquo;&mdash;and draws
+the whole circle of her enchantments round the
+needlewoman&rsquo;s fingers, within the walls of an humble
+English cottage.</p>
+
+<p>But it were equally unnecessary and useless to
+dilate on her fairy wanderings. Suffice it to say
+that so great is the beneficent liberality of this fascinating
+being, that every corner of her rich domain
+is open to the highest or lowest of mortals without
+reserve; and so lovely is she herself, and so bewitching
+is her company, that few, few indeed, are they
+who do not cherish her as a bosom friend and as
+the dearest of companions.</p>
+
+<p>Bearing, however, her vagrant characteristics in
+mind, we shall not be surprised at the peculiar ideas
+some people entertain of her haunts, nor at the
+strange places in which they search for her person.
+One would hardly believe that hundreds of thousands
+have sought her through the smoke, din, and
+turmoil of those lines &ldquo;where all antipathies to
+comfort dwell,&rdquo;&mdash;the railroads; while others, more
+adventurous, plough the ocean deep, scale the mighty
+mountains, or soar amid the clouds for her; or,
+strange to say, have sought her in the battle field
+&rsquo;mid scenes of bloody death. Like Hotspur, such
+would pluck her&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;From the pale-faced moon;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>or would</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Dive into the bottom of the deep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where fathom-line could never touch the ground&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>for her.</p>
+
+<p>But she is a lady before whom strength and pride
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>328]</a></span>
+fall nerveless and abased; her gracious smiles are
+to be wooed, not commanded; her bright presence
+may be won, not forced;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;For spotless, and holy, and gentle, and bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She glides o&rsquo;er the earth like an angel of light.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Possessing all the gentleness of her mother&mdash;<em>Taste</em>,
+she shrinks from everything rude or abrupt;
+and when, as has frequently been the case, persons
+have attempted to lay violent hands upon her, she
+has invariably eluded their vigilance, by leaving in
+her place, tricked out in her superabundant ornaments
+to blind them, her half-brother&mdash;<em>Whim</em>, who
+sprang from the same father&mdash;<em>Wit</em>, but by another
+mother&mdash;<em>Humour</em>. She herself, wanderer as she is,
+is not without her favourite haunts, in which she
+lingers as if even loath to quit them at all.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, wherever yet the <em>accomplished</em> needlewoman
+has been found, in the Jewish tabernacle of
+old&mdash;in the Grecian dome where the &ldquo;Tale of Troy
+divine&rdquo; glowed on the canvass&mdash;or in the bower of
+the high-born beauty of the &ldquo;bright days of the
+sword and the lance&rdquo;&mdash;in the cell of the pale recluse&mdash;or
+in the turretted prison of the royal captive&mdash;there
+has <span class="smcap">Fancy</span> been her devoted friend, her
+inseparable companion.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a>
+She was then a mere child, not more, if I remember rightly, than
+twelve years old.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>329]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">&ldquo;LES ANCIENNES TAPISSERIES;&rdquo; TAPESTRY OF ST.
+MARY&rsquo;S HALL, COVENTRY; TAPESTRY OF HAMPTON
+COURT.</span></h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;There is a sanctity in the past.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Bulwer.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>All monuments of antiquity are so speedily passing
+away, all traces of those bygone generations on
+which the mind loves to linger, and which in their
+dim and indistinct memories exercise a spell, a holy
+often, and a purifying spell on the imagination are
+so fleeting, and when <em>irrevocably</em> gone will be so
+lamented&mdash;that all testimonies which throw certain
+light on the habits and manners of the past, how
+slight soever the testimonies they afford, how trivial
+soever the characteristics they display, are of the
+highest possible value to an enlightened people, who
+apply the experience of the past to its legitimate
+and noblest use, the guidance and improvement of
+the present.</p>
+
+<p>In this point of view the work which forms the
+subject of this chapter<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> assumes a value which its
+intrinsic worth&mdash;beautiful as is its execution&mdash;would
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>330]</a></span>
+not impart to it; and it is thus rendered not less
+valuable as an historical record, than it is attractive
+as a work of taste.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L&agrave; chez eux</span>, (we quote from the preface to the
+work itself,) <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">c&rsquo;est un si&egrave;ge ou un tournoi; ici un
+festin, plus loin une chasse; et toujours, chasse,
+festin, tournoi, si&egrave;ge, tout cela est <em>pourtraict au vif</em>,
+comme aurait dit Montaigne, tout cela nous retrace
+au naturel la vie de nos p&egrave;res, nous montre leurs
+ch&acirc;teaux, leurs &eacute;glises, leurs costumes, leurs armes
+et m&ecirc;me, gr&acirc;ce aux l&eacute;gendes explicatives, leur
+langage &agrave; diverses &eacute;poques. Il y a mieux. Si nous
+nous en rapportons &agrave; l&rsquo;inventaire de Charles V.,
+ex&eacute;cut&eacute; en 1379, toute la litt&eacute;rature fran&ccedil;aise des
+si&egrave;cles f&eacute;conds qui pr&eacute;c&eacute;d&egrave;rent celui de ce sage
+monarque, aurait &eacute;t&eacute; par ces ordres traduite en laine.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This book consists of representations of all the
+existing ancient tapestries which activity and research
+can draw from the hiding-places of ages,
+copied in the finest outline engraving, with letter-press
+descriptions of each plate. They are published
+in numbers, and in a style worthy of the
+object. We do not despair of seeing this spirited
+example followed in our own country, where many
+a beautiful specimen of ancient tapestry, still capable
+of renovation by care&mdash;is mouldering unthought of
+in the lumber-rooms of our ancient mansions.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen twenty-one numbers of this work,
+with which we shall deal freely: excepting, however,
+the eight parts which are entirely occupied by the
+Bayeux Tapestry. Our own chapters on the subject
+were written before we were fortunate enough
+to obtain a sight of these, which include the whole
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>331]</a></span>
+of the correspondence on the tapestry to which we
+in our sketch alluded.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La Tapisserie de Nancy.</span>&mdash;&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">aurait une illustre
+origine, et remonterait &agrave; une assez haute antiquit&eacute;.
+Prise dans la tente de Charles le T&eacute;m&eacute;raire, lors de la
+mort de ce prince, en 1477, devant la capitale de
+la Lorraine, qu&rsquo;il assi&eacute;geait, elle serait devenue un
+meuble de la couronne, et aurait servi au palais des
+ducs de ce pays, depuis Ren&eacute; 2 jusqu&rsquo;&agrave; Charles IV.&mdash;&mdash;C&rsquo;est
+une de ces anciennes tapisseries flamandes
+dont le tissu, de laine tres fine, est &eacute;clair&eacute; par l&rsquo;or
+et la soie. La soie et la laine subsistent encore,
+mais l&rsquo;or ne s&rsquo;aper&ccedil;oit plus que dans quelques endroits
+et &agrave; la faveur d&rsquo;un beau soleil. Nous ferons
+remarquer que le costume des divers personnages
+que figurent dans notre monument est tout &agrave; fait
+caract&eacute;ristique. Ce sont bien l&agrave; les v&ecirc;tements et
+les ornements en usage vers la moiti&eacute; du quinzi&egrave;me
+si&egrave;cle, et la disposition artistique, le choix du sujet,
+ainsi que l&rsquo;ex&eacute;cution elle-m&ecirc;me portent bien l&rsquo;empreinte
+du style des &oelig;uvres de 1450 environ.&mdash;&mdash;La
+maison de Bourgogne &eacute;tait fort riche en joyaux, en
+vaisselle d&rsquo;or ou d&rsquo;argent et en <em>tapis</em>.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The tapestry presents an allegorical history, of
+which the object is to depict the inconveniences consequent
+on what is called &ldquo;good cheer.&rdquo; Later on
+this formed the subject of &ldquo;a morality.&rdquo; Originally
+this tapestry was only one vast page, the requisite
+divisions being wrought in the form of ornamented
+columns. It was afterwards cut in pieces, and unfortunately
+the natural divisions of the subject were
+not attended to in the severment. More unhappily
+still the pieces have since been rejoined in a wrong
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>332]</a></span>
+order; and after every possible endeavour to read
+them aright, the publishers are indebted to the
+&ldquo;Morality&rdquo; before referred to, which was taken from
+it, and was entitled &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La Nef de Sant&eacute;, avec le
+gouvernail du corps humain, et la condamna&ccedil;ion des
+bancquetz, a la louenge de Diepte et Sobri&eacute;te, et la
+Traictie des Passions de l&rsquo;ame.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Banquet, Bonnecompagnie, Souper, Gourmandise,
+Friandise, Passetemps, Je pleige d&rsquo;autant, Je boy &agrave;
+vous</span>, and other rare personifications, not forgetting
+that indispensable guest <em>then</em> in all courtly pastime,
+Le fol, &ldquo;go it&rdquo; to their hearts&rsquo; content, until they
+are interrupted <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vi et armis</i> by a ghastly phalanx in
+powerful array of Apoplexie, Ydropsie, Epilencie,
+Pleurisie, Esquinancie, Paralasie, Gravelle, Colicque,
+&amp;c.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tapisserie de Dijon.</span>&mdash;&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">On conviendra qu&rsquo;il
+serait difficile de trouver un monument de ce genre
+plus fid&egrave;le sur le rapport historique, plus int&eacute;ressant
+pour les arts, et plus digne d&rsquo;&ecirc;tre reproduit par la
+gravure. Je ferai en outre remarquer combien cet
+immense tableau de laine, qui est unique, renferme
+de d&eacute;tails pr&eacute;cieux &agrave; la fois pour la panoplie, pour
+les costumes, et l&rsquo;architecture du commencement du
+16 si&egrave;cle, ainsi que pour l&rsquo;histoire monumentale de
+Dijon.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This tapestry, judging by the engravings in the
+work we quote, must be very beautiful. The groups
+are spirited and well disposed; and the countenances
+have so much <em>nature</em> and expression in them,
+as to lead us readily to credit the opinion of the
+writer that they were portraits. The buildings are
+well outlined; and in the third piece an excellent
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>333]</a></span>
+effect is produced by exposing&mdash;by means of an
+open window, or some simple contrivance of the sort&mdash;part
+of the interior of the church of N&ocirc;tre Dame,
+and so displaying the brave leader of the French
+army, La Tremouille, as he offers thanks before the
+shrine of the Virgin.</p>
+
+<p>The tapestry was worked immediately after the
+siege of Dijon, (1513) and represents in three scenes
+the most important circumstances relating to it;
+the costumes, the arms, and the architecture of the
+time being displayed with fidelity and exactitude.
+The first represents the invading army before the
+walls; the second a solemn procession in honour of
+Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Espoir. In the midst is
+elevated the image of the Virgin, which is surrounded
+by the clergy in their festal vestments, by the religious
+communities, by the nobility, the bourgeois,
+and the military, all bearing torches.</p>
+
+<p>To this solemn procession was attributed the truce
+which led to a more lasting peace, though there are
+some heterodox dissentients who attribute this substantial
+advantage to the wisdom and policy of the
+able commander La Tremouille, who shared with
+Bayard the honourable distinction of being &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sans
+peur et sans reproche</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tapisseries de Bayard.</span>&mdash;A ch&acirc;teau which belonged
+to this noted hero was despoiled at the
+Revolution, and it was doubtless only owing to an
+idea of its worthlessness that some of the ancient
+tapestry was left there. These fragments, in a deplorable
+state, were purchased in 1807, and there
+are yet sufficient of them to bear testimony to their
+former magnificence, and to decide the date of their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>334]</a></span>
+creation at the close of the fourteenth or beginning
+of the fifteenth century. The subjects are taken
+from Homer&rsquo;s &ldquo;Iliad,&rdquo; and &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">il est probable</span> (says
+M. Jubinal) <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">que ce po&euml;me se trouvait originairement
+reproduit en laine presque tout entier, malgr&eacute; sa
+longueur, car ce n&rsquo;&eacute;tait pas le travail qui effrayait
+nos a&iuml;eux.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Valenciennes was celebrated for the peculiar fineness
+and gloss of its tapestry. By the indefatigable
+industry of certain antiquarians, some pieces in good
+preservation representing a tournament, have lately
+been taken from a garret, dismantled of their triple
+panoply of dust, cleaned and hung up; after being
+traced from their original abode in the state apartments
+of a prince through various gradations, to the
+damp walls of a registry office, where, from their
+apparent fragility alone, they escaped being cut into
+floor mats.</p>
+
+<p>Those of the <span class="smcap" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chateau D&rsquo;Haroue</span>, and of the
+<span class="smcap" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Collection Dusommerard</span>, are also named here;
+but there is little to say about them, as the subjects
+are more imaginary than historical. They are of
+the sixteenth century, representing scenes of the
+chase, and are enlivened with birds in every position,
+some of them being, in proportion to other
+figures, certainly <em>larger</em> than life, and &ldquo;twice as
+natural.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tapisseries de la Chaise Dieu.</span>&mdash;&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L&rsquo;Abbaye
+de la Chaise Dieu fut fond&eacute;e en 1046 par Robert
+qu&rsquo;Alexandre 2de canonisa plus tard en 1070; et
+dont l&rsquo;origine se rattachait &agrave; la famille des comtes
+de Poitou.</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Robert fut destin&eacute; de bonne heure aux fonctions
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>335]</a></span>
+du sacerdoce.</span>&rdquo; He went on pilgrimage to the tombs
+of some of the Apostles, and it was on his return
+thence that he was first struck with the idea of
+founding a c&oelig;nobitical establishment.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">R&eacute;uni &agrave; un soldat nomm&eacute; Etienne, &agrave; un solitaire
+nomm&eacute; Delmas, et &agrave; un chanoine nomm&eacute; Arbert,
+il se retira dans la solitude, et s&rsquo;emparant du d&eacute;sert
+au profit de la religion, il planta la croix du Sauveur
+dans les lieux jusqu&rsquo;&agrave;-l&agrave; couverts de for&ecirc;ts et de
+bruy&egrave;res incultes, et rassembla quelques disciples
+pour vivre aupr&egrave;s de lui sous la r&egrave;gle qu&rsquo;un ange
+lui avait, disait il, apport&eacute;e du ciel.</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Bient&ocirc;t la r&eacute;putation des c&eacute;nobites s&rsquo;&eacute;tendit;
+Robert fut reconnu comme leur chef. De toutes
+parts on accourut les visiter. Des donations leur
+furent faites, et sur les ruines d&rsquo;une ancienne &eacute;glise
+une nouvelle basilique s&rsquo;&eacute;leva.</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Telle est &agrave; peu pr&eacute;s l&rsquo;histoire primitive de
+l&rsquo;abbaye de la Chaise-Dieu.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chaise-Dieu</span> tapestries are fourteen in number,
+three of them are ten feet square, and the
+others are six feet high by eighteen long, excepting
+one which measures nearly twenty-six feet. Twelve
+are hung on the carved wood-work of the choir of
+the great church, and thus cover an immense space.
+Further off is the ancient choir of the monks, of
+which the wood-work of sculptured oak is surprisingly
+rich. Not even the cathedral of Rheims, of
+which the wood-work has long been regarded as the
+most beautiful in the kingdom, contains so great a
+number. Unhappily in times of intestine commotion
+this chef d&rsquo;&oelig;uvre has been horribly mutilated
+by the axes of modern iconoclasts, more ferocious
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>336]</a></span>
+than the barbarians of old. The two other tapestries
+are placed in the Church of the Penitents, an
+ancient refectory of the monks which now forms a
+dependent chapel to the great temple.</p>
+
+<p>These magnificent hangings are woven of wool
+and silk, and one yet perceives almost throughout,
+golden and silver threads which time has spared.
+When the artist prepared to copy them for the
+work we are quoting, no one dreamt of the richness
+buried beneath the accumulated dust and dirt of
+centuries. They were carefully cleaned, and then,
+says the artist, &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Je suis &eacute;bloui de cette magnificence
+que nous ne soup&ccedil;onnions plus. C&rsquo;est admirable.
+Les Gobelins ne produisent pas aujourd&rsquo;hui
+de tissus plus riches et plus &eacute;clatans. Imaginez-vous
+que les robes des femmes, les ornemens, les
+colonnettes sont &eacute;maill&eacute;s, ruisselants de milliers
+de pierres fines et de perles</span>,&rdquo; &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>It would be tedious to attempt to describe individually
+the subjects of these tapestries. They
+interweave the histories of the Old and New Testaments;
+the centre of the work generally representing
+some passage in the life of our Saviour, whilst
+on each side is some correspondent typical incident
+from the Old Testament. Above are rhymed quatrains,
+either legendary or scriptural; and below
+and around are sentences drawn from the prophets
+or the psalms.</p>
+
+<p>These tapestries appear to have been the production
+of the close of the fifteenth and the beginning
+of the sixteenth centuries, denoting in the architecture
+and costumes <em>more</em> the reigns of Charles VIII.
+and Louis XI., than of Louis XII. and Francis I.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>337]</a></span>
+Such pieces were probably long in the loom, since
+the tapestry of Dijon, composed of a single <i>lai</i> of
+twenty-one feet, required not less, according to a
+competent judge, than ten years&rsquo; labour.</p>
+
+<p>There are some most beautiful, even amongst
+these all-beautiful engravings, which we much regret
+to see there&mdash;engravings of the tapestry in the
+cathedral of Aix, which tapestry ought still to enrich
+our own country. Shame on those under whose
+barbarous rule these, amongst other valuable and
+cherished monuments, were, as relics of papistry,
+bartered for foreign gold. &ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L&rsquo;histoire manuscrite
+de la ville d&rsquo;Aix dit que cette tapisserie avait servi
+&agrave; l&rsquo;&eacute;glise de St. Paul de Londres ou &agrave; toute autre
+&eacute;glise cath&eacute;drale d&rsquo;Angleterre; qu&rsquo;&agrave; l&rsquo;&eacute;poque de la
+R&eacute;formation, les tableaux et les tapisseries ayant &eacute;t&eacute;
+exclus des temples, les Anglais cherch&egrave;rent &agrave; vendre
+dans les pays &eacute;trangers quelques-unes des tapisseries
+qui ornaient leurs cath&eacute;drales, et <em>qu&rsquo;ils en br&ucirc;l&egrave;rent
+un plus grand nombre</em>!</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This tapestry represents the history of our Saviour,
+in twenty seven compartments, being in the whole
+about 187 feet long. It is supposed to have been
+woven about 1511, when William Warham was
+Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chancellor. Warham
+had been previously Bishop of London; and
+as his arms are on this tapestry, and also the arms
+of two prior bishops of London who are supposed to
+have left legacies to ornament the church which were
+applied towards defraying the expenses of this manufacture,
+it seems quite probable that its destination
+was St. Paul&rsquo;s, and not any other cathedral
+church. The arms of the king are inwrought in two
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>338]</a></span>
+places; for Henry contributed to the embellishment
+of this church. He loved the arts; he decorated
+churches; and though he seceded from the Roman
+communion, he maintained throughout his life magnificent
+decorations in his favourite churches as well
+as the worship of the ancient Catholic Church. It
+was first under Edward, and more decidedly under
+Elizabeth, that the ceremonies of the church were
+completely changed, and that those which had been
+considered only decent and becoming were stigmatised
+as popish. Nor did this fantasy reach its
+height until the time of Cromwell.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Douglas, Earl of Buchan, who founded the
+Society of Antiquaries in Edinburgh, endeavoured
+during the interval of the Peace of Amiens, to treat
+with the Archbishop of Aix for the repurchase of
+this tapestry. He would have placed it in a Gothic
+church belonging to an ancient Scotch Abbey on
+his domains. He had already ornamented this
+church with several beautiful monuments of antiquity,
+and he wished to place this tapestry there as
+a national monument, but the treaty was broken off.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="smcap">Tapestries of Aulhac</span>, representing the
+siege of Troy, and those of <span class="smcap">Beauvais</span>, embracing a
+variety of subjects from history both sacred and profane;
+of the <span class="smcap">Louvre</span>, representing the Miracle of
+St. Quentin, tapestry representing <span class="smcap">Alexander</span>,
+King of Scotland; and those of <span class="smcap">St. Remi</span>, at
+Rheims, are all engraven and described.</p>
+
+<p>Those of the magnificent cathedral church at
+Rheims, consisting of forty tapestries, forming different
+collections, but all on religious subjects, will
+probably form the material for future numbers.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>339]</a></span>
+That there are ancient tapestries existing in England
+fully equal to those in France is, we think,
+almost certain; but of course they are not to be
+summoned from the &ldquo;vasty deep&rdquo; of neglect and
+oblivion by the powerless voice of an obscure individual.
+Gladly would we, had it been in our power,
+have enriched our sketch by references to some of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The following notice of a tapestry at Coventry is
+drawn from &ldquo;Smith&rsquo;s Selections of the ancient Costume
+of Britain;&rdquo; and the names of the tapestries
+at Hampton Court Palace from &ldquo;Pyne&rsquo;s Royal Residences.&rdquo;
+We have recently visited Hampton Court
+for the express purpose of viewing the tapestries.
+There, we believe, they were, entirely (with the
+exception of a stray inch or two here and there)
+hung over with paintings.</p>
+
+<p>The splendid though neglected tapestry of St.
+Mary&rsquo;s Hall at Coventry offers a variety of materials
+no less interesting on account of the sanctity
+and misfortunes of the prince (Henry VI.) who is
+there represented, than curious as specimens of the
+arts of drawing, dyeing, and embroidery of the time
+in which it was executed.</p>
+
+<p>It is thirty feet in length and ten in height; and
+is divided into six compartments, three in the upper
+tier and three in the lower, containing in all upwards
+of eighty figures or heads. The centre compartment
+of the upper row, in its perfect and original
+state, represented the usual personification of the
+Trinity&mdash;(the Trinity Guild held its meetings in
+the hall of St. Mary) surrounded by angels bearing
+the various instruments of the Passion. But the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>340]</a></span>
+zeal of our early reformers sacrificed this part of the
+work, and substituted in its stead a tasteless figure
+of Justice, which now holds the scales amidst the
+original group of surrounding angels.</p>
+
+<p>The right hand division of this tier is occupied
+with sundry figures of saints and martyrs, and the
+opposite side is filled with a group of female saints.</p>
+
+<p>In the centre compartment below is represented
+the Virgin Mary in the clouds, standing on the
+crescent, surrounded by the twelve Apostles and
+many cherubs. But the two remaining portions of
+this fine tapestry constitute its chief value and importance
+to the city of Coventry, as they represent
+the figures of Henry VI., his Queen, the ambitious, and
+crafty, and cruel, yet beautiful and eloquent and
+injured Margaret of Anjou, and many of their attendants.
+During all the misfortunes of Henry, the
+citizens of Coventry zealously supported him; and
+their city is styled by historians &ldquo;Queen Margaret&rsquo;s
+secret bower.&rdquo; As the tapestry was purposely made
+for the hall, and probably placed there during the
+lives of the sovereigns, the figures may be considered
+as authentic portraits.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<p>The first Presence Chamber in Hampton Court
+is (or was) hung with rich ancient tapestry, representing
+a landscape, with the figures of Nymphs,
+Fawns, Satyrs, Nereides, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>There is some fine ancient tapestry in the King&rsquo;s
+Audience Chamber, the subjects being, on one side,
+Abraham and Lot dividing their lands; and on the
+other, God appearing to Abraham purchasing ground
+for a burying-place.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>341]</a></span>
+The tapestry on the walls of the King&rsquo;s Drawing-Room
+represents Abraham entertaining the three
+Angels; also Abraham, Isaac, and Rebecca.</p>
+
+<p>The tapestry which covers three sides of the
+King&rsquo;s State Bedchamber represents the history of
+Joshua.</p>
+
+<p>The walls of the Queen&rsquo;s Audience Chamber are
+covered with tapestry hangings, which represent the
+story of Abraham and Melchisedec, and Abraham
+and Rebecca.</p>
+
+<p>The Ball Room is called also the Tapestry Gallery,
+from the superb suite of hangings that ornament
+its walls, which was brought from Flanders
+by General Cadogan, and set up by order of
+George I. The series of seven compartments describes
+the history of Alexander the Great, from the
+paintings of the celebrated Charles le Brun. The
+first represents the story of Alexander and his horse
+Bucephalus; the second, the visit of Alexander to
+Diogenes; the third, the passage of Alexander over
+the Granicus; the fourth, Alexander&rsquo;s visit to the
+mother and wife of Darius, in their tent, after the
+battle of Arbela; the fifth, Alexander&rsquo;s triumphal
+entrance into Babylon; the sixth, Alexander&rsquo;s
+battle with Porus; the seventh, his second entrance
+into Babylon.&mdash;These magnificent hangings were
+wrought at the Gobelins.</p>
+
+<p>The tapestry hangings in the king&rsquo;s private
+bedchamber describe the naval battle of Solebay
+between the combined fleets of England and France
+and the Dutch fleet, in 1672.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<p>Of all the tapestries here recorded, the last only,
+representing the Battle of Solebay, are now visible.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a>
+&ldquo;<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les Anciennes Tapisseries Histori&eacute;es, ou Collection des Monumens
+les plus remarquables, de ce genre, qui nous soient rest&eacute;s du
+moyen age.&rdquo; A Paris.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>342]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">EMBROIDERY.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Flowers, Plants and Fishes, Beasts, Birds, Flyes, and Bees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hils, Dales, Plaines, Pastures, Skies, Seas, Rivers, Trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There&rsquo;s nothing neere at hand, or farthest sought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But with the Needle may be shap&rsquo;d and wrought.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">John Taylor.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Perhaps of all nations in very ancient times the
+Medes and Babylonians were most celebrated for
+the draperies of the apartments, about which they
+were even more anxious than about their attire.
+All their noted hangings with which their palaces
+were so gorgeously celebrated were wrought by the
+needle. And though now everywhere the loom is
+in request, still these and other eastern nations
+maintain great practice and unrivalled skill in
+needle embroidery. Sir John Chardin says of the
+Persians, &ldquo;Their tailors certainly excel ours in their
+sewing. They make carpets, cushions, veils for
+doors, and other pieces of furniture of felt, in Mosaic
+work, which represents just what they please.
+This is done so neatly, that a man might suppose
+the figures were painted instead of being a kind of
+inlaid work. Look as close as you will, the joining
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>343]</a></span>
+cannot be seen;&rdquo; and the Hall of Audience at
+Jeddo, we are told, is a sumptuous edifice; the roof
+covered with gold and silver of exquisite workmanship,
+the throne of massy gold enriched with pearls,
+diamonds, and other precious stones. The tapestry
+is of the finest silk, wrought by the <em>most curious
+hands</em>, and adorned with pearls, gold, and silver,
+and other costly embellishments.</p>
+
+<p>About the close of the ninth or beginning of the
+tenth century, the Caliph Moctadi&rsquo;s whole army,
+both horse and foot, (says Abulfeda) were under
+arms, which together made a body of 160,000 men.
+His state officers stood near him in the most splendid
+apparel, their belts shining with gold and gems.
+Near them were 7000 black and white eunuchs.
+The porters or door-keepers were in number 700.
+Barges and boats, with the most superb decorations,
+were swimming on the Tigris. Nor was the palace
+itself less splendid, in which were hung <em>38,000
+pieces of tapestry, 12,500 of which were of silk embroidered
+with gold</em>. The carpets on the floor were
+22,000. A hundred lions were brought out with a
+keeper to each lion. Among the other spectacles
+of rare and stupendous luxury, was a tree of gold
+and silver, which opened itself into eighteen larger
+branches, upon which, and the other less branches
+sate birds of every sort, made also of gold and silver.
+The tree glittered with leaves of the same metals,
+and while its branches, through machinery, appeared
+to move of themselves, the several birds upon them
+warbled their natural notes.</p>
+
+<p>The skill of the eastern embroiderer has always
+had a wide field for display in the decoration of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>344]</a></span>
+<em>tents</em>, which were in such request in hot countries,
+among Nomadic tribes, or on military excursions.</p>
+
+<p>The covering of tents among the Arabs is usually
+black goats&rsquo; 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&mdash;for both outer and inner are woven
+and wrought by women&mdash;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 <em>perdahs</em>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>345]</a></span>
+of which chests were a sufficient load for an elephant:
+the screen filled another chest. The walls
+of the tent&mdash;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&rsquo;s reign.</p>
+
+<p>Sir J. Chardin tells us that the late King of
+Persia caused a tent to be made which cost 2,000,000<i>l.</i>
+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&rsquo;s tent from the
+Bedouin romance of that name has been often
+quoted:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>346]</a></span>
+the land of Shurebah and Mount Saadi were illuminated
+by its splendour.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Extravagant as seems this description, we are
+told that it is not so much exaggerated as we might
+imagine. &ldquo;Poetical license&rdquo; 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 <em>without incommoding the nobles at the
+audience</em>.</p>
+
+<p>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 <em>arabesque</em>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>347]</a></span>
+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<i>l.</i> sterling, made
+up by diamonds and other jewels, received in gifts
+during a long succession of ages.</p>
+
+<p>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, &amp;c.; and
+we have seen within the last few months a bonnet
+covered with <em>peacock&rsquo;s</em> feathers. This, however, is
+certainly the <em>extreme</em> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>348]</a></span>
+fashionable halls is sinking into oblivion, but the
+poet, who perchance merely glanced at them, lives
+for ever.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">ON MRS. MONTAGUE&rsquo;S FEATHER HANGINGS.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&ldquo;The birds put off their ev&rsquo;ry hue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To dress a room for Montague.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The peacock sends his heavenly dyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His <em>rainbows</em> and his <em>starry eyes</em>;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The pheasant plumes, which round infold<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His mantling neck with downy gold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The cock his arch&rsquo;d tail&rsquo;s azure shew;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And, river blanch&rsquo;d, the swan his snow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All tribes beside of Indian name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That glossy shine, or vivid flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where rises, and where sets the day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whate&rsquo;er they boast of rich and gay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Contribute to the gorgeous plan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Proud to advance it all they can.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This plumage, neither dashing shower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor blasts that shape the dripping bow&rsquo;r,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall drench again or discompose&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But screen&rsquo;d from ev&rsquo;ry storm that blows<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It boasts a splendour ever new,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Safe with protecting Montague.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The negresses of Senegal embroider the skin of
+different animals of flowers and figures of all colours.</p>
+
+<p>The Turks and Georgians embroider marvellously
+the lightest gauze or most delicate crape.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>349]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the
+same leaf which imparted grace and
+ornament to the Corinthian capital.</p>
+
+<p>But it would be endless to enter into the subject
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>350]</a></span>
+of patterns, which doubtless were everywhere originally
+simple enough, with</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&ldquo;here and there a tuft of crimson yarn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or scarlet crewel.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;At length a generation more refin&rsquo;d<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Improved the simple plan; made three legs four,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gave them a twisted form vermicular,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And o&rsquo;er the seat with plenteous wadding stuff&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Induc&rsquo;d a splendid cover, green and blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yellow and red, of tapestry richly wrought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And woven close, or needlework sublime.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There might ye see the piony spread wide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The full-blown rose, the shepherd and his lass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lapdog and lambkin with black staring eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And parrots with twin cherries in their beak.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>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 <em>individuals</em> have indeed
+been celebrated, as one thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;She wrought all needleworks that women exercise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With pen, frame, or stoole; all pictures artificial,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Curious knots or trailes, what fancy could devise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beasts, birds, or flowers, even as things natural.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>351]</a></span>
+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 &ldquo;Spectator&rdquo;
+seriously recommends it to the attention of
+the community at large.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="smcap">&ldquo;Mr. Spectator,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">&ldquo;I am, &amp;c., &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>352]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I may, without breach of good manners, imagine
+that any pretty creature is void of genius, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>353]</a></span>
+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&rsquo;s way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How memorable would that matron be, who shall
+have it subscribed upon her monument, &lsquo;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!&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The premises being considered, I humbly submit
+the following proposals to all mothers in Great
+Britain:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;1. That no young virgin whatsoever be allowed
+to receive the addresses of her first lover, but in a
+suit of her own embroidering.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;2. That before every fresh humble servant she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>354]</a></span>
+shall be obliged to appear with a new stomacher at
+the least.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;3. That no one be actually married until she
+hath the child-bed pillows, &amp;c., ready stitched, as
+likewise the mantle for the boy quite finished.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>355]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">NEEDLEWORK ON BOOKS.</span></h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">&ldquo;And often did she look<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On that which in her hand she bore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In velvet bound and broider&rsquo;d o&rsquo;er&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her breviary book.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Marmion.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7">&ldquo;Books are ours,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Within whose silent chambers treasure lies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Preserved from age to age&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These hoards of truth we can unlock at will.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Wordsworth.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Deep indeed are our obligations for those treasures
+which &ldquo;we can unlock at will:&rdquo; treasures of far more
+value than gold or gems, for they oftentimes bestow
+that which gold cannot purchase&mdash;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&mdash;based however
+on the authentic record of the past&mdash;through
+dim and distant ages; to behold the fathers and
+prophets of the ancient earth; to hold communion
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>356]</a></span>
+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
+<span class="smcap">Past</span>, to revel in all the accumulated treasures of
+Time&mdash;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</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Song of the Muses, says historic tale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Science severe, or word of Holy Writ,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Announcing immortality and joy.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The &ldquo;word of Holy Writ,&rdquo; the <span class="smcap">Bible</span>&mdash;we pass
+over its hopes, its promises, its consolations&mdash;these
+themes are too sacred even for reference on our light
+page&mdash;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&mdash;the bequeathed and inherited sorrows of
+ages&mdash;had quite seared the &ldquo;human face divine;&rdquo;
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>357]</a></span>
+untrodden by foot of man, and behold the ancient
+solitudes gradually invaded by his advancing steps.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;silent indeed to the ear, but
+speaking eloquently to the heart&mdash;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!</p>
+
+<p>Listen how sweetly one of the first of modern men
+apostrophises his books:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;My days among the dead are past;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Around me I behold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where&rsquo;er these casual eyes are cast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The mighty minds of old;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My never-failing friends are they,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With whom I converse day by day.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;With them I take delight in weal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And seek relief in woe;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And while I understand and feel<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">How much to them I owe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My cheeks have often been bedew&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With tears of thoughtful gratitude.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;My thoughts are with the dead; with them<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I live in long past years;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their virtues love, their faults condemn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Partake their hopes and fears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from their lessons seek and find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Instruction with a humble mind.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>358]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;My hopes are with the dead; anon<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">My place with them will be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I with them shall travel on<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Through all futurity;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet leaving here a name, I trust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That will not perish in the dust.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a><br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>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 &ldquo;pious and painful&rdquo;
+amanuenses of those days when the fourth estate of
+the realm, the public press&mdash;<small>WAS NOT</small>&mdash;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>359]</a></span>
+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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>These are a few, a very few of such instances as a
+spirit of the fourteenth century might allude to&mdash;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&rsquo;s College, Oxford, is this order&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The scarcity of parchment seems indeed at times
+to have been a greater hindrance to the promulgation
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>360]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of the tenth century, books were
+so scarce in Spain, that one and the same copy of the
+Bible, St. Jerome&rsquo;s Epistles, and some volumes of
+ecclesiastical offices and martyrologies, often served
+several different monasteries.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>361]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>John de Pontissara, Bishop of Winchester, borrowed
+of his cathedral convent of St. Swithin at
+Winchester, in 1299, <span class="smcap" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Bibliam bene Glossatam</span>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&rsquo;s Church.</p>
+
+<p>Books often brought excessive prices in the
+middle ages. In 1174, Walter, Prior of St. Swithin&rsquo;s
+at Winchester, and afterwards abbot of Westminster,
+purchased of the monks of Dorchester in Oxfordshire
+Bede&rsquo;s Homilies and St. Austin&rsquo;s Psalter, for
+twelve measures of barley, and a pall on which was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>362]</a></span>
+embroidered in silver the history of Birinus converting
+a Saxon king.</p>
+
+<p>About 1400, a copy of John de Meun&rsquo;s Roman
+de la Rose was sold before the palace-gate at Paris
+for forty crowns, or 33<i>l.</i> 6<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p>In Edward the Third&rsquo;s reign, one hundred marks
+(equal to 1000<i>l.</i>) were paid to Isabella de Lancaster,
+a nun of Ambresbury, for a book of romance, purchased
+from her for the king&rsquo;s use.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The encouragement given in the English monasteries
+for transcribing books was very considerable.
+In every great abbey there was an apartment called
+&ldquo;The Scriptorium;&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>363]</a></span>
+Winchester, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ad libros transcribendos</i>, in the year
+1171.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel in the year 1160 gave the monks of Ely
+two churches, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">ad libros faciendos</span>.</p>
+
+<p>When the library at Croyland Abbey was burnt
+in 1091, seven hundred volumes were consumed
+which must have been thus laboriously produced.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&rsquo;s at Venice; the
+Escurial in Spain; and the principal public libraries in
+England.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>364]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Purple vellum Greek MSS.,&rdquo; says Breitinger, &ldquo;if
+I remember rightly, are scarcer than white crows!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Belinda.</span> &ldquo;Pray tell us &lsquo;all about them,&rsquo; as the
+children say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Philemon.</span> &ldquo;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
+&lsquo;powdered&rsquo; 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 <em>coldly</em> upon
+this picturesque subject!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>365]</a></span>
+<span class="smcap">Alimansa.</span> &ldquo;Nor do I feel precisely as if I were in
+the <em>frigid</em> zone! But proceed and expatiate.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Philemon.</span> &ldquo;The field for expatiating is unluckily
+very limited. The fact of the more ancient MSS.
+before noticed, the <em>Pentateuch</em> at <em>Vienna</em>, 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 <em>purple tint</em>, for I apprehend little more
+than a <em>tint</em> 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 <em>coxcombs</em>, all
+those who, in his own time, were so violently attached
+to your favourite purple colour.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lisardo.</span> &ldquo;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 <em>Vulgate</em>, 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&rsquo;s decision.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Philemon.</span> &ldquo;You appear to mistake the matter
+St. Jerom imagined that this appetite for purple
+MSS. was rather artificial and voluptuous; requiring
+regulation and correction&mdash;and that, in the
+end, men would prefer the former colour to the
+intrinsic worth of their vellum treasures.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<p>We must not omit the note appended to this
+colloquy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>366]</a></span>
+&ldquo;The general idea seems to be that <span class="smcap">Purple Vellum</span>
+MSS. were intended only for &lsquo;choice blades,&rsquo;
+let us rather say, tasteful bibliomaniacs&mdash;in book
+collecting. St. Jerom, as Philemon above observes,
+is very biting in his sarcasm upon these &lsquo;purple
+leaves covered with letters of gold and silver.&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;For
+myself and my friends (adds that father), let us have
+lower priced books, and distinguished not so much
+for beauty as for accuracy.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mabillon remarks that these purple treasures
+were for the &lsquo;princes&rsquo; and &lsquo;noblemen&rsquo; of the
+times.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And we learn from the twelfth volume of the
+Specileginum of Theonas, that it is rather somewhat
+unseemly &lsquo;to write upon purple vellum in letters of
+gold and silver, unless at the particular desire of a
+prince.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The <em>subject</em> 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 &lsquo;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.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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 &ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">inauditam ante
+seculis nostris quoddam miraculam</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This art, however, shortly after declined
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>367]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>But we have been beguiled too long from that
+which alone is connected with our subject, viz., the
+<em>binding</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The early ornaments of the back were chiefly of
+a religious character&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the most
+costly gems and precious stones being frequently
+inlaid with the golden ornaments&mdash;the shape and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>368]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The wooden sides were afterwards covered with
+leather, with vellum, with velvet,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>369]</a></span>
+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&rsquo;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<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest specimen of this description of binding
+remaining in the British Museum is &ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Fichetus
+(Guil.) Rhetoricum, Libri tres. (Impr. in Membranis)
+4to. Paris ad Sorbon&aelig;</span>, 1471.&rdquo; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&rsquo;s &lsquo;Rhetoric&rsquo; is covered with crimson satin,
+on which is wrought with the needle a coat-of-arms:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>370]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>The next in date which I have seen there is a description
+of the Holy Land, in French, written in
+Henry VII.&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>There is an edition of Petrarch&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>Queen Mary&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>371]</a></span>
+stitches round the edge being covered with a kind
+of cordon, or golden thread, sewed over;&mdash;just, indeed,
+as we sew muslin on net.</p>
+
+<p>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&rsquo;s own needle wrought the
+ornaments thereon, viz., H.&nbsp;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:
+&ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Illustrissimo ac potentissimo Henrico octavo, Angli&aelig;,
+Franci&aelig;, Hiberni&aelig;q. regi, fidei defensori, et
+secundum Christum ecclesi&aelig; Anglican&aelig; et Hibernic&aelig;
+supremo capiti. Elizabeta Majest. S. humillima
+filia omne felicitatem precatur, et benedictionem
+suam suplex petit.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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&rsquo;s
+work; and her handwriting appears at the beginning,
+viz.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">August.</span>&mdash;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>372]</a></span>
+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 &ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Beatus qui
+Divitias scriptur&aelig; legens verba vertit in opera.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Vicit
+omnia pertinax virtus.</span>&rdquo; &amp;c., &amp;c.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p>
+
+<p>There is a book in the British Museum, very
+<i>petite</i>, a MS containing a French Pastoral&mdash;date 1587&mdash;of
+which the satin or brocade back is loaded with
+needlework in gold and silver, which now, however,
+looks heavy and tasteless.</p>
+
+<p>But the most beautiful is Archbishop Parker&rsquo;s,
+&ldquo;<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">De Antiquitate Britannic&aelig; Ecclesi&aelig;</span>:&rdquo; A.D. 1572.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>All these books, with the exception of the one
+quoted from Ballard&rsquo;s Memoirs, were most obligingly
+sought out and brought to me by the gentlemen
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>373]</a></span>
+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&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;In velvet bound and broider&rsquo;d o&rsquo;er.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a>
+Southey.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a>
+Ballard&rsquo;s Memoirs.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>374]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">NEEDLEWORK OF ROYAL LADIES.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Thus is a Needle prov&rsquo;d an Instrument<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of profit, pleasure, and of ornament,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which mighty Queenes have grac&rsquo;d in hand to take.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">John Taylor.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;in its lighter branches&mdash;accompanied
+with so little bodily exertion, not deranging
+the most <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">recherch&eacute;</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The father of song hardly refers at all to the
+noble dames of Greece and Troy but as occupied
+in &ldquo;painting with the needle.&rdquo; Some, the heroic
+achievements of their countrymen on curtains and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>375]</a></span>
+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</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">&ldquo;inventions rare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Steam towns and towers.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>the preparation of apparel has fallen to woman&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &lsquo;Hardyknute&rsquo;&mdash;beginning</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Stately stept he east the wa&rsquo;,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stately stept he west.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Farewell, my dame, sae peerless good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">(And took her by the hand,)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fairer to me in age you seem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than maids for beauty fam&rsquo;d.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>376]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">My youngest son shall here remain<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To guard these lonely towers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shut the silver bolt that keeps<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sae fast your painted bowers.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;And first she wet her comely cheeks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And then her boddice green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her silken cords of twisted twist,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Well plett with silver sheen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And apron set with mony a dice<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of needlewark sae rare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wove by nae hand, as ye may guess,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Save that of Fairly fair.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>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 &ldquo;milliner&rsquo;s
+practice.&rdquo; Therefore, though we give the
+gentle Fairly fair all possible praise for notability
+in the</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Apron set with mony a dice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of needlework sae rare,&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> on it,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>377]</a></span>
+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&mdash;the
+Bayeux tapestry&mdash;on which we have dwelt too
+long elsewhere to linger here, and which was wrought
+by her and under her superintendence.</p>
+
+<p>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 &ldquo;Field of the Standard.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, second only to Queen Matilda&rsquo;s work,
+or indeed superior to it, as being entirely the
+production of her own hand, were the needlework
+pieces of Joan D&rsquo;Albert, who ascended the throne
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>378]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+&ldquo;a commemoration of her love for, and steadiness
+to, the reformed faith.&rdquo; It is thus described by
+Boyle: &ldquo;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 <span class="smcap">The Prisons
+Opened</span>; by which she gave us to understand
+that she had broken the pope&rsquo;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&mdash;as the deliverance of Susannah; the departure
+of the children of Israel out of Egypt; the
+setting Joseph at liberty, &amp;c. And at all the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>379]</a></span>
+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,
+<span class="smcap" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ubi Spiritus ibi Libertas</span>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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, <span class="smcap" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Dominus vobiscum</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>380]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0" lang="it" xml:lang="it">&ldquo;Ai lavori d&rsquo;Aracne, all&rsquo;ago, ai fusi<br /></span>
+<span class="i0" lang="it" xml:lang="it">Inchinar non degn&ograve; la man superba.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>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&rsquo;s (Catherine of Medici&rsquo;s) private apartment,
+where &ldquo;she usually spent two or three hours in
+embroidery with her female attendants.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, &ldquo;My hands are ordained
+to touch crowns and sceptres, not needles and
+spindles.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>381]</a></span>
+When the orphaned daughter of this lady, by
+the lord admiral, was consigned to the care of the
+Duchess of Suffolk, the furniture of &ldquo;her former
+nursery&rdquo; was to be sent with her. The list is rather
+curious, and we subjoin it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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 &ldquo;a wreck behind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;I read that in the seventh King Henrie&rsquo;s reigne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Fair Katharine, daughter to the Castile king,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came into England with a pompous traine<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of Spanish ladies which shee thence did bring.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She to the eighth King Henry married was,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And afterwards divorc&rsquo;d, where virtuously<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Although a Queene), yet she her days did pass<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In working with the <em>needle</em> curiously,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As in the Tower, and places more beside,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Her excellent memorials may be seen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whereby the <em>needle&rsquo;s</em> prayse is dignifide<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By her faire ladies, and herselfe, a Queene.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>382]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus far her paines, here her reward is just,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her works proclaim her prayse, though she be dust.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The same pen also celebrated her daughter&rsquo;s skill
+in this feminine occupation.</p>
+
+<p>Mary was skilled in all sorts of embroidery; and
+when her mother&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Her daughter Mary here the sceptre swaid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And though she were a Queene of mighty power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her memory will never be decaid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Which by her works are likewise in the Tower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Windsor Castle, and in Hampton Court,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In that most pompous roome called Paradise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who ever pleaseth thither to resort,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">May see some workes of hers, of wondrous price.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her greatness held it no disreputation<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To take the needle in her royal hand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which was a good example to our nation<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To banish idleness from out her land:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thus this Queene, in wisdom thought it fit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The needle&rsquo;s worke pleas&rsquo;d her, and she grac&rsquo;d it.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>We extract the following notice of the gentle and
+excellent Lady Jane Grey, from the &lsquo;Court Magazine.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ten days&rsquo; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>383]</a></span>
+in early womanhood intermingling their glorious
+halo with the dark shadowings of despotism, imprisonment,
+and violent death upon the scaffold!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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 &lsquo;The Coppice,&rsquo;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>384]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&lsquo;This was thy home then, gentle Jane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">This thy green solitude; and here<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At evening from the gleaming pane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thine eye oft watched the dappled deer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(While the soft sun was in its wane)<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Browsing beside the brooklet clear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The brook runs still, the sun sets now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The deer yet browseth&mdash;where art thou?&rsquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>385]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The following notices from her own letters, though
+trifling, are interesting memorials of this melancholy
+part of her life:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;July 9, 1574.&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;July 18, 1574.&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>386]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;September 22.&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;February 12, 1576.&mdash;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.&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The poet so often quoted wrote the subjoined
+sonnet in Queen Elizabeth&rsquo;s praise, whose skill with
+her needle was remarkable. She was especially an
+adept in the embroidering with gold and silver,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>387]</a></span>
+and practised it much in the early part of her life,
+though perhaps few specimens of her notability now
+exist:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;When this great queene, whose memory shall not<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By any terme of time be overcast;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For when the world and all therein shall rot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet shall her glorious fame for ever last.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When she a maid had many troubles past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From jayle to jayle by Maries angry spleene:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Woodstocke, and the Tower in prison fast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And after all was England&rsquo;s peerelesse queene.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet howsoever sorrow came or went,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She made the needle her companion still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in that exercise her time she spent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As many living yet doe know her skill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus shee was still, a captive, or else crown&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A needlewoman royall and renown&rsquo;d.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of Mary II., the wife of the Prince of Orange,
+Bishop Fowler writes thus:&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And Burnet thus:&mdash;&ldquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>388]</a></span>
+bread by it. It was a new thing, and looked like
+a sight, to see a queen working so many hours
+a day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Her taste and industry in embroidery are testified
+by chairs yet remaining at Hampton Court.</p>
+
+<p>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 <em>untwisting</em>&mdash;the profitable
+occupation of that day; and which was so fashionable,
+such a &ldquo;rage,&rdquo; that the ladies of the court
+hardly stirred anywhere without two little workbags
+each&mdash;one filled with gold fringes, laces,
+tassels, or any <em>golden</em> trumpery they could pick up,
+the other to contain the gold they unravelled, which
+they sold to Jews.</p>
+
+<p>It is said to be a fact that duchesses&mdash;nay, princesses&mdash;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!</p>
+
+<p>Every one knows that the court costume of the
+French noblemen at that period was most expensive;
+this absurd custom rendered it doubly, trebly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>389]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>The following is an instance:&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;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 <em>politeness</em>
+to laugh and praise the dexterity of the fair
+hands that robbed him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis certain that the soul hath oft foretaste<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of matters which beyond its ken are placed.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>One circumstance, simple in itself and easily explained,
+is recorded by Madame Campan as having
+impressed Marie with shuddering anticipations of
+evil:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>390]</a></span>
+candles were placed upon her toilet; the first went
+out of itself&mdash;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, &lsquo;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!&rsquo;&mdash;The fourth taper went out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>At an earlier period Go&euml;the seems, with somewhat
+of a poet&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was admitted into it,&rdquo; says Go&euml;the, in his
+Memoirs: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The following notices of her imprisonment would
+but be spoiled by any alteration of language. We
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>391]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;During the early part of Louis XVI.&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;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 <em>out</em>, and they were forced
+to obey.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Dec. 7.</i>&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>392]</a></span>
+should be deprived of all scissors, razors, knives&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;&lsquo;What
+a reverse!&rsquo; said the king, looking tenderly
+upon her; &lsquo;you were in want of nothing at your
+pretty house at Montreuil.&rsquo; &lsquo;Ah, brother!&rsquo; she
+replied, &lsquo;can I feel a regret of any kind while I
+share your misfortunes?&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;though such be not now antiquated for an
+<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">&eacute;l&eacute;gante</i>&mdash;her needle and embroidery-frame, with
+beautiful address.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the close of her eventful career, when,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>393]</a></span>
+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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>An interesting circumstance is related of a conversation
+between one of those ministering spirits a
+<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">s&oelig;ur de la charit&eacute;</i> and Josephine, in a time of peculiar
+excitement and trouble. At the conclusion
+of it, the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">s&oelig;ur</i>, having discovered with whom she
+was conversing, added, &ldquo;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&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;&ldquo;I promise you
+shall have some; we will make it ourselves.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>From that moment the evenings were employed
+at Malmaison in making lint, and the empress
+yielded to none in activity at this work.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a
+name which all know, and which, knowing,
+all reverence as that of a dignified princess, a noble
+and admirable matron&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>394]</a></span>
+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&rsquo;s
+throne.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+&ldquo;in poring over the interminable mazes of
+tapestry;&rdquo; but it is well known that Queen Adelaide,
+and, in consequence of her Majesty&rsquo;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a>
+Von Raumer&rsquo;s Contributions.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>395]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="fsmlfont">ON MODERN NEEDLEWORK.</span></h2>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">&ldquo;Our Country everywhere is fild<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Ladies, and with Gentlewomen, skild<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In this rare Art.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Taylor.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;For here the needle plies its busy task,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And curling tendrils gracefully dispos&rsquo;d,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Follow the nimble fingers of the fair;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wreath that cannot fade.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+<span class="poet smcap">Cowper.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapblock">
+<p>&ldquo;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&rsquo;s or an Aylesbury&rsquo;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.&rdquo;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mrs. Griffiths.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The triumph of modern art in needlework is
+probably within our own shores, achieved by our
+own countrywoman,&mdash;Miss Linwood. &ldquo;Miss
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>396]</a></span>
+Linwood&rsquo;s Exhibition&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;nobler gender&rdquo; 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
+<i>bon&acirc; fide</i> needlework. Full demonstration, however,
+is given you by the facility of close approach to some
+of the pieces.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most beautiful of the whole collection&mdash;a
+collection consisting of nearly a hundred pieces
+of all sizes&mdash;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,&mdash;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,)</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Have I lived thus long&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>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, &ldquo;The Judgment
+of Cain,&rdquo; 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.</p>
+
+<p>The pieces are worked not on canvas, nor, we are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>397]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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&rsquo;s &ldquo;Salvator Mundi,&rdquo; for which she has been
+offered, and has refused, three thousand guineas.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, &amp;c.,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>398]</a></span>
+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 <em>colour</em>
+these plates, but a principal manufacturer estimates
+them as upwards of twelve hundred, chiefly
+women.</p>
+
+<p>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 &ldquo;Zephyr&rdquo;
+yarns known in this country as the &ldquo;Berlin wools.&rdquo;
+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 <em>exporters</em>, and
+probably will so remain, whatever be the <em>quality</em> of
+the wool produced in England, until the art of
+<em>dyeing</em> be as well understood and as scientifically
+practised.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>399]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &ldquo;Bolton Abbey,&rdquo;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Many ladies of rank in Germany add to their
+pin-money by executing needlework for the warehouses.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;silk and gold.
+By embroidery we mean that which is done on a
+solid ground, as silk or cloth.</p>
+
+<p>The tapestry or canvas-work is now thoroughly
+understood in this country; and by the help of the
+Berlin patterns more <em>good</em> things are produced here
+as articles of furniture than in France.</p>
+
+<p>The present mode of furnishing houses is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>400]</a></span>
+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&mdash;mother,
+daughters, cousins, and servants&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <em>well worked</em>,
+they are too complicated to be easy of execution,
+and very few indeed of those brought to this country
+are ever <em>finished</em> by the purchaser.</p>
+
+<p>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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>401]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &ldquo;satin sketches&rdquo; and embroideries.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, there is certainly room in worsted work for
+genius to exert itself&mdash;the genius of a painter&mdash;in
+the selection, arrangement, and combination of
+colours, of light and shade, &amp;c.; we do not mean in
+glaring arabesques, but in the landscape and the
+portrait. There is an instance given by Pennant,<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a>
+where the skill and taste of the needlewoman imparted
+a grace to her picture which was wanting in
+the original.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In one of the apartments of the palace (Lambeth)
+is a performance that does great honour to the
+ingenious wife of a modern dignitary&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>402]</a></span>
+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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Could we now take a more extended view of
+modern needlework, how wide the range to which
+we might refer,&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Finally,&mdash;feeling as we do that though ornamental
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>403]</a></span>
+needlework may be a charming occupation for those
+ladies whose happy lot relieves them from the necessity
+of &ldquo;darning hose&rdquo; and &ldquo;mending nightcaps,&rdquo;
+yet that a proficiency in plain sewing is the
+very life and being of the comfort and respectability
+of the poor man&rsquo;s wife,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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
+<small>PRACTICE</small> in sewing which next, the very next, to the
+knowledge of their catechism, is of vital importance
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>404]</a></span>
+to the future well-doing of girls in the lower stations
+of life.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &ldquo;exceeding rich
+reward;&rdquo; for if perchance they were at times productive
+of fatigue, they yet have winged the flight
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[<span class="hidden">Pg </span>405]</a></span>
+of many lonely hours which might otherwise have
+induced weariness or even despondency in their
+lagging transit.</p>
+
+<p>To you, my countrywomen, I offer the book, not
+as what it <em>might</em> 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&mdash;as I trust and believe&mdash;to
+none.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a>
+Some account of London.&mdash;1793.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a>
+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.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center padtop padbase">THE END.</p>
+
+<p class="center fsmlfont">London: Printed by <span class="smcap">W. Clowes</span> and <span class="smcap">Sons</span>, Stamford Street.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<p><b>Transcriber's Note</b></p>
+
+<p>Archaic and variable spelling is preserved as printed. Minor punctuation errors
+have been repaired.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The following items were found:</p>
+
+<div class="amends">
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_93">93</a>--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.</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, third footnote&mdash;mentions the word Alner, but doesn't define it.
+"An Illustrated Dictionary of Words Used in Art and Archaeology" by J.&nbsp;W.
+Mollett defines it as: "Aulmoni&egrave;re. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_129">129</a>&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_175">175</a>&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_257">257</a>&mdash;the speaker of the line "Her neele" was obscured. It appears
+that the speaker should be Tib, and this has been inserted.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The following amendments have been made:</p>
+
+<div class="amends">
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_2">2</a>&mdash;certain amended to certains and meurissent amended to m&ucirc;rissent&mdash;"... et
+comme on voit &agrave; certains arbres des fruits qui ne m&ucirc;rissent jamais; ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_27">27</a>&mdash;footsep amended to footstep&mdash;"Each accidental passer hushed his footstep
+..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_42">42</a>&mdash;le amended to la&mdash;"Suivant la diff&eacute;rence des &eacute;tats, elles apprennent &agrave;
+lire, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_42">42</a>&mdash;elle amended to elles&mdash;"... mais elles
+insistent beaucoup plus sur la n&eacute;cessit&eacute; ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_83">83</a>&mdash;supurb amended to superb&mdash;"... seated on a superb throne, and crowned
+with the papal tiara."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, footnote&mdash;lvo. amended to vol.&mdash;"Arch&aelig;ologia, vol. xix."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_119">119</a>&mdash;manngement amended to management&mdash;"... for on her wise and prudent
+management depended not merely the comfort, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_134">134</a>&mdash;macheloires amended to machoires&mdash;"... car si tant ne fait que j&rsquo;aye la
+barbe &amp; les dents machoires sans aucune tromperie ne mensonge, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_155">155</a>&mdash;sixteeenth amended to sixteenth&mdash;"In the sixteenth century[79] a sort
+of hanging was introduced, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_175">175</a>&mdash;repeated 'to' deleted&mdash;"So she went to bed, and in the morning she
+was found stone dead."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_175">175</a>&mdash;renowed amended to renowned&mdash;"Help me, shades of renowned slaughterers,
+whilst I record his achievements!"</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_184">184</a>&mdash;Frence amended to French&mdash;"At Durham Place were the Citie of Ladies
+(a French allegorical Romance); ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_199">199</a>&mdash;Britions amended to Britons&mdash;"... and, as supposed, of the ancient
+Britons."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_200">200</a>&mdash;eylet-holes amended to eyelet-holes&mdash;"... full of small eyelet-holes,
+as thickly as they could be put, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_207">207</a>&mdash;His amended to Hir&mdash;"Hir hat suld be of fair having ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_213">213</a>&mdash;meurs amended to m&oelig;urs&mdash;"... nous n&rsquo;aurions que le m&eacute;pris qu&rsquo;on a pour
+les gens sans m&oelig;urs, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_214">214</a>&mdash;magnificience amended to magnificence&mdash;"... lasting for thrift; and rich
+for magnificence."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_216">216</a>&mdash;marshelling amended to marshalling&mdash;"... using more time in dressing than
+C&aelig;sar took in marshalling his army, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_229">229</a>&mdash;Permittez amended to Permettez&mdash;"Permettez que je vous fasse l&rsquo;observation,
+..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_234">234</a>&mdash;bouyant amended to buoyant&mdash;"... so much was it elevated then by buoyant
+good humour ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_242">242</a>&mdash;wtth amended to with&mdash;"... mingled with mule drivers, lacqueys, and
+peasants, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_254">254</a>&mdash;chandellier amended to chandelier&mdash;"... de brodeur, de tapissier, de
+chandelier, d&rsquo;emballeur; ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_261">261</a>&mdash;finalment amended to finalmente&mdash;"... et finalmente far tutte quelle
+gentillezze et lodevili opere, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_262">262</a>&mdash;repeated 'of' deleted&mdash;"It is dedicated to the Queen of France, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_264">264</a>&mdash;Damoiselles amended to Damoyselles&mdash;"Aux Dames et Damoyselles."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_266">266</a>&mdash;Baccus amended to Bacchus&mdash;"Ce Bacchus representant l&rsquo;Autonne."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_267">267</a>&mdash;delli amended to delle&mdash;"Corona delle Nobili et virtuose Donne, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_267">267</a>&mdash;Mayzette amended to Mazzette&mdash;"E molto delle quali Mostre possono servire
+ancora per opere a Mazzette."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_269">269</a>&mdash;logg amended to long&mdash;"So long as hemp of flax, or sheep shall bear ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, footnote&mdash;al amended to ad&mdash;"... e per far disegni ad altrui o dar
+gl&rsquo;indirizzo ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, footnote&mdash;della dita amended to delle dita&mdash;"... degli narici, della
+bocca, delle dita corrispondono a&rsquo; primi moti d&rsquo;ogni passione; ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, footnote&mdash;del amended to dal&mdash;"... e ci&ograve; ch&rsquo;&egrave; pi&ugrave;, essi variano in cento
+modi senza uscir mai dal naturale, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, footnote&mdash;ridusce amended to ridusse&mdash;"... tutte comprese con la divinit&agrave;
+del suo ingegno, tutto ridusse pi&ugrave; bello."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_276">276</a>&mdash;privat eapartments amended to private apartments&mdash;"These are preserved
+in one of the private apartments of the Vatican palace."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_307">307</a>&mdash;Closely amended to closely&mdash;"... the Spanish Armada up the channel,
+closely followed by the English, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_331">331</a>&mdash;morte amended to mort&mdash;"Prise dans la tente de Charles le T&eacute;m&eacute;raire,
+lors de la mort de ce prince, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_332">332</a>&mdash;int&eacute;rressant amended to int&eacute;ressant&mdash;"... plus int&eacute;ressant pour les arts,
+et plus digne d&rsquo;&ecirc;tre reproduit par la gravure."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_334">334</a>&mdash;destin&eacute;e amended to destin&eacute;&mdash;"Robert fut destin&eacute; de bonne heure aux
+fonctions du sacerdoce."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_335">335</a>&mdash;jusque-l&agrave; converts amended to jusqu&rsquo;&agrave;-l&agrave; couverts&mdash;"... il planta la croix
+du Sauveur dans les lieux jusqu&rsquo;&agrave;-l&agrave; couverts de for&ecirc;ts et de bruy&egrave;res incultes, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_336">336</a>&mdash;&eacute;maill&eacute;es amended to &eacute;maill&eacute;s, and ruisselantes amended to ruisselants&mdash;"...
+les colonnettes sont &eacute;maill&eacute;s, ruisselants de milliers de
+pierres fines et de perles,
+..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_363">363</a>&mdash;libaries amended to libraries&mdash;"... and the principal public libraries
+in England."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_369">369</a>&mdash;illuminaitng amended to illuminating&mdash;"When the art of illuminating
+still more failed, ..."</p>
+
+<p>Page <a href="#Page_398">398</a>&mdash;scarely amended to scarcely&mdash;"... scarcely one-half are moderately
+good; ..."</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Art of Needle-work, from the
+Earliest Ages, 3rd ed., by Elizabeth Stone
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest
+Ages, 3rd ed., by Elizabeth Stone
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages, 3rd ed.
+       Including Some Notices of the Ancient Historical Tapestries
+
+Author: Elizabeth Stone
+
+Editor: Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton Wilton
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2010 [EBook #31714]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART OF NEEDLE-WORK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller, Sam W. and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+Words in {curly brackets} were abbreviated in the original text, and
+have been expanded for this etext. Greek is indicated with plus
+symbols, +like this+.
+
+
+
+
+             THE ART
+                OF
+           NEEDLE-WORK,
+     FROM THE EARLIEST AGES;
+
+            INCLUDING
+       SOME NOTICES OF THE
+  ANCIENT HISTORICAL TAPESTRIES
+
+
+            EDITED BY
+       THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
+     THE COUNTESS OF WILTON.
+
+
+  "I WRITE THE NEEDLE'S PRAYSE."
+
+         _THIRD EDITION._
+
+
+             LONDON:
+    HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
+    GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
+              1841.
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+
+    HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY
+
+    THE QUEEN DOWAGER
+
+    THIS LITTLE WORK,
+
+    INTENDED TO ILLUSTRATE THE HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF AN ART
+    ENNOBLED BY HER MAJESTY'S PRACTICE, AND BY HER EXAMPLE
+    RECOMMENDED TO THE
+
+    WOMEN OF ENGLAND,
+
+    IS,
+    BY HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS PERMISSION,
+
+    INSCRIBED,
+
+    WITH THE UTMOST RESPECT,
+    BY HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRATEFUL
+    AND MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,
+
+                        THE AUTHORESS.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+If there be one mechanical art of more universal application than all
+others, and therefore of more universal interest, it is that which is
+practised with the NEEDLE. From the stateliest denizen of the proudest
+palace, to the humblest dweller in the poorest cottage, all more or
+less ply the busy needle; from the crying infant of a span long and an
+hour's life, to the silent tenant of "the narrow house," all need its
+practical services.
+
+Yet have the NEEDLE and its beautiful and useful creations hitherto
+remained without their due meed of praise and record, either in sober
+prose or sounding rhyme,--while their glittering antithesis, the
+scathing and destroying sword, has been the theme of admiring and
+exulting record, without limit and without end!
+
+The progress of real civilization is rapidly putting an end to this
+false _prestige_ in favour of the "Destructive" weapon, and as rapidly
+raising the "Conservative" one in public estimation; and the time
+seems at length arrived when that triumph of female ingenuity and
+industry, "THE ART OF NEEDLEWORK" may be treated as a fitting subject
+of historical and social record--fitting at least for a female hand.
+
+The chief aim of this volume is that of affording a comprehensive
+record of the most noticeable facts, and an entertaining and
+instructive gathering together of the most curious and pleasing
+associations, connected with "THE ART OF NEEDLEWORK," from the
+earliest ages to the present day; avoiding entirely the dry
+technicalities of the art, yet furnishing an acceptable accessory to
+every work-table--a fitting tenant of every boudoir.
+
+The Authoress thinks thus much necessary in explanation of the objects
+of a work on what may be called a maiden topic, and she trusts that
+that leniency in criticism which is usually accorded to the adventurer
+on an unexplored track will not be withheld from her.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    CHAPTER I.
+                                                        Page
+      Introductory                                         1
+
+    CHAPTER II.
+
+      Early Needlework                                    11
+
+    CHAPTER III.
+
+      Needlework of the Tabernacle                        23
+
+    CHAPTER IV.
+
+      Needlework of the Egyptians                         32
+
+    CHAPTER V.
+
+      Needlework of the Greeks and Romans                 41
+
+    CHAPTER VI.
+
+      The Dark Ages.--"Shee-Schools"                      56
+
+    CHAPTER VII.
+
+      Needlework of the Dark Ages                         64
+
+    CHAPTER VIII.
+
+      The Bayeux Tapestry.--Part I.                       84
+
+    CHAPTER IX.
+
+      The Bayeux Tapestry.--Part II.                     103
+
+    CHAPTER X.
+
+      Needlework of the Times of Romance and Chivalry    117
+
+    CHAPTER XI.
+
+      Tapestry                                           148
+
+    CHAPTER XII.
+
+      Romances worked in Tapestry                        165
+
+    CHAPTER XIII.
+
+      Needlework in Costume.--Part I.                    186
+
+    CHAPTER XIV.
+
+      Needlework in Costume.--Part II.                   209
+
+    CHAPTER XV.
+
+      "The Field of the Cloth of Gold"                   231
+
+    CHAPTER XVI.
+
+      The Needle                                         252
+
+    CHAPTER XVII.
+
+      Tapestry from the Cartoons                         273
+
+    CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+      The Days of "Good Queen Bess"                      282
+
+    CHAPTER XIX.
+
+      The Tapestry of the Spanish Armada; better
+        known as the Tapestry of the House of Lords      301
+
+    CHAPTER XX.
+
+      On Stitchery                                       312
+
+    CHAPTER XXI.
+
+      "Les Anciennes Tapisseries." Tapestry of St.
+        Mary Hall, Coventry. Tapestry of Hampton Court   329
+
+    CHAPTER XXII.
+
+      Embroidery                                         342
+
+    CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+      Needlework on Books                                355
+
+    CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+      Needlework of Royal Ladies                         374
+
+    CHAPTER XXV.
+
+      Modern Needlework                                  395
+
+
+
+
+THE ART
+
+OF
+
+NEEDLEWORK.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+    "Le donne son venute in eccellenza
+    Di ciascun'arte, ove hanno posto cura;
+    E qualunque all'istorie abbia avvertenza,
+    Ne sente ancor la fama non oscura.
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+    E forse ascosi han lor debiti onori
+    L'invidia, o il non saper degli scrittori."
+
+                        Ariosto.
+
+
+In all ages woman may lament the ungallant silence of the historian.
+His pen is the record of sterner actions than are usually the vocation
+of the gentler sex, and it is only when fair individuals have been by
+extraneous circumstances thrown out, as it were, on the canvas of
+human affairs--when they have been forced into a publicity little
+consistent with their natural sphere--that they have become his theme.
+Consequently those domestic virtues which are woman's greatest pride,
+those retiring characteristics which are her most becoming ornament,
+those gentle occupations which are her best employment, find no record
+on pages whose chief aim and end is the blazoning of manly heroism, of
+royal disputations, or of trumpet-stirring records. And if this is the
+case even with historians of enlightened times, who have the gallantry
+to allow woman to be a component part of creation, we can hardly
+wonder that in darker days she should be utterly and entirely
+overlooked.
+
+Mohammed asserted that women had no souls; and moreover, that, setting
+aside the "diviner part," there had only existed _four_ of whom the
+mundane qualifications entitled them to any degree of approbation.
+Before him, Aristotle had asserted that Nature only formed women when
+and because she found that the imperfection of matter did not permit
+her to carry on the world without them.
+
+This complimentary doctrine has not wanted supporters. "Des hommes
+tres sages ont ecrit que la Nature, dont l'intention et le dessein est
+toujours de tendre a la perfection, ne produirait s'il etait possible,
+jamais que des hommes, et que quand il nait une femme c'est un monstre
+dans l'ordre de ses productions, ne expressement contre sa volonte:
+ils ajoutent, que, comme on voit naitre un homme aveugle, boiteux, ou
+avec quelqu'autre defaut nature; et comme on voit a certains arbres
+des fruits qui ne murissent jamais; ainsi l'on peut dire que la femme
+est un animal produit par accident et par le hasard."[1]
+
+Without touching upon this extreme assertion that woman is but "un
+monstre," an animal produced by chance, we may observe briefly, that
+women have ever, with some few exceptions,[2] been considered as a
+degraded and humiliated race, until the promulgation of the Christian
+religion elevated them in society: and that this distinction still
+exists is evident from the difference at this moment exhibited between
+the countries professing Mohammedanism and those professing
+Christianity.
+
+Still, though in our happy country it is now pretty generally allowed
+that women are "des creatures humaines," it is no new remark that they
+are comparatively lightly thought of by the "nobler" gender. This is
+absolutely the case even in those countries where civilization and
+refinement have elevated the sex to a higher grade in society than
+they ever before reached. Women are courted, flattered, caressed,
+extolled; but still the difference is there, and the "lords of the
+creation" take care that it shall be understood. Their own
+pursuits--public, are the theme of the historian--private, of the
+biographer; nay, the every-day circumstances of life--their
+dinners--their speeches--their toasts--and their _post coenam_
+eloquence, are noted down for immortality: whilst a woman with as much
+sense, with more eloquence, with lofty principles, enthusiastic
+feelings, and pure conduct--with sterling virtue to command respect,
+and the self-denying conduct of a martyr--steals noiselessly through
+her appointed path in life; and if she excite a passing comment during
+her pilgrimage, is quickly lost in oblivion when that pilgrimage hath
+reached its appointed goal.
+
+And this is but as it should be. Woe to that nation whose women, as a
+habit, as a custom, as a matter of course, seek to intrude on the
+attributes of the other sex, and in a vain, a foolish, and surely a
+most unsuccessful pursuit of publicity, or power, or fame, forget the
+distinguishing, the high, the noble, the lofty, the pure and
+_unearthly_ vocation of their sex. Every earthly charity, every
+unearthly virtue, are the legitimate object of woman's pursuit. It is
+hers to soothe pain, to alleviate suffering, to soften discord, to
+solace the time-worn spirit on earth, to train the youthful one for
+heaven. Such is woman's magnificent vocation; and in the peaceful
+discharge of such duties as these she may be content to steal
+noiselessly on to her appointed bourne, "the world forgetting, by the
+world forgot."
+
+But these splendid results are not the effect of great exertions--of
+sudden, and uncertain, and enthusiastic efforts. They are the effect
+of a course, of a system of minor actions and of occupations,
+_individually_ insignificant in their appearance, and noiseless in
+their approach. They are like "the gentle dew from heaven" in their
+silent unnoted progress, and, like that, are known only by their
+blessed results.
+
+They involve a routine of minor duties which often appear, at first
+view, little if at all connected with such mighty ends. But such an
+inference would lead to a false conclusion. It is entirely of
+insignificant details that the sum of human life is made up; and any
+one of those details, how insignificant soever _apparently_ in itself,
+as a link in the chain of human life is of _definite_ relative value.
+The preparing of a spoonful of gruel may seem a very insignificant
+matter; yet who that stands by the sick-bed of one near and dear to
+him, and sees the fevered palate relieved, the exhausted frame
+refreshed by it, but will bless the hand that made it? It is not the
+independent intrinsic worth of each isolated action of woman which
+stamps its value--it is their bearing and effect on the mass. It is
+the daily and hourly accumulation of minute particles which form the
+vast amount.
+
+And if we look for that feminine employment which adds most absolutely
+to the comforts and the elegancies of life, to what other shall we
+refer than to NEEDLEWORK? The hemming of a pocket-handkerchief is a
+trivial thing in itself, yet it is a branch of an art which furnishes
+a useful, a graceful, and an agreeable occupation to one-half of the
+human race, and adds very materially to the comforts of the other
+half.
+
+How sings our own especial Bard?--
+
+    "So long as garments shall be made or worne;
+    So long as hemp, or flax, or sheep shall bear
+    Their linnen wollen fleeces yeare by yeare;
+    So long as silkwormes, with exhausted spoile
+    Of their own entrailes, for mans gaine shall toyle:
+    Yea, till the world be quite dissolv'd and past,
+    So long, at least, the NEEDLE'S use shall last."
+
+'Tis true, indeed, that as far as _necessity_, rigidly speaking, is
+concerned, a very small portion of needlework would suffice; but it is
+also true that the very signification of the word necessity is lost,
+buried amidst the accumulations of ages. We talk habitually of _mere
+necessaries_, but the fact is, that we have hardly an idea of what
+merely necessities are.
+
+St. Paul, the hermit, when abiding in the wilderness, might be reduced
+to necessities; and in that noble and exalted instance of high
+principle referred to by Mr. Wesley,[3] where a person unknown to
+others, seeking no praise, and looking to no reward but the
+applaudings of his own conscience, bought a pennyworth of parsnips
+weekly, and on them, and them alone, with the water in which they were
+boiled, lived, that he might save money to pay his debts.--Surely a
+man of such incorruptible integrity as this would spend nothing
+intentionally in superfluities of dress--and yet, mark how many he
+would have. His shirt would be "curiously wrought," his neckcloth
+neatly hemmed; his coat and waistcoat and trousers would have
+undergone the usual mysteries of shaping and seaming; his hat would be
+neatly bound round the edge; his stockings woven or knitted; his
+shoes soled and stitched and tied; neither must we debar him a
+pocket-handkerchief and a pair of gloves. And see what this man--as
+great, nay, a greater anchoret in his way than St. Paul, for he had
+the world and its temptations all around, while the saint had fled
+from both--yet see what _he_ thought absolutely requisite in lieu of
+the sheepskin which was St. Paul's wardrobe. See what was required "to
+cover and keep warm" in the eighteenth century,--nay, not even to
+"keep warm," for we did not allow either great-coat or comforter. See
+then what was required merely to "cover," and then say whether the art
+of needlework is a trivial one.
+
+Could we, as in days of yore, when sylphs and fairies deigned to
+mingle with mortals, and shed their gracious influence on the scenes
+and actions of every-day life--could we, by some potent spell or by
+some fitting oblation, propitiate the Genius of Needlework, induce her
+to descend from her hidden shrine, and indulge her votaries with a
+glimpse of her radiant SELF--what a host of varied reminiscences would
+that glimpse conjure up in our minds, as--
+
+    "----guided by historic truth,
+    We _trod_ the long extent of backward time!"
+
+SHE was twin born with necessity, the first necessity the world had
+ever known, but she quickly left this stern and unattractive
+companion, and followed many leaders in her wide and varied range. She
+became the handmaiden of Fancy; she adorned the train of Magnificence;
+she waited upon Pomp; she decorated Religion; she obeyed Charity; she
+served Utility; she aided Pleasure; she pranked out Fun; and she
+mingled with all and every circumstance of life.
+
+Many changes and chances has it been her lot to behold. At one time
+honoured and courted, she was the acknowledged and cherished guest of
+the royal and noble. Then in gorgeous drapery, begemmed with
+brilliants, bedropped with gold, she reigned supreme in hall and
+palace; or in silken tissue girt she adorned the high-born maiden's
+bower what time the "deeds of knighthood" were "in solemn canto" told.
+In still more rich array, in kingly purple, in regal tissue, in royal
+magnificence, she stood within the altar's sacred pale; and her robes,
+rich in Tyrian dye, and glittering with Ophir's gold, swept the
+hallowed pavement. When battle aroused the land she inspirited the
+host. When the banner was unfurled she pointed to the device which
+sent its message home to every heart; she displayed the cipher on the
+hero's pennon which nerved him sooner to relinquish life than it; she
+entwined those initials in the scarf, the sight of which struck fresh
+ardour into his breast.
+
+But she fell into disrepute, and was rejected from the halls of the
+noble. Still was she ever busy, ever occupied, and not only were her
+services freely given to all who required them, but given with such
+winning grace that she required but to be once known to be ever
+loved--so exquisitely did she adapt herself to the peculiarities of
+all.
+
+With flowing ringlets and silken robe, carolling gaily as she worked,
+you would see her pinking the ruffles of the Cavalier, and ever and
+anon adding to their piquancy by some new and dainty device: then you
+would behold her with smoothly plaited hair, and sad-coloured garment
+of serge, and looks like a November day, hemming the bands of a
+Roundhead, and withal adding numerous layers of starch. With grave and
+sedate aspect she would shape and sew the uncomely raiment of a
+Genevan divine; with neat-handed alacrity she would prepare the grave
+and becoming garments of the Anglican Church, though perhaps a gentle
+sigh would escape, a sigh of regret for the stately and glowing
+vestments of old: for they did honour to the house of God, not because
+they were stately and glowing, but because they were offerings of _our
+best_.
+
+In all the sweet charities of domestic life she has ever been a
+participant. Often and again has she fled the splendid court, the
+glittering ball-room, and taken her station at the quiet hearth of the
+gentle and home-loving matron. She has lightened the weariness of many
+a solitary vigil, and she has heightened the enjoyment of many a
+social gossip.
+
+Nor even while courted and caressed in courts and palaces did
+Needlework absent herself from the habitations of the poor. Oh no, she
+was their familiar friend, the daily and hourly companion of their
+firesides. And when she experienced, as all do experience, the
+fickleness of court favour, she was cherished and sheltered there. And
+there she remained, happy in her utility, till again summoned by royal
+mandate to resume her station near the throne. The illustrious and
+excellent lady who lately filled the British throne, and who reigned
+still more surely in the hearts of Englishwomen, and who has most
+graciously permitted us to place her honoured name on these pages,
+allured Needlework from her long seclusion, and reinstated her in her
+once familiar place among the great and noble.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fair reader! you see that this gentle dame NEEDLEWORK is of ancient
+lineage, of high descent, of courtly habits: will you not permit me to
+make you somewhat better acquainted? Pray travel onward with me to her
+shrine. The way is not toilsome, nor is the track rugged; but,
+
+    "Where the silver fountains wander,
+    Where the golden streams meander,"
+
+amid the sunny meads and flower-bestrewn paths of fancy and
+taste--there will she beguile us. Do not then, pray do not, forsake
+me.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] On aurait de la peine a se persuader qu'une pareille opinion eut
+ete mise gravement en question dans un concile, et qu'on n'eut decide
+en faveur des femmes qu'apres un assez long examen. Cependant le fait
+est tres veritable, et ce fut dans le Concile de Macon.
+
+    Probleme sur les Femmes, ou l'on essaye de prouver que
+    les femmes ne sont point des creatures
+    humaines.--_Amsterdam, 1744._
+
+[2] As, for instance, the ancient Germans, and their offshoots, the
+Saxons, &c.
+
+[3] Southey's Life; vol. ii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+EARLY NEEDLEWORK.
+
+    "The use of sewing is exceeding old,
+    As in the sacred text it is enrold:
+    Our parents first in Paradise began."
+
+                        John Taylor.
+
+    "The rose was in rich bloom on Sharon's plain,
+    When a young mother, with her first-born, thence
+    Went up to Sion; for the boy was vow'd
+    Unto the Temple service. By the hand
+    She led him; and her silent soul the while,
+    Oft as the dewy laughter of his eye
+    Met her sweet serious glance, rejoic'd to think
+    That aught so pure, so beautiful, was hers,
+    To bring before her God."
+
+                        Hemans.
+
+
+In speaking of the origin of needlework it will be necessary to define
+accurately what we mean by the term "needlework;" or else, when we
+assert that Eve was the first sempstress, we may be taken to task by
+some critical antiquarian, because we may not be able precisely to
+prove that the frail and beautiful mother of mankind made use of a
+little weapon of polished steel, finely pointed at one end and bored
+at the other, and "warranted not to cut in the eye." Assuredly we do
+not mean to assert that she did use such an instrument; most
+probably--we would _almost_ venture to say most _certainly_--she did
+not. But then again the cynical critic would attack us:--"You say that
+Eve was the first professor of _needle_work, and yet you disclaim the
+use of a needle for her."
+
+No, good sir, we do not. Like other profound investigators and
+original commentators, we do not annihilate one hypothesis ere we are
+prepared with another, "ready cut and dried," to rise, like any fabled
+phoenix, on the ashes of its predecessor. It is not long since we were
+edified by a conversation which we heard, or rather overheard, between
+two sexagenarians--both well versed in antiquarian lore, and neither
+of them deficient in antiquarian tenacity of opinion--respecting some
+theory which one of them wanted to establish about some aborigines.
+The concluding remark of the conversation--and we opined that it might
+as well have formed the commencement--was--
+
+"If you want to lay down _facts_, you must follow history; if you want
+to establish a system, it is quite easy to place the people where you
+like."
+
+So, if I wished to "establish a system," I could easily make Eve work
+with a "superfine drill-eyed needle:" but this is not my object.
+
+It seems most probable that Eve's first needle was a thorn:
+
+    "Before man's fall the rose was born,
+    St. Ambrose sayes, without the thorn;
+    But, for man's fault, then was the thorn,
+    Without the fragrant rosebud, born."
+
+Why thorns should spring up at the precise moment of the fall is
+difficult to account for in a world where everything has its use,
+except we suppose that they were meant for needles: and general
+analogy leads us to this conclusion; for in almost all existing
+records of people in what we are pleased to call a "savage" state, we
+find that women make use of this primitive instrument, or a fish-bone.
+"Avant l'invention des aiguilles d'acier, on a du se servir, a leur
+defaut, d'epines, ou d'aretes de poissons, ou d'os d'animaux." And as
+Eve's first specimen of needlework was certainly completed before the
+sacrifice of any living thing, we may safely infer that the latter
+implements were not familiar to her. The Cimbrian inhabitants of
+Britain passed their time in weaving baskets, or in sewing together
+for garments the skins of animals taken in the chase, while they used
+as needles for uniting these simple habiliments small bones of fish or
+animals rudely sharpened at one end; and needles just of the same sort
+were used by the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, when the
+celebrated Captain Cook first visited them.
+
+Proceed we to the material of the first needlework.
+
+"They sewed themselves fig-leaves together, and made themselves
+aprons."
+
+Thus the earliest historical record; and thus the most esteemed
+poetical commentator.
+
+                  "Those leaves
+    They gather'd, broad as Amazonian targe,
+    And, with what skill they had, together sew'd,
+    To gird their waist."
+
+It is supposed that the leaves alluded to here were those of the
+banian-tree, of which the leaves, says Sir James Forbes, are large,
+soft, and of a lively green; the fruit a small bright scarlet fig. The
+Hindoos are peculiarly fond of this tree; they consider its long
+duration, its outstretching arms, and overshadowing beneficence, as
+emblems of the Deity, and almost pay it divine honours. The Brahmins,
+who thus "find a fane in every sacred grove," spend much of their time
+in religious solitude, under the shade of the banian-tree; they plant
+it near the dewals, or Hindoo temples; and in those villages where
+there is no structure for public worship, they place an image under
+one of these trees, and there perform morning and evening sacrifice.
+The size of some of these trees is stupendous. Sir James Forbes
+mentions one which has three hundred and fifty _large_ trunks, the
+smaller ones exceeding three thousand; and another, whereunder the
+chief of the neighbourhood used to encamp in magnificent style; having
+a saloon, dining room, drawing-room, bedchambers, bath, kitchen, and
+every other accommodation, all in separate tents; yet did this noble
+tree cover the whole, together with his carriages, horses, camels,
+guards, and attendants; while its spreading branches afforded shady
+spots for the tents of his friends, with their servants and cattle.
+And in the march of an army it has been known to shelter seven
+thousand men.
+
+Such is the banian-tree, the pride of Hindustan: which Milton refers
+to as the one which served "our general mother" for her first essay in
+the art of needlework.
+
+                "Both together went
+    Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose
+    The fig-tree; not that tree for fruit renown'd,
+    But such as at this day, to Indians known,
+    In Malabar or Deccan spreads her arms,
+    Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
+    The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
+    About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade
+    High overarch'd, and echoing walks between:
+    There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
+    Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
+    At loopholes cut through thickest shade: Those leaves
+    They gather'd, broad as Amazonian targe;
+    And, with what skill they had, together sew'd,
+    To gird their waist."
+
+Some of the most interesting incidents in Holy Writ turn on the
+occupation of needlework; slight sketches, nay, hardly so much, but
+mere touches which engage all the gentler, and purer, and holier
+emotions of our nature. For instance: the beloved child of the
+beautiful mother of Israel, for whom Jacob toiled fourteen years,
+which were but as one day for the love he bare her--this child, so
+eagerly coveted by his mother, so devotedly loved by his father, and
+who was destined hereafter to wield the destinies of such a mighty
+empire--had a token, a peculiar token, bestowed on him of his father's
+overwhelming love and affection. And what was it? "A coat of many
+colours;" probably including some not in general use, and obtained by
+an elaborate process. Entering himself into the minutiae of a concern,
+which, however insignificant in itself, was valuable in his eyes as
+giving pleasure to his boy, the fond father selects pieces of
+various-coloured cloth, and sets female hands, the most expert of his
+household, to join them together in the form of a coat.
+
+But, alas! to whom should he intrust the task? She whose fingers
+would have revelled in it, Rachel the mother, was no more; her warm
+heart was cold, her busy fingers rested in the tomb. Would his sister,
+would Dinah execute the work? No; it was but too probable that she
+shared in the jealousy of her brothers. No matter. The father
+apportions the task to his handmaidens, and himself superintends the
+performance. With pleased eye he watches its progress, and with
+benignant smile he invests the happy and gratified child with the
+glowing raiment.
+
+This elaborate piece of work, the offering of paternal affection to
+please a darling child, was probably the simple and somewhat clumsy
+original of those which were afterwards embroidered and subsequently
+woven in various colours, and which came to be regarded as garments of
+dignity and appropriated to royalty; as it is said of Tamar that "she
+had a garment of divers colours upon her: for with such robes were the
+king's daughters that were virgins apparelled." It is even now
+customary in India to dress a favourite or beautiful child in a coat
+of various colours tastefully _sewed together_; and it may not perhaps
+be very absurd to refer even to so ancient an origin as Joseph's coat
+of many colours the superstition now prevalent in some countries,
+which teaches that a child clothed in a garment of many colours is
+safe from the blasting of malicious tongues or the machinations of
+evil spirits.
+
+In the Book of Samuel we read, "And Hannah his mother, made him a
+little coat." This seems a trivial incident enough, yet how
+interesting is the scene which this simple mention conjures up! With
+all the earnest fervour of that separated race who hoped each one to
+be the honoured instrument of bringing a Saviour into the world,
+Hannah, then childless, prayed that this reproach might be taken from
+her. Her prayer was heard, her son was born; and in holy gratitude she
+reared him, not for wealth, for fame, for worldly honour, or even for
+her own domestic comfort,--but, from his birth, and before his birth
+she devoted him as the servant of the Most High. She indulged herself
+with his presence only till her maternal cares had fitted him for
+duty; and then, with a tearful eye it might be, and a faltering
+footstep, but an unflinching resolution, she devoted him to the altar
+of her God.
+
+But never did his image leave her mind: never amid the fair scions
+which sprang up and bloomed around her hearth did her thoughts forsake
+her first-born; and yearly, when she went up to the Tabernacle with
+Elkanah her husband, did she take him "a little coat" which she had
+made. We may fancy her quiet happy thoughts when at this employment;
+we may fancy the eager earnest questionings of the little group by
+whom she was surrounded; the wondering about their absent brother; the
+anxious catechisings respecting his whereabouts; and, above all, the
+admiration of the new garment itself, and the earnest criticisms on
+it; especially if in form and fashion it should somewhat differ from
+their own. And then arrives the moment when the garment is committed
+to its envelope; and the mother, weeping to part from her little ones,
+yet longing to see her absent boy, receives their adieux and their
+thousand reminiscences, and sets forth on her journey.
+
+Again she treads the hallowed courts, again she meekly renews her
+vows, and again a mother's longings, a mother's hopes are quenched in
+the full enjoyment of a mother's love. Beautiful and good, the
+blessing of Heaven attending him, and throwing a beam of light on his
+fair brow, the pure and holy child appears like a seraph administering
+at that altar to which he had been consecrated a babe, and at which
+his ministry was sanctioned even by the voice of the Most High
+himself, when in the solemn stillness of midnight he breathed his
+wishes into the heart of the child, and made him, infant as he was,
+the medium of his communications to one grown hoary in the service of
+the altar.
+
+The solemn duties ended, Hannah invests her hopeful boy with the
+little coat, whilst her willing fingers lingeringly perform their
+office, as if loth to quit a task in which they so much delight. And
+then with meek step and grateful heart she wends her homeward way, and
+meditates tranquilly on the past interview, till the return of another
+year finds her again on her pilgrimage of love--the joyful bearer of
+another "little coat."
+
+And a high tribute is paid to needlework in the history of Dorcas, who
+was restored to life by the apostle St. Peter, by whom "all the widows
+stood weeping, and showing the coats and garments which Dorcas made
+while she was with them."
+
+        "In these were read
+    The monuments of Dorcas dead:
+    These were thy acts, and thou shalt have
+    These hung as honours o'er thy grave:
+    And after us, distressed,
+      Should fame be dumb,
+      Thy very tomb
+    Would cry out, Thou art blessed!"
+
+But it is not merely as an object of private and domestic utility that
+needlework is referred to in the Bible. It was applied early to the
+service of the Tabernacle, and the directions concerning it are very
+clear and specific; but before this time, and most probably as early
+as the time of Abraham, rich and valuable raiment of needlework was
+accounted of as part of the _bona fide_ property of a wealthy man.
+When the patriarch's steward sought Rebekah for the wife of Isaac, he
+"brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and _raiment_."
+This "raiment" consisted, in all likelihood, of garments embroidered
+with gold, the handiwork, it may be, of the female slaves of the
+patriarch; such garments being in very great esteem from the earliest
+ages, and being then, as now, a component portion of those presents or
+offerings without which one personage hardly thought of approaching
+another.
+
+Fashion in those days was not quite the chameleon-hued creature that
+she is at present; nor were the fabrics on which her fancy was
+displayed quite so light and airy: their gold _was_ gold--not silk
+covered with gilded silver; and consequently the raiment of those
+days, inwrought with slips of gold beaten thin and cut into spangles
+or strips, and sewed on in various patterns, sometimes intermingled
+with precious stones, would carry its own intrinsic value with it.
+
+This "raiment" descended from father to son, as a chased goblet and a
+massy wrought urn does now; and was naturally and necessarily
+inventoried as a portion of the property. The practice of making
+presents of garments is still quite usual amongst the eastern nations;
+and to such an excess was it carried with regard to those who, from
+their calling or any other circumstance, were in public favour, that,
+so late as the ninth century, Bokteri, an illustrious poet of Cufah,
+had so many presents made him, that at his death he was found
+possessed of a hundred complete suits of clothes, two hundred shirts,
+and five hundred turbans.
+
+Horace, speaking of Lucullus (who had pillaged Asia, and first
+introduced Asiatic[4] refinements among the Romans), says that, some
+persons having waited on him to request the loan of a hundred suits
+out of his wardrobe for the Roman stage, he exclaimed--"A hundred
+suits! how is it possible for me to furnish such a number? However, I
+will look over them and send you what I have."--After some time he
+writes a note and tells them he had _five thousand_, to the whole or
+part of which they were welcome.
+
+In all the eastern world formerly, and to a great extent now, the
+arraying a person in a rich dress is considered a very high
+compliment, and it was one of the ancient modes of investing with the
+highest degree of subordinate power. Thus was Joseph arrayed by
+Pharaoh, and Mordecai by Ahasueras.
+
+We all remember what important effects are produced by splendid robes
+in "The Tale of the Wonderful Lamp," and in many other of those
+fascinating tales (which are allowed to be rigidly correct in the
+delineations of eastern life). They were doubtless esteemed the
+richest part of the spoil after a battle, as we find the mother of
+Sisera apportioning them as his share, and reiterating her delighted
+anticipations of the "raiment of needlework" which should be his: "a
+prey of divers colours, of divers colours of needlework, of divers
+colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that
+take the spoil."
+
+Job has many allusions to raiment as an essential part of "treasures"
+in the East; and our Saviour refers to the same when he desires his
+hearers not to lay up for themselves "treasures" on earth, where
+_moth_ and rust corrupt. St. James even more explicitly: "Go to now,
+ye rich men; weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
+Your gold and silver is cankered, and your GARMENTS are moth-eaten."
+
+The first notice we have of gold-wire or thread being used in
+embroidery is in Exodus, in the directions given for the embroidery of
+the priests' garments: from this it appears that the metal was still
+used alone, being beaten fine and then rounded. This art the Hebrews
+probably learnt from the Egyptians, by whom it was carried to such an
+astonishing degree of nicety, that they could either weave it in or
+work it on their finest linen. And doubtless the productions of the
+Hebrews now must have equalled the most costly and intricate of those
+of Egypt. This the adornments of the Tabernacle testify.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[4] Persia had great wardrobes, where there were always many hundred
+habits, sorted, ready for presents, and the intendant of the wardrobe
+sent them to those persons for whom they were designed by the
+sovereign; more than forty tailors were always employed in this
+service. In Turkey they do not attend so much to the richness as to
+the number of the dresses, giving more or fewer according to the
+dignity of the persons to whom they are presented, or the marks of
+favour the prince would confer on his guests.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+NEEDLEWORK OF THE TABERNACLE.
+
+    "The cedars wave on Lebanon,
+    But Judah's statelier maids are gone."
+
+                        Byron.
+
+
+Gorgeous and magnificent must have been the spectacle presented by
+that ancient multitude of Israel, as they tabernacled in the
+wilderness of Sinai. These steril solitudes are now seldom trodden by
+the foot of man, and the adventurous traveller who toils up their
+rugged steeps can scarce picture to himself a host sojourning there,
+so wild, so barren is the place, so fearful are the precipices, so
+dismal the ravines. On the spot where "Moses talked with God" the grey
+and mouldering remnants of a convent attest the religious veneration
+and zeal of some of whom these ruins are the only memorial; and near
+them is a small chapel dedicated to the Virgin, while religious hands
+have crowned even the summit of the steep ascent by "a house of
+prayer;" and at the foot of the sister peak, Horeb, is an ancient
+Greek convent, founded by the Emperor Justinian 1400 years ago, which
+is occupied still by some harmless recluses, the monotony of whose
+lives is only broken by the few and far between visits of the
+adventurous traveller, or the more frequent and startling
+interruptions of the wild Arabs on their predatory expeditions.
+
+But neither church nor temple of any sort, nor inquiring traveller,
+nor prowling Arab, varied the tremendous grandeur of the scene, when
+the Israelitish host encamped there. Weary and toilsome had been the
+pilgrimage from the base of the mountain where the desolation was
+unrelieved by a trace of vegetation, to the upper country or
+wilderness, called more particularly, "the Desert of Sinai," where
+narrow intersecting valleys, not destitute of verdure, cherished
+perhaps the lofty and refreshing palm. Here in the ravines, in the
+valleys, and amid the clefts of the rocks, clustered the hosts of
+Israel, while around them on every side arose lofty summits and
+towering precipices, where the eye that sought to scan their fearful
+heights was lost in the far-off dimness. Far, far around, spread this
+savage wilderness, so frowning, and dreary, and desolate, that any
+curious explorer beyond the precincts of the camp would quickly return
+to the _home_ which its vicinity afforded even there.
+
+Clustered closely as bees in a hive were the tents of the wandering
+race, yet with an order and a uniformity which even the unpropitious
+nature of the locality was not permitted to break; for, separated into
+tribes, each one, though sufficiently connected for any object of
+kindness or brotherhood, for public worship, or social intercourse,
+was inalienably distinct.
+
+And in the midst, extending from east to west, a length of fifty-five
+feet, was reared the splendid Tabernacle. For God had said, "Let them
+make me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell among them;" and behold, "they
+came, both men and women, as many as were willing-hearted, and brought
+bracelets, and earrings, and rings, and tablets, all jewels of gold;
+and every man that offered, offered an offering of gold unto the Lord.
+And every man with whom was found blue, and purple, and scarlet, and
+fine linen, and goats' hair, and red skins of rams, and badgers'
+skins, brought them. Every one that did offer an offering of silver
+and brass brought the Lord's offering: and every man with whom was
+found shittim-wood for any work of the service brought it. And all the
+women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought
+that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet,
+and of fine linen. And all the women whose hearts stirred them up in
+wisdom spun goats' hair. And the rulers brought onyx-stones, and
+stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate; and spice,
+and oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the sweet
+incense."
+
+And all these materials, which the "willing-hearted" offered in such
+abundance that proclamation was obliged to be made through the camp to
+stop their influx, had been wrought under the superintendence of
+Bezaleel and Aholiab, who were divinely inspired for the task; and the
+Tabernacle was now completed, with the exception of some of the finest
+needlework, which had not yet received the finishing touches.
+
+But what was already done bore ample testimony to the skill, the
+taste, and the industry of the "wise-hearted" daughters of Israel. The
+outer covering of the Tabernacle, or that which lay directly over the
+framework of boards of which it was constructed, and hung from the
+roof down the sides and west end, was formed of tabash skins; over
+this was another covering of ram-skins dyed red; a hanging made of
+goats' hair, such as is still used in the tents of the Bedouin Arabs,
+had been spun and woven by the matrons of the congregation, to hang
+over the skins; and these substantial draperies were beautifully
+concealed by a first or inner covering of fine linen. On this the more
+youthful women had embroidered figures of cherubim in scarlet, purple,
+and light blue, entwined with gold. They had made also sacerdotal
+vestments, the "coats of fine linen" worn by all the priests, which,
+when old, were unravelled, and made into wicks burnt in the feast of
+tabernacles. They had made the "girdles of needlework," which were
+long, very long pieces of fine twined linen (carried several times
+round the body), and were embroidered with flowers in blue, and
+purple, and scarlet: the "robe of the ephod" also for the high priest,
+of light blue, and elaborately wrought round the bottom in
+pomegranates; and the plain ephods for the priests.
+
+But now the sun was declining in the western sky, and the busy
+artificers of all sorts were relaxing from the toil of the day.
+
+In a retired spot, apart from the noise of the camp, paced one in
+solitary meditation. Stalwart he was in frame, majestic in bearing; he
+trod the earth like one of her princes; but the loftiness of his
+demeanour was forgotten when you looked on the surpassing benignity of
+his countenance. Each accidental passer hushed his footstep and
+lowered his voice as he approached; more, as it should seem, from
+involuntary awe and reverence than from any understood prohibition.
+
+But with some of these loiterers a child of some four or five summers,
+in earnest chase after a brilliant fly, whose golden wings glittered
+in the sunlight, heedlessly pursued it even to the very path of the
+Solitary, and to the interruption of his walk. Hastily, and somewhat
+peremptorily, the father calls him away. The stranger looks up, and
+casting a glance around, from an eye to whose brilliance that of the
+eagle would look dim, he for the first time sees the little intruder.
+Gently placing a hand on the child's head, "Bless thee," he said, in a
+voice whose every tone was melody: "Bless thee, little one; the
+blessing of the God of Israel be upon thee," and calmly resumed his
+walk. The child, as if awed, mutely returned to his friends, who,
+after casting a glance of reverence and admiration, returned to the
+camp.
+
+Here, scattered all around, are groups occupied in those varied kinds
+of busy idleness which will naturally engage the moments of an
+intelligent multitude at the close of an active day. Here a knot of
+men in the pride of manhood, whose flashing eyes have lost none of
+their fire, whose raven locks are yet not varied by a single silver
+line, are talking politics--such politics as the warlike men of Israel
+would talk, when discoursing of the promised land and the hostile
+hosts through whose serried ranks they must cut their intrepid way
+thither, and whom, impatient of all delay, they burn to engage. Here
+were elder ones, "whose natural force" was in some degree "abated,"
+and who were lamenting the decree, however justly incurred, which
+forbade them to lay their bones in the land of their lifelong hope;
+and here was a patriarch, bowed down with the weight of years, whose
+silver hairs lay on his shoulders, whose snow-white beard flowed upon
+his breast, who as he leaned upon his staff was recounting to his rapt
+auditors the dealing of Jehovah with his people in ancient days; how
+the Most High visited his father Abraham, and had sworn unto Jacob
+that his seed should be brought out of captivity, and revisit the
+promised land. "And behold," said the old man, "it will now come to
+pass."
+
+But what is passing in that detached portion of the camp? who sojourn
+in yonder tents which attract more general attention than all the
+others, and in which all ages and degrees seem interested? Now a group
+of females are there, eagerly conversing; anon a Hebrew mother leads
+her youthful and beautiful daughter, and seems to incite her to remain
+there; now a hoary priest enters, and in a few moments returns
+pondering; and anon a trio of more youthful Levites with pleased and
+animated countenances return from the same spot.
+
+On a sudden is every eye turned thitherward; for he who just now paced
+the solitary glade--none other than the chosen leader of God's host,
+the majestic lawgiver, the meekest and the mightiest of all created
+beings--he likewise wends his way to these attractive tents. With him
+enters Aaron, a venerable man, with hoary beard and flowing white
+robes; and follow him a majestic-looking female who was wont to lead
+the solemn dance--Miriam the sister of Aaron; and a youth of heroic
+bearing, in the springtime of that life whose maturity was spent in
+leading the chosen race to conquest in the promised land.
+
+With proud and pleased humility did the fair inmates of those tents,
+the most accomplished of Israel's daughters, display to their
+illustrious visitors the "fine needlework" to which their time and
+talents had been for a long season devoted, and which was now on the
+eve of completion. The "holy garments" which God had commanded to be
+made "for glory and for beauty;" the pomegranates on the hem of the
+high priest's robe, wrought in blue and purple and scarlet; the
+flowers on his "girdle of needlework," glowing as in life; the border
+on the ephod, in which every varied colour was shaded off into a rich
+and delicate tracery of gold; and above all, that exquisite work, the
+most beautiful of all their productions--the veil which separated the
+"Holy of Holies," the place where the Most High vouchsafed his
+especial presence, where none but the high priest might presume to
+enter, and he but once a year, from the remaining portions of the
+Tabernacle. This beautiful hanging was of fine white linen, but the
+original fabric was hardly discernible amid the gorgeous tracery with
+which it was inwrought. The whole surface was covered with a profusion
+of flowers, intermixed with fanciful devices of every sort, except
+such as might represent the forms of animals--these were rigidly
+excluded. Cherubims seemed to be hovering around and grasping its
+gorgeous folds; and if tradition and history be to be credited, this
+drapery merited, if ever the production of the needle did merit, the
+epithet which English talent has since rendered classical,
+"_Needlework Sublime_."
+
+Long, despite the advancing shades of evening, would the visitors have
+lingered untired to comment upon this beautiful production, but one
+said, "Behold!" and immediately all, following the direction of his
+outstretched arm, looked towards the Tabernacle. There a thin spiral
+flame is seen to gleam palely through the pillar of smoke; but
+perceptibly it increases, and even while the eye is fixed it waxes
+stronger and brighter, and quickly though gradually the smoke has
+melted away, and a tall vivid flame of fire is in its place. Higher
+and taller it aspires: its spiral flame waxes broader and broader,
+ascends higher and higher, gleams brighter and brighter, till it
+mingles in the very vault of heaven, with the beams of the setting sun
+which bathe in crimson fire the summits of Sinai.
+
+In the eastern sky the stars gleam brightly in the pure transparent
+atmosphere; and ere long the moon casts pale radiant beams adown the
+dark ravines, and utters her wondrous lore to the silent hills and the
+gloomy waste. The sounds of toil are hushed; the weary labourer seeks
+repose; the toil-worn wanderer is at rest: the murmuring sounds of
+domestic life sink lower and lower; the breath of prayer becomes
+fainter and fainter; the voice of praise, the evensong of Israel,
+comes stealing through the calm of evening, and now dies softly away.
+Nought is heard but the password of the sentinels; the far-off shriek
+of the bat as it flaps its wings beneath the shadow of some fearful
+precipice; or the scream of the eagle, which, wheeling round the lofty
+summits of the mountain, closes in less and lesser circles, till, as
+the last faint gleam of evening is lost in the dark horizon, it drops
+into its eyrie.
+
+The moon and the stars keep their eternal watch; the beacon-light of
+God's immediate presence flames unchanged by time or chance. It may be
+that the appointed earthly shepherd of that chosen flock passes the
+still hours of night and solitude in communion with his God; but
+silence is over the wilderness, and the children of Israel are at
+rest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+NEEDLEWORK OF THE EGYPTIANS.
+
+    "How is thy glory, Egypt, pass'd away!
+      Weep, child of ruin, o'er thy humbled name!
+    The wreck alone that marks thy deep decay
+      Now tells the story of thy former fame!"
+
+
+There can be little doubt that the Jewish maidens were beholden to
+their residence in Egypt for that perfectness of finish in embroidery
+which was displayed so worthily in the service of the Tabernacle.
+Egypt was at this time the seat of science, of art, and learning; for
+it was thought the highest summary which could be given of Moses'
+acquirements to say that he was skilled in all the learning of the
+Egyptians. By the researches of the curious, new proofs are still
+being brought to light of the perfection of their skill in various
+arts, and we are not without testimony that the practice of the
+lighter and more ornamental bore progress with that of the stupendous
+and magnificent. Of these lighter pursuits we at present refer only to
+the art of needlework.
+
+The Egyptian women were treated with courtesy, with honour, and even
+with deference: indeed, some historians have gone so far as to say
+that the women transacted public business, to the exclusion of the
+men, who were engaged in domestic occupations. This misapprehension
+may have arisen from the fact of men being at times engaged at the
+loom, which in all other countries was then considered as exclusively
+a feminine occupation; spinning, however, was principally, if not
+entirely, confined to women, who had attained to such perfection in
+the pretty and valuable art, that, though the Egyptian yarn was all
+spun by the hand, some of the linen made from it was so exquisitely
+fine as to be called "woven air." And there are some instances
+recorded by historians which seem fully to bear out the appellation.
+For example: so delicate were the threads used for nets, that some of
+these nets would pass through a man's ring, and one person could carry
+a sufficient number of them to surround a whole wood. Amasis king of
+Egypt presented a linen corslet to the Rhodians of which the threads
+were each composed of 365 fibres; and he presented another to the
+Lacedemonians, richly wrought with gold; and each thread of this
+corslet, though itself very fine, was composed of 360 other threads
+all distinct.
+
+Nor did these beautiful manufactures lack the addition of equally
+beautiful needlework. Though the gold thread used at this time was, as
+we have intimated, solid metal, still the Egyptians had attained to
+such perfection in the art of moulding it, that it was fine enough not
+merely to embroider, but even to interweave with the linen. The linen
+corslet of Amasis, presented, as we have remarked, to the
+Lacedemonians, surpassingly fine as was the material, was worked with
+a needle in figures of animals in gold thread, and from the
+description given of the texture of the linen we may form some idea of
+the exquisite tenuity of the gold wire which was used to ornament it.
+
+Corslets of linen of a somewhat stronger texture than this one, which
+was doubtless meant for merely ornamental wear, were not uncommon
+amongst the ancients. The Greeks made thoraces of hide, hemp, linen,
+or twisted cord. Of the latter there are some curious specimens in the
+interesting museum of the United Service Club. Alexander had a double
+thorax of linen; and Iphicrates ordered his soldiers to lay aside
+their heavy metal cuirass, and go to battle in hempen armour. And
+among the arms painted in the tomb of Rameses III. at Thebes is a
+piece of defensive armour, a sort of coat or covering for the body,
+made of rich stuff, and richly embroidered with the figures of lions
+and other animals.
+
+The dress of the Egyptian ladies of rank was rich and somewhat gay: in
+its general appearance not very dissimilar from the gay chintzes of
+the present day, but of more value as the material was usually linen;
+and though sometimes stamped in patterns, and sometimes interwoven
+with gold threads, was much more usually worked with the needle. The
+richest and most elegant of these were of course selected to adorn the
+person of the queen; and when in the holy book the royal Psalmist is
+describing the dress of a bride, supposed to have been Pharaoh's
+daughter, and that she shall be brought to the king "in raiment of
+needlework," he says, as proof of the gorgeousness of her attire, "her
+clothing is of wrought gold." This is supposed to mean a garment
+richly embroidered with the needle in figures in gold thread, after
+the manner of Egyptian stitchery.
+
+Perhaps no royal lady was ever more magnificently dowered than the
+queen of Egypt; her apparel might well be gorgeous. Diodorus says that
+when Moeris, from whom the lake derived its name, and who was
+supposed to have made the canal, had arranged the sluices for the
+introduction of the water, and established everything connected with
+it, he assigned the sum annually derived from this source as a dowry
+to the queen for the purchase of jewels, ointments, and other objects
+connected with the toilette. The provision was certainly very liberal,
+being a talent every day, or upwards of L70,700 a year; and when this
+formed only a portion of the pin-money of the Egyptian queens, to whom
+the revenues of the city of Anthylla, famous for its wines, were given
+for their dress, it is certain they had no reason to complain of the
+allowance they enjoyed.
+
+The Egyptian needlewomen were not solely occupied in the decoration of
+their persons. The deities were robed in rich vestments, in the
+preparation of which the proudest in the land felt that they were
+worthily occupied. This was a source of great gain to the priests,
+both in this and other countries, as, after decorating the idol gods
+for a time, these rich offerings were their perquisites, who of course
+encouraged this notable sort of devotion. We are told that it was
+carried so far that some idols had both winter and summer garments.
+
+Tokens of friendship consisting of richly embroidered veils,
+handkerchiefs, &c., were then, as now, passing from one fair hand to
+another, as pledges of affection; and as the last holy office of love,
+the bereaved mother, the desolate widow, or the maiden whose budding
+hopes were blighted by her lover's untimely death, might find a
+fanciful relief to her sorrows by decorating the garment which was to
+enshroud the spiritless but undecaying form. The chief proportion of
+the mummy-cloths which have been so ruthlessly torn from these
+outraged relics of humanity are coarse; but some few have been found
+delicately and beautifully embroidered; and it is not unnatural to
+suppose that this difference was the result of feminine solicitude and
+undying affection.
+
+The embroidering of the sails of vessels too was pursued as an article
+of commerce, as well as for the decoration of native pleasure-boats.
+The ordinary sails were white; but the king and his grandees on all
+gala occasions made use of sails richly embroidered with the
+phoenix, with flowers, and various other emblems and fanciful
+devices. Many also were painted, and some interwoven in checks and
+stripes. The boats used in sacred festivals upon the Nile were
+decorated with appropriate symbols, according to the nature of the
+ceremony or the deity in whose service they were engaged; and the
+edges of the sails were finished with a coloured hem or border, which
+would occasionally be variegated with slight embroidery.
+
+Shakspeare's description of the barge of Cleopatra when she embarked
+on the river Cydnus to meet Antony, poetical as it is, seems to be
+rigidly correct in detail.
+
+      Enobarbus.--I will tell you.
+    The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
+    Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
+    Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
+    The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver;
+    Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
+    The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
+    As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
+    It beggar'd all description: she did lie
+    In her pavilion (cloth of gold, of tissue),
+    O'erpicturing that Venus, where we see
+    The fancy outwork nature; on each side her
+    Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
+    With diverse-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
+    To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
+    And what they undid, did.
+
+      Agrippa.--             O, rare for Antony!
+
+      Enobarbus.--Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
+    So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,
+    And made their bends adornings; at the helm
+    A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
+    Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
+    That yarely frame the office. From the barge
+    A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
+    Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
+    Her people out upon her; and Antony,
+    Bethroned in the market-place, did sit alone,
+    Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
+    Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
+    And made a gap in nature.
+
+It is said that the silver oars, "which to the tune of flutes kept
+stroke," were pierced with holes of different sizes, so mechanically
+contrived, that the water, as it flowed through them at every stroke,
+produced a harmony in concord with that of the flutes and lyres on
+board.
+
+Such a description as the foregoing gives a more vivid idea than any
+grave declaration, of the elegant luxury of the Egyptians.
+
+It were easy to collect instances from the Bible in which mention is
+made of Egyptian embroidery, but one verse (Ezek. xxvii. 7), when the
+prophet is addressing the Tyrians, specifically points to the subject
+on which we are speaking: "Fine linen, with broidered work from Egypt,
+was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail," &c.
+
+A common but beautiful style of embroidery was to draw out entirely
+the threads of linen which formed the weft, and to re-form the body of
+the material, and vary its appearance, by working in various stitches
+and with different colours on the warp alone.
+
+Chairs and fauteuils of the most elegant form, made of ebony and other
+rare woods, inlaid with ivory, were in common use amongst the ancient
+Egyptians. These were covered, as is the fashion in the present day,
+with every variety of rich stuff, stamped leather, &c.: but many were
+likewise embroidered with different coloured wools, with silk and gold
+thread. The couches too, which in the daytime had a rich covering
+substituted for the night bedding, gave ample scope for the display of
+the inventive genius and persevering industry of the busy-fingered
+Egyptian ladies.
+
+We have given sufficient proof that the Egyptian females were
+accomplished in the art of needlework, and we may naturally infer that
+they were fond of it. It is a gentle and a social occupation, and
+usefully employs the time, whilst it does not interfere with the
+current of the thoughts or the flow of conversation. The Egyptians
+were an intelligent and an animated race; and the sprightly jest or
+the lively sally would be interspersed with the graver details of
+thoughtful and reflective conversation, or would give some point to
+the dull routine of mere womanish chatter. It seems almost impossible
+to have lived amidst the stupendous magnificence of Egypt in days of
+yore, without the mind assimilating itself in some degree to the
+greatness with which it was surrounded. The vast deserts, the
+stupendous mountains, the river Nile--the single and solitary river
+which in itself sufficed the needs of a mighty empire--these majestic
+monuments of nature seemed as emblems to which the people should
+fashion, as they did fashion, their pyramids, their tombs, their
+sphynxes, their mighty reservoirs, and their colossal statues. And we
+can hardly suppose that such ever-visible objects should not, during
+the time of their creation, have some elevating influence on the
+weakest mind; and that therefore frivolity of conversation amongst the
+Egyptian ladies was rather the exception than the rule. But a modern
+author has amused himself, and exercised some ingenuity in attempting
+to prove the contrary:--
+
+"Many similar instances of a talent for caricature are observable in
+the compositions of Egyptian artists who executed the paintings on the
+tombs; and the ladies are not spared. We are led to infer that they
+were not deficient in the talent of conversation; and the numerous
+subjects they proposed are shown to have been examined with great
+animation. Among these the question of dress was not forgotten, and
+the patterns or the value of trinkets were discussed with
+proportionate interest. The maker of an earring, or the shop where it
+was purchased, were anxiously inquired; each compared the workmanship,
+the style, and the materials of those she wore, coveted her
+neighbour's, or preferred her own; and women of every class vied with
+each other in the display of 'jewels of silver and jewels of gold,' in
+the texture of their 'raiment,' the neatness of their sandals, and the
+arrangement or beauty of their plaited hair."
+
+We are too much indebted to this author's interesting volumes to
+quarrel with him for his ungallant exposition of a very simple
+painting; but we beg to place in juxta-position with the above (though
+otherwise somewhat out of its place) an extract from a work by no
+means characterised by unnecessary complacency to the fair sex.
+
+"'Cet homme passe sa vie a forger des nouvelles,' me dit alors un gros
+Athenien qui etait assis aupres de moi. 'Il ne s'occupe que de choses
+qui ne le touchent point. Pour moi, mon interieur me suffit. J'ai une
+femme que j'aime beaucoup;' et il me fit l'eloge de sa femme. 'Hier je
+ne pus pas souper avec elle, j'etais prie chez un de mes amis;' et il
+me fit la description du repas. 'Je me retirai chez moi assez content.
+Mais j'ai fait cette nuit un reve qui m'inquiete;' et il me raconta
+son reve. Ensuite il me dit pesamment que la ville fourmillait
+d'etrangers; que les hommes d'aujourd'hui ne valaient pas ceux
+d'autrefois; que les denrees etaient a bas prix; qu'on pourrait
+esperer une bonne recolte, s'il venait a pleuvoir. Apres m'avoir
+demande le quantieme du mois, il se leva pour aller souper avec sa
+femme."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+NEEDLEWORK OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.
+
+                    "------Supreme
+                Sits the virtuous housewife,
+                  The tender mother--
+                O'er the circle presiding,
+                And prudently guiding;
+                The girls gravely schooling,
+                The boys wisely ruling;
+                Her hands never ceasing
+                From labours increasing;
+                And doubling his gains
+                With her orderly pains.
+    With piles of rich treasure the storehouse she spreads,
+    And winds round the loud-whirring spindle her threads:
+    She winds--till the bright-polish'd presses are full
+    Of the snow-white linen and glittering wool:
+    Blends the brilliant and solid in constant endeavour,
+               And resteth never."
+
+                        J. H. Merivale.
+
+
+It was an admitted opinion amongst the classical nations of antiquity,
+that no less a personage than Minerva herself, "a maiden affecting old
+fashions and formality," visited earth to teach her favourite nation
+the mysteries of those implements which are called "the arms of every
+virtuous woman;" viz. the distaff and spindle. In the use of these the
+Grecian dames were particularly skilled; in fact, spinning, weaving,
+needlework, and embroidery, formed the chief occupation of those whose
+rank exonerated them, even in more primitive days, from the menial
+drudgery of a household.
+
+The Greek females led exceedingly retired lives, being far more
+charily admitted to a share of the recreations of the nobler sex than
+we of these privileged days. The ancient Greeks were very
+magnificent--very: magnificent senators, magnificent warriors,
+magnificent men; but they were a people trained from the cradle for
+exhibition and publicity; domestic life was quite cast into the shade.
+Consequently and necessarily their women were thrown to greater
+distance, till it happened, naturally enough, that they seemed to form
+a distinct community; and apartments the most distant and secluded
+that the mansion afforded were usually assigned to them. Of these, in
+large establishments, certain ones were always appropriated to the
+labours of the needle.
+
+"Je ne dirai" (says the sarcastic author of Anacharsis) "qu'un mot sur
+l'education des filles. Suivant la difference des etats, elles
+apprennent a lire, ecrire, coudre, filer, preparer la laine dont on
+fait les vetemens, et veiller aux soins du menage. En general, les
+meres exhortent leurs filles a se conduire avec sagesse; mais elles
+insistent beaucoup plus sur la necessite de se tenir droites,
+d'effacer leurs epaules, de serrer leur sein avec un large ruban,
+d'etre extremement sobres, et de prevenir, par toutes sortes de
+moyens, un embonpoint qui nuirait a l'elegance de la taille et a la
+grace des mouvemens."
+
+Homer, the great fountain of ancient lore, scarcely throughout his
+whole work names a female, Greek or Trojan, but as connected naturally
+and indissolubly with this feminine occupation--needlework. Thus, when
+Chryses implores permission to ransome his daughter, Agamemnon
+wrathfully replies--
+
+    "I will not loose thy daughter, till old age
+    Find her far distant from her native soil,
+    Beneath my roof in Argos, at her task
+    Of tissue-work."
+
+And Iris, the "ambassadress of Heaven," finds Helen in her own
+recess--
+
+    "----weaving there a gorgeous web,
+    Inwrought with fiery conflicts, for her sake
+    Wag'd by contending nations."
+
+Hector foreseeing the miseries consequent upon the destruction of
+Troy, says to Andromache--
+
+              "But no grief
+    So moves me as my grief for thee alone,
+    Doom'd then to follow some imperious Greek,
+    A weeping captive, to the distant shores
+    Of Argos; there to labour at the loom
+    For a taskmistress."
+
+And again he says to her--
+
+    "Hence, then, to our abode; there weave or spin,
+    And task thy maidens."
+
+And afterwards--
+
+            "Andromache, the while,
+    Knew nought, nor even by report had learn'd
+    Her Hector's absence in the field alone.
+    She in her chamber at the palace-top
+    A splendid texture wrought, on either side
+    All dazzling bright with flow'rs of various hues."
+
+Though "Penelope's web" is become a proverb, it would be unpardonable
+here to omit specific mention of it. Antinoues thus complains of her:--
+
+    "Elusive of the bridal day, she gives
+    Fond hope to all, and all with hope deceives.
+    Did not the Sun, through heaven's wide azure roll'd,
+    For three long years the royal fraud behold?
+    While she, laborious in delusion, spread
+    The spacious loom, and mix'd the various thread;
+    Where, as to life the wondrous figures rise,
+    Thus spoke th' inventive queen with artful sighs:--
+    'Though cold in death Ulysses breathes no more,
+    Cease yet a while to urge the bridal hour;
+    Cease, till to great Laertes I bequeath
+    A task of grief, his ornaments of death.
+    Lest, when the Fates his royal ashes claim,
+    The Grecian matrons taint my spotless fame:
+    When he, whom living mighty realms obey'd,
+    Shall want in death a shroud to grace his shade.'
+    Thus she: At once the generous train complies,
+    Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue's fair disguise.
+    The work she plied; but, studious of delay,
+    By night revers'd the labours of the day.
+    While thrice the Sun his annual journey made,
+    The conscious lamp the midnight fraud survey'd;
+    Unheard, unseen, three years her arts prevail;
+    The fourth, her maid unfolds th' amazing tale.
+    We saw, as unperceiv'd we took our stand,
+    The backward labours of her faithless hand.
+    Then urg'd, she perfects her illustrious toils;
+    A wondrous monument of female wiles."
+
+The Greek costume was rich and elegant; and though, from our
+familiarity with colourless statues, we are apt to suppose it gravely
+uniform in its hue, such was not the fact; for the tunic was often
+adorned with ornamental embroidery of all sorts. The toga was the
+characteristic of Roman costume: this gradually assumed variations
+from its primitive simplicity of hue, until at length the triumphant
+general considered even the royal purple too unpretending, unless set
+off by a rich embroidery of gold. The first embroideries of the Romans
+were but bands of stuff, cut or twisted, which they put on the
+dresses: the more modest used only one band; others two, three, four,
+up to seven; and from the number of these the dresses took their
+names, always drawn from the Greek: molores, dilores, trilores,
+tetralores, &c.
+
+Pliny seems to be the authority whence most writers derive their
+accounts of ancient garments and needlework.
+
+"The coarse rough wool with the round great haire hath been of ancient
+time highly commended and accounted of in tapestrie worke: for even
+Homer himself witnesseth that they of the old world used the same
+much, and tooke great delight therein. But this tapestrie is set out
+with colours in France after one sort, and among the Parthians after
+another. M. Varro writeth that within the temple of Sangus there
+continued unto the time that he wrote his booke the wooll that lady
+Tanaquil, otherwise named Caia Cecilia, spun; together with her
+distaff and spindle: as also within the chapel of Fortune, the very
+roiall robe or mantle of estate, made in her own hands after the
+manner of water chamlot in wave worke, which Servius Tullius used to
+weare. And from hence came the fashion and custome at Rome, that when
+maidens were to be wedded, there attended upon them a distaffe,
+dressed and trimmed with kombed wooll, as also a spindle and yearne
+upon it. The said Tanaquil was the first that made the coat or
+cassocke woven right out all through; such as new beginners (namely
+young souldiers, barristers, and fresh brides) put on under their
+white plaine gowns, without any guard of purple. The waved water
+chamelot was from the beginning esteemed the richest and bravest
+wearing. And from thence came the branched damaske in broad workes.
+Fenestella writeth that in the latter time of Augustus Caesar they
+began at Rome to use their gownes of cloth shorne, as also with a
+curled nap.--As for those robes which are called crebrae and
+papaveratae, wrought thicke with floure worke, resembling poppies, or
+pressed even and smooth, they be of greater antiquitie: for even in
+the time of Lucilius the poet Torquatus was noted and reproved for
+wearing them. The long robes embrodered before, called praetextae, were
+devised first by the Tuscanes. The Trabeae were roiall robes, and I
+find that kings and princes only ware them. In Homer's time also they
+used garments embrodered with imagerie and floure, work, and from
+thence came the triumphant robes. As for embroderie itselfe and
+needle-worke, it was the Phrygians invention: and hereupon embroderers
+in Latine bee called phrygiones. And in the same Asia king Attalus was
+the first that devised cloth of gold: and thence come such colours to
+be called Attalica. In Babylon they used much to weave their cloth of
+divers colours, and this was a great wearing amongst them, and cloths
+so wrought were called Babylonica. To weave cloth of tissue with
+twisted threeds both in woofe and warpe, and the same of sundrie
+colours, was the invention of Alexandria; and such clothes and
+garments were called Polymita, But Fraunce devised the scutchion,
+square, or lozenge damaske worke. Metellus Scipio, among other
+challenges and imputations laid against Capito, reproached and accused
+him for this:--'That his hangings and furniture of his dining chamber,
+being Babylonian work or cloth of Arras, were sold for 800,000
+sesterces; and such like of late days stood Prince Nero in 400,000
+sesterces, _i.e._ forty millions.' The embrodered long robes of
+Servius Tullius, wherewith he covered and arraied all over the image
+of Fortune, by him dedicated, remained whole and sound until the end
+of Sejanus. And a wonder it was that they neither fell from the image
+nor were motheaten in 560 yeares."[5]
+
+It was long before silk was in general use, even for patrician
+garments. It has been supposed that the famous Median vest, invented
+by Semiramis, was silken, which might account for its great fame in
+the west. Be this as it may, it was so very graceful, that the Medes
+adopted it after they had conquered Asia; and the Persians followed
+their example. In the time of the Romans the price of silk was weight
+for weight with gold, and the first persons who brought silk into
+Europe were the Greeks of Alexander's army. Under Tiberius it was
+forbidden to be worn by men; and it is said that the Emperor Aurelian
+even refused the earnest request of his empress for a silken dress, on
+the plea of its extravagant cost. Heliogabalus was the first man that
+ever wore a robe entirely of silk. He had also a tunic woven of gold
+threads; such gold thread as we referred to in a prior chapter, as
+consisting of the metal alone beaten out and rounded, without any
+intermixture of silk or woollen. Tarquinius Priscus had also a vest of
+this gorgeous description, as had likewise Agrippina. Gold thread and
+wire continued to be made entirely of metal probably until the time of
+Aurelian, nor have there been any instances found in Herculaneum and
+Pompeii of the silken thread with a gold coating.
+
+These examples will suffice to show that it was not usually the
+_material_ of the ancient garments which gave them so high a value,
+but the ornamental embellishments with which they were afterwards
+invested by the needle.
+
+The Medes and Babylonians seem to have been most highly celebrated for
+their stuffs and tapestries of various sorts which were figured by the
+needle; the Egyptians certainly rivalled, though they did not surpass
+them; and the Greeks seem also to have attained a high degree of
+excellence in this pretty art. The epoch of embroidery amongst the
+Romans went as far back as Tarquin, to whom the Etruscans presented a
+tunic of purple enriched with gold, and a mantle of purple and other
+colours, "tels qu'en portoient les rois de Perse et de Lydie." But
+soon luxury banished the wonted austerity of Rome; and when Caesar
+first showed himself in a habit embroidered and fringed, this
+innovation appeared scandalous to those who had not been alarmed at
+any of his real and important innovations.
+
+We have referred in a former chapter to the practice of sending
+garments as presents, as marks of respect and friendship, or as
+propitiatory or deprecatory offerings. And the illustrious ladies of
+the classical times had such a prophetical talent of preparation, that
+they were ever found possessed, when occasion required, of store of
+garments richly embroidered by their own fair fingers, or under their
+auspices. Of this there are numerous examples in Homer.
+
+When Priam wishes to redeem the body of Hector, after preparing other
+propitiatory gifts,
+
+    "----he open'd wide the sculptur'd lids
+    Of various chests, whence mantles twelve he took
+    Of texture beautiful; twelve single cloaks;
+    As many carpets, with as many robes;
+    To which he added vests an equal store."
+
+When Telemachus is about to leave Menelaus--
+
+    "The beauteous queen revolv'd with careful eyes
+    Her various textures of unnumber'd dyes,
+    And chose the largest; with no vulgar art
+    Her own fair hands embroider'd every part;
+    Beneath the rest it lay divinely bright,
+    Like radiant Hesper o'er the gems of night."
+
+That much of this work was highly beautiful may be inferred from the
+description of the robe of Ulysses:--
+
+    "In the rich woof a hound, Mosaic drawn,
+    Bore on full stretch, and seiz'd a dappled fawn;
+    Deep in the neck his fangs indent their hold;
+    They pant and struggle in the moving gold."
+
+And this robe, Penelope says,
+
+    "In happier hours her artful hand employ'd."
+
+To invest a visitor with an embroidered robe was considered the very
+highest mark of honour and regard.
+
+When Telemachus is at the magnificent court of Menelaus--
+
+    "----a bright damsel train attend the guests
+    With liquid odours and _embroider'd vests_."
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+    "Give to the stranger guest a stranger's dues:
+    Bring gold, a pledge of love; a talent bring,
+    A _vest_, a _robe_."
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+    "--------in order roll'd
+    The robes, the vests are rang'd, and heaps of gold:
+    And adding _a rich dress inwrought with art_,
+    A gift expressive of her bounteous heart,
+    Thus spoke (the queen) to Ithacus."
+
+When Cambyses wished to attain some point from an Ethiopian prince, he
+forwarded, amongst other presents, a rich vest. The Ethiopian, taking
+the garment, inquired what it was, and how it was made; but its
+glittering tracery did not decoy the unsophisticated prince. When
+Xerxes arrived at Acanthos, he interchanged the rites of hospitality
+with the people, and presented several with Median vests. Probably our
+readers will remember the circumstance of Alexander making the mother
+of Darius a present of some rich vestures, probably of woollen
+fabrics, and telling her that she might make her grandchildren learn
+the art of weaving them; at which the royal lady felt insulted and
+deeply hurt, as it was considered ignominious by the Persian women to
+work in wool. Hearing of her misapprehension, Alexander himself waited
+on her, and in the gentlest and most respectful terms told the
+illustrious captive that, far from meaning any offence, the custom of
+his own country had misled him; and that the vestments he had offered
+were not only a present from his royal sisters, but wrought by their
+own hands.
+
+Outre as appear some of the flaring patterns of the present day, the
+boldest of them must be _quiet_ and unattractive compared with those
+we read of formerly, when not only human figures, but birds and
+animals, were wrought not merely on hangings and carpets but on
+wearing apparel. Ciampini gives various instances.[6]
+
+What changes, says he, do not a long course of years produce! Who now,
+except in the theatre, or at a carnival or masquerade (spectaculis ac
+rebus ludiciis), would endure garments inscribed with verses and
+titles, and painted with various figures? Nevertheless, it is plain
+that such garments were constantly used in ancient times. To say
+nothing of Homer, who assigns to Ulysses a tunic variegated with
+figures of animals; to say nothing of the Massagetae, whom Herodotus
+relates painted animals on their garments with the juice of herbs; we
+also read of these garments (though then considered very antiquated)
+being used under the Caesars of Rome.
+
+They say that Alcisthenes the Sybarite had a garment of such
+magnificence that when he exhibited it in the Temple of Juno at
+Lacinium, where all Italy was congregated, it attracted universal
+attention. It was purchased from the Carthaginians, by Dionysius the
+elder, for 120 talents. It was twenty-two feet in breadth, of a purple
+ground, with animals wrought all over, except in the middle, where
+were Jupiter, Juno, Themis, Minerva, Apollo, Venus: on one sleeve it
+had a figure of Alcisthenes, on the other of his city Sybaris.
+
+That this description is not exaggerated may be inferred from the
+following passage from a homily on Dives and Lazarus by a Bishop of
+Amuasan in Pontus, given by Ciampini.
+
+"They have here no bounds to this foolish art, for no sooner was
+invented the useless art of weaving in figures in a kind of picture,
+such as animals of all sorts, than (rich persons) procure flowered
+garments, and also those variegated with an infinite number of images,
+both for themselves, their wives, and children. . . . . . . Whensoever
+thus clothed they go abroad, they go, as it were, painted all over,
+and pointing out to one another with the finger the pictures on their
+garments.
+
+"For there are lions and panthers, and bears and bulls, and dogs and
+woods, and rocks and huntsmen; and, in a word, everything that can be
+thought of, all drawn to the life: for it was necessary, forsooth,
+that not only the walls of their houses should be painted, but their
+coats (tunica) also, and likewise the cloak (pallium) which covers it.
+
+"The more pious of these gentry take their subjects from the Gospel
+history: _e.g._ Christ himself with his disciples, or one of the
+miracles, is depicted. In this manner you shall see the marriage of
+Cana and the waterpots; the paralytic carrying his bed on his
+shoulders; the blind man cured by clay; the woman with the issue of
+blood taking hold of the border (of Christ's garment); the harlot
+falling at the feet of Jesus; Lazarus coming from the tomb: and they
+fancy there is great piety in all this, and that putting on such
+garments must be pleasing to God."
+
+The palmated garment was figured with palm-leaves, and was a triumphal
+or festive garment. It is referred to in an epistle of Gratian to
+Augustus: "I have sent thee a palmated garment, in which the name of
+our divine parent Constantine is interwoven."
+
+In allusion to these lettered garments Ausonius celebrates Sabina
+(textrice simul ac poetria), whose name thus lives when those of more
+important personages are forgotten:--
+
+    They who both webs and verses weave,
+    The first to thee, O chaste Minerva, leave;
+        The latter to the Muses they devote:
+    To me, Sabina, it appears a sin
+    To separate two things so near akin,
+        So I have wrote thy verses on my coat.[7]
+
+And again:
+
+    Whether the Tyrian robe your praise demand,
+      Or the neat verse upon the edge descried,
+    Know both proceed from the same skilful hand:
+      In both these arts Sabina takes a pride.[8]
+
+It is imagined that the embroidered vestments worn in Homer's time
+bore a strong resemblance to those now worn by the Moguls; and the
+custom of making presents, so discernible through his work, still
+prevails throughout Asia. It is not (says Sir James Forbes) so much
+the custom in India to present dresses ready made to the visitors as
+to offer the materials, especially to Europeans. In Turkey, Persia,
+and Arabia, it is generally the reverse. We find in Chardin that the
+kings of Persia had great wardrobes, where there were always many
+hundred habits, sorted, ready for presents, and that more than forty
+tailors were always employed in this service.
+
+It is not improbable that this ancient custom of presenting a visitor
+with a new dress as a token of welcome, a symbol of rejoicing at his
+presence, may have led to many of the general customs which have
+prevailed, and do still, of having new clothes at any season of joy or
+festivity. New clothes are thought by the people of the East
+_requisite_ for the due solemnization of a time of rejoicing. The
+Turks, even the poorest of them, would submit to any privation rather
+than be without new clothes at the Bairam or Great Festival. There is
+an anecdote recorded of the Caliph Montanser Billah, that going one
+day to the upper roof of his palace he saw a number of clothes spread
+out on the flat roofs of the houses of Bagdat. He asked the reason,
+and was told that the inhabitants of Bagdat were drying their clothes,
+which they had newly washed, on account of the approach of the Bairam.
+The caliph was so concerned that any should be so poor as to be
+obliged to wash their old clothes for want of new ones with which to
+celebrate this festival, that he ordered a great quantity of gold to
+be instantly made into bullets, proper to be shot out of crossbows,
+which he and his courtiers threw, by this means, upon every terrace of
+the city where he saw garments spread to dry.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] Book viii. chap. 48.
+
+[6] Ciampini, Vetera Monimenta, cap. xiii.
+
+[7] "Licia qui texunt, et Carmina; Carmina Musis,
+      Licia contribuunt, casta Minerva, tibi.
+    Ast ego rem sociam non dissociabo, Sabina,
+      Versibus inscripsi, quae mea texta meis."
+
+[8] "Sive probas Tyrio textam sub tegmine vestem,
+      Seu placet inscripti commoditas tituli.
+    Ipsius haec Dominae concennat utrumque venustas:
+      Has geminas artes una Sabina colet."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE DARK AGES.--"SHEE-SCHOOLS."
+
+    "There was an auncient house not far away,
+      Renown'd throughout the world for sacred lore
+    And pure unspotted life: so well they say
+      It govern'd was, and guided evermore
+      Through wisedome of a matrone grave and hore,
+    Whose onely joy was to relieve the needes
+      Of wretched soules, and helpe the helplesse pore:
+    All night she spent in bidding of her bedes,
+    And all the day in doing good and godly dedes."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+    "Meantime, whilst monks' _pens_ were thus employed, nuns
+    with their _needles_ wrote histories also: that of
+    _Christ his passion_ for their altar-clothes; and other
+    Scripture- (and more legend-) stories in hangings to
+    adorn their houses."--Fuller, Ch. Hist., B. 6.
+
+
+Needlework is an art so indissolubly connected with the convenience
+and comfort of mankind at large, that it is impossible to suppose any
+state of society in which it has not existed. Its modes varied, of
+course, according to the lesser or greater degrees of refinement in
+other matters with which it was connected; and when we find from
+Muratori that "nulla s'e detto fin qui dell'Arte del Tessere dopo la
+declinazione del Romano Imperio; e solo in fuggire s'e parlato di
+alcune vesti degli antichi," we may fairly infer that the _ornamental_
+needlework of the time was not extensively encouraged, although never
+entirely laid aside.
+
+The desolation that overran the world was found alike in its greatest
+or most insignificant concerns; and the same torrent that swept
+monarchs from their thrones and peers from their halls did away with
+the necessity for professors of the decorative arts. There needed not
+the embroiderer of gold and purple to blazon the triumph of a
+conqueror who disdained other habiliment than the skin of some
+slaughtered beast.[9]
+
+The matron who yet retained the principle of Roman virtue, or the fair
+and refined maiden of the eastern capital, far from seeking personal
+adornment, rather shunned any decoration which might attract the eyes
+and inflame the passions of untamed and ruthless conquerors. All usual
+habits were subverted, and for long years the history of the European
+world is but a bloody record of war and tumult, of bloodshed and
+strife. Few are the cases of peace and tranquillity in this desert of
+tumult and blood-guiltiness; but those few "isles of the blessed" in
+this ocean of discord, those few sunny spots in the gloomy landscape,
+are intimately connected with our theme. The use of the needle for the
+daily necessities of life could never, as we have remarked, be
+superseded; but the practice of ornamental needlework, in common with
+every ennobling science and improving art, was kept alive during this
+period of desolation by the church, and by the individual labours and
+collective zeal of the despised and contemned monks.
+
+Sharing that hallowed influence which hovered over and protected the
+church at this fearful season--for, from the carelessness or
+superstition of the barbarians, the ministers of religion were
+spared--nunneries, with some few exceptions, were now like refuges
+pointed out by Heaven itself. They were originally founded by the
+sister of St. Anthony, the hermit of the Egyptian desert, and in their
+primitive institution were meant solely for those who, abjuring the
+world for religious motives, were desirous to spend their whole time
+in devotional exercises. But their sphere of utility became afterwards
+widely extended. They became safe and peaceable asylums for all those
+to whom life's pilgrimage had been too thorny. The frail but repentant
+maiden was here sheltered from the scorn of an uncharitable world; the
+virtuous but suffering female, whose earthly hopes had, from whatever
+cause, been crushed, could here weep and pray in peace: while she to
+whom the more tangible trouble of poverty had descended might here,
+without the galling yoke of charity and dependence, look to a refuge
+for those evil days when the breaking of the golden bowl, the loosing
+of the silver cord, should disable her from the exertions necessary
+for her maintenance.
+
+Have we any--ay, with all their faults and imperfections on their
+heads--have we, in these days of enlightenment, any sort of substitute
+for the blessings they held out to dependent and suffering woman of
+whatever rank?
+
+Convents became also schools for the education of young women of rank,
+who here imbibed in early youth principles of religion which might
+enable them to endure with patience and fortitude those after-trials
+of life from which no station or wealth could exempt them; and they
+acquired here those accomplishments, and were taught here those
+lighter occupations, amongst which fine needlework and embroidery
+occupied a conspicuous position, which would qualify them to beguile
+in a becoming manner the many hours of leisure which their elevated
+rank would confer on them.
+
+"Nunneries," says Fuller, "also were good shee-schools, wherein the
+girles and maids of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work;
+and sometimes a little Latine was taught them therein. Yea, give me
+leave to say, if such feminine foundations had still continued,
+provided no _vow_ were obtruded upon them (virginity is least kept
+where it is most constrained), haply the weaker sex (besides the
+avoiding modern inconveniences) might be heightened to an higher
+perfection than hitherto hath been attained. That sharpnesse of their
+wits and suddenness of their conceits (which their enemies must allow
+unto them) might by education be improved into a judicious solidity,
+and that adorned with arts which now they want, not because they
+cannot learn, but are not taught them. I say, if such feminine
+foundations were extant now of dayes, haply some virgins of highest
+birth would be glad of such places, and I am sure their fathers and
+elder brothers would not be sorry for the same."
+
+Miss Lawrance gives a more detailed account of the duties taught in
+them. "In consequence of convents being considered as establishments
+exclusively belonging to the Latin church, Protestant writers, as by
+common consent, have joined in censuring them, forgetful of the many
+benefits which, without any reference to their peculiar creed, they
+were calculated to confer. Although providing instruction for the
+young, the convent was a large establishment for various orders of
+women. There were the nuns, the lay sisters, always a numerous class,
+and a large body of domestics; while in those higher convents, where
+the abbess exercised manorial jurisdiction, there were seneschal,
+esquires, gentlemen, yeomen, grooms, indeed the whole establishment of
+a baronial castle, except the men-at-arms and the archer-band. Thus
+within the convent walls the pupil saw nearly the same domestic
+arrangement to which she had been accustomed in her father's castle;
+while, instead of being constantly surrounded with children, well born
+and intelligent women might be her occasional companions. And then the
+most important functions were exercised by women. The abbess presided
+in her manorial court, the cellaress performed the extensive offices
+of steward, the praecentrix led the singing and superintended the
+library, and the infirmaress watched over the sick, affording them
+alike spiritual and medical aid. Thus, from her first admission, the
+pupil was taught to respect and to emulate the talents of women. But
+a yet more important peculiarity did the convent school present. It
+was a noble, a well-endowed, and an independent institution; and it
+proffered education as a boon. Here was no eager canvassing for
+scholars, no promises of unattainable advantages; for the convent
+school was not a mercantile establishment, nor was education a trade.
+The female teachers of the middle ages were looked up to alike by
+parent and child, and the instruction so willingly offered was
+willingly and gratefully received; the character of the teacher was
+elevated, and as a necessary consequence so was the character of the
+pupil."
+
+But in addition to those inmates who had dedicated their lives to
+religion, and those who were placed there specifically for education,
+convents afforded shelter to numbers who sought only temporary
+retirement from the world under the influence of sorrow, or temporary
+protection under the apprehension of danger. And this was the case not
+merely through the very dark era with which our chapter commences, but
+for centuries afterwards, and when the world was comparatively
+civilized. Our own "good Queen Maude" assumed the veil in the convent
+of Romsey, without however taking the vows, as the only means of
+escaping from a forced marriage; and in the subsequent reign, that of
+Stephen, so little regard was paid to law or decorum, that a convent
+was the only place where a maiden, even of gentle birth, if she had
+riches, could have a chance of shelter and safety from the
+machinations of those who resorted to any sort of brutality or
+violence to compel her to a marriage which would secure her
+possessions to her ravisher.
+
+It was then in the convents, and in them alone, that, during the
+barbarism and confusion consequent upon the overthrow of the ancient
+empire, and the irruption of the untamed hordes who overran southern
+Europe from the north and west,--it was in the convents that some
+remnants of the ancient art of embroidery were still preserved. The
+nuns considered it an acceptable service to employ their time and
+talents in the construction of vestments which, being intended for the
+service of the church, were rich and sumptuous even at the time when
+richness and elegance of apparel were unknown elsewhere.[10] It was no
+proof of either the ignorance or the bad taste or the irreligion of
+the "_dark_" ages, that the religious edifices were fitted up with a
+rich and gorgeous solemnity which are unheard of in these days of
+light and knowledge and economy. And besides the construction of rich
+and elaborately ornamented vestments for the priests, and hangings for
+the altars, shrines, &c., besides these being peculiarly the
+occupation of the professed sisters of religious houses, it was
+likewise the pride and the delight of ladies of rank to devote both
+their money to the purchase and their time to the embroidering of
+sacerdotal garments as offerings to the church. And whether
+temporarily sheltering within the walls of a convent, or happily
+presiding in her own lofty halls, it was oftentime the pride and
+pleasure of the high-born dame to embroider a splendid cope, a rich
+vest, or a gorgeous hanging, as a votive and grateful offering to that
+holy altar where perhaps she had prayed in sorrow, and found
+consolation and peace.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[9] "In the most inclement winter the hardy German was satisfied with
+a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal."--Gibbon.
+
+[10] Muratori (Diss. 25), speaking of the mean habiliments usual in
+Italy even so late as the 13th century, adds, "Ma non per questo
+s'hanno a credere cosi rozzi e nemici del Lusso que' Secoli. A buon
+conto anche in Italia qui non era cieco, sovente potea mirare i piu
+delicati lavori di Seta, che _servivano di ornamenti alle Chiese e
+alle sacre funzioni_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+NEEDLEWORK OF THE DARK AGES.
+
+    "Last night I dreamt a dream; behold!
+    I saw a church was fret with gold,
+                With arras richly dight:
+    There saw I altar, pall, and pix,
+    Chalice, and font, and crucifix,
+                And tapers burning bright."
+
+                        W. S. Rose.
+
+
+Over those memorials of the past which chance and mischance have left
+us, time hath drawn a thick curtain, obliterating all soft and gentle
+touches, which connected harmoniously the bolder features of the
+landscape, and leaving these but as landmarks to intimate what had
+been there. We would fain linger on those times, and call up the
+gentle spirits of the long departed to describe scenes of quiet but
+useful retirement at which we now only dimly guess. We would witness
+the hour of recreation in the convent, when the severer duties of the
+cloister gave place to the cheerful one of companionship; and the
+"pale votary" quitted the lonely cell and the solitary vigil, to
+instruct the blooming novice in the art of embroidery, or to ply her
+own accustomed and accomplished fingers in its fairy creations. The
+younger ones would be ecstatic in their commendations, and eager in
+their exertions to rival the fair sempstress; whilst a gratified
+though sad smile would brighten her own pale cheek as the lady abbess
+laid aside the richly illuminated volume by which her own attention
+had been engrossed, and from which she had from time to time read
+short and instructive passages aloud, commenting on and enforcing the
+principles they inculcated; and holding the work towards the casement,
+so that the bright slanting rays of the setting sun which fell through
+the richly carved lattice might illumine the varied tints of the
+stitchery, she would utter some kind and encouraging words of
+admiration and praise.
+
+Perhaps the work was a broidered scarf for some spiritual father, a
+testimony of gratitude and esteem from the convent at large; perhaps
+it was a tunic or a girdle which some high and wealthy lady had
+bespoken for an offering, and which the meek and pious sisterhood were
+happy to do for hire, bestowing the proceeds on the necessities of the
+convent; or, if those were provided, on charity. Perhaps it was a pair
+of sandals, so magnificently wrought as to be destined as a present by
+some lofty abbot to the pope himself, like those which Robert, Abbot
+of St. Alban's, sent to the Pope Adrian the Fourth; and which alone,
+out of a multitude of the richest offerings, the pope retained;[11]
+or if it were in England (for our domestic scene will apply to all the
+Christian world) it might be a magnificent covering for the high
+altar, with a scripture history embroidered in the centre, and the
+border, of regal purple, inwrought with gold and precious stones. We
+say, _if in England_, because so celebrated was the English work, the
+Opus Anglicum,[12] that other nations eagerly desired to possess it.
+The embroidered vestments of some English clergymen were so much
+admired at the Papal Court, that the Pope, asking where they had been
+made, and being told "in England," despatched bulls to several English
+abbots, commanding them to procure similar ones for him. Some of the
+vestments of these days were almost covered with gold and precious
+stones.
+
+Or it might be a magnificent pall, in the days in which this garment
+had lost its primitive character, that taxed the skill and the
+patience of the fair needlewoman. It was about the year A.D. 601 that
+Pope Gregory sent two archbishop's palls into England; the one for
+London, which see was afterwards removed to Canterbury, and the other
+to York. Fuller gives the following account of this garment
+primitively:--
+
+"The pall is a pontificall vestment, considerable for the matter,
+making, and mysteries thereof. For the matter, it is made of
+lamb's-wooll and superstition. I say, _of lamb's-wooll, as it comes
+from the sheep's back, without any other artificiall colour_, spun
+(say some) by a peculiar order of nunnes, _first cast into the tombe
+of St. Peter_, taken from his body (say others); surely most sacred if
+from both; and (superstitiously) adorned with little black crosses.
+For the form thereof, the _breadth exceeded not three fingers_ (one of
+our bachelor's lamb-skin hoods in Cambridge would make three of them),
+_having two labells hanging down before and behind_, which the
+archbishops onely, when going to the altar, put about their necks,
+above their other pontificall ornaments. Three mysteries were couched
+therein. First, humility, which beautifies the clergy above all their
+costly copes; secondly, innocency, to imitate lamb-like simplicitie;
+and thirdly, industry, to follow him who fetched his wandering sheep
+home on his shoulders. But to speak plainly, the mystery of mysteries
+in this pall was, that the archbishops receiving it showed therein
+their dependence on Rome; and a mote in this manner ceremoniously
+taken was a sufficient acknowledgment of their subjection. And, as it
+owned Rome's power, so in after ages it increased their profit. For,
+though now such palls were freely given to archbishops, whose places
+in Britain for the present were rather cumbersome than commodious,
+having little more than their paines for their labour; yet in after
+ages the archbishop of Canterburie's pall was sold for five thousand
+florenes:[13] so that the Pope might well have the Golden Fleece, if
+he could sell all his lamb's-wooll at that rate."[14]
+
+The accounts of the rich embroidered ecclesiastical vestments--robes,
+sandals, girdles, tunics, vests, palls, cloaks, altar-cloths, and
+veils or hangings of various descriptions, common in churches in the
+dark ages--would almost surpass belief, if the minuteness with which
+they are enumerated in some few ancient authors did not attest the
+fact. Still these in the most diffuse writers are a mere catalogue of
+church properties, and, as such, would, in the dry detail, be but
+little interesting to our readers. There is enough said of them,
+however, to attest their variety, their beauty, their magnificence;
+and to impress one with a very favourable idea of the female ingenuity
+and perseverance of those days. The cost of many of these garments was
+enormous, for pearls and precious jewels were literally interwrought,
+and the time and labour bestowed on them was almost incredible. It was
+no uncommon circumstance for three years to be spent even by these
+assiduous and indefatigable votaries of the needle on one garment. But
+it is only casually, in the pages of the antiquarian, that there is
+any record of them:--
+
+                      "With their names
+    No bard embalms and sanctifies his song:
+    And history, so warm on meaner themes,
+    Is cold on this."
+
+"Noi" (says Muratori) "che ammiriamo, e con ragione, la belta e
+varieta di tante drapperie dei nostri tempi, abbiam nondimeno da
+confessare un obbligo non lieve agli antichi, che ci hanno prima
+spianata la via, e senza i lumi loro non potremmo oggidi vantare un si
+gran progresso nell'Arti."
+
+And that this was the case a few instances may suffice to show; and it
+may not be quite out of place here to refer to one out of a thousand
+articles of value and beauty which were lost in the great
+conflagration ("which so cruelly laid waste the habitations of the
+servants of God") of the doomed and often suffering, but always
+magnificent, Croyland Abbey. It was "that beautiful and costly sphere,
+most curiously constructed of different metals, according to the
+different planets. Saturn was of copper, Jupiter of gold, Mars of
+iron, the Sun of brass, Mercury of amber, Venus of tin, and the Moon
+of silver: the colours of all the signs of the Zodiac had their
+several figures and colours variously finished, and adorned with such
+a mixture of precious stones and metals as amused the eye, while it
+informed the mind of every beholder. Such another sphere was not known
+or heard of in England; and it was a present from the King of France."
+
+No insignificant proof this of the mechanical skill of the eleventh
+century.
+
+We are told that Pope Eutychianus, who lived in the reign of the
+Emperor Aurelian, buried in different places 342 martyrs with his own
+hands; and he ordained that a faithful martyr should on no account be
+interred without a dalmatic robe or a purple colobio. This is perhaps
+one of the earliest notices of ecclesiastical pomp or pride in
+vestments. But some forty years afterwards Pope Silvester was
+invested by the hands of his attendants with a Phrygian robe of snowy
+white, on which was traced in sparkling threads by busy female hands
+the resurrection of our Lord; and so magnificent was this garment
+considered that it was ordained to be worn by his successors on state
+occasions: and to pass at once to the seventh century, there are
+records of various church hangings which had become injured by old age
+being carefully repaired at considerable expense; which expense and
+trouble would not, we may fairly infer, have been incurred if the
+articles in question, even at this more advanced period, had not been
+considered of value and of beauty.
+
+Leo the Third, in the eighth century, was a magnificent benefactor to
+the church. With the vessels of rich plate and jewels of various
+descriptions which were in all ages offering to the church we have
+nothing to do: amongst various other vestments, Leo gave to the high
+altar of the blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, a covering
+spangled with gold (_chrysoclabam_) and adorned with precious stones;
+having the histories both of our Saviour giving to the blessed Apostle
+Peter the power of binding and loosing, and also representing the
+suffering of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and Paul. It was of
+great size, and exhibited on St. Peter and St. Paul's days.[15]
+
+Pope Paschal, early in the ninth century, had some magnificent
+garments wrought, which he presented to different churches. One of
+these was an altar-cloth of Tyrian purple, having in the middle a
+picture of golden emblems, with the countenance of our Lord, and of
+the blessed martyrs Cosman and Damian, with three other brothers. The
+cross was wrought in gold, and had round it a border of olive-leaves
+most beautifully worked. Another had golden emblems, with our Saviour,
+surrounded with archangels and apostles, of wonderful beauty and
+richness, being ornamented with pearls.
+
+In these ages robes and hangings with crimson or purple borders,
+called _blatta_, from the name of the insect from which the dye was
+obtained, were much in use. An insect, supposed to be the one so often
+referred to by this name in the writings of the ancients, is found now
+on the coasts of Guayaquil and Guatima. The dye is very beautiful, and
+is easily transferred. The royal purple so much esteemed of old was of
+very different shades, for the terms purple, red, crimson, scarlet,
+are often used indiscriminately; and a pretty correct conception may
+be acquired of the value of this imperial tint formerly from the
+circumstance that, when Alexander took possession of the city of Susa
+and of its enormous treasures, among other things there were found
+five thousand quintals of Hermione purple, the finest in the world,
+which had been treasured up there during the space of 190 years;
+notwithstanding which, its beauty and lustre were no way diminished.
+Some idea may be formed of the prodigious value of this store from the
+fact that this purple was sold at the rate of 100 crowns a pound, and
+the quintal is a hundredweight of Paris.
+
+Pope Paschal had a robe worked with gold and gems, having the history
+of the Virgins with lighted torches beautifully related: he had
+another of Byzantine scarlet with a worked border of olive-leaves.
+This was a very usual decoration of ecclesiastical robes, and a very
+suitable one; for, from the time when in the beak of Noah's dove it
+was first an emblem of comfort, it has ever, in all ages, in all
+nations, at all times, been symbolical of plenty and peace. This pope
+had also a robe of woven gold, worn over a cassock of scarlet silk; a
+dress certainly worth the naming, though not so much as others
+indebted to our useful little implement which Cowper calls the
+"threaded steel." But he had another rich and peculiar garment, which
+was entirely indebted to the needlewoman for its varied and radiant
+hues. This was a robe of an amber colour,[16] _having peacocks_.
+
+Pope Leo the Fourth had a hanging worked with the needle, having the
+portrait of a man seated upon a peacock. Pope Stefano the Fifth had
+four magnificent hangings for the great altar, one of which was
+wrought in peacocks. We find in romance that there was a high
+emblematical value attached to peacocks; not so high, however, as to
+prevent our ancestors from eating them; but it is difficult to account
+for their being so frequently introduced in designs professedly
+religious. In romance and chivalry they were supereminent. "To mention
+the peacock (says M. Le Grand) is to write its panegyrick." Many noble
+families bore the peacock as their crest; and in the Provencal Courts
+of Love the successful poet was crowned with a wreath formed of them.
+The coronation present given to the Queen of our Henry the Third, by
+her sister, the Queen of France, was a large silver peacock, whose
+train was set with sapphires and pearls, and other precious jewels,
+wrought with silver. This elegant piece of jewellery was used as a
+reservoir for sweet waters, which were forced out of its beak into a
+basin of white silver chased.
+
+As the knights associated these birds with all their ideas of fame,
+and made their most solemn vows over them, the highest honours were
+conferred on them. Their flesh is celebrated as the "nutriment of
+lovers," and the "viand of worthies;" and a peacock was always the
+most distinguished dish at the solemn banquets of princes or nobles.
+On these occasions it was served up on a golden dish, and carried to
+table by a lady of rank, attended by a train of high-born dames and
+damsels, and accompanied by music. If it was on the occasion of a
+tournament, the successful knight always carved it, so regulating his
+portions that each individual, be the company ever so numerous, might
+taste. For the oath, the knight rising from his seat and extending his
+hand over the bird, vowed some daring enterprise of arms or love:--"I
+vow to God, to the blessed Virgin, to the dames, and to the _peacock_,
+&c. &c."
+
+In later and less imaginative times, the peacock, though still a
+favourite dish at a banquet, seems to have been regarded more from its
+affording "good eating" than from any more refined attribute.
+Massinger speaks of
+
+                            "the carcases
+    Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to
+    Make sauce for a single peacock."
+
+In Shakspeare's time the bird was usually put into a pie, the head,
+richly gilt, being placed at one end of the dish, and the tail, spread
+out in its full circumference, at the other. And alas! for the
+degeneracy of those days. The solemn and knightly adjuration of former
+times had even then dwindled into the absurd oath which Shakspeare
+puts into the mouth of Justice Shallow:--
+
+    "By _cock_ and _pye_, Sir, you shall not away to night."
+
+In some of the French tapestries birds of all shapes, natural and
+unnatural, of all sizes and in all positions, form very important
+parts of the subjects themselves; though this remark is hardly in
+place here, as the tapestries are of later date, and not solely
+needlework. To return, however: mention is made in an old chronicle of
+_antiquitas Congregatio Ancilarum, quae opere plumario ornamenta
+ecclesiam laborabant_. It has been a subject of much discussion
+whether this Opus Plumarium signified some arrangement of real
+feathers, or merely fanciful embroidery in imitation of them.
+Lytlyngton, Abbot of Croyland, in Edward the Fourth's time, gave to
+his church nine copes of cloth of gold, exquisitely feathered.[17]
+This was perhaps embroidered imitation. A vestment which Cnute the
+Great presented to this abbey was made of silk embroidered with eagles
+of gold. Richard Upton, elected abbot in 1417, gave silk embroidered
+with falcons for copes; and about the same time John Freston gave a
+rich robe of Venetian blue embroidered with golden eagles. These were
+positively imitations merely; yet they evince the prevailing taste for
+feathered work, and, as we have shown, feathers themselves were much
+used. It is recorded that Pope Paul the Third sent King Pepin a
+present of a mantle interwoven with peacocks' feathers.
+
+And from whatever circumstance the reverence for peacocks' feathers
+originated,[18] it is not, even yet, quite exploded. There are some
+lingering remnants of a superstitious regard for them which may have
+had their origin in these very times and circumstances. For how
+surely, where they are rigidly traced, are our country customs, our
+vulgar ceremonies, our apparently absurd and senseless usages, found
+to emanate from some principle or superstition of general and
+prevailing adoption. In some counties we cannot enter a farm-house
+where the mantel-piece in the parlour is not decorated with a diadem
+of peacock feathers, which are carefully dusted and preserved. And in
+houses of more assuming pretensions the same custom frequently
+prevails; and we knew a lady who carefully preserved some peacock
+feathers in a drawer long after her association with people in a
+higher station than that to which she originally belonged had made her
+ashamed to display them in her parlour. _This_ could not be for _mere_
+ornament: there is some idea of _luck_ attached to them, which seems
+not improbably to have arisen from circumstances connected originally
+with the "Vow of the Peacock." At any rate, the religious care with
+which peacocks' feathers are preserved by many who care not for them
+as ornaments, is not a whit more ridiculous than to see people gravely
+turn over the money in their pockets when they first hear the cuckoo,
+or joyfully fasten a dropped horse-shoe on their threshold, or
+shudderingly turn aside if two straws lie across in their path, or
+thankfully seize an old shoe accidentally met with, heedless of the
+probable state of the beggared foot that may unconsciously have left
+it there, or any other of the million unaccountable customs which
+diversify and enliven country life, and which still prevail and
+flourish, notwithstanding the extensive travels and sweeping
+devastations of the modern "schoolmaster."
+
+Do not our readers recollect Cowper's thanksgiving "on finding the
+heel of a shoe?"--
+
+    "Fortune! I thank thee, gentle goddess! thanks!
+    Not that my muse, though bashful, shall deny
+    She would have thanked thee rather, hadst thou cast
+    A treasure in her way; for neither meed
+    Of early breakfast, to dispel the fumes
+    And bowel-raking pains of emptiness,
+    Nor noontide feast, nor ev'ning's cool repast,
+    Hopes she from this--presumptuous, though perhaps
+    The cobbler, leather-carving artist, might.
+    Nathless she thanks thee, and accepts thy boon,
+    Whatever; not as erst the fabled cock,
+    Vain-glorious fool! unknowing what he found,
+    Spurned the rich gem thou gavest him. Wherefore, ah!
+    Why not on me that favour, (worthier sure!)
+    Conferr'dst, goddess! thou art blind, thou sayest:
+    Enough! thy blindness shall excuse the deed."
+
+Return we to our needlework.
+
+We have clear proof that, before the end of the seventh century, our
+fair countrywomen were skilled not merely in the use of the needle as
+applied to necessary purposes, but also in its application to the
+varied and elegant embroidered garments to which we have so frequently
+alluded, as forming properties of value and consideration. They were
+chiefly executed by ladies of the highest rank and greatest
+piety--very frequently, indeed, by those of royal blood--and were
+usually (as we have before observed) devoted to the embellishment of
+the church, or the decoration of its ministers. It was not unusual to
+bequeath such properties. "I give," said the wife of the Conqueror, in
+her will, "to the Abbey of the Holy Trinity, my tunic worked at
+Winchester by Alderet's wife, and the mantle embroidered with gold,
+which is in my chamber, to make a cope. Of my two golden girdles, I
+give that which is ornamented with emblems for the purpose of
+suspending the lamp before the great altar."[19] Amongst some costly
+presents sent by Isabella, Queen of Edward the Second, to the Pope,
+was a magnificent cope, embroidered and studded with large white
+pearls, and purchased of the executors of Catherine Lincoln, for a sum
+equivalent to between two and three thousand pounds of present money.
+Another cope, thought worthy to accompany it, was also the work of an
+Englishwoman, Rose de Bureford, wife of John de Bureford, citizen and
+merchant of London.
+
+Anciently, banners, either from being made of some relic, or from the
+representation on them of holy things, were held sacred, and much
+superstitious faith placed in them; consequently the pious and
+industrious finger was much occupied in working them. King Arthur,
+when he fought the eighth battle against the Saxons, carried the
+"image of Christ and of the blessed Mary (always a virgin) upon his
+shoulders." Over the tomb of Oswald, the great Christian hero, was
+laid a banner of purple wrought with gold. When St. Augustine first
+came to preach to the Saxons, he had a cross borne before him, with a
+banner, on which was the image of our Saviour Christ. The celebrated
+standard of the Danes had the sacred raven worked on it; and the
+ill-fated Harold bore to the field of Hastings a banner with the
+figure of an armed man worked in gold thread: to the same field
+William bore a standard, a gift from the Pope, and blessed by his
+Holiness.
+
+It is recorded of St. Dunstan, who, as our readers well know, excelled
+in many pursuits, and especially in painting, for which he frequently
+forsook his peculiar occupation of goldsmith, that on one occasion, at
+the earnest request of a lady, he _tinted_ a sacerdotal vestment for
+her, which she afterwards embroidered in gold thread in an exquisitely
+beautiful style. Most of these embroidered works were first tinted,
+very probably in the way in which they now are, or until the freer
+influx of the more beautiful German patterns, they lately were; and it
+is from this previous tinting that they are so frequently described in
+the old books as _painted_ garments, _pictured_ vestments, &c., this
+term by no means seeming usually to imply that the use of the needle
+had been neglected or superseded in them. The garments of Edward the
+Confessor, which he wore upon occasions of great solemnity, were
+sumptuously embroidered with gold by the hands of Edgitha, his Queen.
+The four princesses, daughters of King Edward the Elder, were most
+carefully educated: their early years were chiefly devoted to literary
+pursuits, but they were nevertheless most assiduously instructed in
+the use of the needle, and are highly celebrated by historians for
+their assiduity and skill in spinning, weaving, and needlework. This
+was so far, says the historian, from spoiling the fortunes of those
+royal spinsters, that it procured them the addresses of the greatest
+princes then in Europe, and one, "in whom the whole essence of beauty
+had centered, was demanded from her brother by Hugh, King of the
+Franks."
+
+Our fair readers may take some interest in knowing what were the
+propitiatory offerings of a noble suitor of those days.
+
+"Perfumes, such as never had been seen in England before; jewels, but
+more especially emeralds, the greenness of which, reflected by the
+sun, illumined the countenances of the bystanders with agreeable
+light; many fleet horses, with their trappings, and, as Virgil says,
+'champing their golden bits;' an alabaster vase, so exquisitely
+chased, that the corn-fields really seemed to wave, the vines to bud,
+the figures of men actually to move, and so clear and polished, that
+it reflected the features like a mirror; the sword of Constantine the
+Great, on which the name of its original possessor was read in golden
+letters; on the pommel, upon thick plates of gold, might be seen fixed
+an iron spike, one of the four which the Jewish faction prepared for
+the crucifixion of our Lord; the spear of Charles the Great, which,
+whenever that invincible Emperor hurled in his expeditions against the
+Saracens, he always came off conqueror; it was reported to be the same
+which, driven into the side of our Saviour by the hand of the
+centurion, opened, by that precious wound, the joys of paradise to
+wretched mortals; the banner of the most blessed martyr Maurice, chief
+of the Theban legion, with which the same King, in the Spanish war,
+used to break through the battalions of the enemy, however fierce and
+wedged together, and put them to flight; a diadem, precious from its
+quantity of gold, but more so for its jewels, the splendour of which
+threw the sparks of light so strongly on the beholders, that the more
+steadfastly any person endeavoured to gaze, so much the more dazzled
+he was--compelled to avert his eyes; part of the holy and adorable
+cross enclosed in crystal, where the eye, piercing through the
+substance of the stone, might discern the colour and size of the wood;
+a small portion of the crown of thorns enclosed in a similar manner,
+which, in derision of his government, the madness of the soldiers
+placed on Christ's sacred head.
+
+"The King (Athelstan), delighted with such great and exquisite
+presents, made an equal return of good offices, and gratified the soul
+of the longing suitor by a union with his sister. With some of these
+presents he enriched succeeding kings; but to Malmesbury he gave part
+of the cross and crown; by the support of which, I believe, that place
+even now flourishes, though it has suffered so many shipwrecks of its
+liberty, so many attacks of its enemies."[20]
+
+It is not to be supposed that at a time when the "whole island" was
+said to "blaze" with devotion, and when, moreover, her own fair
+daughters surpassed the whole world in needlework, that the English
+churches were deficient in its beautiful adornments. Far otherwise,
+indeed. We forbear to enumerate many, because our chapter has already
+exceeded its prescribed limits; but we may particularize a golden veil
+or hanging (vellum), embroidered with the destruction of Troy, which
+Witlaf, King of Mercia, gave to the abbey of Croyland; and the
+coronation mantle of Harold Harefoot, son of Cnute, which he gave to
+the same abbey, made of silk, and embroidered with "Hesperian apples."
+Richard, who was abbot of St. Alban's from 1088 to 1119, made a
+present to his monastery of a suit of hangings which contained the
+whole history of the primitive martyr of England, Alban.
+
+Croyland Abbey possessed many hangings for the altars, embroidered
+with golden birds; and a garment, which seems to have been a peculiar,
+and considered a valuable one, being a black gown wrought with gold
+letters, to officiate in at funerals. The enigmatical letters which
+were worked on ecclesiastical vestments in those days, were various
+and peculiar, and have given abundant scope for antiquarian research.
+We have heard it surmised that they took their rise in times of
+persecution, being indications (then, doubtless, slight and
+unostentatious ones) by which the Christians might know each other.
+But they came into more general use, not merely as symbolical
+characters, but individual names were wrought, and that not on
+personal garments alone, for Pope Leo the Fourth placed a cloth on the
+altar woven with gold, and spangled all over with pearls. It had on
+each side (right and left) a circle bounded with gold, within which
+the name of his Holiness was written in precious stones. In many old
+paintings a letter or letters have been noticed on the garment of the
+principal figure, and they have been taken for private marks of the
+painter, but it is more probable, says Ciampini,[21] that they are
+either copied from old garments, or are intended to denote the dignity
+of the character to which they are attached.
+
+We will conclude the present chapter by remarking that one of the most
+magnificent specimens of ancient needlework in existence, and which is
+in excellent preservation, is the State Pall belonging to the
+Fishmongers Company. The end pieces are similar, and consist of a
+picture, wrought in gold and silk, of the patron, St. Peter, in
+pontificial robes, seated on a superb throne, and crowned with the
+papal tiara. Holding in one hand the keys, the other is in the posture
+of giving the benediction, and on each side is an angel, bearing a
+golden vase, from which he scatters incense over the Saint. The
+angel's wings, according to old custom, are composed of peacocks'
+feathers in all their natural vivid colours; their outer robes are
+gold raised with crimson; their under vests white, shaded with sky
+blue; the faces are finely worked in satin, after nature, and they
+have long yellow hair.
+
+There are various designs on the side pieces; the most important and
+conspicuous is Christ delivering the keys to Peter. Among other
+decorations are, of course, the arms of the company, richly
+emblazoned, the supporters of which, the merman and mermaid, are
+beautifully worked, the merman in gold armour, the mermaid in white
+silk, with long tresses in golden thread.
+
+This magnificent piece of needlework has probably no parallel in this
+country.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] When Robert, Abbot of St. Alban's, visited his countryman Pope
+Adrian the Fourth, he made him several valuable presents, and amongst
+other things three mitres and a pair of sandals of most admirable
+workmanship. His holiness refused his other presents, but thankfully
+accepted of the mitres and sandals, being charmed with their exquisite
+beauty. These admired pieces of embroidery were the work of Christina,
+Abbess of Markgate.
+
+[12] "Anglicae nationis feminae multum acu et auri textura, egregie viri
+in omni valeant artificio. Pero fu renomato Opus Anglicum."--From
+Muratori.
+
+[13] A florene is 4_s._ 6_d._
+
+[14] "The pall was a bishop's vestment, going over the shoulders, made
+of sheep-skin, in memory of him who sought the lost sheep, and when he
+had found it laid it on his shoulders; and it was embroidered with
+crosses, and taken off the body or coffin of St. Peter."--Camden.
+
+[15] Anastasius Bibliothecarius. De Vitis Romanorum Pontificum.
+
+As this work is the fountain whence subsequent writers have chiefly
+obtained their information with regard to church vestments, that is to
+say, decorative ones, it may not be amiss to transcribe a passage,
+taken literally at random from scores of similar ones. It will give
+the reader some idea of the profusion with which the expensive
+garnitures were supplied:--
+
+"Sed et super altare majus fecit tetra vela holoserica alithina
+quatuor, cum astillis, et rosis chrysoclabis. Et in eodem altare fecit
+cum historiis crucifixi Domini vestem tyriam. Et in Ecclesia Doctoris
+Mundi beati Pauli Apostoli tetra vela holoserica alithyna quatuor, et
+vestem super altare albam chrysoclabam, habentem historiam Sanctae
+Resurrectionis, et aliam vestem chrysoclabam, habentem historiam
+nativitatis Domini, et Sanctorum Innocentium. Immo et aliam vestem
+tyriam, habentem historiam caeci illuminati, et Resurrectionem. Idem
+autem sanctissimus Praesul fecit in basilica beatae Mariae ad Praesepe
+vestem albam chrysoclabam, habentem historiam sanctae Resurrectionis.
+Sed et aliam vestem in orbiculis chrysoclabis, habentem historias
+Annunciationis, et sanctorum Joachim, et Annae. Fecit in Ecclesia beati
+Laurentii foris muros eidem Praesul vestem albam rosatam cum
+chrysoclabo. Sed et aliam vestem super sanctum corpus ejus albam de
+stauraci chrysoclabam, cum margaritis. Et in titulo Calixti vestem
+chrysoclabam ex blattin Byzanteo, habentem historiam nativitatis
+Domini, et sancti Simeonis. Item in Ecclesia sancti Pancratii vestem
+tyriam, habentem historiam Ascencionis Domini, seu et in sancta Maria
+ad Martyres fecit vestem tyriam ut supra. Et in basilica sanctorum
+Cosmae et Damiani fecit vestem de blatti Byzanteo, cum periclysin de
+chrysoclabo, et margaritis."--i. 285.
+
+[16] "De staurace."
+
+[17] "Opere plumario exquitissime praeparatas."
+
+[18] In the classical ages, they were in high repute. Juno's chariot
+is drawn by peacocks; and Olympian Jove himself invests his royal
+limbs with a mantle formed of their feathers.
+
+[19] The name of Dame Leviet has descended to posterity as an
+embroiderer to the Conqueror and his Queen.
+
+[20] Will. of Malmesbury, 156.
+
+[21] Vet. Mon. cap. 13.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.--PART I.
+
+    "Needlework sublime."
+
+                        Cowper.
+
+
+Great discussion has taken place amongst the learned with regard to
+the exact time at which the Bayeux tapestry was wrought. The question,
+except as a matter of curiosity, is, perhaps, of little account--fifty
+years earlier or later, nearly eight hundred years ago. It had always
+been considered as the work of Matilda, the wife of the conquering
+Duke of Normandy until a few years ago, when the Abbe de la Rue
+started and endeavoured to maintain the hypothesis that it was worked
+by or under the direction of the Empress Matilda, the daughter of
+Henry the First.[22] But his positions, as Dibdin observes,[23] are
+all of a _negative_ character, and, "according to the strict rules of
+logic, it must not be admitted, that because such and such writers
+have _not_ noticed a circumstance, therefore that circumstance or
+event cannot have taken place." Hudson Gurney, Charles A. Stothard,
+and Thos. Amyot, Esqrs. have all published essays on the subject,[24]
+which establish almost to certainty the fact of the production of this
+tapestry at the earlier of the two periods contended for, viz. from
+1066 to 1068.
+
+In this we rejoice, because this Herculean labour has a halo of deep
+interest thrown round it, from the circumstance of its being the proud
+tribute of a fond and affectionate wife, glorying in her husband's
+glory, and proud of emblazoning his deeds. As the work of the Empress
+Matilda it would still be a magnificent production of industry and of
+skill; as the work of "Duke William's" wife these qualities merge in
+others of a more interesting character.[25]
+
+This excellent and amiable princess was a most highly accomplished
+woman, and remarkable for her learning; she was the affectionate
+mother of a large family, the faithful wife of an enterprising
+monarch, with whom she lived for thirty-three years so harmoniously
+that her death had such an effect on her husband as to cause him to
+relinquish, never again to resume, his usual amusements.[26]
+
+Little did the affectionate wife think, whilst employed over this
+task, that her domestic tribute of regard should become an historical
+memento of her country, and blazon forth her illustrious husband's
+deeds, and her own unwearying affection, to ages upon ages hereafter
+to be born. For independently of the interest which may be attached to
+this tapestry as a pledge of feminine affection, a token of
+housewifely industry, and a specimen of ancient stitchery, it derives
+more historic value as the work of the Conqueror's wife, than if it
+were the production of a later time. For it holds good with these
+historical tapestries as with the written histories and romances of
+the middle ages;--authors wrote and ladies wrought (we mean no pun)
+their characters, _not_ in the costume of the times in which the
+action or event celebrated took place, but in that in which they were
+at the time engaged; and thus, had Matilda the Empress worked this
+tapestry, it is more than probable that she would have introduced the
+armorial bearings which were in her time becoming common, and
+especially the Norman leopards, of which in the tapestry there is not
+the slightest trace. In her time too the hair was worn so long as to
+excite the censures of the church, whilst at the time of the Conquest
+the Normans almost shaved their heads; and this circumstance, more
+than the want of beards, is supposed by Mr. Stothard[27] to have led
+to the surmise of the Anglo-Saxon spies that the Normans were all
+priests. This circumstance is faithfully depicted in the tapestry,
+where also the chief weapon seen is a lance, which was little used
+after the Conquest. These peculiarities, with several others which
+have been commented on by antiquarian writers, seem to establish the
+date of this production as coeval with the action which it represents,
+and therefore invaluable as an historical document.
+
+"It is, perhaps," says one of the learned writers on the Bayeux
+tapestry, "a characteristic of the literature of the present age to
+deduce history from sources of second-rate authority; from ballads and
+pictures rather than from graver and severer records. Unquestionably
+this is the preferable course, if amusement, not truth, be the object
+sought for. Nothing can be more delightful than to read the reigns of
+the Plantagenets in the dramas of Shakspeare, or the tales of later
+times in the ingenious fictions of the author of Waverley. But those
+who would draw historical facts from their hiding-places must be
+content to plod through many a ponderous worm-eaten folio, and many a
+half-legible and still less intelligible manuscript.
+
+"Yet," continues he, "if the Bayeux tapestry be not history of the
+first class, it is, perhaps, something better. It exhibits genuine
+traits, elsewhere sought in vain, of the costume and manners of that
+age which, of all others, if we except the period of the Reformation,
+ought to be the most interesting to us; that age which gave us a new
+race of monarchs, bringing with them new landholders, new laws, and
+almost a new language.
+
+"As in the magic pages of Froissart, we here behold our ancestors of
+each race in most of the occupations of life, in courts and camps, in
+pastime and in battle, at feasts and on the bed of sickness. These
+are characteristics which of themselves would call forth a lively
+interest; but their value is greatly enhanced by their connection with
+one of the most important events in history, the main subject of the
+whole design."
+
+This magnificent piece of work is 227 feet in length by 20 inches in
+width, is now usually kept at the Town-hall in Rouen, and is treasured
+as the most precious relic. It was formerly the theme of some long and
+learned dissertations of antiquarian historians, amongst whom
+Montfaucon, perhaps, ranks most conspicuous.
+
+Still so little _local_ interest does it excite, that Mr. Gurney, in
+1814, was nearly leaving Bayeux without seeing it because he did not
+happen to ask for it by the title of "Toile de St. Jean," and so his
+request was not understood; and Ducarel, in his "Tour," says, "The
+priests of this cathedral to whom we addressed ourselves for a sight
+of this remarkable piece of antiquity, knew nothing of it; the
+circumstance only of its being annually hung up in their church led
+them to understand what we wanted; no person there knowing that the
+object of our inquiry any ways related to William the Conqueror, whom
+to this day they call Duke William."
+
+During the French Revolution its surrender was demanded for the
+purpose of covering the guns; fortunately, however, a priest succeeded
+in concealing it until that storm was overpast.
+
+Bonaparte better knew its value. It was displayed for some time in
+Paris, and afterwards at some seaport towns. M. Denon had the charge
+of it committed to him by Bonaparte, but it was afterwards restored
+to Bayeux. It was at the time of the usurper's threatened invasion of
+our country that so much value was attached to, and so much pains
+taken to exhibit this roll. "Whether," says Dibdin, "at such a sight
+the soldiers shouted, and, drawing their glittering swords,
+
+    "Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,--"
+
+confident of a second representation of the same subject by a second
+subjugation of our country--is a point which has not been exactly
+detailed to me! But the supposition may not be considered very violent
+when I inform you that I was told by a casual French visitor of the
+tapestry, that '_pour cela, si Bonaparte avait eu le courage, le
+resultat auroit ete comme autrefois_.' Matters, however, have taken
+_rather_ a different turn."
+
+The tapestry is coiled round a machine like that which lets down the
+buckets to a well, and a female unrols and explains it. It is worked
+in different coloured worsteds on white cloth, to which time has given
+the tinge of brown holland; the parts intended to represent flesh are
+left untouched by the needle. The colours are somewhat faded, and not
+very multitudinous. Perhaps it is the little variety of colours which
+Matilda and her ladies had at their disposal which has caused them to
+depict the horses of any colour--"blue, green, red, or yellow." The
+outline, too, is of course stiff and rude.[28] At the top and bottom
+of the main work is a narrow allegorical border; and each division or
+different action or event is marked by a branch or tree extending the
+whole depth of the tapestry; and most frequently each tableau is so
+arranged that the figures at the end of one and the beginning of the
+next are turned from each other, whilst above each the subject of the
+scene and the names of the principal actors are wrought in large
+letters. The subjects of the border vary; some of AEsop's fables are
+depicted on it, sometimes instruments of agriculture, sometimes
+fanciful and grotesque figures and borders; and during the heat of the
+battle of Hastings, when, as Montfaucon says, "le carnage est grand,"
+the appropriate device of the border is a _layer of dead men_.
+
+"From the fury of the Normans, good Lord deliver us," was, we are
+told, in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries a petition in the
+Litanies of all nations.[29] For long did England sorrow under their
+"fury," though _in time_ the Conquest produced advantageous results to
+the kingdom at large. Whether this Norman subjugation was in
+accordance with the will of the monarch Edward, or whether it was
+entirely the result of Duke William's ambition, must now ever remain
+in doubt. Harold asserted that Edward the Confessor appointed him his
+successor (of which, however, he could not produce proof); to this
+must be opposed the improbability of Edward thus ennobling a family of
+whom he felt, and with such abundant cause, so jealous.
+
+Probably the old chronicler (Fabyan) has hit the mark when he says,
+"This Edgarre (the rightful heir) was yonge, and specyally for
+Harolde was stronge of knyghtes and rychesse, he wanne the reygne." Be
+this as it may, however, Harold on the very day of Edward's interment,
+and that was only the day subsequent to his death, was crowned king in
+St. Paul's; apparently with the concurrence of all concerned, for he
+was powerful and popular. And his government during the chief part of
+his short kingly career was such as to increase his popularity: he was
+wise, and just, and gracious. "Anone as he was crowned, he began to
+fordoo euyll lawes and customes before vsed, and stablysshed the good
+lawes, and specyally whiche (suche) as were for the defence of holy
+churche, and punysshed the euyll doers, to the fere and example of
+other."[30]
+
+But uncontrolled authority early began to produce its wonted results.
+He "waxyd so prowd, and for couetouse wold not deuyde the prayes that
+he took to hys knyghtys, that had well deseruyd it, but kepte it to
+hymself, that he therby lost the fauour of many of his knyghtys and
+people."[31] This defection from his party doubtless made itself felt
+in the mortal struggle with the Norman duke which issued in Harold's
+discomfiture and death.
+
+Proceed we to the tapestry.
+
+The first scene which the needlewoman has depicted is a conference
+between a person who, from his white flowing beard and regal costume,
+is easily recognized as the "sainted Edward," and another, who, from
+his subsequent embarkation, is supposed to be Harold. The subject of
+the conference is, of course, only conjectured. Harold's visit to
+Normandy is well known; but whether, as some suppose, he was driven
+thither by a tempest when on a cruise of pleasure; whether he went as
+ambassador from Edward to communicate the intentions of the Confessor
+in William's behoof; or whether, as the tapestry is supposed more
+strongly to indicate, he obtained Edward's reluctant consent to his
+visit to reclaim his brother who, a hostage for his own good conduct,
+had been sent to William by Edward; these are points which now defy
+investigation, even if they were of sufficient importance to claim it.
+Harold is then seen on his journey attended by cavaliers on horseback,
+surrounded by dogs, and, an emblem of his own high dignity, a hawk on
+his fist.
+
+One great value of this tapestry is the scrupulous regard paid to
+points and circumstances which at first view might appear
+insignificant, but which, as correlative confirmations of usages and
+facts, are of considerable importance. Thus, it is known to
+antiquarians that great personages formerly had two only modes of
+equipment when proceeding on a journey, that of war or the chase.
+Harold is here fully equipped for the chase, and consequently the
+first glimpse obtained of his person would show that his errand was
+one of peace. The hawk on the fist was a mark of high nobility: no
+inferior person is represented with one: Harold and Guy Earl of
+Ponthieu alone bear them.
+
+In former times this bird was esteemed so sacred that it was
+prohibited in the ancient laws for any one to give his hawk even as a
+part of his ransom. In the reign of Edward the Third it was made
+felony to steal a hawk; and to take its eggs, even in a person's own
+ground, was punishable with imprisonment for a year and a day, besides
+a fine at the king's pleasure. Nay, more than this, by the laws of one
+part of the island, and probably of the whole,[32] the price of a
+hawk, or of a greyhound, was once the very same with the price of a
+man; and there was a time when the robbing of a hawk's nest was as
+great a crime in the eye of the law, and as severely punished, as the
+murder of a Christian. And of this high value they were long
+considered. "It is difficult," says Mr. Mills,[33] "to fancy the
+extravagant degree of estimation in which hawks were held during the
+chivalric ages. As symbols of high estate they were constantly carried
+about by the nobility of both sexes. There was even a usage of
+bringing them into places appropriated to public worship; a practice
+which, in the case of some individuals, appears to have been
+recognised as a right. The treasurer of the church of Auxerre enjoyed
+the distinction of assisting at divine service on solemn days with a
+falcon on his fist; and the Lord of Sassai held the privilege of
+perching his upon the altar. Nothing was thought more dishonourable to
+a man of rank than to give up his hawks; and if he were taken prisoner
+he would not resign them even for liberty."
+
+The different positions in which the hawk is placed in our needlework
+are worthy of remark. Here its head is raised, its wings fluttering,
+as if eager and ready for flight; afterwards, when Harold follows the
+Earl of Ponthieu as his captive, he is not, of course, deprived of his
+bird, but by a beautiful fiction the bird is represented depressed,
+and with its head turned towards its master's breast as if trying to
+nestle and shelter itself there. Could sympathy be more poetically
+expressed? Afterwards, on Harold's release, the bird is again depicted
+as fluttering to "soar elate."
+
+The practice very prevalent in these "barbarous times," as we somewhat
+too sweepingly term them, of entering on no expedition of war or
+pastime without imploring the protection of heaven, is intimated by a
+church which Harold is entering previously to his embarkation. That
+this observance might degenerate in many instances into mere form may
+be very true; and the "hunting masses" celebrated in song might, some
+of them, be more honoured in the breach than the observance:
+nevertheless in clearing away the dross of old times, we have, it is
+to be feared, removed some of the gold also; and the abolition of the
+custom of having the churches open at _all times_, so that at any
+moment the heart-prompted prayer might be offered up under the holy
+shelter of a consecrated roof, has tended very much, it is to be
+feared, to abolish the habit of frequent prayer. A habit in itself,
+and regarded even merely as a habit, fraught with inestimable good.
+
+We next see Harold and his companions refreshing themselves prior to
+their departure, pledging each other, and doubtless drinking to the
+success of their enterprise whatever it might be. The horns from which
+they are drinking have been the subject of critical remark. We find
+that horns were used for various purposes, and were of four sorts,
+drinking horns, hunting horns, horns for summoning the people, and of
+a mixed kind.
+
+They were used as modes of investiture, and this manner of endowing
+was usual amongst the Danes in England. King Cnute himself gave lands
+at Pusey in Berkshire to the family of that name, with a horn solemnly
+at that time delivered, as a confirmation of the grant. Edward the
+Confessor made a like donation to the family of Nigel. The celebrated
+horn of Alphus, kept in the sacristy in York Minster, was probably a
+drinking cup belonging to this prince, and was by him given together
+with all his lands and revenues to that church. "When he gave the horn
+that was to convey it (his estate) he filled it with wine, and on his
+knees before the altar, 'Deo et S. Petro omnes terras et redditus
+propinavit.' So that he drank it off, in testimony that thereby he
+gave them his lands."[34] Many instances might be adduced to show that
+this mode of investiture was common in England in the time of the
+Danes, the Anglo-Saxons, and at the close of the reign of the Norman
+conqueror.
+
+The drinking horns had frequently a screw at the end, which being
+taken off at once converted them into hunting horns, which
+circumstance will account for persons of distinction frequently
+carrying their own. Such doubtless were those used of old by the
+Breton hunters about Brecheliant, which is poetically described as a
+forest long and broad, much famed throughout Brittany. The fountain of
+Berenton rises from beneath a stone there. Thither the hunters are
+used to repair in sultry weather, and drawing up water with their
+horns (those horns which had just been used to sound the animated
+warnings of the chase), they sprinkle the stone for the purpose of
+having rain, which is then wont to fall throughout the whole forest
+around. There too fairies are to be seen, and many wonders happen. The
+ground is broken and precipitous, and deer in plenty roam there, but
+the husbandmen have forsaken it. Our author[35] goes on to say that he
+personally visited this enchanted region, but that, though he saw the
+forest and the land, no marvels presented themselves. The reason is
+obvious. He had, before the time, contracted some of the scepticism of
+these matter-of-fact "schoolmaster abroad" days. He wanted faith, and
+therefore he did not _deserve_ to see them.
+
+The use of drinking horns is very ancient. They were usually
+embellished or garnished with silver; they were in very common use
+among our Saxon ancestors, who frequently had them gilded and
+magnificently ornamented. One of those in use amongst Harold's party
+seems to be very richly decorated.
+
+The revellers are, however, obliged to dispatch, as their leader,
+Harold, is already wading through the water to his vessel. The
+character of Harold as displayed throughout this tapestry is a
+magnificent one, and does infinite credit to the generous and noble
+disposition of Matilda the queen, who disdained to depreciate the
+character of a fallen foe. He commences his expedition by an act of
+piety; here, on his embarkation at Bosham, he is kindly carrying his
+dog through the water. In crossing the sands of the river Cosno, which
+are dangerous, so very dangerous as most frequently to cause the
+destruction of those who attempt their transit, his whole concern
+seems to be to assist the passage of others, whose inferior natural
+powers do not enable them to compete with danger so successfully as
+himself; his character for undaunted bravery is such, that William
+condescends to supplicate his assistance in a feud then at issue
+between himself and another nobleman, and so nobly does he bear
+himself that the proud Norman with his own hands invests him with the
+emblems of honour (as seen in the tapestry); and, last scene of all,
+he disdained all submission, he repelled all the entreaties with which
+his brothers assailed him not personally to lead his troops to the
+encounter, and the corpses of 15,000 Normans on this field, and of
+even a greater number on the English monarch's side, told in bloody
+characters that Harold had not quailed in the last great encounter.
+
+Unpropitious winds drive him and his attendants from their intended
+course. Many historians accuse the people of Ponthieu of making
+prisoners all whose ill fortune threw them upon their coast, and of
+treating them with great barbarity, in order to extort the larger
+ransom. Be this as it may, Harold has scarcely set his foot on shore
+ere he is forcibly captured by the vassals of Guy of Ponthieu, who is
+there on horseback to witness the proceeding. The tapestry goes on to
+picture the progress of the captured troop and their captors to Belrem
+or Beurain, and a conference when there between the earl and his
+prisoner, where the fair embroideresses have given a delicate and
+expressive feature by depicting the conquering noble with his sword
+elevated, and the princely captive, wearing indeed his sword, but with
+the point depressed.
+
+It is said that a fisherman of Ponthieu, who had been often in England
+and knew Harold's person, was the cause of his capture. "He went
+privily to Guy, the Count of Pontif, and would speak to no other; and
+he told the Count how he could put a great prize in his way, if he
+would go with him; and that if he would give him only twenty livres he
+should gain a hundred by it, for he would deliver him such a prisoner
+as would pay a hundred livres or more for his ransome." The Count
+agreed to his terms, and then the fisherman showed him Harold.
+
+Hearing of Harold's captivity, William the Norman is anxious on all
+and every account to obtain possession of his person. He consequently
+sends ambassadors to Guy, who is represented on the tapestry as giving
+them audience. The person holding the horses is somewhat remarkable;
+he is a bearded dwarf. Dwarfs were formerly much sought after in the
+houses of great folks, and they were frequently sent as presents from
+one potentate to another. They were petted and indulged somewhat in
+the way of the more modern fool or jester. The custom is very old. The
+Romans were so fond of them, that they often used artificial methods
+to prevent the growth of children designed for dwarfs, by enclosing
+them in boxes, or by the use of tight bandages. The sister of one of
+the Roman emperors had a dwarf who was only two feet and a hand
+breadth in height. Many relations concerning dwarfs we may look upon
+as not less fabulous than those of giants. They are, like the latter,
+indispensable in romances, where their feats, far from being dwarfish,
+are absolutely gigantic, though these diminutive heroes seldom occupy
+any more ostensible post than that of humble attendant.
+
+    "Fill'd with these views th' _attendant dwarf_ she sends:
+    Before the knight the dwarf respectful bends;
+    Kind greetings bears as to his lady's guest,
+    And prays his presence to adorn her feast.
+    The knight delays not."
+
+    "A hugye giaunt stiffe and starke,
+        All foule of limbe and lere;
+    Two goggling eyen like fire farden,
+        A mouthe from eare to eare.
+    Before him came a dwarffe full lowe,
+        That _waited on his knee_."
+
+                        Sir Cauline.
+
+    "Behind her farre away a dwarfe did lag
+    That lasie seem'd, in being ever last,
+    Or wearied with _bearing of her bag_
+    Of needments at his backe."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+The dwarf worked in the tapestry has the name TVROLD placed above him,
+and seems to have been a dependant of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, William
+the Conqueror's brother.[36]
+
+The first negotiations are unsuccessful; more urgent messages are
+forwarded, and in the end Duke William himself proceeds at the head of
+some troops to _compel_ the surrender of the prisoner. Count Guy is
+intimidated, and the object is attained; every stage of these
+proceedings is depicted on the canvas, as well as William's courteous
+reception of Harold at his palace.
+
+The portraiture of a female in a sort of porch, with a clergyman in
+the act of pronouncing a benediction on her, is supposed to have
+reference to the engagement between William and his guest, that the
+latter should marry the daughter of the former. Many other
+circumstances and conditions were tacked to this agreement, one of
+which was that Harold should guard the English throne for William;
+agreements which one and all--under the reasonable plea that they were
+enforced ones--the Anglo-Saxon nobleman broke through. It is said that
+his desertion so affected the mind of the pious young princess,[37]
+that her heart broke on her passage to Spain, whither they were
+conveying her to a forced union with a Spanish prince. As this young
+lady was a mere child at the time of Harold's visit to Normandy, the
+story, though exceedingly pretty, is probably very apocryphal. Ducarel
+gives an entirely different explanation of the scene, and says that it
+is probably meant to represent a secretary or officer coming to
+William's duchess, to acquaint her with the agreement just made
+relative to her daughter.
+
+The Earl of Bretagne is at this moment at war with Duke William, and
+the latter attaching Harold to his party, from whom indeed he receives
+effectual service, arrives at Mount St. Michel, passes the river Cosno
+(to which we have before alluded), and arrives at Dol in Brittany.
+Parties are seen flying towards Rennes. William and his followers
+attack Dinant, of which the keys are delivered up, and the Normans
+come peaceably to Bayeux; William having previously, with his own
+hands, invested Harold with a suit of armour.
+
+Harold shortly returns to England, but not before a very important
+circumstance had taken place. William and Harold had mutually entered
+into an agreement by which the latter had pledged himself to be true
+to William, to acknowledge him as Edward's successor on the English
+throne, and to do all in his power to obtain for him the peaceable
+possession of that throne; and as Harold was, the reigning monarch
+excepted, the first man in England, this promised support was of no
+trifling moment. William resolved therefore to have the oath repeated
+with all possible solemnity. His brother Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux,
+assisted him in this matter. Accordingly we see Harold standing
+between two altars covered with cloth of gold, a hand on each,
+uttering the solemn adjuration, of which William, seated on his
+throne, is a delighted auditor; for he well knew that the oath was
+more fearful than Harold was at all aware of. For "William sent for
+all the holy bodies thither, and put so many of them together as to
+fill a whole chest, and then covered them with a pall; but Harold
+neither saw them, nor knew of their being there, for nought was shown
+or told to him about it; and over all was a phylactery, the best that
+he could select. When Harold placed his hand upon it, the hand
+trembled and the flesh quivered; but he swore, and promised upon his
+oath, to take Ele to wife, and to deliver up England to the duke; and
+thereunto to do all in his power, according to his might and wit,
+after the death of Edward, if he should live, so help him God and the
+holy relics there! (meaning the Gospels, for he had none idea of any
+other). Many cried 'God grant it!' and when Harold had kissed the
+saints, and had risen upon his feet, the duke led him up to the chest,
+and made him stand near it; and took off the chest the pall that had
+covered it, and showed Harold upon what holy relics he had sworn, and
+he was sorely alarmed at the sight."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[22] Archaeologia, vol. xvii.
+
+[23] Biblio. Tour, vol. i., 138.
+
+[24] Archaeol. vols. xviii., xix.
+
+[25] One writer, Bolton Corney, Esq., maintains that this work was
+provided at the expense of the Chapter of Bayeux, under their
+superintendence, and from their designs. "If it had not (says he) been
+devised within the precincts of a church it could not have escaped
+female influence: it could not have contained such indications of
+_celibatic_ superintendence. It is not without its domestic and
+festive scenes; and comprises, exclusive of the borders, about 530
+figures; but in this number there are only three females."
+
+[26] Henry III., 25.
+
+[27] Archaeol. vol. xix.
+
+[28] The attempts to imitate the human figure were, at this period,
+stiff and rude: but arabesque patterns were now _chiefly_ worked; and
+they were rich and varied.
+
+[29] Henry III., 554.
+
+[30] Fabyan's Chron.
+
+[31] Rastell's Chron.
+
+[32] Henry II., 515.
+
+[33] Hist. Chiv.
+
+[34] Archaeol. 1 and 3.
+
+[35] Master Wace. Roman de Rou, &c., by Taylor.
+
+[36] Archaeologia, vol. xix.
+
+[37] "Her knees were like horn with constant kneeling."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.--PART II.
+
+    "But bloody, bloody was the field,
+        Ere that lang day was done."
+
+                        Hardyknute.
+
+    "King William bithought him alsoe of that
+      Folke that was forlorne,
+    And slayn also thoruz him
+      In the bataile biforne.
+    And ther as the bataile was,
+      An abbey he lite rere
+    Of Seint Martin, for the soules
+      That there slayn were.
+    And the monkes well ynoug
+      Feffed without fayle,
+    That is called in Englonde
+      Abbey of Bataile."
+
+
+Immediately after the solemn ceremony described in the foregoing
+chapter, Harold is depicted as returning to England and presenting
+himself before the king, Edward the Confessor. "But the day came that
+no man can escape, and King Edward drew near to die." His deathbed and
+his funeral procession are both wrought in the tapestry, but by some
+accident have been transposed. His remains are borne in splendid
+procession to the magnificent house which he had builded (_i.e._
+rebuilded), Westminster Abbey; over which, in the sky, a hand is seen
+to point as if in benediction. It is well known that the Abbey was
+barely finished at the time of the pious monarch's death, and this
+circumstance is intimated in an intelligible though homely manner in
+the tapestry by a person occupied in placing a weathercock on the
+summit of the building.
+
+The first pageant seen within its walls was the funeral array of the
+monarch who so beautifully rebuilt and so amply endowed it. Before the
+high altar, in a splendid shrine, where gems and jewelry flashed back
+the gleams of innumerable torches, and amid the solemn chant of the
+monks, whose "Miserere" echoed through the vaulted aisles, interrupted
+but by the subdued wail of the mourners, or the emphatic benediction
+of the poor whose friend he had been, were laid the remains of him who
+was called the Sainted Edward; whose tomb was considered so hallowed a
+spot that the very stones around it were worn down by the knees of the
+pilgrims who resorted thither for prayer; and the very dust of whose
+shrine was carefully swept and collected, exported to the continent,
+and bought by devotees at a high price.
+
+We next see in the tapestry the crown _offered_ to Harold (a
+circumstance to be peculiarly remarked, since thus depicted by his
+opponent's wife), and then Harold shows right royally receiving the
+homage and gratulations of those around.
+
+But the next scene forbodes a change of fortune: "ISTI MIRANT STELLA,"
+is the explanation wrought over it. For there appeared "a blasing
+starre, which was seene not onelie here in England, but also in other
+parts of the world, and continued the space of seven daies. This
+blasing starre might be a prediction of mischeefe imminent and hanging
+over Harold's head; for they never appeare but as prognosticats of
+afterclaps."
+
+Popular belief has generally invested these ill-omened bodies with
+peculiar terrors. "These blasing starres--dreadful to be seene, with
+bloudie haires, and all over rough and shagged at the top." They vary,
+however, in their appearance. Sometimes they are pale, and glitter
+like a sword, without any rays or beams. Such was the one which is
+said to have hung over Jerusalem for near a year before its
+destruction, filling the minds of all who beheld it with awe and
+superstitious dread. A comet resembling a horn appeared when the
+"whole manhood of Greece fought the battaile of Salamis." Comets
+foretold the war between Caesar and Pompey, the murder of Claudius, and
+the tyranny of Nero. Though _usually_, they were not _invariably_,
+considered as portents of evil omen: for the birth and accession of
+Alexander, of Mithridates, the birth of Charles Martel, and the
+accession of Charlemagne, and the commencement of the Tatar empire,
+were all notified by blazing stars. A very brilliant one which
+appeared for seven consecutive nights soon after the death of Julius
+Caesar was supposed to be conveying the soul of the murdered dictator
+to Olympus. An author who wrote on one which appeared in the reign of
+Elizabeth was most anxious, as in duty bound, to apply the phenomenon
+to the queen. But here was the puzzle. "To have foretold calamities
+might have been misprision of treason; and the only precedent for
+saying anything good of a comet was to be drawn from that which
+occurred after the death of Julius Caesar;" but it so happened that at
+this time Elizabeth was by no means either ripe or willing for her
+apotheosis.[38]
+
+Comets, one author writes, "were made to the end the etherial regions
+might not be more void of monsters than the ocean is of whales and
+other great thieving fishes, and that a gross fatness being gathered
+together as excrements into an imposthume, the celestial air might
+thereby be purged, lest the sun should be obscured." Another says,
+they "signifie corruption of the ayre. They are signes of earthquake,
+of warres, chaunging of kyngdomes, great dearth of corne, yea, a
+common death of man and beast." So a poet of the same age:--
+
+    "There with long bloody hair a blazing star
+    Threatens the world with famine, plague, and war;
+    To princes death, to kingdoms many crosses,
+    To all estates inevitable losses;
+    To herdsmen rot, to plowmen hapless seasons,
+    To sailors storms, to cities civil treasons."
+
+But a writer on comets in 1665 crowned all previous conjecture. "As if
+God and Nature intended by comets to ring the knells of princes;
+esteeming the bells of churches upon earth not sacred enough for such
+illustrious and eminent performances."
+
+No wonder that the comet in Harold's days was regarded with fearful
+misgivings.
+
+It did not, however, dismay him. Duke William, as may be supposed, did
+not tamely submit to a usurpation of what he considered, or affected
+to consider, his own dominions--a circumstance which we see an envoy,
+probably from his party in England, makes him acquainted with. He
+holds a council, seemingly an earnest and animated one, which
+evidently results in the immediate preparation of a fleet; of which
+the tapestry delineates the various stages and circumstances, from the
+felling of the timber in its native woods to the launching of the
+vessels, stored and fully equipped in arms, provisions, and heroes for
+invasion and conquest.
+
+William in this expedition received unusual assistance from his own
+tributary chiefs, and from various other allies, who joined his
+standard, and without whom, indeed, he could not, with any chance of
+success, have made his daring attempt. A summer and autumn were spent
+in fitting-up the fleet and collecting the forces, "and there was no
+knight in the land, no good serjeant, archer, nor peasant of stout
+heart, and of age for battle, that the duke did not summon to go with
+him to England; promising rents to the vavassors, and honours to the
+barons." Thus was an armament prepared of seven hundred ships, but the
+one which bore William, the hero of the expedition, shone proudly
+pre-eminent over the rest. It was the gift of his affectionate queen.
+It is represented in the canvas of larger size than the others: the
+mast, surmounted by a cross, bears the banner which was sent to
+William by the Pope as a testimony of his blessing and approbation. On
+this mast also a beacon-light nightly blazed as a _point d'approche_
+of the remainder of the fleet. On the poop was the figure of a boy
+(supposed to be meant for the conqueror's youngest son), gilded, and
+looking earnestly towards England, holding in one hand a banner, in
+the other an ivory horn, on which he is sounding a joyful reveillee.
+
+But long the fleet waited at St. Valeri for a fair wind, until the
+barons became weary and dispirited. Then they prayed the convent to
+bring out the shrine of St. Valeri and set it on a carpet in the
+plain; and all came praying the holy relics that they might be allowed
+to pass over sea. They offered so much money, that the relics were
+buried beneath it; and from that day forth they had good weather and a
+fair wind. "Than Willyam thanked God and Saynt Valary, and toke
+shortly after shyppynge, and helde his course towarde Englande."
+
+On the arrival of the fleet in England a banquet is prepared. The
+shape of the table at which William sits has been the theme of some
+curious remarks by Father Montfaucon, which have been copied by
+Ducarel and others. It is in form of a half-moon, and was called by
+the Romans _sigma_, from the Greek +s+. It was calculated only for
+seven persons; and a facetious emperor once invited eight, on purpose
+to raise a laugh against the person for whom there would be no place.
+
+"A knight in that country (Britain) heard the noise and cry made by
+the peasants and villains when they saw the great fleet arrive. He
+well knew that the Normans were come, and that their object was to
+seize the land. He posted himself behind a hill, so that they should
+not see him, and tarried there watching the arrival of the great
+fleet. He saw the archers come forward from the ships, and the knights
+follow. He saw the carpenters with their axes, and the host of people
+and troops. He saw the men throw the materials for the fort out of the
+ships. He saw them build up and enclose the fort, and dig the fosse
+around it. He saw them land the shields and armour. And as he beheld
+all this his spirit was troubled; and he girt his sword and took his
+lance, saying he would go straightway to King Harold and tell the
+news. Forthwith he set out on his way, resting late and rising early;
+and thus he journeyed on by night and by day to seek Harold his lord."
+And we see him in the tapestry speeding to his beloved master.
+
+Meanwhile Harold is not idle. But the fleet which, in expectation of
+his adversary's earlier arrival, he had stationed on the southern
+coast, had lately dispersed from want of provisions, and the King,
+occupied by the Norwegian invasion, had not been able to reinstate it;
+and "William came against him (says the Saxon chronicle) unawares ere
+his army was collected." Thus the enemy found nor opposition nor
+hinderance in obtaining a footing in the island.
+
+Taken at such disadvantage, Harold did all that a brave man could do
+to repel his formidable adversary. The tapestry depicts, as well as
+may be expected, the battle.
+
+"The priests had watched all night, and besought and called upon God,
+and prayed to him in their chapels, which were fitted up throughout
+the host. They offered and vowed fasts, penances, and orisons; they
+said psalms and misereres, litanies and kyriels; they cried on God,
+and for his mercy, and said paternosters and masses; some the SPIRITUS
+DOMINI, others SALUS POPULI, and many SALVE SANCTE PARENS, being
+suited to the season, as belonging to that day, which was Saturday.
+
+"AND NOW, BEHOLD! THAT BATTLE WAS GATHERED WHEREOF THE FAME IS YET
+MIGHTY.
+
+"Then Taillefer, who sang right well, rode, mounted on a swift horse,
+before the duke.
+
+"Loud and far resounded the bray of the horns, and the shocks of the
+lances, the mighty strokes of clubs, and the quick clashing of swords.
+One while the Englishmen rushed on, another while they fell back; one
+while the men from over sea charged onwards, and again at other times
+retreated. When the English fall, the Normans shout. Each side taunts
+and defies the other, yet neither knoweth what the other saith; and
+the Normans say the English bark, because they understand not their
+speech.
+
+"Some wax strong, others weak; the brave exult, but the cowards
+tremble, as men who are sore dismayed. The Normans press on the
+assault, and the English defend their post well; they pierce the
+hauberks and cleave the shields; receive and return mighty blows.
+Again some press forwards, others yield, and thus in various ways the
+struggle proceeds."
+
+The death of Harold's two brothers is depicted, and, finally, his own.
+It is said that his mother offered the weight of the body in gold to
+have the melancholy satisfaction of interring it, and that the
+Conqueror refused the boon. But other writers affirm, and apparently
+with truth, that William immediately transmitted the body, unransomed,
+to the bereaved parent, who had it interred in the monastery of
+Waltham.
+
+With the death of Harold the tapestry now ends, though some writers
+think it probable that it once extended as far as the coronation of
+William. There can be little doubt of its having been intended to
+extend so far, though it is impossible now to ascertain whether the
+Queen was ever enabled quite to complete her Herculean task. Enough
+there is, however, to stamp it as one of the "most noble and
+interesting relics of antiquity;" and, as Dibdin calls it, "an
+exceedingly curious document of the conjugal attachment, and even
+enthusiastic veneration of Matilda, and a political record of more
+weight than may at first sight appear to belong to it." Taking it
+altogether, he adds, "none but itself could be its parallel."
+
+Almost all historians describe the Normans as advancing to the onset
+"singing the song of Roland," that is, a detail of the achievements
+of the slaughtered hero of Roncesvalles, which is well known to have
+been, for ages after the event to which it refers, a note of magical
+inspiration to deeds of "derring do". On this occasion it is recorded
+that the spirit note was sung by the minstrel Taillefer, who was,
+however, little contented to lead his countrymen by voice alone. It is
+not possible that our readers can be otherwise than pleased with the
+following animated account of his deeds:[39]--
+
+    THE ONSET OF TAILLEFER
+
+    "Foremost in the bands of France,
+    Arm'd with hauberk and with lance,
+    And helmet glittering in the air,
+    As if a warrior-knight he were,
+    Rushed forth the minstrel Taillefer--
+    Borne on his courser swift and strong,
+      He gaily bounded o'er the plain,
+    And raised the heart-inspiring song
+    (Loud echoed by the warlike throng)
+      Of Roland and of Charlemagne,
+    Of Oliver, brave peer of old,
+      Untaught to fly, unknown to yield,
+    And many a knight and vassal bold,
+    Whose hallowed blood, in crimson flood,
+      Dyed Roncesvalles' field.
+
+    "Harold's host he soon descried,
+    Clustering on the hill's steep side:
+    Then turned him back brave Taillefer,
+    And thus to William urged his prayer:
+    'Great Sire, it fits me not to tell
+    How long I've served you, or how well;
+    Yet if reward my lays may claim,
+    Grant now the boon I dare to name;
+    Minstrel no more, be mine the blow
+    That first shall strike yon perjured foe.'
+    'Thy suit is gained,' the Duke replied,
+    'Our gallant minstrel be our guide.'
+    'Enough,' he cried, 'with joy I speed,
+    Foremost to vanquish or to bleed.'
+
+    "And still of Roland's deeds he sung,
+    While Norman shouts responsive rung,
+    As high in air his lance he flung,
+              With well directed might;
+    Back came the lance into his hand,
+    Like urchin's ball, or juggler's wand,
+    And twice again, at his command,
+              Whirled its unerring flight.--
+    While doubting whether skill or charm
+    Had thus inspired the minstrel's arm,
+    The Saxons saw the wondrous dart
+    Fixed in their standard bearer's heart.
+
+    "Now thrice aloft his sword he threw,
+      'Midst sparkling sunbeams dancing,
+    And downward thrice the weapon flew,
+    Like meteor o'er the evening dew,
+      From summer sky swift glancing:
+    And while amazement gasped for breath,
+    Another Saxon groaned in death.
+
+    "More wonders yet!--on signal made,
+      With mane erect, and eye-balls flashing,
+    The well taught courser rears his head,
+      His teeth in ravenous fury gnashing;
+    He snorts--he foams--and upward springs--
+      Plunging he fastens on the foe,
+    And down his writhing victim flings,
+      Crushed by the wily minstrel's blow.
+    Thus seems it to the hostile band
+    Enchantment all, and fairy land.
+
+    "Fain would I leave the rest unsung:--
+    The Saxon ranks, to madness stung,
+    Headlong rushed with frenzied start,
+    Hurling javelin, mace, and dart;
+    No shelter from the iron shower
+    Sought Taillefer in that sad hour;
+    Yet still he beckoned to the field,
+    'Frenchman, come on--the Saxons yield--
+    Strike quick--strike home--in Roland's name--
+    For William's glory--Harold's shame.'
+    Then pierced with wounds, stretched side by side,
+    The minstrel and his courser died."
+
+We have dwelt on the details of the tapestry with a prolixity which
+some may deem tedious. Yet surely the subject is worthy of it; for, in
+the first place, it is the oldest piece of needlework in the
+world--the only piece of that era now existing; and this circumstance
+in itself suggests many interesting ideas, on which, did our space
+permit, we could readily dilate. Ages have rolled away; and the fair
+hands that wrought this work have mouldered away into dust; and the
+gentle and affectionate spirit that suggested this elaborate memorial
+has long since passed from the scene which it adorned and dignified.
+In no long period after the battle thus commemorated, an abbey,
+consecrated to praise and prayer, raised its stately walls on the very
+field that was ploughed with the strife and watered with the blood of
+fierce and evil men. The air that erst rang with the sounds of wrath,
+of strife, of warfare, the clangour of armour, the din of war, was now
+made musical with the chorus of praise, or was gently stirred by the
+breath of prayer or the sigh of penitence; and where contending hosts
+were marshalled in proud array, or the phalanx rushed impetuous to the
+battle, were seen the stoled monks in solemn procession, or the holy
+brother peacefully wending on his errand of charity.
+
+But the grey and time-honoured walls waxed aged as they beheld
+generation after generation consigned to dust beneath their shelter.
+Time and change have done their worst. A few scattered ruins, seen
+dimly through the mist of years, are all that remain to point to the
+inquiring wanderer the site of the stupendous struggle of which the
+results are felt even after the expiration of eight hundred years.
+
+These may be deemed trite reflections: still it is worthy of remark,
+that many of the turbulent spirits who then made earth echo with their
+fame would have been literally and altogether as though they never had
+been--for historians make little or no mention of them--were it not
+for the lasting monument raised to them in this tapestry by woman's
+industry and skill.
+
+Matilda the Queen's character is pictured in high terms by both
+English and Norman historians. "So very stern was her husband, and
+hot, that no man durst do anything against his will. He had earls in
+his custody who acted against his will. Bishops he hurled from their
+bishoprics, and abbots from their abbacies, and thanes into prison;"
+yet it is recorded that even his iron temper was not proof against the
+good sense, the gentleness, the piety, and the affection of a wife who
+never offended him but once; and on this occasion there was so much to
+palliate and excuse her fault, proceeding as it did from a mother's
+yearnings towards her eldest son when he was in disgrace and sorrow,
+that the usually unyielding King forgave her immediately. She lived
+beloved, and she died lamented; and, from the time of her death, the
+King, says William of Malmsbury, "refrained from every gratification."
+
+Independently of the value of this tapestry as an historical
+authority, and its interest as being projected, and in part executed,
+by a lady as excellent in character as she was noble in rank, and its
+high estimation as the oldest piece of needlework extant--independently
+of all these circumstances, it is impossible to study this memorial
+closely, "rude and skilless" as it at first appears, without becoming
+deeply interested in the task. The outline engravings of it in the
+"Tapisseries Anciennes Historiees" are beautifully executed, but are
+inferior in interest to Mr. Stothart's (published by the Society of
+Antiquarians), because these have the advantage of being coloured
+accurately from the original. In the study of these plates alone, days
+and weeks glided away, nor left us weary of our task.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[38] The Comet of 1618 carried dismay and horror in its course. Not
+only mighty monarchs, but the humblest private individuals seem to
+have considered the sign as sent to them, and to have set a double
+guard on all their actions. Thus Sir Symonds D'Ewes, the learned
+antiquary, having been in danger of an untimely end by entangling
+himself among some bell-ropes, makes a memorandum in his private diary
+never more to exercise himself in bell-ringing when there is a comet
+in the sky.--Aikin.
+
+[39] By Thomas Amyot, Esq., F.S.A.--Archaeol., vol. xix
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+NEEDLEWORK OF THE TIMES OF ROMANCE AND CHIVALRY.
+
+    "As ladies wont
+    To finger the fine needle and nyse thread."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+
+Though, during bygone ages, the fingers of the fair and noble were
+often sedulously employed in the decoration and embellishment of the
+church, and of its ministers, they were by no means universally so.
+Marvellous indeed in quantity, as well as quality, must have been the
+stitchery done in those industrious days, for the "fine needle and
+nyse thread" were not merely visible but conspicuous in every
+department of life. If, happily, there were not proof to the contrary,
+we might be apt to imagine that the women of those days came into the
+world _only_ "to ply the distaff, broider, card, and sew." That this
+was not the case we, however, well know; but before we turn to those
+embroideries which are more especially the subject of this chapter, we
+will transcribe, from a recent work,[40] an interesting detail of the
+household responsibilities of the mistress of a family in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
+
+"While to play on the harp and citole (a species of lute), to execute
+various kinds of the most costly and delicate needle-work, and in some
+instances to 'pourtraye,' were, in addition to more literary pursuits,
+the accomplishments of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the
+functions which the mistress of an extensive household was expected to
+fulfil were never lost sight of.
+
+"Few readers are aware of the various qualifications requisite to form
+the 'good housewife' during the middle ages. In the present day, when
+household articles of every kind are obtainable in any country town,
+and, with few exceptions, throughout the year, we can know little of
+the judgment, the forethought, and the nice calculation which were
+required in the mistress of a household consisting probably of
+three-score, or even more persons, and who, in the autumn, had to
+provide almost a twelvemonth's stores. There was the fire-wood, the
+rushes to strew the rooms, the malt, the oatmeal, the honey (at this
+period the substitute for sugar), the salt (only sold in large
+quantities), and, if in the country, the wheat and the barley for the
+bread--all to be provided and stored away. The greater part of the
+meat used for the winter's provision was killed and salted down at
+Martinmas; and the mistress had to provide the necessary stock for the
+winter and spring consumption, together with the stockfish and
+'baconed herrings' for Lent. Then at the annual fair, the only
+opportunity was afforded for purchasing those more especial articles
+of housewifery which the careful housewife never omitted buying--the
+ginger, nutmegs, and cinnamon, for the Christmas posset, and
+Sheer-Monday furmety; the currants and almonds for the Twelfth-Night
+cake (an observance which dates almost as far back as the Conquest);
+the figs, with which our forefathers always celebrated Palm-Sunday;
+and the pepper, the saffron, and the cummin, so highly prized in
+ancient cookery. All these articles bore high prices, and therefore it
+was with great consideration and care that they were bought.
+
+"But the task of providing raiment for the family also devolved upon
+the mistress, and there were no dealers save for the richer articles
+of wearing apparel to be found. The wool that formed the chief
+clothing was the produce of the flock, or purchased in a raw state;
+and was carded, spun, and in some instances woven at home. Flax, also,
+was often spun for the coarser kinds of linen, and occasionally woven.
+Thus, the mistress of a household had most important duties to fulfil,
+for on her wise and prudent management depended not merely the
+comfort, but the actual well-being of her extensive household. If the
+winter's stores were insufficient, there were no markets from whence
+an additional supply could be obtained; and the lord of wide estates
+and numerous manors might be reduced to the most annoying privations
+through the mismanagement of the mistress of the family."
+
+The "costly and delicate needle-work" is here, as elsewhere, passed
+over with merely a mention. It is, naturally, too insignificant a
+subject to task the attention of those whose energies are devoted to
+describing the warfare and welfare of kingdoms and thrones. Thus did
+we look only to professed historians, though enough exists in their
+pages to evidence the existence of such productions as those which
+form the subject of our chapter, our evidence would be meagre indeed
+as to the minuter details: but as the "novel" now describes those
+minutiae of every day life which we should think it ridiculous to look
+for in the writings of the politician or historian, so the romances of
+the days of chivalry present us with descriptions which, if they be
+somewhat redundant in ornament, are still correct in groundwork; and
+the details gathered from romances have in, it may be, unimportant
+circumstances, that accidental corroboration from history which fairly
+stamps their faithfulness in more important particulars: and it has
+been shown, says the author of 'Godefridus,' by learned men, in the
+memoirs of the French Academy of Inscriptions, that they may be used
+in common with history, and as of equal authority whenever an inquiry
+takes place respecting the _spirit and manners of the ages_ in which
+they were composed. But we are writing a dissertation on romance
+instead of describing the "clodes ryche," to which we must now
+proceed.
+
+So highly was a facility in the use of the needle prized in these
+"ould ancient times," that a wandering damsel is not merely
+_tolerated_ but _cherished_ in a family in which she is a perfect
+stranger, solely from her skill in this much-loved art.
+
+After being exposed in an open boat, Emare was rescued by Syr Kadore,
+remained in his castle, and there--
+
+    "She tawghte hem to _sewe_ and _marke_
+    All _maner of sylkyn werke_,
+        Of her they wer ful fayne."[41]
+
+Syr Kadore says of her--
+
+    "She ys the konnyngest wommon,
+    I trowe, that be yn Crystendom,
+        Of _werk_ that y have sene."
+
+And again describing her--
+
+    "She _sewed sylke_ werk yn bour."
+
+This same accomplished and luckless lady had, princess though she was,
+every advantage of early tuition in this notable art, having been sent
+in her childhood to a lady called Abro, who not only taught her
+"curtesye and thewe" (virtue and good manners), but also
+
+    "Golde and sylke for to sewe,
+    Amonge maydenes moo:"
+
+evidently an old dame's school; where, however, we may infer from the
+arrangement of the accomplishments taught, and the special mention of
+needlework, that the extra expense would be for the _sewing_; whereas,
+in our time and country (or county), the routine has been, "REDING AND
+SOING, THREE-PENCE A WEEK: A PENY EXTRA FOR MANNERS."
+
+This expensive and troublesome acquirement--the art of sewing in
+"golde and silke"--was of general adoption: gorgeous must have been
+the appearance of the damsels and knights of those days, when their
+
+    "----Clothys wyth bestes & byrdes wer _bete_,[42]
+            All abowte for pryde."
+
+"By that light Amadis saw his lady, and she appeared more beautiful
+than man could fancy woman could be. She had on a robe of _Indian
+silk, thickly wrought with flowers of gold_; her hair was so beautiful
+that it was a wonder, and she had covered it only with a garland."[43]
+
+"Now when the fair Grasinda heard of the coming of the fleet, and of
+all that had befallen, she made ready to receive Oriana, whom of all
+persons in the world she most desired to see, because of her great
+renown that was everywhere spread abroad. She therefore wished to
+appear before her like a lady of such rank and such wealth as indeed
+she was: the robe which she put on was adorned with _roses of gold,
+wrought with marvellous skill, and bordered with pearls and precious
+stones_ of exceeding value."[44]
+
+    "His fine, soft garments, wove with cunning skill,
+    All over, ease and wantonness declare;
+    These with her hand, such subtle toil well taught,
+    For him, in silk and gold, Alcina wrought."[45]
+
+    "Mayde Elene, al so tyte.
+    In a robe of samyte,[46]
+        Anoon sche gan her tyre,
+    To do Lybeau's profyte
+    In kevechers whyt,
+        Arayde wyth golde wyre.
+    A velvwet mantyll gay,
+    Pelored[47] wyth grys and gray
+        Sche caste abowte her swyre;
+    A sercle upon her molde,
+    Of stones and of golde,
+        The best yn that empyre."[48]
+
+We read perpetually of "kercheves well schyre,[49]
+
+    "Arayde wyth ryche gold wyre."
+
+But the labours of those days were not confined to merely
+good-appearing garments: the skill of the needlewoman--for doubtless
+it was solely attributable to that--could imbue them with a value far
+beyond that of mere outward garnish.
+
+    "She seyde, Syr Knight, gentyl and hende,[50]
+    I wot thy stat, ord, and ende,
+        Be naught aschamed of me;
+    If thou wylt truly to me take,
+    And alle wemen for me forsake
+        Ryche i wyll make the.
+    I wyll the geve an alner,[51]
+    Imad of sylk and of gold cler,
+        Wyth fayr ymages thre;
+    As oft thou puttest the hond therinne
+    A mark of gold thou schalt wynne,
+        In wat place that thou be."[52]
+
+But infinitely more marvellous is the following:--"King Lisuarte was
+so content with the tidings of Amadis and Galaor, which the dwarf had
+brought him, that he determined to hold the most honourable court that
+ever had been held in Great Britain. Presently three knights came
+through the gate, two of them armed at all points, the third unarmed,
+of good stature and well proportioned, his hair grey, but of a green
+and comely old age. He held in his hand a coffer; and, having inquired
+which was the king, dismounted from his palfrey and kneeled before
+him, saying, 'God preserve you, Sir! for you have made the noblest
+promise that ever king did, if you hold it.' 'What promise was that?'
+quoth Lisuarte. 'To maintain chivalry in its highest honour and
+degree: few princes now-a-days labour to that end; therefore are you
+to be commended above all other.' 'Certes, knight, that promise shall
+hold while I live.' 'God grant you life to complete it!' quoth the old
+man: 'and because you have summoned a great court to London, I have
+brought something here which becomes such a person, for such an
+occasion.' Then he opened the coffer and took out a Crown of Gold, so
+curiously wrought and set with pearls and gems, that all were amazed
+at its beauty; and it well appeared that it was only fit for the brow
+of some mighty lord. 'Is it not a work which the most cunning artists
+would wonder at?' said the old knight. Lisuarte answered, 'In truth it
+is.' 'Yet,' said the knight, 'it hath a virtue more to be esteemed
+than its rare work and richness: whatever king hath it on his head
+shall always increase his honour; this it did for him for whom it was
+made till the day of his death: since then no king hath worn it. I
+will give it you, sir, for one boon.'----'You also, Lady,' said the
+knight, 'should purchase a rich mantle that I bring:' and he took from
+the coffer the richest and most beautiful mantle that ever was seen;
+for besides the pearls and precious stones with which it was
+beautified, there were figured on it all the birds and beasts in
+nature; so that it looked like a miracle. 'On my faith,' exclaimed the
+Queen, 'this cloth can only have been made by that Lord who can do
+everything.' 'It is the work of man,' said the old knight; 'but rarely
+will one be found to make its fellow: it should belong to wife rather
+than maiden, for she that weareth it _shall never have dispute with
+her husband_.' Britna answered, 'If that be true, it is above all
+price; I will give you for it whatsoever you ask.' And Lisuarte bade
+him demand what he would for the mantle and crown."[53]
+
+But the robe which occupied the busy fingers of the Saracen king's
+daughter for seven long years, and of which the jewelled ornaments
+inwrought in it--as was then very usual--were sought far and wide, has
+often been referred to (albeit wanting in fairy gifts) as a crowning
+proof of female industry and talent. We give the full description from
+the Romance of 'EMARE,' in Ritson's collection:--
+
+    "Sone aftur yu a whyle,
+    The ryche Kynge of Cesyle
+        To the Emperour gaun wende,
+    A ryche present wyth hym he browght,
+    A cloth that was wordylye wroght,
+        He wellcomed hym at the hende.[54]
+
+    "Syr Tergaunte, that nobyll knyghte hyghte,
+    He presented the Emperour ryght,
+        And sette hym on hys kne,
+    Wyth that cloth rychyly dyght.
+    Full of stones ther hit was pyght,
+        At thykke as hit myght be,
+    Off topaze and rubyes,
+    And other stones of myche prys,
+        That semely wer to se,
+    Of crapowtes and nakette,
+    As thykke ar they sette
+        For sothe as y say the.
+
+    "The cloth was displayed sone,
+    The Emperoer lokede therupone,
+        And myght hyt not se,
+    For glysteryng of the ryche ston
+    Redy syght had he non,
+        And sayde, How may thys be?
+    The Emperour sayde on hygh,
+    Sertes thys ys a fayry,
+        Or ellys a vanyte.
+    The Kyng of Cysyle answered than,
+    So ryche a jewell ys ther non
+        In all Crystyante.
+
+    "The amerayle[55] dowghter of hethennes
+    Made this cloth withouten lees,
+        And wrowghte hit all with pride,
+    And purtreyed hyt with gret honour,
+    Wyth ryche golde and asowr,[56]
+        And stones on ylke a side;
+    And, as the story telles in honde,
+    The stones that yn this cloth stonde
+        Sowghte they wer full wyde.
+    Seven wynter hit was yn makynge,
+    Or hit was browght to endynge,
+        In herte ys not to hyde.
+
+    "In that on korner made was
+    Idoyne and Amadas,
+        With love that was so trewe,
+    For they loveden hem wit honour,
+    Portrayed they wer with trewe-love flour,
+        Of stones bryght of hewe,
+    Wyth carbankull and safere,
+    Kasydonys and onyx so clere,
+        Sette in golde newe,
+    Deamondes and rubyes,
+    And other stones of mychyll pryse,
+        And menstrellys with her gle.
+
+    "In that other korner was dyght,
+    Trystram and Isowde so bryght,
+        That semely wer to se,
+    And for they loved hem ryght,
+    As full of stones ar they dyght,
+        As thykke as they may be,
+    Of topase and of rubyes,
+    And other stones of myche pryse,
+        That semely wer to se,
+    With crapawtes and nakette,
+    Thykke of stones ar they sette,
+        For sothe as y say the.
+
+    "In the thyrdde korner, with gret honour,
+    Was Florys and dame Blawncheflour,
+        As love was hem betwene,
+    For they loved wyth honour,
+    Purtrayed they wer with trewe-love-flower,
+        With stones bryght and shene.
+    Ther wer knyghtes and senatowres,
+    Emerawdes of gret vertues,
+        To wyte withouten wene,
+    Deamondes and koralle,
+    Perydotes and crystall,
+        And gode garnettes bytwene.
+
+    "In the fowrthe korner was oon
+    Of Babylone the sowdan sonne,
+        The amerayle's dowghter hym by,
+    For hys sake the cloth was wrowght,
+    She loved hym in hert and thowght,
+        As testy-moyeth thys storye.
+    The fayr mayden her byforn
+    Was purtrayed an unykorn,
+        With hys horn so hye,
+    Flowres and bryddes on ylke a syde,
+    Wyth stones that wer sowght wyde,
+        Stuffed wyth ymagerye.
+
+    "When the cloth to ende was wrought,
+    To the sowdan sone hit was browght,
+        That semely was of syghte:
+    'My fadyr was a nobyll man,
+    Of the sowdan he hit wan,
+        Wyth maystrye and myghth;
+    For gret love he yaf hyt me,
+    I brynge hit the in specyalte,
+        Thys cloth ys rychely dyght.'
+    He yaf hit the Emperour,
+    He receyved hit wyth gret honour,
+        And thonkede hym fayr and ryght."
+
+We must not dismiss this subject without recording a species of mantle
+much celebrated in romance, and which must have tried the skill and
+patience of the fair votaries of the needle to the uttermost. We all
+have seen, perhaps we have some of us been foolish enough to
+manufacture, initials with hair, as tokens or souvenirs, or some other
+such fooleries. In our mothers' and grandmothers' days, when "fine
+marking" was the _sine qua non_ of a good education, whole sets of
+linen were thus elaborately marked; and often have we marvelled when
+these tokens of grandmotherly skill and industry were displayed to our
+wondering and aching eyes. What then should we have thought of King
+Ryence's mantle, of rich scarlet, bordered round with the beards of
+kings, sewed thereon full craftily by accomplished female hands. Thus
+runs the anecdote in the 'Morte Arthur:'--
+
+"Came a messenger hastely from King Ryence, of North Wales, saying,
+that King Ryence had discomfited and overcomen eleaven kings, and
+everiche of them did him homage, and that was thus: they gave him
+their beards cleane flayne off,--wherefore the messenger came for King
+Arthur's beard, for King Ryence had purfeled a mantell with king's
+beards, and there lacked for one a place of the mantell, wherefore he
+sent for his beard, or else he would enter into his lands, and brenn
+and slay, and never leave till he have thy head and thy beard. 'Well,'
+said King Arther, 'thou hast said thy message, which is the most
+villainous and lewdest message that ever man heard sent to a king.
+Also thou mayest see my beard is full young yet for to make a purfell
+of; but tell thou the king that--or it be long--he shall do to _me_
+homage on both his knees, or else he shall leese his head.'"
+
+In Queen Elizabeth's day, when they were beginning to skim the cream
+of the ponderous tomes of former times into those elaborate ditties
+from which the more modern ballad takes its rise, this incident was
+put into rhyme, and was sung before her majesty at the grand
+entertainment at Kenilworth Castle, 1575, thus:--
+
+    "As it fell out on a Pentecost day,
+      King Arthur at Camelot kept his Court royall,
+    With his faire queene dame Guenever the gay,
+      And many bold barons sitting in hall;
+      With ladies attired in purple and pall;
+    And heraults in hewkes,[57] hooting on high,
+    Cryed, _Largesse, largesse, Chevaliers tres hardie_.
+
+    "A doughty dwarfe to the uppermost deas
+      Right pertlye gan pricke, kneeling on knee;
+    With steven[58] fulle stoute amids all the preas,
+      Sayd, Nowe sir King Arthur, God save thee, and see!
+      Sir Ryence of Northgales greeteth well thee,
+    And bids thee thy beard anon to him send,
+    Or else from thy jaws he will it off rend.
+
+    "For his robe of state is a rich scarlet mantle,
+      With eleven kings beards bordered about,
+    And there is room lefte yet in a kantle,[59]
+      For thine to stande, to make the twelfth out:
+      This must be done, be thou never so stout;
+    This must be done, I tell thee no fable,
+    Maugre the teethe of all thy rounde table.
+
+    "When this mortal message from his mouthe past,
+      Great was the noyse bothe in hall and in bower,
+    The king fum'd; the queen screecht; ladies were aghast;
+      Princes puff'd; barons blustered; lords began lower;
+      Knights stormed; squires startled, like steeds in a stower;
+    Pages and yeomen yell'd out in the hall;
+    Then in came Sir Kay, the king's seneschal.
+
+    "Silence, my soveraignes, quoth this courteous knight,
+      And in that stound the stowre began still:
+    Then the dwarfe's dinner full deerely was dight;
+      Of wine and wassel he had his wille:
+      And when he had eaten and drunken his fill,
+    An hundred pieces of fine coyned gold
+    Were given this dwarfe for his message bold.
+
+    "But say to Sir Ryence, thou dwarfe, quoth the king,
+      That for his bold message I do him defye;
+    And shortly with basins and pans will him ring
+      Out of North Gales; where he and I
+      With swords, and not razors, quickly shall trye
+    Whether he or King Arthur will prove the best barbor:
+    And therewith he shook his good sword Excalabor."
+
+Drayton thus alludes to the same circumstance:--
+
+    "Then told they, how himselfe great Arthur did advance,
+    To meet (with his Allies) that puissant force in France,
+    By Lucius thither led; those Armies that while ere
+    Affrighted all the world, by him strooke dead with feare:
+    Th' report of his great Acts that over Europe ran,
+    In that most famous field he with the Emperor wan:
+    As how great Rython's selfe hee slew in his repaire,
+    Who ravisht Howell's Neece, young Helena the faire;
+    And for a trophy brought the Giant's coat away,
+    Made of the beards of kings."[60]----
+
+And Spenser is too uncourteous in his adoption of the incident; for he
+not only levels tolls on the gentlemen's beards, but even on the
+flowing and golden locks of the gentle sex:--
+
+    "Not farre from hence, upon yond rocky hill,
+      Hard by a streight there stands a castle strong,
+    Which doth observe a custom lewd and ill,
+      And it hath long mayntaind with mighty wrong:
+      For may no knight nor lady passe along
+    That way, (and yet they needs must passe that way,
+      By reason of the streight, and rocks among,)
+    But they that Ladies locks doe shave away,
+    And that knight's berd for toll, which they for passage pay.
+
+    "A shamefull use, as ever I did heare,
+      Said Calidore, and to be overthrowne.
+    But by what means did they at first it reare,
+      And for what cause, tell, if thou have it knowne.
+      Sayd then that Squire: The Lady which doth owne
+    This Castle is by name Briana hight;
+      Then which a prouder Lady liveth none;
+    She long time hath deare lov'd a doughty knight,
+    And sought to win his love by all the meanes she might.
+
+    "His name is Crudor, who through high disdaine
+      And proud despight of his selfe-pleasing mynd,
+    Refused hath to yeeld her love againe,
+      Untill a Mantle she for him doe fynd,
+      With beards of knights and locks of Ladies lynd,
+    Which to provide, she hath this Castle dight,
+      And therein hath a Seneschall assynd,
+    Cald Maleffort, a man of mickle might,
+    Who executes her wicked will, with worse despight."[61]
+
+"To pluck the beard" of another has ever been held the highest
+possible sign of scorn and contumely; but it was certainly a
+refinement on the matter, for which we are indebted to the Morte
+Arthur, or rather probably, according to Bishop Percy, to Geoffrey of
+Monmouth's history originally, for the unique and ornamental purpose
+to which these despoiled locks were applied. So particularly anxious
+was Charlemagne to shew this despite to an enemy that, as we read in
+Huon de Bordeaux, he despatched no less than fifteen successive
+messengers from France to Babylon to pull the beard of Admiral
+Gaudisse. And this, by no means pleasant operation, was to be
+accompanied by one even still less inviting.
+
+"Alors le duc Naymes, & tres tous les Barons, s'en retournerent au
+palais avec le Roy, lequel s'assist sur un banc dore de fin or, & les
+Barons tous autour de luy. Si commanda qu'on luy amenast Huon, lequel
+il vint, et se mist a genoux devant le roy, ou luy priant moult
+humblement que pitie & mercy voulsist avoir de luy. Alors le roy le
+voyant en sa presence luy dist: Huon puisque vers moy veux estre
+accorde, si convient que faciez ce que je vous or donneray. Sire, ce
+dist Huon, pour obeir a vous, il n'est aujourd'huy chose en ce monde
+mortel, que corps humain puisse porter, que hardiment n'osasse
+entreprendre, ne ia pour peur de mort ne le laisseray a faire, & fust
+a aller jusques a l'arbre sec, voire jusques aux portaux d'enfer
+combattre aux infernaux, comme fist le fort Hercule: avant qu'a vous
+ne fusse accorde. Huon, ce dist Charles, je cuide qu'en pire lieu vous
+envoyeray, car, de quinze messages qui de par moy y ont este envoyez,
+n'en est par revenu un seul homme. Si te diray ou tu iras, puis que tu
+veux qui de toy aye mercy, m'a volonte est, qu'il te convient aller en
+la cite de Babylonne, par devers diray, & gardes que sur ta vie ne
+face faute, quand la seras venu tu monteras en son palais, la ou tu
+attendras l'heure de son disner & que tu le verras assis a table. Si
+convient que tu sois arme de toutes armes, l'espee nue au poing, par
+tel si que le premier & le plus grand baron que tu verras manger a sa
+table tu luy trencheras le chef quel qu'il soit, soit Roy, ou Admiral.
+Et apres ce te convient tant faire que la belle Esclarmonde fille a
+l'Amiral Gaudisse tu fiances, & la baises trois fois en la presence de
+son pere, & de tous sous qui la seront presens, car je veux que tu
+scaches que c'est la plus belle pucelle qu'aujourd'huy soit en vie,
+puis apres diras de par moy a l'Admiral qu'il m'envoye mille
+espreuiers, mille ours, mille viautres, tous enchainez, & mille jeune
+valets, & mille des plus belles pucelles de son royaume, & avecques
+ce, convient _que tu me rapportes une poignee de sa barbe, et quatre
+de ses dents machoires_. Ha! Sire, dirent les Barons, bien desirez sa
+mort, quant de tel message faire luy enchargez, vous dites la verite
+ce dit le Roy, car si tant ne fait que j'aye la barbe & les dents
+machoires sans aucune tromperie ne mensonge, jamais ne retourne en
+France, ne devant moi ne se monstre. Car je le ferois pendre &
+trainer. Sire, ce dit Huon, m'avez vous dit & racompte tout ce que
+voulez que je face. Oui dist le Roy Charles ma volonte est telle, si
+vers moy veux avoir paix. Sire ce dit Huon, au plaisir de nostre
+Seigneur, je feray & fourniray vostre message."
+
+In what precise way the beards were sewed on the mantles we are not
+exactly informed. Whether this royal exuberance was left to shine in
+its own unborrowed lustre, its own naked magnificence, as too valuable
+to be intermixed with the grosser things of earth: whether it was
+thinly scattered over the surface of the "rich scarlet;" or whether it
+was gathered into locks, perhaps gemmed round with orient pearl, or
+clustered together with brilliant emeralds, sparkling diamonds, or
+rich rubies--"Sweets to the sweet:" whether it was exposed to the
+vulgar gaze on the mantle, or whether it was so arranged that only at
+the pleasure of the mighty wearer its radiant beauties were
+visible:--on all these deeply interesting particulars we should
+rejoice in having any information; but, alas! excepting what we have
+recorded, not one circumstance respecting them has "floated down the
+tide of years." But we may perhaps form a correct idea of them from
+viewing a shield of human hair in the museum of the United Service
+Club, which may be supposed to have been _compiled_ (so to speak)
+with the same benevolent feelings as that of the heroes to whom we
+have been alluding. It is from Borneo Island, and is formed of locks
+of hair placed at regular intervals on a ground of thin tough wood: a
+refined and elegant mode of displaying the scalps of slaughtered foes.
+These coincidences are curious, and may serve at any rate to show that
+King Ryence's mantle was not the _invention_ of the penman; but, in
+all probability, actually existed.
+
+The ladies of these days did not confine their handiwork merely to the
+adornment of the person. We have seen that among the Egyptians the
+couches that at night were beds were in the daytime adorned with
+richly wrought coverlets. So amongst the classical nations
+
+    "------the menial fair that round her wait,
+    At Helen's beck prepare the room of state;
+    Beneath an ample portico they spread
+    The downy fleece to form the slumberous bed;
+    And o'er soft palls of purple grain, unfold
+    _Rich tapestry, stiff with inwoven gold_."
+
+And during the middle ages the beds, not excluded from the day
+apartments, often gave gorgeous testimony of the skill of the
+needlewoman, and were among the richest ornaments of the sitting room,
+so much fancy and expense were lavished on them. The curtains were
+often made of very rich material, and usually adorned with embroidery.
+They were often also trimmed with expensive furs: Philippa of Hainault
+had a bed on which sea-syrens were embroidered. The coverlid was
+often very rich:
+
+    "The ladi lay in hire bed,
+    With riche clothes bespred,
+      Of gold and purpre palle."[62]
+
+    "Here beds are seen adorned with silk and gold."[63]
+
+          "------on a bed design'd
+    With gay magnificence the fair reclin'd;
+    High o'er her head, on silver columns rais'd,
+    With broidering gems her proud pavilion blaz'd."
+
+    "Thence pass'd into a bow'r, where stood a bed,
+    With milkwhite furs of Alexandria spread:
+    Beneath, a richly broider'd vallance hung;
+    The pillows were of silk; o'er all was flung
+    A rare wrought coverlet of phoenix plumes,
+    Which breathed, as warm with life, its rich perfumes."[64]
+
+The array of the knights of these days was gorgeous and beautiful; and
+though the materials might be in themselves, and frequently were
+costly, still were they entirely indebted to the female hand for the
+rich elegance of the _tout ensemble_. And the custom of disarming and
+robing knights anew after the conflict, whether of real or mimic war,
+to which we have alluded as a practice of classical antiquity, was as
+much or even more practised now, and afforded to the ladies an
+admirable opportunity of exhibiting alike their preference, their
+taste, and their liberality.
+
+"Amadis and Agrayes proceeded till they came to the castle of Torin,
+the dwelling of that fair young damsel, where they were disarmed and
+mantles given them, and they were conducted into the hall."[65]
+
+"Thus they arrived at the palace, and there was he (the Green Sword
+Knight) lodged in a rich chamber, and was disarmed, and his hands and
+face washed from the dust, and they gave him a rose-coloured
+mantle."[66]
+
+The romance of "Ywaine and Gawin" abounds in instances:
+
+    "A damisel come unto me,
+    The semeliest that ever I se,
+    Lufsumer lifed never in land,
+    Hendly scho toke me by the hand,
+    And sone that gentyl creature
+    Al unlaced myne armure;
+    Into a chamber scho me led,
+    And with a mantil scho me cled;
+    It was of purpur, fair and fine;
+    And the pane of ermyne."
+
+Again--
+
+    "The maiden redies hyr fal rath,[67]
+    Bilive sho gert syr Ywaine bath,
+    And cled him sethin[68] in gude scarlet,
+    Forord wele with gold fret,
+    A girdel ful riche for the nanes,
+    Of perry[69] and of precious stanes."
+
+And--
+
+    "The mayden was bowsom and bayne[70]
+    Forto unarme syr Ywayne,
+    Serk and breke both sho hym broght,
+    That ful craftily war wroght,
+    Of riche cloth soft als the sylk,
+    And tharto white als any mylk.
+    Sho broght hym ful riche wedes to wer."
+
+On the widely acknowledged principle of "Love me, love my dog," the
+steed of a favoured knight was often adorned by the willing fingers of
+the fair.
+
+    "Each damsel and each dame who her obeyed,
+    She task'd, together with herself, to sew,
+    With subtle toil; and with fine gold o'erlaid
+    A piece of silk of white and sable hue:
+    With this she trapt the horse."[71]
+
+The tabards or surcoats which knights wore over their armour was the
+article of dress in which they most delighted to display their
+magnificence. They varied in form, but were mostly made of rich silk,
+or of cloth of gold or silver, lined or trimmed with choice and
+expensive furs, and usually, also, having the armorial bearings of the
+family richly embroidered. Thus were women even the heralds of those
+times. Besides the acknowledged armorial bearings, devices were often
+wrought symbolical of some circumstance in the life of the wearer.
+Thus we are told in Amadis that the Emperor of Rome, on his black
+surcoat, had a golden chain-work woven, which device he swore never to
+lay aside till he had Amadis in chains. The same romance gives the
+following incident regarding a surcoat.
+
+"Then Amadis cried to Florestan and Agrayes, weeping as he spake, good
+kinsman, I fear we have lost Don Galaor, let us seek for him. They
+went to the spot where Amadis had smitten down King Cildadan, and seen
+his brother last on foot; but so many were the dead who lay there that
+they saw him not, till as they moved away the bodies, Florestan knew
+him by the sleeve of his _surcoat_, which was of azure, worked with
+silver flowers, and then they made great moan over him."
+
+The shape of them, as we have remarked, varied considerably; besides
+minor alterations they were at one time worn very short, at another so
+long as to trail on the ground. But this luxurious style was
+occasionally attended with direful effects. Froissart names a surcoat
+in which Sir John Chandos was attired, which was embroidered with his
+arms in white sarsnet, argent a field gules, one on his back and
+another on his breast. It was a long robe which swept the ground, and
+this circumstance, most probably, caused the untimely death of one of
+the most esteemed knights of chivalry.
+
+Sir John Chandos was one of the brightest of that chivalrous circle
+which sparkled in the reign of Edward the Third. He was gentle as well
+as valiant; he was in the van with the Black Prince at the battle of
+Cressy; and at the battle of Poictiers he never left his side. His
+death was unlooked for and sudden. Some disappointments had depressed
+his spirits, and his attendants in vain endeavoured to cheer them.
+
+"And so he stode in a kechyn, warmyng him by the fyre, and his
+servantes jangled with hym, to {thentent} to bring him out of his
+melancholy; his servantes had prepared for hym a place to rest hym:
+than he demanded if it were nere day, and {therewith} there {came} a
+man into the house, and came before hym, and sayd,
+
+'Sir, I have brought you tidynges.'
+
+'What be they, tell me?'
+
+'Sir, surely the {frenchmen} be rydinge abrode.'
+
+'How knowest thou that?'
+
+'Sir,' sayd he, 'I departed fro saynt Saluyn with them.'
+
+'What way be they ryden?'
+
+'Sir, I can nat tell you the certentie, but surely they take the
+highway to Poiters.'
+
+'What {Frenchmen} be they; canst thou tell me?'
+
+'Sir, it is Sir Loys of Saynt Julyan, and Carlovet the Breton.'
+
+'Well, quoth Sir Johan Chandos, I care nat, I have no lyst this night
+to ryde forthe: they may happe to be {encountred} though I be nat
+ther.'
+
+"And so he taryed there styll a certayne space in a gret study, and at
+last, when he had well aduysed hymselfe, he sayde, 'Whatsoever I have
+sayd here before, I trowe it be good that I ryde forthe; I must
+retourne to Poictiers, and anone it will be day.'
+
+'That is true sir,' quoth the knightes about hym.
+
+'Then,' he sayd, 'make redy, for I wyll ryde forthe.'
+
+"And so they dyd."
+
+The skirmish commenced; there had fallen a great dew in the morning,
+in consequence of which the ground was very slippery; the knight's
+foot slipped, and in trying to recover himself, it became entangled in
+the folds of his magnificent _surcoat_; thus the fall was rendered
+irretrievable, and whilst he was down he received his death blow.
+
+The barons and knights were sorely grieved. They "lamentably
+complayned, and sayd, 'A, Sir Johan Chandos, the floure of all
+chivalry, vnhappely was that glayue forged that thus hath {wounded}
+you, and brought you in parell of dethe:' they wept piteously that
+were about hym, and he herde and vnderstode them well, but he could
+speke no worde."--"For his dethe, his frendes, and also some of his
+enemyes, were right soroufull; the Englysshmen loued hym, bycause all
+noblenesse was founde in hym; the frenchmen hated him, because they
+doubted hym; yet I herde his dethe greatly complayned among right
+noble and valyant knightes of France[72]."
+
+Across this surcoat was worn the scarf, the indispensable appendage of
+a knight when fully equipped: it was usually the gift of his
+"ladye-love," and embroidered by her own fair hand.
+
+And a knight would encounter fifty deaths sooner than part with this
+cherished emblem. It is recorded of Garcia Perez de Vargas, a
+noble-minded Spanish knight of the thirteenth century, that he and a
+companion were once suddenly met by a party of seven Moors. His friend
+fled: but not so Perez; he at once prepared himself for the combat,
+and while keeping the Moors at bay, who hardly seemed inclined to
+fight, he found that his scarf had fallen from his shoulder.
+
+    "He look'd around, and saw the Scarf, for still the Moors were near,
+    And they had pick'd it from the sward, and loop'd it on a spear.
+    'These Moors,' quoth Garci Perez, 'uncourteous Moors they be--
+    Now, by my soul, the scarf they stole, yet durst not question me!
+
+    "'Now, reach once more my helmet.' The Esquire said him, nay,
+    'For a silken string why should you fling, perchance, your life away?'
+    'I had it from my lady,' quoth Garci, 'long ago,
+    And never Moor that scarf, be sure, in proud Seville shall show.'
+
+    "But when the Moslems saw him, they stood in firm array:
+    He rode among their armed throng, he rode right furiously.
+    'Stand, stand, ye thieves and robbers, lay down my lady's pledge,'
+    He cried, and ever as he cried, they felt his faulchion's edge.
+
+    "That day when the lord of Vargas came to the camp alone,
+    The scarf, his lady's largess, around his breast was thrown:
+    Bare was his head, his sword was red, and from his pommel strung
+    Seven turbans green, sore hack'd I ween, before Garci Perez hung."
+
+It casts a redeeming trait on this butchering sort or bravery to find
+that when the hero returned to the camp he steadily refused to reveal
+the name of the person who had so cravenly deserted him.
+
+But the favours which ladies presented to a knight were various;
+consisting of "jewels, ensigns of noblesse, scarfs, hoods, sleeves,
+mantles, bracelets, knots of ribbon; in a word, some detached part of
+their dress." These he always placed conspicuously on his person, and
+defended, as he would have done his life. Sometimes a lock of his fair
+one's hair inspired the hero:
+
+    "Than did he her heere unfolde,
+      And on his helme it set on hye,
+    With rede thredes of ryche golde,
+      Whiche he had of his lady.
+    Full richely his shelde was wrought,
+      With asure stones and beten golde,
+    But on his lady was his thought,
+      The yelowe heere what he dyd beholde."[73]
+
+It is recorded in "Perceforest," that at the end of one tournament
+"the ladies were so stripped of their head attire, that the greatest
+part of them were quite bareheaded, and appeared with their hair
+spread over their shoulders yellower than the finest gold; their robes
+also were without sleeves; for all had been given to adorn the
+knights; hoods, cloaks, kerchiefs, stomachers, and mantuas. But when
+they beheld themselves in this woful plight, they were greatly
+abashed, till, perceiving every one was in the same condition, they
+joined in laughing at this adventure, and that they should have
+engaged with such vehemence in stripping themselves of their clothes
+from off their backs, as never to have perceived the loss of them."
+
+A sleeve (more easily detached than we should fancy those of the
+present day) was a very usual token.
+
+Elayne, the faire mayden of Astolat gave Syr Launcelot "a reed sleeve
+of scarlet wel embroudred with grete perlys," which he wore for a
+token on his helmet; and in real life it is recorded that in a
+serious, but not desperate battle, at the court of Burgundy, in 1445,
+one of the knights received from his lady a sleeve of delicate dove
+colour, elegantly embroidered; and he fastened this favour on his left
+arm.
+
+Chevalier Bayard being declared victor at the tournament of Carignan,
+in Piedmont, he refused, from extreme delicacy, to receive the reward
+assigned him, saying, "The honour he had gained was solely owing to
+the sleeve, which a lady had given him, adorned with a ruby worth a
+hundred ducats." The sleeve was brought back to the lady in the
+presence of her husband; who knowing the admirable character of the
+chevalier, conceived no jealousy on the occasion: "The ruby," said the
+lady, "shall be given to the knight who was the next in feats of arms
+to the chevalier; but since he does me so much honour as to ascribe
+his victory to my sleeve, for the love of him I will keep it all my
+life."
+
+Another important adjunct to the equipment of a knight was the pennon;
+an ensign or streamer formed of silk, linen, or stuff, and fixed to
+the top of the lance. If the expedition of the soldier had for its
+object the Holy Land, the sacred emblem of the cross was embroidered
+on the pennon, otherwise it usually bore the owner's crest, or, like
+the surcoat, an emblematic allusion to some circumstance in the
+owner's life. Thus, Chaucer, in the "Knighte's Tale," describes that
+of Duke Theseus:
+
+    "And by his banner borne is his _penon_
+    Of gold ful riche, in which ther was ybete
+    The Minotaure which that he slew in Crete."
+
+The account of the taking of Hotspur's pennon, and his attempt at its
+recapture, is abridged by Mr. Mills[74] from Froissart. It is
+interesting, as displaying the temper of the times about these
+comparatively trifling matters, and being the record of history, may
+tend to justify our quotations of a similar nature from romance.
+
+"In the reign of Richard the Second, the Scots commanded by James,
+Earl of Douglas, taking advantage of the troubles between the King and
+his Parliament, poured upon the south. When they were sated with
+plunder and destruction they rested at Newcastle, near the English
+force which the Earl of Northumberland and other border chieftains had
+hastily levied.
+
+"The Earl's two sons were young and lusty knights, and ever foremost
+at the barriers to skirmish. Many proper feats of arms were done and
+achieved. The fighting was hand to hand. The noblest encounter was
+that which occurred between the Earl Douglas and Sir Henry Percy,
+surnamed Hotspur. The Scot won the pennon of his foeman; and in the
+triumph of his victory he proclaimed that he would carry it to
+Scotland, and set it on high on his castle of Dalkeith, that it might
+be seen afar off.
+
+"Percy indignantly replied, that Douglas should not pass the border
+without being met in a manner which would give him no cause for
+boasting.
+
+"With equal spirit the Earl Douglas invited him that night to his
+lodging to seek for his pennon.
+
+"The Scots then retired and kept careful watch, lest the taunts of
+their leader should urge the Englishmen to make an attack. Percy's
+spirit burnt to efface his reproach, but he was counselled into
+calmness.
+
+"The Scots then dislodged, seemingly resolved to return with all haste
+to their own country. But Otterbourn arrested their steps. The castle
+resisted the assault; and the capture of it would have been of such
+little value to them that most of the Scotch knights wished that the
+enterprise should be abandoned.
+
+"Douglas commanded, however, that the assault should be persevered
+in, and he was entirely influenced by his chivalric feelings. He
+contended that the very difficulty of the enterprise was the reason of
+undertaking it; and he wished not to be too far from Sir Henry Percy,
+lest that gallant knight should not be able to do his devoir in
+redeeming his pledge of winning the pennon of his arms again.
+
+"Hotspur longed to follow Douglas and redeem his badge of honour; but
+the sage knights of the country, and such as were well expert in arms,
+spoke against his opinion, and said to him, 'Sir, there fortuneth in
+war oftentimes many losses. If the Earl Douglas has won your pennon,
+he bought it dear, for he came to the gate to seek it, and was well
+beaten: another day you shall win as much of him and more. Sir, we say
+this because we know well that all the power of Scotland is abroad in
+the fields; and if we issue forth and are not strong enough to fight
+with them (and perchance they have made this skirmish with us to draw
+us out of the town), they may soon enclose us, and do with us what
+they will. It is better to loose a pennon than two or three hundred
+knights and squires, and put all the country to adventure.'"
+
+By such words as these, Hotspur and his brother were refrained, but
+the coveted moment came.
+
+"The hostile banners waved in the night breeze, and the bright moon,
+which had been more wont to look upon the loves than the wars of
+chivalry, lighted up the Scottish camp. A battle ensued of as valiant
+a character as any recorded in the pages of history; for there was
+neither knight nor squire but what did his devoir and fought hand to
+hand."
+
+The Scots remained masters of the field: but the Douglas was slain,
+and this loss could not be recompensed even by the capture of the
+Percy.
+
+Little did the "gentle Kate" anticipate this catastrophe when her
+fairy fingers with proud and loving alacrity embroidered on the
+flowing pennon the inspiring watchword of her chivalric husband and
+his noble family--ESPERANCE.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[40] Historical Memoirs of Queens of England.--H. Lawrance.
+
+[41] Emare.
+
+[42] _Bete_--inlayed, embroidered.
+
+[43] Amadis of Gaul, bk. i. ch. xv.
+
+[44] Ibid. bk. iv. ch. iii.
+
+[45] Orl. Fur.: transl. by Rose.
+
+[46] _Samyte_--rich silk.
+
+[47] _Pelored_--furred.
+
+[48] Lybeaus Disconus.
+
+[49] _Schyre_--clear.
+
+[50] _Hende_--kind, obliging.
+
+[51] _Alner_--pouch, bag or purse.
+
+[52] Launfal.
+
+[53] Amadis of Gaul, bk. i. ch. xxx.
+
+[54] _Hende_--kind, civil, obliging.
+
+[55] Saracen king.
+
+[56] _Asowr_--azure.
+
+[57] _Hewke_--herald's coat.
+
+[58] _Steven_--voice, sound
+
+[59] _Kantle_--a corner.
+
+[60] Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 4.
+
+[61] Faerie Queene. Book vi.
+
+[62] The Kyng of Tars.
+
+[63] Orl. Fur.
+
+[64] Partenopex of Blois.
+
+[65] Amadis of Gaul.
+
+[66] Ibid.
+
+[67] _Rath_--speedily.
+
+[68] _Sethin_--afterward.
+
+[69] _Perry_--jewels.
+
+[70] _Bayne_--ready.
+
+[71] Orl. Fur., canto 23.
+
+[72] Froissart, by Lord Berners, vol. i. p. 270.
+
+[73] The Fair Lady of Faguell.
+
+[74] Hist. Chivalry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+TAPESTRY.
+
+
+The term _tapestry_ or _tapistry_ (from _tapisser_, to line, from the
+Latin word _tapes_, a cover of a wall or bed), is now appropriated
+solely to woven hangings of wool and silk; but it has been applied to
+all sorts of hangings, whether wrought entirely with the needle (as
+originally indeed all were) or in the loom, whether composed of
+canvass and wool, or of painted cloth, leather, or even paper. This
+wide application of the term seems to be justified by the derivation
+quoted above, but its present use is much more limited.
+
+In the thirteenth century the decorative arts had attained a high
+perfection in England. The palace of Westminster received, under the
+fostering patronage of Henry III., a series of decorations, the
+remains of which, though long hidden, have recently excited the wonder
+and admiration of the curious.[75] "Near this monastery (says an
+ancient Itinerary) stands the most famous royal palace of England; in
+which is that celebrated chamber, on whose walls all the warlike
+histories of the whole Bible are painted with inexpressible skill, and
+explained by a regular and complete series of texts, beautifully
+written in French over each battle, to the no small admiration of the
+beholder, and the increase of royal magnificence."
+
+Round the walls of St. Stephen's chapel effigies of the Apostles were
+painted in oil; (which was thus used with perfectness and skill two
+centuries before its presumed discovery by John ab Eyck in 1410,) on
+the western side was a grand composition of the day of Judgment: St.
+Edward's or the "Painted Chamber," derived the latter name from the
+quality and profuseness of its embellishments, and the walls of the
+whole palace were decorated with portraits or ideal representations,
+and historical subjects. Nor was this the earliest period in which
+connected passages of history were painted on the wainscot of
+apartments, for the following order, still extant, refers to the
+_renovation_ of what must previously--and at some considerable
+interval of time probably, have been done.
+
+"Anno, 1233, 17 Hen. 3. Mandatum est Vicecomiti South'ton quod Cameram
+regis lambruscatam de castro Winton depingi faciat eisdem historiis
+quibus fuerat pri'us depicta."
+
+About 1312, Langton, Bishop of Litchfield, commanded the coronation,
+marriages, wars, and funeral of his patron King Edward I., to be
+painted in the great hall of his episcopal palace, which he had newly
+built.
+
+Chaucer frequently refers to this custom of painting the walls with
+historical or fanciful designs.
+
+    "And soth to faine my chambre was
+    Ful wel depainted----
+    And all the wals with colours fine
+    Were painted bothe texte and glose,
+    And all the Romaunt of the Rose."
+
+And again:--
+
+    "But when I woke all was ypast,
+    For ther nas lady ne creture,
+    Save on the wals old portraiture
+    Of horsemen, hawkis, and houndis,
+    And hurt dere all ful of woundis."
+
+Often emblematical devices were painted, which gave the artist
+opportunity to display his fancy and exercise his wit. Dr. Cullum, in
+his History of Hawsted, gives an account of an old mansion, having a
+closet, the panels of which were painted with various sentences,
+emblems, and mottos. One of these, intended doubtless as a hint to
+female vanity, is a painter, who having begun to sketch out a female
+portrait, writes "Dic mihi qualis eris."
+
+But comfort, or at least a degree of comfort, had progressed hand in
+hand with decoration. Tapestry, that is to say needlework tapestry,
+which, like the Bayeux tapestry of Matilda, had been used solely for
+the decoration of altars, or the embellishment of other parts of
+sacred edifices on occasions of festival, or the performance of solemn
+rites, had been of much more general application amongst the luxurious
+inhabitants of the South, and was introduced into England as furniture
+hanging by Eleanor of Castile. In Chaucer's time it was common. Among
+his pilgrims to Canterbury is a tapestry worker who is mentioned in
+the Prologue, in common with other "professors."
+
+    "An haberdasher and a carpenter,
+    A webbe, a dyer, and a tapiser."
+
+And, again:--
+
+    "I wol give him all that falles
+    To his chambre and to his halles,
+    I will do painte him with pure golde,
+    And _tapite_ hem ful many a folde."
+
+These modes of decorating the walls and chambers with paintings, and
+with tapestry, were indeed contemporaneous; though the greater
+difficulty of obtaining the latter--for as it was not made at Arras
+until the fourteenth century, all that we here refer to is the painful
+product of the needle alone--many have made it less usual and common
+than the former. Pithy sentences, and metrical stanzas were often
+wrought in tapestry: in Wresil Castle and other mansions, some of the
+apartments were adorned in the Oriental manner with metrical
+descriptions called Proverbs. And Warton mentions an ancient suit of
+tapestry, containing Ariosto's Orlando, and Angelica, where, at every
+group, the story was all along illustrated with short lines in
+Provencal or old French.
+
+It could only be from its superior comfort that an article so tedious
+in manufacture as needlework tapestry could be preferred to the more
+quickly-produced decorations of the pencil; it was also rude in
+design; and the following description of some tapestry in an old Manor
+House in King John's time, though taken from a work of fiction,
+probably presents a correct picture of the style of most of the pieces
+exhibited in the mansions of the middle ranks at that period.
+
+"In a corner of the apartment stood a bed, the tapestry of which was
+enwrought with gaudy colours representing Adam and Eve in the garden
+of Eden. Adam was presenting our first mother with a large yellow
+apple, gathered from a tree that scarcely reached his knee. Beneath
+the tree was an angel milking, and although the winged milkman sat on
+a stool, yet his head overtopped both cow and tree, and nearly
+covered a horse, which seemed standing on the highest branches. To the
+left of Eve appeared a church; and a dark robed gentleman holding
+something in his hand which looked like a pincushion, but doubtless
+was intended for a book: he seemed pointing to the holy edifice, as if
+reminding them that they were not yet married. On the ground lay the
+rib, out of which Eve (who stood the head higher than Adam) had been
+formed; both of them were very respectably clothed in the ancient
+Saxon costume; even the angel wore breeches, which, being blue,
+contrasted well with his flaming red wings."
+
+No one who has read the real blunders of artists and existing
+anachronisms in pictures detailed in "Percy Anecdotes," will think the
+above sketch at all too highly coloured; though doubtless the tapestry
+hangings introduced by Queen Eleanor which would be imitated and
+caricatured in ten thousand different forms, were in much superior
+style. The Moors had attained to the highest perfection in the
+decorative arts, and from them did the Spaniards borrow this fashion
+of hangings,[76] and "the coldness of our climate (says her
+accomplished biographer, Miss Agnes Strickland, speaking of Eleanor,)
+must have made it indispensable to the fair daughter of the South,
+chilled with the damp stone walls of English Gothic halls and
+chambers." Of the chillness of these walls we may form some idea,
+from a feeling description of a residence which was thought sufficient
+for a queen some centuries later. In the year 1586, Mary, the unhappy
+Queen of Scots, writes thus:--
+
+"In regard to my lodging, my residence is a place inclosed with walls,
+situated on an eminence, and consequently exposed to all the winds and
+storms of heaven. Within this inclosure there is, like as at
+Vincennes, a very old hunting seat, built of wood and plaister, with
+chinks on all sides, with the uprights; the intervals between which
+are not properly filled up, and the plaister dilapidated in the
+various places. The house is about six yards distant from the walls,
+and so low that the terrace on the other side is as high as the house
+itself, so that neither the sun nor the fresh air can penetrate it at
+that side. The damp, however, is so great there, that every article of
+furniture is covered with mouldiness in the space of four days.--In a
+word, the rooms for the most part are fit rather for a dungeon for the
+lowest and most abject criminals, than for a residence of a person of
+my rank, or even of a much inferior condition. I have for my own
+accommodation only wretched little rooms, and so cold, that were it
+not for the protection of the curtains and tapestries which I have had
+put up, I could not endure it by day, and still less by night."[77]
+
+The tapestries, whether wrought or woven, did not remain on the walls
+as do the hangings of modern days: it was the primitive office of the
+grooms of the chamber to hang up the tapestry which in a royal
+progress was sent forward with the purveyor and grooms of the
+chamber. And if these functionaries had not, to use a proverbial
+expression, "heads on their shoulders," ridiculous or perplexing
+blunders were not unlikely to arise. Of the latter we have an instance
+recorded by the Duc de Sully.
+
+"The King (Henry IV.) had not yet quitted Monceaux, when the Cardinal
+of Florence, who had so great a hand in the treaty of the Vervins,
+passed through Paris, as he came back from Picardy, and to return from
+thence to Rome, after he had taken leave of his Majesty. The king sent
+me to Paris to receive him, commanding me to pay him all imaginable
+honours. He had need of a person near the Pope, so powerful as this
+Cardinal, who afterwards obtained the Pontificate himself: I therefore
+omitted nothing that could answer His Majesty's intentions; and the
+legate, having an inclination to see St. Germain-en-Laye, I sent
+orders to Momier, the keeper of the castle, to hang the halls and
+chambers with the finest tapestry of the Crown. Momier executed my
+orders with great punctuality, but with so little judgment, that for
+the legate's chamber he chose a suit of hangings made by the Queen of
+Navarre; very rich, indeed, but which represented nothing but emblems
+and mottos against the Pope and the Roman Court, as satirical as they
+were ingenious. The prelate endeavoured to prevail upon me to accept a
+place in the coach that was to carry him to St. Germain, which I
+refused, being desirous of getting there before him, that I might see
+whether everything was in order; with which I was very well pleased. I
+saw the blunder of the keeper, and reformed it immediately. The
+legate would not have failed to look upon such a mistake as a formed
+design to insult him, and to have represented it as such to the Pope.
+Reflecting afterwards, that no difference in religion could authorise
+such sarcasms, I caused all those mottos to be effaced."[78]
+
+In the sixteenth century[79] a sort of hanging was introduced, which,
+partaking of the nature both of tapestry and painting on the walls,
+was a formidable rival to the former. Shakspeare frequently alludes to
+these "painted cloths." For instance, when Falstaff persuades Hostess
+Quickly, not only to withdraw her arrest, but also to make him a
+further loan: she says--
+
+"By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my
+plate and the _tapestry_ of my dining chambers!"
+
+Falstaff answers--
+
+"Glasses, glasses is the only drinking, and for thy walls a pretty
+slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or a German Hunting in
+water-work, is worth a thousand of these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it
+be ten pounds if thou canst. If it were not for thy humours, there is
+not a better wench in England! Go wash thy face and draw thy action."
+
+In another passage of the play he says that his troops are "as ragged
+as Lazarus in the _painted cloth_."
+
+There are now at Hampton Court eight large pieces or hangings of this
+description; being "The Triumphs of Julius Caesar," in water-colours,
+on cloth, and in good preservation. They are by Andrea Mantegna, and
+were valued at 1000_l._ at the time, when, by some strange
+circumstance, the Cartoons of Raphael were estimated only at 300_l._
+
+Tapestry was common in the East at a very remote era, when the most
+grotesque compositions and fantastic combinations were usually
+displayed on it. Some authors suppose that the Greeks took their ideas
+of griffins, centaurs, &c., from these Tapestries, which, together
+with the art of making them, they derived from the East, and at first
+they closely imitated both the beauties and deformities of their
+patterns. At length their refined taste improved upon these originals;
+and the old grotesque combinations were confined to the borders of the
+hanging, the centre of which displayed a more regular and systematic
+representation.
+
+It has been supposed by some writers that the invention of Tapestry,
+passed from the East into Europe; but Guicciardini ascribes it to the
+Netherlanders; and assuredly the Bayeux Tapestry, the work of the
+Conqueror's Queen, shows that this art must have acquired much
+perfection in Europe before the time of the Crusades, which is the
+time assigned by many for its introduction there. Probably
+Guicciardini refers to woven Tapestry, which was not practised until
+the article itself had become, from custom, a thing of necessity.
+Unintermitting and arduous had been the stitchery practised in the
+creation of these coveted luxuries long, very long before the loom was
+taught to give relief to the busy finger.
+
+The first manufactories of Tapestry of any note were those of
+Flanders, established there long before they were attempted in France
+or England. The chief of these were at Brussels, Antwerp, Oudenarde,
+Lisle, Tournay, Bruges, and Valenciennes. At Brussels and Antwerp they
+succeeded well both in the design and the execution of human figures
+and animals, and also in landscapes. At Oudenarde the landscape was
+more imitated, and they did not succeed so well in the figure. The
+other manufactories, always excepting those of Arras, were inferior to
+these.
+
+The grand era of general manufactories in France must be fixed in the
+reign of Henry the IV. Amongst others he especially devoted his
+attention to the manufacture of Tapestry, and that of the Gobelins,
+since so celebrated, was begun, though futilely, in his reign. His
+celebrated minister, Sully, was entangled in these matters somewhat
+more than he himself approved.
+
+1605. "I laid, by his order, the foundations of the new edifices for
+his Tapestry weavers, in the horse-market. His Majesty sent for Comans
+and La Planche, from other countries, and gave them the care and
+superintendence of these manufactures: the new directors were not long
+before they made complaints, and disliked their situation, either
+because they did not find profits equal to their hopes and
+expectations, or, that having advanced considerable sums themselves,
+they saw no great probability of getting them in again. The king got
+rid of their importunity by referring them to me."[80]
+
+1607. "It was a difficult matter to agree upon a price with these
+celebrated Flemish tapestry workers, which we had brought into France
+at so great an expense. At length it was resolved in the presence of
+Sillery and me, that a 100,000_l._ should be given them for their
+establishment. Henry was very solicitous about the payment of this
+sum; 'Having,' said he, 'a great desire to keep them, and not to lose
+the advances we have made.' He would have been better pleased if these
+people could have been paid out of some other funds than those which
+he had reserved for himself: however, there was a necessity for
+satisfying them at any price whatever. His Majesty made use of his
+authority to oblige De Vienne to sign an acquittal to the undertakers
+for linen cloth in imitation of Dutch Holland. This prince ordered a
+complete set of furniture to be made for him, which he sent for me to
+examine separately, to know if they had not imposed upon him. _These
+things were not at all in my taste_, and I was but a very indifferent
+judge of them: the price seemed to me to be excessive, as well as the
+quantity. Henry was of another opinion: after examining the work, and
+reading my paper, he wrote to me that there was not too much, and that
+they had not exceeded his orders; and that he had never seen so
+beautiful a piece of work before, and that the workman must be paid
+his demands immediately."[81]
+
+The manufactory languished however, even if it did not become entirely
+extinct. But it was revived in the reign of Louis XIV., and has since
+dispersed productions of unequalled delicacy over the civilised world.
+
+It was called "Gobelins," because the house in the suburbs of Paris,
+where the manufacture is carried on, was built by brothers whose names
+were Giles and John Gobelins, both excellent dyers, and who brought to
+Paris in the reign of Francis I. the secret of dying a beautiful
+scarlet colour, still known by their name.
+
+In the year 1667 this place, till then called "Gobelines' Folly,"
+changed its name into that of "Hotel Royal des Gobelins," in
+consequence of an edict of Louis XIV. M. Colbert having
+re-established, and with new magnificence enriched and completed the
+king's palaces, particularly the Louvre and the Tuilleries, began to
+think of making furniture suitable to the grandeur of those buildings;
+with this view he called together all the ablest workmen in the divers
+arts and manufactures throughout the kingdom; particularly painters,
+tapestry makers from Flanders, sculptors, goldsmiths, ebonists, &c.,
+and by liberal encouragement and splendid pensions called others from
+foreign nations.
+
+The king purchased the Gobelins for them to work in, and laws and
+articles were drawn up, amongst which is one that no other tapestry
+work shall be imported from any other country.
+
+Nor did there need; for the Gobelins has ever since remained the first
+manufactory of this kind in the world. The quantity of the finest and
+noblest works that have been produced by it, and the number of the
+best workmen bred up therein are incredible; and the present
+flourishing condition of the arts and manufactures of France is, in
+great measure, owing thereto.
+
+Tapestry work in particular is their glory. During the
+superintendence of M. Colbert, and his successor M. de Louvois, the
+making of tapestry is said to have been practised to the highest
+degree of perfection.
+
+The celebrated painter, Le Brun, was appointed chief director, and
+from his designs were woven magnificent hangings of Alexander's
+Battles--The Four Seasons--the Four Elements--and a series of the
+principal actions of the life of Louis XIV. M. de Louvois, during his
+administration, caused tapestries to be made after the most beautiful
+originals in the king's cabinet, after Raphael and Julio Romano, and
+other celebrated Italian painters. Not the least interesting part of
+the process was that performed by the _rentrayeurs_, or fine-drawers,
+who so unite the breadths of the tapestry into one picture that no
+seam is discernible, but the whole appears like one design. The French
+have had other considerable manufactories at Auvergne, Felletin and
+Beauvais, but all sank beneath the superiority of the Gobelins, which
+indeed at one time outvied the renown of that far-famed town, whose
+productions gave a title to the whole species, viz., that of Arras.
+
+Walpole gives an intimation of the introduction of tapestry weaving
+into England, so early as the reign of Edward III., "De inquirendo de
+mystera Tapiciorum, London;" but usually William Sheldon, Esq., is
+considered the introducer of it, and he allowed an artist, named
+Robert Hicks, the use of his manor-house at Burcheston, in
+Warwickshire; and in his will, dated 1570, he calls Hicks "the only
+auter and beginner of tapistry and arras within this realm." At his
+house were four maps of Oxford, Worcester, Warwick, and
+Gloucestershires, executed in tapestry on a large scale, fragments of
+which are or were among the curiosities of Strawberry-hill. We meet
+with little further notice of this establishment.
+
+This beautiful art was, however, revived in the reign of James I., and
+carried to great perfection under the patronage of himself and his
+martyr son. It received its death blow in common with other equally
+beautiful and more important pursuits during the triumph of the
+Commonwealth. James gave L2000 to assist Sir Francis Crane in the
+establishment of the manufactory at Mortlake, in Surry, which was
+commenced in the year 1619. Towards the end of this reign, Francis
+Cleyn, or Klein, a native of Rostock, in the duchy of Mecklenburg, was
+employed in forming designs for this institution, which had already
+attained great perfection. Charles allowed him L100 a year, as appears
+from Rymer's Foedera: "Know ye that we do give and grant unto
+Francis Cleyne a certain annuitie of one hundred pounds, by the year,
+during his natural life." He enjoyed this salary till the civil war,
+and was in such favour with the king, and in such reputation, that on
+a small painting of him he is described as "Il famosissimo pittore
+Francesco Cleyn, miracolo del secolo, e molto stimato del re Carlo
+della gran Britania, 1646."
+
+The Tapestry Manufacture at Mortlake was indeed a hobby, both of King
+James and Prince Charles, and of consequence was patronised by the
+Court. During Charles the First's romantic expedition to Spain, when
+Prince of Wales, with the Duke of Buckingham, James writes--"I have
+settled with Sir Francis Crane for my Steenie's business, and I am
+this day to speak with Fotherby, and by my next, Steenie shall have an
+account both of his business, and of Kit's preferment and supply in
+means; but Sir Francis Crane desires to know if my Baby will have him
+to hasten the making of that suit of Tapestry that he commanded
+him."[82]
+
+The most superb hangings were wrought here after the designs of
+distinguished painters; and Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, Whitehall,
+St. James's, Nonsuch, Greenwich, and other royal seats, and many noble
+mansions were enriched and adorned by its productions. In the first
+year of his reign, Charles was indebted L6000 to the establishment for
+three suits of gold tapestry; Five of the Cartoons were wrought here,
+and sent to Hampton Court, where they still remain. A suit of
+hangings, representing the Five Senses, executed here, was in the
+palace at Oatlands, and was sold in 1649 for L270. Rubens sketched
+eight pieces in Charles the First's reign for tapestry, to be woven
+here, of the history of Achilles, intended for one of the royal
+palaces. At Lord Ilchester's, at Redlinch, in Somersetshire, was a
+suit of hangings representing the twelve months in compartments; and
+there are several other sets of the same design. Williams, Archbishop
+of York, and Lord Keeper, paid Sir Francis Crane L2500 for the Four
+Seasons. At Knowl, in Kent, was a piece of the same tapestry wrought
+in silk, containing the portraits of Vandyck, and St. Francis himself.
+At Lord Shrewsbury's (Hoythorp, Oxfordshire) are, or were, four
+pieces of tapestry from designs by Vanderborght, representing the four
+quarters of the world, expressed by assemblages of the nations in
+various habits and employments, excepting Europe, which is in
+masquerade, wrought in chiaroscuro. And at Houghton (Lord Oxford's
+seat) were beautiful hangings containing whole lengths of King James,
+King Charles, their Queens, and the King of Denmark, with heads of the
+Royal Children in the borders. These are all mentioned incidentally as
+the production of the Mortlake establishment.
+
+After the death of Sir Francis Crane, his brother Sir Richard sold the
+premises to Charles I. During the civil wars, this work was seized as
+the property of the Crown; and though, after the Restoration, Charles
+II. endeavoured to revive the manufacture, and sent Verrio to sketch
+the designs, his intention was not carried into effect. The work,
+though languishing, was not altogether extinct; for in Mr. Evelyn's
+very scarce tract intituled "Mundus Muliebris," printed in 1690, some
+of this manufacture is amongst the articles to be furnished by a
+gallant to his mistress.
+
+One of the first acts of the Protectorate after the death of the king,
+was to dispose of the pictures, statues, tapestry hangings, and other
+splendid ornaments of the royal palaces. Cardinal Mazarine enriched
+himself with much of this royal plunder; and some of the splendid
+tapestry was purchased by the Archduke Leopold. This however found its
+way again to England, being repurchased at Brussels for L3000 by
+Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III.
+
+In 1663 "two well-intended statutes" were made: one for the
+encouragement of the linen and _tapestry manufactures_ of England, and
+discouragement of the importation of foreign tapestry:--and the
+other--start not, fair reader--the other "for regulating the packing
+of herrings."[83]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[75] See Smith's History of the Ancient Palace of Westminster.
+
+[76] But not from them would be derived the art of painting with the
+needle the representation of the human figure. Hence, perhaps, the
+awkward and ungainly aspect of these, in comparison with the arabesque
+patterns. From a fear of its exciting a tendency to idolatry Mohammed
+prohibited his followers from delineating the form of men or animals
+in their pictorial embellishments of whatever sort.
+
+[77] Von Raumer's Contributions, 297.
+
+[78] Sully's Memoirs. We have, in a subsequent chapter, a more full
+account of this Tapestry.
+
+[79] Gent's Mag., 1830.
+
+[80] Sully's Memoirs, vol. ii.
+
+[81] Sully's Memoirs, vol. iii.
+
+[82] Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. i. No. 26.
+
+[83] "The rich tapestry and arras hangings which belonged to St.
+James's Palace, Hampton Court, Whitehall, and other Royal Seats, were
+purchased for Cromwell: these were inventoried at a sum not exceeding
+L30,000. One piece of eight parts at Hampton Court was appraised at
+L8,260: this related to the History of Abraham. Another of ten parts,
+representing the History of Julius Caesar, was appraised at L5019."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ROMANCES WORKED IN TAPESTRY.
+
+    "And storied loves of knights and courtly dames,
+    Pageants and triumphs, tournaments and games."
+
+                        Rose's Partenopex.
+
+
+It has been a favourite practice of all antiquity to work with the
+needle representations of those subjects in which the imagination and
+the feelings were most interested. The labours of Penelope, of Helen,
+and Andromache, are proverbial, and this mode of giving permanency to
+the actions of illustrious individuals was not confined to the
+classical nations. The ancient islanders used to work--until the
+progress of art enabled them to weave the histories of their giants
+and champions in Tapestry; and the same thing is recorded of the old
+Persians; and this furniture is still in high request among many
+Oriental nations, especially in Japan and China. The royal palace of
+Jeddo has profusion of the finest Tapestry; this indeed is gorgeous,
+being wrought with silk, and adorned with pearls, gold, and silver.
+
+It was considered a right regal offering from one prince to another.
+Henry III., King of Castile, sent a present to Timour at Samarcand, of
+Tapestry which was considered to surpass even the works of Asiatic
+artists in beauty: and when the religious and military orders of some
+of the princes of France and Burgundy had plunged them into a kind of
+crusade against the Turkish Sultan Bajazet, and they became his
+prisoners in the battle of Nicopolis, the King of France sent presents
+to the Sultan, to induce him to ransom them; amongst which Tapestry
+representing the battles of Alexander the Great was the most
+conspicuous.
+
+Tapestry was not used in the halls of princes alone, but cut a very
+conspicuous figure on all occasions of festivity and rejoicing. It was
+customary at these times to hang ornamental needlework of all sorts
+from the windows or balconies of the houses of those streets through
+which a pageant or festal procession was to pass; and as the houses
+were then built with the upper stories far overhanging the lower ones,
+these draperies frequently hung in rich folds to the ground, and must
+have had, when a street was thus in its whole length appareled and
+partly roofed by the floating streamers and banners above--somewhat
+the appearance of a suite of magnificent saloons.
+
+    "Then the high street gay signs of triumph wore,
+      Covered with shewy cloths of different dye,
+    Which deck the walls, while Sylvan leaves in store,
+      And scented herbs upon the pavement lie.
+    Adorned in every window, every door,
+      With carpeting and finest drapery;
+    But more with ladies fair, and richly drest
+    In costly jewels and in gorgeous vest."
+
+When the Black Prince entered London with King John of France, as his
+prisoner, the outsides of the houses were covered with hangings,
+consisting of battles in tapestry-work.
+
+And in tournaments the lists were always decorated "with the splendid
+richness of feudal power. Besides the gorgeous array of heraldic
+insignia near the Champions' tents, the galleries, which were made to
+contain the proud and joyous spectators, were covered with tapestry,
+representing chivalry both in its warlike and its amorous guise: on
+one side the knight with his bright faulchion smiting away hosts of
+foes, and on the other side kneeling at the feet of beauty."
+
+But the subjects of the tapestry in which our ancestors so much
+delighted were not confined to _bona fide_ battles, and the
+matter-of-fact occurrences of every-day life. Oh no! The Lives of the
+Saints were frequently pourtrayed with all the legendary
+accompaniments which credulity and blind faith could invest them with.
+The "holy and solitary" St. Cuthbert would be seen taming the
+sea-monsters by his word of power: St. Dunstan would be in the very
+act of seizing the "handle" of his Infernal Majesty's face with the
+red-hot pincers; and St. Anthony in the "howling wilderness," would be
+reigning omnipotent over a whole legion of sprites. Here was food for
+the imagination and taste of our notable great-grandmother! Yet let us
+do them justice. If some of their religious pieces were imbued even to
+a ridiculous result, with the superstitions of the time, there were
+others, numberless others, scripture pieces, as chaste and beautiful
+in design, as elaborate in execution. The loom and needle united
+indeed brought these pieces to the highest perfection, but many a
+meek and saintly Madonna, many a lofty and energetic St. Paul, many a
+subdued and touching Magdalene were produced by the unaided industry
+of the pious needlewoman. Nay, the whole Bible was copied in
+needlework; and in a poem of the fifteenth century, by Henry Bradshaw,
+containing the Life of St. Werburgh, a daughter of the King of the
+Mercians, there is an account "rather historical than legendary,"[84]
+of many circumstances of the domestic life of the time. Amongst other
+descriptions is that of the tapestry displayed in the Abbey of Ely, on
+the occasion of St. Werburgh taking the veil there. This Tapestry
+belonged to king Wulfer, and was brought to Ely Monastery for the
+occasion. We subjoin some of the stanzas:--
+
+    "It were full tedyous, to make descrypcyon
+    Of the great tryumphes, and solempne royalte,
+    Belongynge to the feest, the honour and provysyon,
+    By playne declaracyon, upon every partye;
+    But the sothe to say, withouten ambyguyte,
+    All herbes and flowres, fragraunt, fayre, and swete,
+    Were strawed in halles, and layd under theyr fete.
+
+    "Clothes of golde and arras[85] were hanged in the hall
+    Depaynted with pyctures, and hystoryes manyfolde,
+    Well wroughte and craftely, with precious stones all
+    Glysteryng as Phebus, and the beten golde,
+    Lyke an erthly paradyse, pleasaunt to beholde:
+    As for the said moynes,[86] was not them amonge,
+    But prayenge in her cell, as done all novice yonge.
+
+    "The story of Adam, there was goodly wrought,
+    And of his wyfe Eve, bytwene them the serpent,
+    How they were deceyved, and to theyr peynes brought;
+    There was Cayn and Abell, offerynge theyr present,
+    The sacryfyce of Abell, accepte full evydent:
+    Tuball and Tubalcain were purtrayed in that place,
+    The inventours of musyke and crafte by great grace.
+
+    "Noe and his shyppe was made there curyously
+    Sendynge forthe a raven, whiche never came again;
+    And how the dove returned, with a braunche hastely,
+    A token of comforte and peace, to man certayne:
+    Abraham there was, standing upon the mount playne
+    To offer in sacrifice Isaac his dere sone,
+    And how the shepe for hym was offered in oblacyon.
+
+    "The twelve sones of Jacob there were in purtrayture,
+    And how into Egypt yonge Josephe was solde,
+    There was imprisoned, by a false conjectour,
+    After in all Egypte, was ruler (as is tolde).
+    There was in pycture Moyses wyse and bolde,
+    Our Lorde apperynge in bushe flammynge as fyre,
+    And nothing thereof brent, lefe, tree, nor spyre.[87]
+
+    "The ten plages of Egypt were well embost,
+    The chyldren of Israel passyng the reed see,
+    Kynge Pharoo drowned, with all his proude hoost,
+    And how the two table, at the Mounte Synaye
+    Were gyven to Moyses, and how soon to idolatry
+    The people were prone, and punysshed were therefore,
+    How Datan and Abyron, for pryde were full youre."[88]
+
+Then _Duke_ Joshua leading the Israelites: the division of the
+promised land; Kyng Saull and David, and "prudent Solomon;" Roboas
+succeeding;
+
+    "The good Kynge Esechyas and his generacyon,
+    And so to the Machabus, and dyvers other nacyon."
+
+All these
+
+    "Theyr noble actes, and tryumphes marcyall,
+    Freshly were browdred in these clothes royall."
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+    "But over the hye desse, in the pryncypall place,
+    Where the sayd thre kynges sate crowned all,
+    The best hallynge[89] hanged, as reason was,
+    Whereon were wrought the nine orders angelicall
+    Dyvyded in thre ierarchyses, not cessynge to call
+    _Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus_, blessed be the Trynite,
+    Dominius Deus Sabaoth, three persons in one deyte."
+
+Then followed in order our Blessed Lady, the twelve Apostles, "eche
+one in his figure," the four Evangelists "wrought most curyously," all
+the disciples
+
+    "Prechynge and techynge, unto every nacyon,
+    The faythtes[90] of holy chyrche, for their salvacyon."
+
+"Martyrs then followed, right manifolde;" Confessors "fressely
+embrodred in ryche tyshewe and fyne." Saintly virgins "were
+brothered[91] the clothes of gold within," and the long array was
+closed on the other side of the hall by
+
+    "Noble auncyent storyes, and how the stronge Sampson
+    Subdued his enemyes by his myghty power;
+    Of Hector of Troye, slayne by fals treason;
+    Of noble Arthur, kynge of this regyon;
+    With many other mo, which it is to longe
+    Playnly to expresse this tyme you amonge."
+
+But the powers of the chief proportion of needlewomen, and of many of
+the subsequent tapestry looms were devoted to giving permanence to
+those fables which, as exhibited in the Romances of Chivalry, formed
+the very life and delight of our ancestors in
+
+    "------that happy season
+    Ere bright Fancy bent to reason;
+    When the spirit of our stories,
+    Filled the mind with unseen glories;
+    Told of creatures of the air,
+    Spirits, fairies, goblins rare,
+    Guarding man with tenderest care."
+
+These fables, says Warton, were not only perpetually repeated at the
+festivals of our ancestors, but were the constant objects of their
+eyes. The very walls of their apartments were clothed with romantic
+history.
+
+We have mentioned the history of Alexander in Tapestry as forming an
+important part of the peace offering of the king of France to Bajazet,
+and probably there were few princes who did not possess a suit of
+tapestry on this subject; a most important one in romance, and
+consequently a desired one for the loom.
+
+There seems an innate propensity in the writers of the Romance of
+Chivalry to exaggerate, almost to distortion, the achievements of
+those whose heroic bearing needed no pomp of diction, or wild flow of
+imagination to illustrate it. Thus Charlemagne, one of the best and
+greatest of men, appears in romance like one whose thirst for
+slaughter it requires myriads of "Paynims" to quench.
+
+Arthur, on the contrary, a very (if history tell truth) a very "so-so"
+sort of a man, having not one tithe of the intellect or the
+magnanimity of him to whom we have just referred--Arthur is invested
+in romance with a halo of interest and of beauty which is perfectly
+fascinating; and it seems almost impossible to divest oneself of these
+impressions and to look upon him only in the unattractive light in
+which history represents him.
+
+A person not initiated in romance would suppose that the real actions
+of Alexander--the subjugator of Greece, the conqueror of Persia, the
+captor of the great Darius, but the generous protector of his
+family--might sufficiently immortalize him. By no means. He cuts a
+considerable figure in many romances; but in one, appropriated more
+exclusively to his exploits, he "surpasses himself." The world was
+conquered:--from north to south, and from east to west his sovereignty
+was acknowledged; so he forthwith flew up into the air to bring the
+aerial potentates to his feet. But this experiment not answering, he
+descended to the depths of the waters with much better success; for
+immediately all their inhabitants, from the whale to the herring, the
+cannibal shark, the voracious pike, the majestic sturgeon, the lordly
+salmon, the rich turbot, and the delicate trout, with all their kith,
+kin, relations, and allies, the lobster, the crab, and the muscle,
+
+    "The sounds and seas with all their finny drove"
+
+crowd round him to do him homage: the oyster lays her pearl at his
+feet, and the coral boughs meekly wave in token of subjection.
+Doubtless in addition to the legitimate "battles" these exploits, if
+not fully displayed, were intimated by symbols in the Tapestry.
+
+The Tale of Troy was a very favourite subject for Tapestry, and was
+found in many noble mansions, especially in France. It has indeed been
+conjectured, and on sufficient grounds, that the whole Iliad had been
+wrought in a consecutive series of hangings. Though during the early
+part of the middle ages Homer himself was lost, still the "Tale of
+Troy divine" was kept alive in two Latin works, which in 1260 formed
+the basis of a prose romance by a Sicilian.
+
+The great original himself however, had become the companion not only
+of the studious and learned, but also of the fair and fashionable,
+while yet the Flemish looms were in the zenith of their popularity.
+This subject formed part of the decoration of Holyrood House, on the
+occasion of the marriage of Henry the Seventh's daughter to James,
+King of Scotland in 1503. We are told in an ancient record, that the
+"hanginge of the queene's gret chammer represented the ystory of Troye
+toune, that the king's grett chammer had one table, wer was satt, hys
+chamerlayne, the grett sqyer, and many others, well served; the which
+chammer was haunged about with the story of Hercules, together with
+other ystorys." And at the same solemnity, "in the hall wher the
+qwene's company wer satt in lyke as in the other, an wich was haunged
+of the history of Hercules."
+
+The tragic and fearful story of Coucy's heart gave rise to an old
+metrical English Romance, called the 'Knight of Courtesy and the Lady
+of Faguel.' It was entirely represented in tapestry. The incident, a
+true one, on which it was founded, occurred about 1180; and was
+thus:--
+
+"Some hundred and odd years since, there was in France one Captain
+Coucy, a gallant gentleman of an ancient extraction, and keeper of
+Coucy Castle, which is yet standing, and in good repair. He fell in
+love with a young gentlewoman, and courted her for his wife. There was
+a reciprocal love between them; but her parents understanding of it,
+by way of prevention, they shuffled up a forced match 'twixt her and
+one Monsieur Faiell who was a great heir: Captain Coucy hereupon
+quitted France in discontent, and went to the wars in Hungary against
+the Turk; where he received a mortal wound, not far from Bada. Being
+carried to his lodging, he languished for some days; but a little
+before his death he spoke to an ancient servant of his, that he had
+many proofs of his fidelity and truth; but now he had a great business
+to intrust him with, which he conjured him by all means to do, which
+was, That after his death, he should get his body to be opened and
+then to take his heart out of his breast, and put in an earthen pot,
+to be baked to powder; and then to put the powder in a handsome box,
+with that bracelet of hair he had worn long about on his left wrist,
+which was a lock of Mademoiselle Faiell's hair, and put it among the
+powder, together with a little note he had written with his own blood
+to her; and after he had given him the rites of burial, to make all
+the speed he could to France, and deliver the box to Mademoiselle
+Faiell. The old servant did as his master had commanded him, and so
+went to France; and coming one day to Monsieur Faiell's house, he
+suddenly met with him, who examined him because he knew he was Captain
+Coucy's servant, and finding him timorous and faltering in his
+speech, he searched him, and found the said box in his pocket with the
+note, which expressed what was therein. He dismissed the bearer with
+menaces, that he should come no more near his house: Monsieur Faiell
+going in, sent for his cook, and delivered him the powder, charging
+him to make a little well-relished dish of it, without losing a jot of
+it, for it was a very costly thing; and commanded him to bring it in
+himself, after the last course at supper. The cook bringing in the
+dish accordingly, Monsieur Faiell commanded all to void the room, and
+began a serious discourse with his wife: However since he had married
+her, he observed she was always melancholy, and he feared she was
+inclining to a consumption; therefore he had provided for her a very
+precious cordial, which he was well assured would cure her. Thereupon
+he made her eat up the whole dish; and afterwards much importuning him
+to know what it was, he told her at last, she had eaten Coucy's heart,
+and so drew the box out of his pocket, and showed her the note and
+bracelet. In a sudden exultation of joy, she with a far-fetched sigh
+said, '_This is precious indeed_,' and so licked the dish, saying,
+'_It is so precious, that 'tis pity to put ever any meat upon 't_.' So
+she went to bed, and in the morning she was found stone dead."[92]
+
+But a more national, a more inspiriting, and a more agreeable theme
+for the alert finger or the busy loom is found in the life and
+adventures of that prince of combatants, that hero of all heroes, Guy
+Earl of Warwick. Help me, shades of renowned slaughterers, whilst I
+record his achievements! Bear witness to his deed, ye grisly phantoms,
+ye bloody ghosts of infidel Paynims, whom his Christian sword mowed
+down, even as corn falls beneath the the reaper's sickle, till the
+redoubtable champion strode breast deep in bodies over fifteen acres
+covered with slaughtered foes![93] And all this from Christian zeal!
+
+    "In faith of Christ a Christian true
+      The wicked laws of infidels,
+    He sought by power to subdue.
+
+    "So passed he the seas of Greece,
+      To help the Emperour to his right,
+    Against the mighty Soldan's host
+      Of puissant Persians for to fight:
+    Where he did slay of Sarazens
+      And heathen Pagans many a man,
+    And slew the Soldan's cousin dear,
+      Who had to name, Doughty Colbron.
+
+    "Ezkeldered that famous knight,
+      To death likewise he did pursue,
+    And Almain, king of Tyre also,
+      Most terrible too in fight to view:
+    He went into the Soldan's host,
+      Being thither on ambassage sent,
+    And brought away his head with him,
+      He having slain him in his tent."
+
+Or passing by his
+
+    "Feats of arms
+    In strange and sundry heathen lands,"
+
+note his beneficent progress at home--
+
+    "In Windsor forest he did slay
+      A boar of passing might and strength;
+    The like in England never was,
+      For hugeness both in breadth and length.
+    Some of his bones in Warwick yet,
+      Within the castle there do lye;
+    One of his shield bones to this day
+      Hangs in the city of Coventry.
+
+    "On Dunsmore heath he also slew
+      A monstrous wild and cruel beast,
+    Call'd the dun cow of Dunsmore heath,
+      Which many people had opprest;
+    Some of her bones in Warwick yet
+      Still for a monument doth lie,
+    Which unto every looker's view,
+      As wondrous strange they may espy.
+
+    "And the dragon in the land,
+      He also did in flight destroy,
+    Which did both men and beasts oppress,
+      And all the country sore annoy:"
+
+Or look we at him all doughty as he was, as the pilgrim of love, as
+subdued by the influence of the tender passion, a suppliant to the
+gentle Phillis, and ready to compass the earth to fulfil her wishes,
+and to prove his devotion:
+
+    "Was ever knight for lady's sake
+      So tost in love, as I, Sir Guy;
+    For Phillis fair, that Lady bright,
+      As ever man beheld with eye;
+    She gave me leave myself to try
+      The valiant knight with shield and spear,
+    Ere that her love she would grant me,
+      Who made me venture far and near."
+
+Or, afterwards view him as--
+
+    "All clad in grey in Pilgrim sort,
+      His voyage from her he did take,
+    Unto that blessed, holy land,
+      For Jesus Christ, his Saviour's sake."
+
+Lastly, recal we the time when the fierce and ruthless Danes were
+ravaging our land, and there was scarce a town or castle as far as
+Winchester, which they had not plundered or burnt, and a proposal was
+made, and per force acceded to by the English king to decide the
+struggle by single combat. But the odds were great: Colbrand the
+Danish champion, was a giant, and ere he came to a combat he provided
+himself with a cart-load of Danish axes, great clubs with knobs of
+iron, squared barrs of steel lances and iron hooks wherewith to pull
+his adversary to him.
+
+On the other hand the English--and sleepless and unhappy, the king
+Athelstan pondered the circumstance as he lay on his couch, on St.
+John Baptist's night--had no champion forthcoming, even though the
+county of Hants had been promised as a reward to the victor. Roland,
+the most valiant knight of a thousand, was dead; Heraud, the pride of
+the nation, was abroad; and the great and valiant Guy, Earl of
+Warwick, was gone on a pilgrimage. The monarch was perplexed and
+sorrowful; but an angel appeared to him and comforted him.
+
+In conformity with the injunctions of this gracious messenger, the
+king, attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of
+Chichester, placed himself at the north gate of the city (Winchester)
+at the hour of prime. Divers poor people and pilgrims entered thereat,
+and among the rest appeared a man of noble visage and stalwart frame,
+but wan withal, pale with abstinence, and macerated by reason of
+journeying barefoot. His beard was venerably long and he rested on a
+staff; he wore a pilgrim's garb, and on his bare and venerable head
+was strung a chaplet of white roses. Bending low, he passed the gate,
+but the king warned by the vision, hastened to him, and entreated him
+"by his love for Jesus Christ, by the devotion of his pilgrimage, and
+for the preservation of all England, to do battle with the giant." The
+Palmer thus conjured, underwent the combat, and was victorious.
+
+After a solemn procession to the Cathedral, and thanksgiving therein,
+when he offered his weapon to God and the patron of the Church, before
+the High Altar, the pilgrim withdrew, having revealed himself to none
+but the king, and that under a solemn pledge of secrecy. He bent his
+course towards Warwick, and unknown in his disguise, took alms at the
+hands of his own lady--for, reader, this meek and holy pilgrim, was
+none other than the wholesale slayer, whose deeds we have been
+contemplating--and then retired to a solitary place hard by--
+
+    "Where with his hand he hew'd a house,
+      Out of a craggy rock of stone;
+    And lived like a palmer poor,
+      Within that cave himself alone."
+
+Nor was this at all an unusual conclusion to a life of butchery; all
+the heroes of romance turned hermits; and as they all, at least all of
+Arthur's Round Table, were gifted with a very striking development of
+the organ of combativeness, their profound piety at the end of their
+career might not improbably give rise to a very common adage of these
+days regarding sinners and saints.
+
+But here was a theme for Tapestry-workers! a real original, genuine
+English romance; for though the only pieces now extant be, or may be,
+translated from the French, still there are many concurring
+circumstances to prove that the original, often quoted by Chaucer, was
+an ancient metrical English one. That it is difficult to find who Sir
+Guy was, or in fact, to prove that there ever was a Sir Guy at all, is
+nothing to the purpose; leave we that to antiquarians, and their musty
+folios. Guy of Warwick was well known from west to east, even as far
+as Jerusalem, where, in Henry the Fourth's time, Lord Beauchamp was
+kindly received by those in high stations, because he was descended
+from
+
+    "A shadowy ancestor, so renowned as Guy."
+
+One tapestry on this attractive subject which was in Warwick Castle,
+before the year 1398, was so distinguished and valued a piece of
+furniture, that a special grant was made of it by King Richard II.
+conveying "that suit of arras hangings in Warwick Castle, which
+contained the story of Guy Earl of Warwick," together with the Castle
+of Warwick and other possessions, to Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent. And
+in the restoration of forfeited property to this lord after his
+imprisonment, these hangings are particularly specified in the patent
+of King Henry IV., dated 1399.
+
+And the Castle wherein the tapestry was hung was worthy of the heroes
+it had sheltered. The first building on the site was supposed to be
+coeval with our Saviour, and was called Caer-leon; almost overthrown
+by the Picts and Scots, it lay in ruins till Caractacus built himself
+a manor-house, and founded a church to the honour of St. John the
+Baptist. Here was afterwards a Roman fort, and here again was a
+Pictish devastation. A cousin of King Arthur rebuilt it, and then
+lived in it--Arthgal, first Earl of Warwick, a Knight of the Round
+Table; this British title was equivalent to _Ursus_ in Latin, whence
+Arthgal took the Bear for his ensign: and a successor of his, a worthy
+progenitor of our valiant Sir Guy, slew a mighty giant in a duel; and
+because this giant's delicate weapon was a tree pulled up by the
+roots, the boughs being snagged from it, the Earls of Warwick,
+successors of the victor, bore a ragged staff of silver in a sable
+shield for their cognisance.
+
+We are told that,--
+
+    "When Arthur first in court began,
+      And was approved king,
+    By force of arms great victoryes wanne,
+      And conquest home did bring.
+    Then into England straight he came
+      With fifty good and able
+    Knights, that resorted unto him,
+      And were of his round table."
+
+Of these the most renowned were Syr Perceval, Syr Tristan, Syr
+Launcelot du Lac, Syr Ywain, Syr Gawain, Syr Galaas, Syr Meliadus of
+Leonnoys, Sir Ysaie, Syr Gyron, &c. &c., and their various and
+wondrous achievements were woven into a series of tales which are
+known as the "Romances of the Round Table." Of course the main subject
+of each tale is interrupted by ten thousand varied episodes, in which
+very often the original object seems entirely lost sight of. Then the
+construction of many of these Romances, or rather their want of
+construction, is marvellous; their genealogies are interminable, and
+their geography miraculous.
+
+One of the most marvellous and scarce of these Romances, and one, the
+principal passages of which were frequently wrought into Tapestry, was
+the "Roman du Saint Greal," which is founded upon an incident, to say
+the least very peculiar, but which was perhaps once considered true as
+Holy Writ. St. Joseph of Arimathoea, a very important personage in
+many romances, having obtained the hanap, or cup from which our
+Saviour administered the wine to his disciples, caught in the same cup
+the blood which flowed from his wounds when on the Cross. After he had
+first achieved various adventures, and undergone an imprisonment of
+forty-two years, St. Joseph arrives in England with the sacred cup, by
+means of which numerous miracles are performed; he prepares the Round
+Table, and Arthur and his Knights all go in quest of the hanap, which
+by some, to us unaccountable, circumstance, had fallen into the hands
+of a sinner. All make the most solemn vow to devote their lives to its
+recovery; and this they must indeed have done, and not short lives
+either, if all recorded of them be true. None, however, but two, ever
+_see_ the sacred symbol; though oftentimes a soft ray of light would
+stream across the lonesome wild, or the dark pathless forest, or
+unearthly strains would float on the air, or odours as of Paradise
+would entrance the senses, while the wandering and woeworn knight
+would feel all fatigue, all sense of personal inconvenience, of pain,
+of sickness, or of sorrow, vanish on the instant; and then would he
+renew his vows, and betake himself to prayer; for though all unworthy
+to see the Holy Grayle, he would feel that it had been borne on
+viewless pinions through the air for his individual consolation and
+hope. And Syr Galahad and Syr Perceval, the two chaste and favoured
+knights who, "after the dedely flesshe had beheld the spiritual
+things," the holy St. Grael--never returned to converse with the
+world. The first departed to God, and "flights of angels sang him to
+his rest;" the other took religious clothing and retired to a
+hermitage, where, after living "a full holy life for a yere and two
+moneths, he passed out of this world."
+
+But wide as is the range of the Romances of the "Round Table," they
+form but a portion of those which solaced our ancestors. Charlemagne
+and his Paladins were, so to speak, the solar system round which
+another circle revolved; Alexander furnished the radiating star for
+another, derived chiefly perhaps from the East, where numbers of
+fictitious tales were prevalent about him; and many Romances were
+likewise woven around the mangled remains of classic heroes.
+
+    "The mightiest chiefs of British song
+    Scorn'd not such legends to prolong;
+    They gleam through Spenser's elfic dream,
+    And mix in Milton's heavenly theme;
+    And Dryden in immortal strain,
+    Had raised the 'Table Round' again."
+
+The Stories of the Tapestry in the Royal Palaces of Henry VIII. are
+preserved in the British Museum.[94]
+
+These are some of them re-copied from Warton:--
+
+In the tapestry of the Tower of London, the original and most ancient
+seat of our monarchs, there are recited, Godfrey of Bulloign; the
+Three Kings of Cologne; the Emperor Constantine; St. George; King of
+Erkenwald; the History of Hercules; Fame and Honour; the Triumph of
+Divinity; Esther and Ahasueras; Jupiter and Juno; St. George; the
+Eight Kings; the Ten Kings of France; the Birth of our Lord; Duke
+Joshua; the Riche History of King David; the Seven Deadly Sins; the
+Riche History of the Passion; the Stem of Jesse; Our Lady and Son;
+King Solomon; the Woman of Canony; Meleager; and the Dance of
+Maccabee.
+
+At Durham Place were the Citie of Ladies (a French allegorical
+Romance); the Tapestrie of Thebes and of Troy; the City of Peace; the
+Prodigal Son; Esther, and other pieces of Scripture.
+
+At Windsor Castle the Siege of Jerusalem; Ahasueras; Charlemagne; the
+Siege of Troy; and Hawking and Hunting.
+
+At Nottingham Castle, Amys and Amelion.
+
+At Woodstock Manor, the tapestrie of Charlemagne.
+
+At the More, a palace in Hertfordshire, King Arthur, Hercules,
+Astyages, and Cyrus.
+
+At Richmond, the arras of Sir Bevis, and Virtue and Vice fighting.
+
+Among the rest we have also Hannibal, Holofernes, Romulus and Remus,
+AEneas, and Susannah.
+
+Many of these subjects were repeated at Westminster, Greenwich,
+Oatlands, Bedington in Surrey, and other royal seats, some of which
+are now unknown as such.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[84] Warton.
+
+[85] Arras, a very common anachronism. After the production of the
+arras tapestries, arras became the common name for all tapestries:
+even for those which were wrought before the looms of Arras were in
+existence.
+
+[86] Moynes--nun. Lady Werburg
+
+[87] _Spyre_--twig, branch.
+
+[88] _Youre_--burnt.
+
+[89] _Hallynge_--Tapestry.
+
+[90] _Faythtes_--feats, facts.
+
+[91] _Brothered_--embroidered.
+
+[92] Epistolae Ho-Elianae.
+
+[93] "Fifteen acres were covered with the bodies of slaughtered
+Saracens; and so furious were the strokes of Sir Guy, that the pile of
+dead men, wherever his sword had reached, rose as high as his
+breast."--Ellis, vol. ii.
+
+[94] Harl. MSS. 1419.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+NEEDLEWORK IN COSTUME.--PART I.
+
+    "What neede these velvets, silkes, or lawne,
+    Embrodery, feathers, fringe and lace."
+
+                        Bp. Hall.
+
+    "Time was, when clothing sumptuous or for use,
+    Save their own painted skins, our Sires had none.
+    As yet black breeches were not."
+
+                        Cowper.
+
+
+Manifold indeed were the varieties in mode and material before that
+_beau ideal_ of all that is graceful and becoming--the "black
+breeches"--were invented. For though in many parts of the globe
+costume is uniform, and the vest and the turban of a thousand years
+ago are of much the same make as now, this is not the case in the more
+polished parts of Europe, where that "turncoat whirligig maniac,
+yclept Fashion," is the pole-star and beacon of the multitude of men,
+from him who has the "last new cut from Stultz," to him who is
+magnificent and happy in the "reg'lar bang-up-go" from the eastern
+parts of the metropolis.
+
+It would seem that England is peculiarly celebrated for her devotion
+at Fashion's shrine; for we are told that "an Englishman, endevoring
+sometime to write of our attire, made sundrie platformes for his
+purpose, supposing by some of them to find out one stedfast ground
+whereon to build the summe of his discourse. But in the end (like an
+orator long without exercise) when he saw what a difficult peece of
+worke he had taken in hand, he gave over his travell, and onely drue
+the picture of a naked man, unto whome he gave a paire of sheares in
+the one hand, and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end he should
+shape his apparell after such fashion as himselfe liked, sith he could
+find no kind of garment that could please him anie while together, and
+this he called an Englishman. Certes this writer shewed himself herein
+not to be altogether void of iudgement, sith the phantasticall follie
+of our nation, even from the courtier to the carter, is such, that no
+forme of apparell liketh vs longer than the first garment is in the
+wearing, if it continue so long and be not laid aside, to receive some
+other trinket newlie devised.
+
+"And as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a world to see
+the costlinesse and the curiositie; the excesse and the vanitie; the
+pompe and the brauerie; the change and the varietie; and, finallie,
+the ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees; insomuch that
+nothing is more constant in England than inconstancie of attire.
+
+"In women, also, it in most to be lamented, that they doo now far
+exceed the lightnesse of our men (who nevertheless are transformed
+from the cap even to the verie shoo) and such staring attire as in
+time past was supposed meet for none but light housewives onlie, is
+now become a habit for chast and sober matrons.
+
+"Thus _it is now come to passe, that women are become men, and men
+transformed into monsters_."
+
+This ever-revolving wheel is still turning; and so all-important now
+is THE MODE that one half of the world is fully occupied in providing
+for the personal embellishment of the other half and themselves; and
+could we contemplate the possibility of a return to the primitive
+simplicity of our ancient "sires," we must look in the same picture on
+one half of the world as useless--as a drug on the face of creation.
+Why, what a desert would it be were all dyers, fullers, cleaners,
+spinners, weavers, printers, mercers and milliners, haberdashers and
+modistes, silk-men and manufacturers, cotton-lords and fustian-men,
+tailors and habit makers, mantuamakers and corset professors,
+exploded? We pass over pin and needle makers, comb and brush
+manufacturers, jewellers, &c. The ladies would have nothing to live
+for; (for on grave authority it has been said, that "woman is an
+animal that delights in the toilette;") the gentlemen nothing to
+solace them. "The toilette" is the very zest of life with both; and if
+ladies are more successful in the results of their devoirs to it, it
+is because "nous sommes faites pour embellir le monde," and not
+because gentlemen practice its duties with less zeal, devotion, or
+assiduity--as many a valet can testify when contemplating his modish
+patron's daily heap of "failures." Indeed to put out of view the more
+obvious, weighty, and important cares attached to the due selection
+and arrangement of coats, waistcoats, and indispensables, the science
+of "Cravatiana" alone is one which makes heavy claims on the time,
+talents, and energies of the thorough-going gentleman of fashion. He
+should be thoroughly versed in all its varieties--The Royal George:
+The Plain Bow: The Military: The Ball Room: The Corsican: The
+Hibernian Tie: The Eastern Tie: The Hunting Tie: The Yankee Tie: (the
+"alone original" one)--The Osbaldiston Tie: The Mail Coach Tie: The
+Indian Tie, &c. &c. &c.
+
+Though of these and their numberless offshoots, the Yankee Tie lays
+most claim to originality, the Ball Room one is considered the most
+exquisite, and requires the greatest practice. It is thus described by
+a "talented" professor:--
+
+"The cloth, of virgin white, well starched and folded to the proper
+depth, should be made to sit easy and graceful on the neck, neither
+too tight nor loose; but with a gentle pressure, curving inwards from
+the further extension of the chin, down the throat to the centre dent
+in the middle of the neck. This should be the point for a slight dent,
+extending from under each ear, between which, more immediately under
+the chin, there should be another slight horizontal dent just above
+the former one. It has no tie; the ends, crossing each other in broad
+folds in front, are secured to the braces, or behind the back, by
+means of a piece of white tape. A brilliant broach or pin is generally
+made use of to secure more effectually the crossing, as well as to
+give an additional effect to the neckcloth."
+
+What a world of wit and invention--what a fund of fancy and
+taste--what a mine of zeal and ability would be lost to the world, "if
+those troublesome disguises which we wear" were reduced to their old
+simplicity of form and material! Industry and talent would be at
+discount, for want of materials whereon to display themselves; and
+money would be such a drug, that politicians would declaim on the
+miseries of being _without_ a national debt. Commerce, in many of its
+most important branches, would be exploded; the "manufacturing
+districts" would be annihilated; the "agricultural interest" would,
+consequently and necessarily, be at a "very low ebb;" and the "New
+World," the magnificent and imperial empress (that is to be) of the
+whole earth, might sink again to the embraces of those minute and
+wonderful artificers from whom, I suppose, she at first proceeded--the
+coral insects; for who would want cotton! No, no. Selfish preferences,
+individual wishes, must merge in the general good of the human race;
+and however "their own painted skins" might suffice our "sires,"
+clothing, "sumptuous," as well as "for use," must decorate ourselves.
+
+To whom, then, are the fullers, the dyers, the cleaners--to whom are
+the spinners and weavers, and printers and mercers, and milliners and
+haberdashers, and modistes, and silk-men and manufacturers, cotton
+lords and fustian men, mantuamakers and corset professors, indebted
+for that nameless grace, that exquisite finish and appropriateness,
+which gives to all their productions their charm and their
+utility?--To the NEEDLEWOMAN, assuredly. For though the raw materials
+have been grown at Sea Island and shipped at New York,--have been
+consigned to the Liverpool broker and sold to the Manchester merchant,
+and turned over to the manufacturer, and spun and woven, and bleached
+and printed, and placed in the custody of the warehouseman, or on the
+shelf of the shopkeeper--of what good would it be that we had a
+fifty-yard length of calico to shade our oppressed limbs on a
+"dog-day," if we had not the means also to render that material
+agreeably available? Yet not content with merely rendering it
+available, this beneficent fairy, the needlewoman, casts, "as if by
+the spell of enchantment, that ineffable grace over beauty which the
+choice and arrangement of dress is calculated to bestow." For the love
+of becoming ornament--we quote no less an authority than the historian
+of the 'State of Europe in the Middle Ages,'--"is not, perhaps, to be
+regarded in the light of vanity; it is rather an instinct which woman
+has received from Nature to give effect to those charms which are her
+defence." And if it be necessary to woman with her charms, is it not
+tenfold necessary to those who--Heaven help them!--have few charms
+whereof to boast? For, as Harrison says, "it is now come to passe that
+men are transformed into monsters."
+
+"Better be out of the world than out of the fashion," is a proverb
+which, from the universal assent which has in all ages been given to
+it, has now the force of an axiom. It was this self evident
+proposition which emboldened the beau of the fourteenth century, in
+spite of the prohibitions of popes and senators,--in spite of the more
+touching personal inconvenience, and even risk and danger, attendant
+thereupon--to persist in wearing shoes of so preposterous a length,
+that the toes were obliged to be fastened with chains to the girdle
+ere the happy votary of fashion could walk across his own parlour!
+Happy was the favourite of Croesus, who could display chain upon
+chain of massy gold wreathed and intertwined from the waistband to
+the shoe, until he seemed almost weighed down by the burthen of his
+own wealth. Wrought silver did excellently well for those who could
+not produce gold; and for those who possessed not either precious
+metal, and who yet felt they "might as well be out of the world as out
+of the fashion," latteen chains, silken cords, aye, and cords of even
+less costly description, were pressed into service to tie up the
+_crackowes_, or piked shoes. For in that day, as in this, "the squire
+endeavours to outshine the knight, the knight the baron, the baron the
+earl, the earl the king, in dress." To complete the outrageous
+absurdity of these shoes, the upper parts of them were cut in
+imitation of a church-window, to which fashion Chaucer refers when
+describing the dress of Absalom, the Parish Clerk. He--
+
+    "Had Paul 'is windowes corven on his shose."
+
+Despite the decrees of councils, the bulls of the Pope, and the
+declamations of the Clergy, this ridiculous fashion was in vogue near
+three centuries.
+
+And the party-coloured hose, which were worn about the same time, were
+a fitting accompaniment for the crackowes. We feel some difficulty in
+realising the idea that gentlemen, only some half century ago, really
+dressed in the gay and showy habiliments which are now indicative only
+of a footman; but it is more difficult to believe, what was
+nevertheless the fact, that the most absurd costume in which the
+"fool" by profession can now be decked on the stage, can hardly
+compete in absurdity with the _outre_ costume of a beau or a belle of
+the fourteenth century. The shoes we have referred to: the garments,
+male or female, were divided in the middle down the whole length of
+the person, and one half of the body was clothed in one colour, the
+other half in the most opposite one that could be selected. The men's
+garments fitted close to the shape; and while one leg and thigh
+rejoiced in flaming yellow or sky-blue, the other blushed in deep
+crimson. John of Gaunt is portrayed in a habit, one half white, the
+other a dark blue; and Mr. Strutt has an engraving of a group
+assembled on a memorable occasion, where one of the figures has a boot
+on one leg and a shoe on the other. The Dauphiness of Auvergne, wife
+to Louis the Good, Duke of Bourbon, born 1360, is painted in a garb of
+which one half all the way down is blue, powdered with gold
+fleurs-de-lys, and the other half to the waist is gold, with a blue
+fish or dolphin (a cognizance, doubtless) on it, and from the waist to
+the feet is crimson, with white "fishy" ornaments; one sleeve is blue
+and gold, the other crimson and gold.
+
+In addition to these absurd garments, the women dressed their heads so
+high that they were obliged to wear a sort of curved horn on each
+side, in order to support the enormous superstructure of feathers and
+furbelows. And these are what are meant by the "horned head-dresses"
+so often referred to in old authors. It is said that, when Isabel of
+Bavaria kept her court at Vincennes, A.D. 1416, it was necessary to
+make all the doors of the palace both higher and wider, to admit the
+head-dresses of the queen and her ladies, which were all of this
+horned kind.
+
+This high bonnet had been worn, under various modifications, ever
+since the fashion was brought from the East in the time of the
+Crusades. Some were of a sugar-loaf form, three feet in height; and
+some cylindrical, but still very high. The French modistes of that day
+called this formidable head-gear _bonnet a la Syrienne_. But our
+author says, if female vanity be violently restrained in one point, it
+is sure to break out in another; and Romish anathemas having abolished
+curls from shading fair brows, so much the more attention was paid to
+head-gear, that the bonnets and caps increased every year most awfully
+in height and size, and were made in the form of crescents, pyramids,
+and horns of such tremendous dimensions, that the old chronicler
+Juvenal des Ursins makes this pathetic lamentation in his History of
+Charles VI.:--
+
+"Et avoient les dames et damoyselles de chacun coste, deux grandes
+oreilles si larges, que quand elles vouloient passer par l'huis d'une
+chambre il fallait qu'elles se tournassent de coste et baisassent, ou
+elles n'eussent pu passer:" that is, "on every side old ladies and
+young ladies were seen with such high and monstrous ears (or horns),
+that when they wanted to enter a room they were obliged perforce to
+stoop and crouch sideways, or they could not pass." At last a regular
+attack was made on the high head-gear of the fifteenth century by a
+popular monk, in his sermons at Notre Dame, in which he so
+pathetically lamented the sinfulness and enormities of such a fashion,
+that the ladies, to show their contrition, made _auto da fes_ of their
+Syrian bonnets in the public squares and market-places; and as the
+Church fulminated against them all over Europe, the example of Paris
+was universally followed.
+
+Many attempts had previously been made by zealous preachers to effect
+this alteration. In the previous century a Carmelite in the province
+of Bretagne preached against this fashion, without the power to
+annihilate it: all that the ladies did was to change the particular
+shape of the huge coiffures after every sermon. "No sooner," says the
+chronicler, "had he departed from one district, than the dames and
+damoyselles, who, like frightened snails, had drawn in their horns,
+shot them out again longer than ever; for nowhere were the _hennins_
+(so called, abbreviated from _gehinnin_, incommodious,) larger, more
+pompous or proud, than in the cities through which the Carmelite had
+passed.
+
+"All the world was totally reversed and disordered by these fashions,
+and above all things by the strange accoutrements on the heads of the
+ladies. It was a portentous time, for some carried huge towers on
+their foreheads an ell high; others still higher caps, with sharp
+points, like staples, from the top of which streamed long crapes,
+fringed with gold, like banners. Alas, alas! ladies, dames, and
+demoiselles were of importance in those days! When do we hear, in the
+present times, of Church and State interfering to regulate the
+patterns of their bonnets?"[95]
+
+It is no wonder that fashions so very extreme and absurd should call
+forth animadversion from various quarters. Thus wrote Petrarch in
+1366:--
+
+"Who can see with patience the monstrous, fantastical inventions which
+the people of our times have invented to deform, rather than adorn,
+their persons? Who can behold without indignation their long pointed
+shoes; their caps with feathers; their hair twisted and hanging down
+like tails; the foreheads of young men, as well as women, formed into
+a kind of furrows with ivory-headed pins; their bellies so cruelly
+squeezed with cords, that they suffer as much pain from vanity as the
+martyrs suffered for religion? Our ancestors would not have believed,
+and I know not if posterity will believe, that it was possible for the
+wit of this vain generation of ours to invent so many base, barbarous,
+horrid, ridiculous fashions (besides those already mentioned) to
+disfigure and disgrace itself, as we have the mortification to see
+every day."
+
+And thus Chaucer, a few years later:--
+
+"Alass! may not a man see as in our daies the sinnefull costlew array
+of clothing, and namely in too much superfluite, or else in too
+disordinate scantinese: as to the first, not only the cost of
+embraudering, the disguysed indenting, or barring, ounding, playting,
+wynding, or bending, and semblable waste of clothe in vanitie." The
+common people also "were besotted in excesse of apparell, in wide
+surcoats reaching to their loines, some in a garment reaching to their
+heels, close before and strowting out on the sides, so that on the
+back they make men seem women, and this they called by a ridiculous
+name, _gowne_," &c. &c.
+
+Before this time the legislature had interfered, though with little
+success: they passed laws at Westminster, which were said to be made
+"to prevent that destruction and poverty with which the whole kingdom
+was threatened, by the outrageous, excessive expenses of many persons
+in their apparel, above their ranks and fortunes."
+
+Sumptuary edicts, however, are of little avail, if not supported in
+"influential quarters." King Richard II. affected the utmost splendour
+of attire, and he had one coat alone which was valued at 30,000 marks:
+it was richly embroidered and inwrought with gold and precious stones.
+It is not in human nature, at least in human nature of the "more
+honourable" gender, to be outdone, even by a king. Gorgeous and
+glittering was the raiment adopted by the satellites of the court,
+and, heedless of "that destruction and poverty with which the whole
+kingdom was threatened," they revelled in magnificence. Of one alone,
+Sir John Arundel, it is recorded, that he had at one time fifty-two
+suits of cloth of gold tissue. At this time, says the old Chronicle,
+
+    "Cut werke was great bothe in court and tounes,
+    Bothe in mens hoddes, and also in their gounes,
+    Brouder and furres, and gold smith werke ay newe,
+    In many a wyse, eche day they did renewe."
+
+Unaccountable as it may seem, this rage of expense and show in apparel
+reached even the (then) poverty-stricken sister country Scotland; and
+in 1457 laws were enacted to suppress it.
+
+It is told of William Rufus, that one morning while putting on his new
+boots he asked his chamberlain what they cost; and when he replied
+"three shillings," indignantly and in a rage he cried out, "you--how
+long has the king worn boots of so paltry a price? Go, and bring me a
+pair worth a mark of silver." He went, and bringing him a much
+cheaper pair, told him falsely that they cost as much as he had
+ordered: "Ay," said the king, "these are suitable to royal majesty."
+
+This is merely a specimen of the monarch's shallow-headed
+extravagance; but the costume of his time and that immediately
+preceding it was infinitely superior in grace and dignity to that of
+the fantastical period we have been describing. The English at this
+period were admired by all other nations, and especially _by the
+French_, from whom in subsequent periods _we_ have copied so
+servilely, for the richness and elegance of their attire. With a tunic
+simply confined at the waist, over this, when occasion required, a
+full and flowing mantle, with a veil confined to the back of the head
+with a golden circlet, her dark hair simply braided over her beautiful
+and intelligent brow and waving on her fair throat, the wife of the
+Conqueror looked every inch a queen, and what was more, she looked a
+modest, a dignified, and a beautiful woman.
+
+The male attire was of the same flowing and majestic description: and
+the "brutal" Anglo-Saxons and the "barbarous" Normans had more
+delicacy than to display every division of limb or muscle which nature
+formed, and more taste than to invent divisions where, Heaven knows,
+nature never meant them to be. The simple _coiffure_ required little
+care and attendance, but if a fastening did happen to give way, the
+Anglo-Norman lady could raise her hand to fasten it if she chose. The
+arm was not pinioned by the fiat of a _modiste_.
+
+And the material of a dress of those days was as rich as the mode was
+elegant. Silk indeed was not common; the first that was seen in the
+country was in 780, when Charlemagne sent Offa, King of Mercia, a belt
+and two vests of that beautiful material; but from the particular
+record made of silk mantles worn by two ladies at a ball at Kenilworth
+in 1286, we may fairly infer that till this period silk was not often
+used but as
+
+    "------a robe pontifical,
+    Ne'er seen but wonder'd at."
+
+Occasionally indeed it was used, but only by persons of the highest
+rank and wealth. But the woollens were of beautiful texture, and
+Britain was early famous in the art of producing the richest dyes. The
+Welsh are still remarkable for extracting beautiful tints from the
+commonest plants, such most probably as were used by the Britons
+anciently; and it is worthy of note that the South Sea cloths,
+manufactured from the inner bark of trees, have the same stripes and
+chequers, and indeed the identical patterns of the Welsh, and, as
+supposed, of the ancient Britons. Linen was fine and beautiful; and if
+it had not been so, the rich and varied embroidery with which it was
+decorated would have set off a coarser material.
+
+Furs of all sorts were in great request, and a mantle of regal hue,
+lined throughout with vair or sable, and decorated with bands of gold
+lace and flowers of the richest embroidery, interspersed with pearls,
+clasped on the shoulder with the most precious gems, and looped, if
+requisite, with golden tassels, was a garment at which a nobleman,
+even of these days, need not look askance.
+
+Robert Bloet, second bishop of Lincoln, made a present to Henry I. of
+a cloak of exquisitely fine cloth, lined with black sables with white
+spots, which cost a sum equivalent to L1500 of our money. The robes of
+females of rank were always bordered with a belt of rich needlework;
+their embroidered girdles were inlaid, or rather inwrought, with gold,
+pearls, and precious stones, and from them was usually suspended a
+large purse or pouch, on which the skill of the most accomplished
+needlewomen was usually expended.
+
+This rich and becoming mode of dress was gradually innovated upon
+until caprice reigned paramount over the national wardrobe. For
+"fashion is essentially caprice; and fashion in dress the caprice of
+milliners and tailors, with whom _recherche_ and exaggeration supply
+the place of education and principle." That this modern definition
+applied as accurately to former times as these, an instance may
+suffice to show. Richard I. had a cloak made, at enormous cost, with
+precious and shining metals inlaid _in imitation of the heavenly
+bodies_; and Henry V. wore, on a very memorable occasion, when Prince
+of Wales, a mantle or gown of rich blue satin, full of small
+eyelet-holes, as thickly as they could be put, and a needle hanging by
+a silk thread _from every hole_.
+
+The following incident, quoted from Miss Strickland's Life of
+Berengaria, will show the esteem in which a rich, and especially a
+furred garment was held. Richard I. quarrelled with the virtuous St.
+Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, on the old ground of exacting a simoniacal
+tribute on the installation of the prelate into his see. Willing to
+evade the direct charge of selling the see, King Richard intimated
+that a present of a fur mantle worth a thousand marks might be a
+composition. St. Hugh said he was no judge of such gauds, and
+therefore sent the king a thousand marks, declaring, if he would
+devour the revenue devoted to the poor, he must have his wilful way.
+But as soon as Richard had pocketed the money he sent for the fur
+mantle. St. Hugh set out for Normandy to remonstrate with the king on
+this double extortion. His friends anticipated that he would be
+killed; but St. Hugh said, "I fear him not," and boldly entered the
+chapel where Richard was at mass, when the following scene took
+place:--
+
+"Give me the embrace of peace, my son," said St. Hugh.
+
+"That you have not deserved," replied the king.
+
+"Indeed I have," said St. Hugh, "for I have made a long journey on
+purpose to see my son."
+
+So saying, he took hold of the king's sleeve and drew him on one side.
+Richard smiled and embraced the old man. They withdrew to the recess
+behind the altar and sate down.
+
+"In what state is your conscience?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Very easy," said the king.
+
+"How can that be, my son," said the bishop, "when you live apart from
+your virtuous queen, and are faithless to her; when you devour the
+provision of the poor, and load your people with heavy exactions? Are
+those light transgressions, my son?"
+
+The king owned his faults, and promised amendment; and when he related
+this conversation to his courtiers he added, "Were all our prelates
+like Hugh of Lincoln, both king and barons must submit to their
+righteous rebukes."
+
+Furs were much used now as coverings for beds; and they were
+considered a _necessary_ part of dress for a very considerable period.
+
+In Sir John Cullum's Hawsted, mention is made that in 1281 Cecilia,
+widow of William Talmache, died, and, amongst other bequests, left "to
+Thomas Battesford, for black coats for poor people, xxx_s._ in part."
+"To John Camp, of Bury St. Edmunds, furrier, for furs for the black
+coats, viij_s._ xj_d._" On which the reverend and learned author
+remarks, "We should now indeed think that a black coat bestowed on a
+poor person wanted not the addition of fur: such, however, was the
+fashion of the time; and a sumptuary law of Edward III. allows
+handicraft and yeomen to wear no manner of furre, nor of bugg,[96] but
+only lambe, coney, catte, and foxe."
+
+The distinction in rank was expressly shown by the kind of fur
+displayed on the dress, and these distinctions were regulated by law
+and rigidly enforced. By a statute passed in 1455, for regulating the
+dress of the Scottish lords of parliament, the gowns of the earls are
+appointed to be furred with ermine, while those of the other lords are
+to be lined with "criestay, gray, griece, or purray."
+
+The more precious furs, as ermine and sable, were reserved exclusively
+for the principal nobility of both sexes. Persons of an inferior rank
+wore the _vair_ or _gris_ (probably the Hungarian squirrel); the
+citizens and burgesses, the common squirrel and lamb skins; and the
+peasants, cat and badger skins. The mantles of our kings and peers,
+and the furred robes of the several classes of our municipal officers,
+are the remains of this once universal fashion.
+
+Furs often formed an important part of the ransom of a prisoner of
+rank:--
+
+    "Sir," quoth Count Bongars, "war's disastrous hour
+    Hath cast my lot within my foeman's power.
+    Name ransome as you list; gold, silver bright,
+    Palfreys, or dogs, or falcons train'd to flight;
+    Or choose you _sumptuous furs, of vair or gray_;
+    I plight my faith the destin'd price to pay."[97]
+
+Certain German nobles who had slain a bishop were enjoined, amongst
+other acts of penance, "ut varium, griseum, ermelinum, et pannos
+coloratos, non portent."
+
+The skin of the wild cat was much used by the clergy. Bishop Wolfstan
+preferred lambskin; saying in excuse, "Crede mihi, nunquam audivi, in
+ecclesia, cantari _catus_ Dei, sed _agnus_ Dei; ideo calefieri agno
+volo."
+
+The monk of Chaucer had
+
+    "------his sleeves purfiled, at the hond,
+    With gris, and that the finest of the lond."
+
+It is not till about the year 1204 that there is any specific
+enumeration of the royal apparel for festival occasions. The proper
+officers are appointed to bring for the king on this occasion "a
+golden crown, a red satin mantle adorned with sapphires and pearls, a
+robe of the same, a tunic of white damask; and slippers of red satin
+edged with goldsmith's work; a balbrick set with gems; two girdles
+enamelled and set with garnets and sapphires; white gloves, one with a
+sapphire and one with an amethist; various clasps adorned with
+emeralds, turquois, pearls, and topaz; and sceptres set with
+twenty-eight diamonds."[98]
+
+So much for the king:--And for the queen--oh! ye enlightened
+legislators of the earth, ye omnipotent and magisterial lords of
+creation, look on that picture--and on this.
+
+"For our lady the queen's use, sixty ells of fine linen cloth, forty
+ells of dark green cloth, a skin of minever, a _small brass pan_, and
+_eight towels_."
+
+But John, who in addition to his other amiable propensities was the
+greatest and most extravagant fop in Europe, was as parsimonious
+towards others as selfish and extravagant people usually are. Whilst
+even at the ceremony of her coronation he only afforded his Queen
+"three cloaks of fine linen, one of scarlet cloth, and one grey
+pelisse, costing together 12_l._ 5_s._ 4_d._;" he himself launched
+into all sorts of expenditure. He ordered the minutest articles for
+himself and the queen; but the wardrobe accounts of the sovereigns of
+the middle ages prove that they kept a royal warehouse of mercery,
+haberdashery, and linen, from whence their officers measured out
+velvets, brocades, sarcenets, tissue, gauzes, and trimmings, of all
+sorts. A queen, says Miss Strickland, had not the satisfaction of
+ordering her own gown when she obtained leave to have a new one; the
+warlike hand of her royal lord signed the order for the delivery of
+the materials from his stores, noting down with minute precision the
+exact quantity to a quarter of a yard of the cloth, velvet, or
+brocade, of which the garment was composed.
+
+"Blessed be the memory of King Edward III. and Philippa of Hainault
+his queen, who first invented clothes," was, we are told, the grateful
+adjuration of a monkish historian, who referred probably not to the
+first assumption of apparel, but to the charter which was granted
+first by that monarch to the "cutters and linen armourers,"
+subsequently known as the merchant-tailors, who at that period were
+usually the makers of all garments, silk, linen, or woollen. Female
+fingers had sufficient occupation in the finer parts of the work; in
+the "silke broiderie" with which every garment of fashion was
+embellished; in the tapestry; in the spinning of wool and flax, every
+thread of which was drawn by female hands, and in the weaving of which
+a great portion was also executed by them.
+
+In the forty-fourth year of this king, "as the book of Worcester
+reporteth, they began to use cappes of divers coloures, especially
+red, with costly lynings; and in the year 1372, the forty-seventh of
+the above prince, they first began to wanton it in a new round curtall
+weede, which they call a cloake, and in Latin _armilausa_, as only
+covering the shoulders, and this notwithstanding the king had
+endeavoured to restrain all these inordinances and expenses in
+clothing; as appears by the law by Parliament established in the
+thirty-sixth year of his reign. All ornaments of gold or silver,
+either on the daggers, girdles, necklaces, rings, or other ornaments
+for the body, were forbid to all that could not spend ten pounds
+a-year; and farther, that no furre or pretious and costly apparel,
+should be worne by any but men possessed of 100_l._ a year."
+
+Besides the rigid enactments of the law, and the anathemas of divines,
+other and gentler means were from time to time resorted to as warnings
+from that sin of dress which seems inherent in our nature, or as
+inducements to a more becoming one. We quote a specimen of both:--
+
+"There was a lady whiche had her lodgynge by the chirche. And she was
+alweye accustomed for to be longe to araye her, and to make her freshe
+and gay, insomuch that it annoyed and greued moche the parson of the
+chirche, and the parysshens. And it happed on a Sonday that she was so
+longe, that she sent to the preeste that he shod tarye for her, lyke
+as she had been accustomed. And it was thenne ferforthe on the day.
+And it annoyed the peple. And there were somme that said, How is hit?
+shall not this lady this day be pynned ne wel besene in a Myrroure?
+And somme said softely, God sende to her an evyll syght in her
+myrroure that causeth us this day and so oftymes to muse and to abyde
+for her. And thene as it plesyd God for an ensample, as she loked in
+the myrroure she sawe therein the Fende, whiche shewed hymselfe to her
+so fowle and horryble, that the lady wente oute of her wytte, and was
+al demonyak a long tyme. And after God sente to her helthe. And after
+she was not so longe in arayeng but thanked God that had so suffered
+her to be chastysed."[99]
+
+The 'Garment of Gude Ladyis' is a lecture of a most beguiling kind,
+and an exquisite picture.
+
+    "Wald my gud lady lufe me best,
+      And wirk after my will,
+    I suld ane garment gudliest
+      Gar mak hir body till.
+
+    "Of he honour suld be her hud,
+      Upoun hir heid to weir,
+    Garneist with governance so gud,
+      Na demyng[100] suld hir deir.[101]
+
+    "Hir kirtill suld be of clene constance,
+      Lasit with lesum lufe,
+    The mailyeis[102] of continwance
+      For nevir to remufe.
+
+    "Her gown suld be of gudliness,
+      Weill ribband with renowne,
+    Purfillit[103] with plesour in ilk place,
+      Furrit with fyne fassoun.[104]
+
+    "Her belt suld be of benignitie,
+      About hir middill meit;
+    Hir mantill of humilitie,
+      To tholl[105] bayth wind and weit.
+
+    "Hir hat suld be of fair having[106],
+      And her tepat of trewth,
+    Hir patelet[107] of gude pansing,
+      Hir hals-ribbane of rewth.
+
+    "Hir slevis suld be of esperance,
+      To keip hir fra dispair;
+    Hir gluvis of the gud govirnance,
+      To hyd hir fingearis fair.
+
+    "Hir schone suld be of sickernes[108]
+      In syne that scho nocht slyd;
+    Hir hois of honestie, I ges,
+      I suld for hir provyd.
+
+    "Wald scho put on this garmond gay,
+      I duret sweir by my seill,
+    That scho woir nevir grene nor gray
+      That set hir half so weill."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[95] Lady's Magazine.
+
+[96] Bugg--buge, lamb's furr.--Dr. Jamieson.
+
+[97] Ancassin and Nicolette.
+
+[98] The first instance in which the name of this stone is
+found.--Miss Lawrence.
+
+[99] The Knyght of the Toure.
+
+[100] _Demyng_--censure.
+
+[101] _Deir_--dismay.
+
+[102] _Mailyeis_--network.
+
+[103] _Purfillit_--furbelowed.
+
+[104] _Fassoun_--address, politeness.
+
+[105] _Tholl_--endure.
+
+[106] _Having_--behaviour.
+
+[107] _Patelet_--run.
+
+[108] _Sickernes_--steadfastness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+NEEDLEWORK IN COSTUME.--PART II.
+
+    "And the short French breeches make such a comelie
+    vesture that, except it were a dog in a doublet, you
+    shall not see anie so disguised as are my countriemen of
+    England."
+
+                        Holinshed.
+
+    "Out from the Gadis to the eastern morne,
+    Not one but holds his native state forlorne.
+    When comelie striplings wish it were their chance
+    For Cenis' distaffe to exchange their lance;
+    And weare curl'd periwigs, and chalk their face,
+    And still are poring on their pocket glasse;
+    Tyr'd with pinn'd ruffs, and fans, and partlet strips,
+    And buskes and verdingales about their hips:
+    And tread on corked stilts a prisoner's pace."
+
+                        Bp. Joseph Hall.
+
+    "They brought in fashions strange and new,
+      With golden garments bright;
+    The farthingale and mighty ruff,
+      With gowns of rich delight."
+
+                        A Warning-Piece to England.
+
+
+The queen (Anne Neville) of Richard III. seems to have been somewhat
+more regally accoutred than those of her royal predecessors to whom we
+referred in the last chapter. Among "the stuff delivered to the queen
+at her coronation are twenty-seven yards of white cloth of gold for a
+kirtle and train, and a mantle of the same, richly furred with
+ermine. This was the dress in which she rode in her litter from the
+Tower to the palace of Westminster. This was an age of long trains,
+and the length was regulated by the rank of the wearer; Anne, for her
+whole purple velvet suit, had fifty-six yards. From the entries of
+scarlet cloth given to the nobility for mantles on this occasion, we
+find that duchesses had thirteen yards, countesses ten, and baronesses
+eight."
+
+The costume of Henry VII.'s day differed little from that of Edward
+IV., except in the use of shirts bordered with lace and richly trimmed
+with ornamental needlework, which continued a long time in vogue
+amongst the nobility and gentry.
+
+A slight inspection of the inventories of Henry VIII.'s apparel will
+convince us of a truth which we should otherwise, readily have
+guessed, viz., that no expense and no splendour were spared in the
+"swashing costume" of his day. Its general aspect is too familiar to
+us to require much comment. We may remark, however, that four several
+acts were passed in his reign for the reformation of apparel, and that
+all but the royal family were prohibited from wearing "any cloth of
+gold of purpure colour, or silk of the same colour," upon pain of
+forfeiture of the same and L20 for every offence. Shirt bands and
+ruffles of gold were worn by the privileged, but none under the degree
+of knight were permitted to decorate their shirts with silk, gold, or
+silver. Henry VIII.'s "knitte gloves of silk" are particularly
+referred to, and also his "handkerchers" edged with gold, silver, or
+fine needlework. These handkerchiefs, wrought with gold and silver,
+were not uncommon in the after-times. In the ballad of George
+Barnwell, it is said of Milwood--
+
+    "A handkerchief she had,
+      All wrought with silk and gold,
+    Which she, to stay her trickling tears,
+      Before her eyes did hold."
+
+In the east these handkerchiefs are common, and it is still a
+favourite occupation of the Egyptian ladies to embroider them.
+
+We are surprised now to find to what minute particulars legal
+enactments descended. "No husbandman, shepherd, or common labourer to
+any artificer, out of cities or boroughs (having no goods of their own
+above the value of L10), shall use or wear any cloth the broad yard
+whereof passeth 2_s._ 4_d._, or any hose above the price of 12_d._ the
+yard, upon pain of imprisonment in the stocks for three days."
+
+It was in a subsequent reign, that of Mary, that a proclamation was
+issued that no man should "weare his shoes above sixe inches _square_
+at the toes." We have before seen that the attention of the grave and
+learned members of the Senate, the "Conscript Fathers" of England, was
+devoted to the due regulation of this interesting part of apparel,
+when the shoe-toes were worn so long that they were obliged to be tied
+up to the waist ere the happy and privileged wearer could set his foot
+on the ground. Now, however, "a change came o'er the spirit of the
+day," and it became the duty of those who exercised a paternal
+surveillance over the welfare of the community at large to legislate
+regarding the _breadth_ of the shoe-toes, that they should not be
+above "sixe inches square."
+
+"Great," was anciently the cry--"Great is Diana of the Ephesians;"
+but how immeasurably greater and mightier has been, through that and
+all succeeding ages, the supreme potentate who with a mesh of flimsy
+gauze or fragile silk has constrained nations as by a shackle of iron,
+that shadowy, unsubstantial, ever-fleeting, yet ever-exacting
+deity--FASHION! At her shrine worship all the nations of the earth.
+The savage who bores his nose or tattooes his tawny skin is impelled
+by the same power which robes the courtly Eastern in flowing garments;
+and the dark-hued beauty who smears herself with blubber is influenced
+by the selfsame motive which causes the fair-haired daughter of
+England to tint her delicate cheek with the mimic rose.
+
+And it is not merely in the shape and form of garments that this deity
+exercises her tyrannic sway, transforming "men into monsters," and
+women likewise--if it were possible: her vagaries are infinite and
+unaccountable; yet, how unaccountable soever, have ever numberless and
+willing votaries. It was once the _fashion_ for people who either were
+or fancied themselves to be in love to prove the sincerity of their
+passion by the fortitude with which they could bear those extremes of
+heat and cold from which unsophisticated _nature_ would shrink. These
+"penitents of love," for so the fraternity--and a pretty numerous one
+it was--was called, would clothe themselves in the dog-days in the
+thickest mantles lined throughout with the warmest fur: when the winds
+howled, the hail beat, and snow invested the earth with a freezing
+mantle, they wore the thinnest and most fragile garments. It was
+forbidden to wear fur on a day of the most piercing cold, or to appear
+with a hood, cloak, gloves, or muff. They supposed or pretended that
+the deity whom they thus propitiated was LOVE: we aver that the
+autocrat under whose irreversible decrees they thus succumbed--was
+FASHION.
+
+And, after all, who is this all-powerful genius? What is her
+appearance? Whence does she arise? Did she alight from the skies,
+while rejoicing stars sang Paeans at her birth? Was she born of the
+Sunbeams while a glittering Rainbow cast a halo of glory around her?
+or did she spring from Ocean while Nereids revelled around, and
+Mermaids strung their Harps with their own golden locks, soft melodies
+the while floating along the glistering waves, and echoing from the
+Tritons' booming shells beneath? No. Alas, no! She is subtle as the
+air; she is evanescent as a sunbeam, and unsubstantial as the ocean's
+froth;--but she is none of these. She is--but we will lay aside our
+own definition in order that the reader may have the advantage of that
+of one of the greatest and wisest of statesmen.
+
+"Quelqu'un qui voudrait un peu etudier d'ou part en premiere source ce
+qu'on appelle LES MODES verrait, a notre honte, qu'un petit nombre de
+gens, de la plus meprisable espece qui soit dans une ville, laquelle
+renferme tout indifferemment dans son sein; pour qui, si nous les
+connaissions, nous n'aurions que le mepris qu'on a pour les gens sans
+moeurs, ou la pitie qu'on a pour les fous, disposent pourtant de nos
+bourses, et nous tiennent assujettis a tous leurs caprices."
+
+Can this indeed be that supereminent deity for whom so "many do
+shipwrack their credits," and make themselves "ridiculous apes, or at
+best but like the cynnamon-tree, whose bark is more worth than its
+body."
+
+"Clothes" writes a venerable historian, "are for necessity; warm
+clothes for health; cleanly for decency; lasting for thrift; and rich
+for magnificence. Now, there may be a fault in their number, if too
+various; making, if too vain; matter, if too costly; and mind of the
+wearer, if he takes pride therein.
+
+"_He that is proud of the russling of his silks, like a madman laughs
+at the rattling of his fetters._ For, indeed, clothes ought to be our
+remembrancers of our lost innocency. Besides, why should any brag of
+what's but borrowed? Should the Estrige snatch off the Gallant's
+feather, the Beaver his hat, the Goat his gloves, the Sheep his sute,
+the Silkworm his stockings, and Neat his shoes (to strip him no
+farther than modesty will give leave), he would be left in a cold
+condition. And yet 'tis more pardonable to be proud, even of cleanly
+rags, than (as many are) of affected slovennesse. The one is proud of
+a molehill, the other of a dunghill."
+
+But the worthy Fuller's ideal picture of suitable dress was the very
+antipodes of the reality of Elizabeth's day, when that rage for
+foreign fashions existed which has since frequently almost inundated
+the island, and our ancestors masked themselves
+
+        "------in garish gaudery
+    To suit a fool's far-fetched livery.
+    A French hood join'd to neck Italian,
+    The thighs from Germany and breast from Spain.
+    An Englishman in none, a fool in all,
+    Many in one, and one in several."
+
+And Shakspeare, who has perhaps suffered no peculiarity of his time
+to escape observation, makes Portia satirize this affectation in her
+English admirer:--"How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his
+doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and
+his behaviour everywhere."
+
+A reverend critic thus remarks on the luxurious modes of his time:
+"These tender Parnels must have one gown for the day, another for the
+night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer.
+One furred through, another but faced; one for the workday, another
+for the holiday. One of this colour, another of that. One of cloth,
+another of silk or damask. Change of apparel; one afore dinner,
+another at after: one of Spanish fashion, another of Turkey. And to be
+brief, never content with enough, but always devising new fashions and
+strange. Yea, a ruffian will have more in his ruff and his hose than
+he should spend in a year. He which ought to go in a russet coat
+spends as much on apparel for him and his wife as his father would
+have kept a good house with."
+
+The following is of later date, and seems, somewhat unjustly we think,
+to satirize the fair sex alone.
+
+"Why do women array themselves in such fantastical dresses and quaint
+devices; with gold, with silver, with coronets, with pendants,
+bracelets, earrings, chains, rings, pins, spangles, embroideries,
+shadows, rebatoes, versicoloured ribbons, feathers, fans, masks, furs,
+laces, tiffanies, ruffs, falls, calls, cuffs, damasks, velvets,
+tassels, golden cloth, silver tissue, precious stones, stars,
+flowers, birds, beasts, fishes, crisped locks, wigs, painted faces,
+bodkins, setting sticks, cork, whalebone, sweet odours, and whatever
+else Africa, Asia, and America can produce; flaying their faces to
+produce the fresher complexion of a new skin, and using more time in
+dressing than Caesar took in marshalling his army,--but that, like
+cunning falconers, they wish to spread false lures to catch unwary
+larks, and lead by their gaudy baits and dazzling charms the minds of
+inexperienced youth into the traps of love?"
+
+Though the costume of Elizabeth's day, especially at the period of her
+coronation was, splendid, it had not attained to the ridiculous
+extravagance which at a later period elicited the above-quoted
+strictures; and we are told that her own taste at an early period of
+life was simple and unostentatious. Her dress and appearance are thus
+described by Aylmer, Lady Jane Grey's tutor, and afterwards Bishop of
+London.
+
+"The king (Henry VIII.) left her rich clothes and jewels; and I know
+it to be true, that, in seven years after her father's death, she
+never in all that time looked upon that rich attire and precious
+jewels but once, and that against her will. And that there never came
+gold or stone upon her head, till her sister forced her to lay off her
+former soberness, and bear her company in her glittering gayness. And
+then she so wore it as every man might see that her body carried that
+which her heart misliked. I am sure that her maidenly apparel, which
+she used in King Edward's time, made noblemen's daughters and wives to
+be ashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks; being more moved
+with her most virtuous example than with all that ever Paul or Peter
+wrote touching that matter. Yea, this I know, that a great man's
+daughter (Lady Jane Grey) receiving from Lady Mary, before she was
+queen, good apparel of tinsel, cloth of gold and velvet, laid on with
+parchment-lace of gold, when she saw it, said, 'What shall I do with
+it?' 'Marry!' said a gentlewoman, 'wear it.' 'Nay,' quoth she, 'that
+were a shame, to follow my Lady Mary against God's Word, and leave my
+Lady Elizabeth, which followeth God's Word.' And when all the ladies,
+at the coming of the Scots' Queen Dowager, Mary of Guise, (she who
+visited England in Edward's time), went with their hair frownsed,
+curled, and double-curled, she altered nothing, but kept her old
+maidenly shame-facedness."
+
+And there is a print from a portrait of her when young, in which the
+hair is without a single ornament, and the whole dress remarkably
+simple.
+
+Yet this is the lady whose passion for dress in after life could not
+be sated; to whom, or at least before whom (and the Queen was not slow
+in appropriating and resenting the hint[109]), Latimer, Bishop of
+London, thought it necessary to preach on the vanity of decking the
+body too finely; and who finally left behind her a wardrobe containing
+three thousand dresses. A modern fair one may wonder how such a
+profusion of dresses could be accommodated at all, even in a royal
+wardrobe, with fitting respect to the integrity of puffs and
+furbelows. But clothes were not formerly kept in drawers, where but
+few can be laid with due regard to the safety of each, but were hung
+up on wooden pegs, in a room appropriated to the sole purpose of
+receiving them; and though such cast-off things as were composed of
+rich substances were occasionally _ripped_ for domestic uses (viz.,
+mantles for infants, vests for children, and counterpanes for beds),
+articles of inferior quality were suffered to _hang by the walls_ till
+age and moths had destroyed what pride would not permit to be worn by
+servants or poor relations. To this practice, also, does Shakspeare
+allude: Imogen exclaims, in 'Cymbeline,'--
+
+    "Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion;
+    And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls,
+    I must be ripp'd--"
+
+The following regulations may be interesting; and the knowledge of
+them will doubtless excite feelings of joy and gratitude in our fair
+readers that they are born in an age where "will is free," and the
+dustman's wife may, if it so please her, outshine the duchess, without
+the terrors of Parliament before her eyes:--
+
+    "By the Queene.
+
+    "Whereas the Queene's Maiestie, for avoyding of the
+    great inconvenience that hath growen and dayly doeth
+    increase within this her Realme, by the inordinate
+    excesse in Apparel, hath in her Princely wisdome and
+    care for reformation thereof, by sundry former
+    Proclamations, straightly charged and commanded those in
+    Authoritie under her to see her Lawes provided in that
+    behalfe duely executed; Whereof notwithstanding, partly
+    through their negligence, and partly by the manifest
+    contempt and disobedience of the parties offending, no
+    reformation at all hath followed; Her Maiestie, finding
+    by experience that by Clemencie, whereunto she is most
+    inclinable, so long as there is any hope of redresse,
+    this increasing evill hath not beene cured, hath thought
+    fit to seeke to remedie the same by correction and
+    severitie, to be used against both these kindes of
+    offenders, in regard of the present difficulties of this
+    time; wherein the decay and lacke of hospitalitie
+    appeares in the better sort in all countreys,
+    principally occasioned by the immeasurable charges and
+    expenses which they are put to in superfluous
+    apparelling their wives, children, and families, the
+    confusion also of degrees in all places being great;
+    where the meanest are as richly apparelled as their
+    betters, and the pride that such inferior persons take
+    in their garments, driving many for their maintenance to
+    robbing and stealing by the hieway, &c. &c.
+
+    "Her Maiestie doth straightly charge and command--
+
+    "That none under the degree of a Countess wear:
+
+        Cloth of gold or silver tissued;
+
+        Silke of coulor purple.
+
+    "Under the degree of a Baronesse:--
+
+        Cloth of golde;
+
+        Cloth of silver;
+
+        Tinselled satten;
+
+        Sattens branched with silver or golde;
+
+        Sattens striped with silver or golde;
+
+        Taffaties brancht with silver or golde;
+
+        Cipresses flourisht with silver or golde;
+
+        Networks wrought in silver or golde;
+
+        Tabines brancht with silver or golde;
+
+        Or any other silke or cloth mixt or embroidered with
+            pearle, golde, or silver.
+
+    "Under the degree of a Baron's eldest sonne's wife:
+
+        Any embroideries of golde or silver;
+
+        Passemaine lace, or any other lace, mixed with golde,
+            silver, or silke;
+
+        Caules, attires, or other garnishings for the head
+            trimmed with pearle.
+
+    "Under the degree of a Knighte's wife:--
+
+        Velvet in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other uppermost
+            garments;
+
+        Embroidery with silke.
+
+    "Under the degree of a Knighte's eldest sonne's wife:--
+
+        Velvet in kirtles and petticoates;
+
+        Sattens in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other
+            uppermost garments.
+
+    "Under the degree of a Gentleman's wife, bearing armes:--
+
+        Satten in kirtles, }
+        Damaske,           }
+        Tuft taffetie,     }  in gownes."
+        Plaine taffetie,   }
+        Grograine          }
+
+Venice and Paris seem to have been the chief sources of fashion; from
+these depots of taste were derived the flaunting head-dresses, the
+"shiptire," the "tire valiant," &c., which were commonly worn in these
+days of gorgeous finery, and which were rendered still more _outre_
+and unnatural by the _dyed_ locks which they surmounted. The custom of
+dyeing the hair is of great antiquity, and was very prevalent in the
+East. Mohammed dyed his hair red; Abu Bekr his successor did the same,
+and it is a custom among the Scenite Arabs even to this day.
+
+The ancients often mixed gold dust in their hair, and the Gauls used
+to wash the hair with a liquid which had a tendency to redden it. It
+was doubtless in personal compliment to Queen Elizabeth, that all the
+fashionables of her day dyed their locks of a hue which is generally
+considered the reverse of attraction. Periwigs, which were introduced
+into England about 1572, were to be had of _all colours_. It is in
+allusion to this absurd fashion that Benedick says of the lady whom he
+might chuse to marry:--"Her hair shall be of what colour it please
+God."
+
+Men first wore wigs in Charles the Second's time; and these were
+gradually increased in size, until they reached the acme of their
+magnificence in the reign of William and Mary, when not only men, but
+even young lads and children were disguised in enormous wigs. And
+though in the reign of Queen Anne this latter custom was not so
+common, yet the young men had the want of wigs supplied by artificial
+curlings, and dressing of the hair, which was then only performed by
+the women.
+
+One Bill preserved amongst the Harl. MSS. runs thus:--
+
+"Next door to the Golden Ball, in St. Bride's Lane, Fleet Street,
+Lyveth Lidia Beercraft. Who cutteth and curleth ladies, gentlemen, and
+children's hair. She sells a fine pomatum, which is mixed with
+ingredients of her own making, that if the hair be never so thin, it
+makes it grow thick; and if short, it makes it grow long. If any
+gentleman's or children's hair be never so lank, she makes it curle in
+a little time, and to look like a periwig."
+
+And this, indeed, the looking like a periwig, seems to have been then
+the very _beau ideal_ of all beauty and perfection, for another fair
+tonsoress advertises to cut and curl hair after the French fashion,
+"after so fine a manner, that _you shall not know it to be their own
+hair_."
+
+How applicable to these absurdities are the lines of an amiable censor
+of a later day!--
+
+                    "We have run
+    Through ev'ry change, that Fancy, at the loom
+    Exhausted, has had genius to supply;
+    And, studious of mutation still, discard
+    A real elegance, a little us'd,
+    For monstrous novelty and strange disguise."
+
+To return to Elizabeth:--
+
+The best known, and most distinguishing characteristic of the costume
+of her day was the ruff; which was worn of such enormous size that a
+lady in full dress was obliged to feed herself with a spoon two feet
+long. In the year 1580, sumptuary laws were published by
+proclamation, and enforced with great exactness, by which the ruffs
+were reduced to legal dimensions. Extravagant prices were paid for
+them, and they were made at first of fine holland, but early in
+Elizabeth's reign they began to wear lawn and cambric, which were
+brought to England in very small quantities, and sold charily by the
+yard or half yard; for there was then hardly one shopkeeper in fifty
+who dared to speculate in a whole piece of either. So "strange and
+wonderful was this stuff," says Stowe, speaking of lawn, "that
+thereupon rose a general scoff or byeword, that shortly they would
+wear ruffs of a spider's web." And another difficulty arose; for when
+the Queen had ruffs made of this new and beautiful fabric, there was
+nobody in England who could starch or stiffen them; but happily Her
+Grace found a Dutchwoman possessed of that knowledge which England
+could not supply, and "Guillan's wife was the first starcher the Queen
+had, as Guillan himself was the first coachman."
+
+"Afterward, in 1564, (16th of Elizabeth), one Mistress Dinghen Vauden
+Plasse, born at Teenen in Flanders, daughter of a worshipful knight of
+that province, with her husband, came to London, and there professed
+herself a starcher, wherein she excelled; unto whom her own nation
+presently repaired and employed her, rewarding her very liberally for
+her work. Some of the curious ladies of that time, observing the
+neatness of the Dutch, and the nicety of their linen, made them
+cambric ruffs, and sent them to Mistress Dinghen to starch; soon after
+they began to send their daughters and kinswomen to Mistress Dinghen,
+to learn how to starch; her usual price was, at that time, 4_l._ or
+5_l._ to teach them to starch, and 20_s._ to learn them to see the
+starch. This Mrs. Dinghen was the first that ever taught starching in
+England."
+
+The RUFFS were adjusted by poking sticks of iron, steel, or silver,
+heated in the fire--(probably something answering to our Italian
+iron), and in May 1582 a lady of Antwerp, being invited to a wedding,
+could not, although she employed two celebrated laundresses, get her
+ruff plaited according to her taste, upon which "she fell to sweare
+and teare, to curse and ban, casting the ruffes under feete, and
+wishing that the devill might take her when shee did wear any
+neckerchers againe." This gentleman, whom it is said an invocation
+will always summon, now appeared in the likeness of a favoured suitor,
+and inquiring the cause of her agitation, he "took in hande the
+setting of her ruffes, which he performed to her great contentation
+and liking; insomuch, as she, looking herself in a glasse (as the
+devill bade her) became greatly enamoured with him. This done, the
+young man kissed her, in the doing whereof, he writhed her neck in
+sunder, so she died miserably."
+
+But here comes the marvel: four men tried in vain to lift her "fearful
+body" when coffined for interment; six were equally unsuccessful;
+"whereat the standers-by marvelling, caused the coffin to be opened to
+see the cause thereof: where they found the body to be taken away, and
+a blacke catte, very leane and deformed, sitting in the coffin,
+_setting of great ruffes and frizling of haire_, to the great feare
+and woonder of all the beholders."
+
+The large hoop farthingales were worn now, but they were said to be
+adopted by the ladies from a laudable spirit of emulation, a
+praiseworthy desire on their parts to be of equal standing with the
+"nobler sex," who now wore breeches, stuffed with rags or other
+materials to such an enormous size, that a bench of extraordinary
+dimension was placed round the parliament house, (of which the traces
+were visible at a very late period) solely for their accommodation.
+
+Strutt quotes an instance of a man whom the judges accused of wearing
+breeches contrary to the law (for a law was made against them): he,
+for his excuse, drew out of his slops the contents; at first a pair of
+sheets, two table-cloths, ten napkins, four shirts, a brush, a glass,
+and a comb; with nightcaps and other things of use, saying, "Your
+worship may understand, that because I have no safer a storehouse,
+these pockets do serve me for a room to lay up my goods in,--and,
+though it be a strait prison, yet it is big enough for them, for I
+have many things of value yet within it." His excuse was heartily
+laughed at and accepted.
+
+This ridiculous fashion was for a short time disused, but revived
+again in 1614. The breeches were then chiefly stuffed with hair. Many
+satirical rhymes were written upon them; amongst others, "A lamentable
+complaint of the poore Countrye Men agaynst great hose, for the loss
+of their cattelles tales." In which occur these:--
+
+    "What hurt, what damage doth ensue,
+      And fall upon the poore,
+    For want of wool and flaxe, of late,
+      Whych monstrous hose devoure.
+
+    "But haire hath so possess'd, of late,
+      The bryche of every knave,
+    That no one beast, nor horse can tell,
+      Whiche way his taile to save."
+
+Henry VIII. had received a few pairs of silk stockings from Spain, but
+knitted silk ones were not known until the second year of Elizabeth,
+when her silk-woman, Mrs. Montague, presented to Her Majesty a pair of
+black knit silk stockings, for a new-year's gift, with which she was
+so much pleased that she desired to know if the donor could not help
+her to any more, to which Mrs. Montague answered, "I made them
+carefully on purpose for your Majestie; and seeing they please you so
+well, I will presently set more in hand." "Do so (said the Queen), for
+I like silk stockings so well, that I will not henceforth wear any
+more cloth hose." These shortly became common; though even over so
+simple an article as a stocking, Fashion asserted her supremacy, and
+at a subsequent period they were two yards wide at the top, and made
+fast to the "petticoat breeches," by means of strings through eyelet
+holes.
+
+But Elizabeth's predilection for rich attire is well known, and if the
+costume of her day was fantastic, it was still magnificent. A suit
+trimmed with sables was considered the richest dress worn by men; and
+so expensive was this fur, that, it is said a thousand ducats were
+sometimes given for "a face of sables." It was towards the close of
+her reign that the celebrated Gabrielle d'Estrees wore on a festive
+occasion a dress of black satin, so ornamented with pearls and
+precious stones, that she could scarcely move under its weight. She
+had a handkerchief, for the embroidering of which she engaged to pay
+1900 crowns. And such it was said was the influence of her example in
+Paris, that the ladies ornamented even their shoes with jewels.
+
+Yet even this costly magnificence was afterwards surpassed by that of
+Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, with whom it was common, even at an
+ordinary dancing, to have his clothes trimmed with great diamond
+buttons, and to have diamond hatbands, cockades, and earrings, to be
+yoked with great and manifold ropes and knots of pearl; in short, to
+be manacled, fettered, and imprisoned in jewels: insomuch that at his
+going to Paris in 1625, he had twenty-seven suits of clothes made, the
+richest that embroidery, lace, silk, velvet, gold, and gems could
+contribute; one of which was a white uncut velvet set all over, both
+suit and cloak, with diamonds valued at fourscore thousand pounds,
+besides a great feather, stuck all over with diamonds, as were also
+his sword, girdle, hatband, and spurs.[110]
+
+It would but weary our readers were we to dwell on the well-known
+peculiarities of the "Cavalier and Roundhead" days; and tell how the
+steeple-crowned hat was replaced at the Restoration by the plumed and
+jewelled velvet; the forlorn, smooth, methodistical pate, by the
+curled ringlets and flowing lovelock; the sober, sombre, "sad"
+coloured garment, with its starched folds, by the gay, varied, flowing
+drapery of all hues. Then, how the plume of feathers gave way to the
+simpler band and buckle, and the thick large curling wig and full
+ruffle, to the bagwig, the tie, and stock.
+
+The dashing cloak and slashed sleeves were succeeded by the coat of
+ample dimensions, and the waistcoat with interminable pockets resting
+on the knees; the "breeches" were in universal use, though they were
+not of the universal "black" which Cowper immortalises; but "black
+breeches" and "powder" have had their reign, and are succeeded by the
+"inexpressible" costume of the present day. We will conclude a
+chapter, which we fear to have spun out tediously, by Lady Morgan's
+animated account of the introduction, in France, of that
+universally-coveted article of dress--a Cashmir shawl:--
+
+"While partaking of a sumptuous collation (at Rouen), the conversation
+naturally turned on the splendid views which the windows commanded,
+and on the subjects connected with their existence. The flocks, which
+were grazing before us had furnished the beautiful shawls which hung
+on the backs of the chairs occupied by our fair companions, and which
+might compete with the turbans of the Grand Signor. It would be
+difficult now to persuade a Parisian _petite maitresse_ that there was
+a time when French women of fashion could exist without a cashmir, or
+that such an indispensable article of the toilet and _sultan_ was
+unknown even to the most elegant. 'The first cashemir that appeared in
+France,' said Madame D'Aubespine, (for an educated French woman has
+always something worth hearing to say on all subjects,) 'was sent over
+by Baron de Tott, then in the service of the Porte, to Madame de
+Tesse. When they were produced in her society, every body thought them
+very fine, but nobody knew what use to make of them. It was determined
+that they would make pretty _couvre-pieds_ and veils for the cradle;
+but the fashion wore out with the shawls, and ladies returned to their
+eider-down quilts.'
+
+"Monsieur Ternaux observed that 'though the produce of the Cashmerian
+looms had long been known in Europe, they did not become a vogue until
+after Napoleon's expedition to Egypt; and that even then they took, in
+the first instance, but slowly.' The shawl was still a novelty in
+France, when Josephine, as yet but the wife of the First Consul, knew
+not how to drape its elegant folds, and stood indebted to the
+_brusque_ Rapp for the grace with which she afterwards wore it.
+
+"'Permettez que je vous fasse l'observation,' said Rapp, as they were
+setting off for the opera; 'que votre schall n'est pas mis avec cette
+grace qui vous est habituelle.'
+
+"Josephine laughingly let him arrange it in the manner of the Egyptian
+women. This impromptu toilette caused a little delay, and the infernal
+machine exploded in vain!
+
+"What destinies waited upon the arrangement of this cashemir! A moment
+sooner or later, and the shawl might have given another course to
+events, which would have changed the whole face of Europe."[111]
+
+The Empress Josephine (says her biographer) had quite a passion for
+shawls, and I question whether any collection of them was ever as
+valuable as hers. At Navarre she had one hundred and fifty, all
+extremely beautiful and high-priced. She sent designs to
+Constantinople, and the shawls made after these patterns were as
+beautiful as they were valuable. Every week M. Lenormant came to
+Navarre, and sold her whatever he could obtain that was curious in
+this way. I have seen white shawls covered with roses, bluebells,
+perroquets, peacocks, &c., which I believe were not to be met with any
+where else in Europe; they were valued at 15,000 and 20,000 francs
+each.
+
+The shawls were at length sold _by auction_ at Malmaison, at a rate
+much below their value. All Paris went to the sale.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[109] "Her Majesty told the ladies, that if the Bishop held more
+discourse on such matters, she would fit him for heaven; but he should
+walk thither without a staff, and leave his mantle behind him."
+
+[110] Life of Raleigh, by Oldys.
+
+[111] Lady Morgan's France in 1829-30.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD.
+
+    "Where are the proud and lofty dames,
+    Their jewell'd crowns, their gay attire,
+    Their odours sweet?
+    Where are the love-enkindled flames,
+    The bursts of passionate desire
+    Laid at their feet?
+    Where are the songs, the troubadours,
+    The music which delighted then?--
+    It speaks no more.
+    Where is the dance that shook the floors,
+    And all the gay and laughing train,
+    And all they wore?
+
+    "The royal gifts profusely shed,
+    The palaces so proudly built,
+    With riches stor'd;
+    The roof with shining gold o'erspread,
+    The services of silver gilt,
+    The secret hoard,
+    The Arabian pards, the harness bright,
+    The bending plumes, the crowded mews,
+    The lacquey train,
+    Where are they?--where!--all lost in night,
+    And scatter'd as the early dews
+    Across the plain."
+
+                        Bowring's Anc. Span. Romances.
+
+
+Romance and song have united to celebrate the splendours of the "Field
+of the Cloth of Gold." The most scrupulously minute and faithful of
+recorders has detailed day by day, and point by point, its varied and
+showy routine, and every subsequent historian has borrowed from the
+pages of the old chronicler; and these dry details have been so
+expanded by the breath of Fancy, and his skeleton frame has been so
+fleshed by the magical drapery of talent, that there seems little left
+on which the imagination can dilate, or the pen expatiate.
+
+The astonishing impulse which has in various ways within the last few
+years been given to the searching of ancient records, and the
+development of hitherto obscure and comparatively uninteresting
+details, and vesting them in an alluring garb, has made us as familiar
+with the domestic records of the eighth Henry, as in our school-days
+we were with the orthodox abstract of necessary historical
+information,--that "Henry the Eighth ascended the throne in the 18th
+year of his age;" that "he became extremely corpulent;" that "he
+married six wives, and beheaded two." Not even affording gratuitously
+the codicil which the talent of some writer hath educed--that "if
+Henry the Eighth had not beheaded his wives, there would have been no
+impeachment on his gallantry to the fair sex."
+
+But in describing this, according to some, "the most magnificent
+spectacle that Europe ever beheld," and to others, "a heavy mass of
+allegory and frippery," historians have been contented to pourtray the
+outward features of the gorgeous scene, and have slightly, if at all,
+touched on the contending feelings which were veiled beneath a broad
+though thin surface of concord and joy. Truly, it were a task of deep
+interest, even slightly to picture them, or to attempt to enter into
+the feelings of the chief actors on that field.
+
+First and foremost, as the guiding spirit of the whole, as the mighty
+artificer of that pageant on which, however gaudy in its particulars
+the fates of Europe were supposed to depend, and the earnest eyes of
+Europe were certainly fixed--comes WOLSEY.--Gorgeously habited
+himself, and the burnished gold of his saddle cloth only partially
+relieved by the more sombre crimson velvet; nay, his very shoes
+gleaming with brilliants, and himself withal so lofty in bearing, of
+so noble a presence, that this very magnificence seemed but a natural
+appendage, Wolsey took his lofty way from monarch to monarch; and so
+well did he become his dignity, that none but kings, and such kings as
+Henry and Francis, would have drawn the eyes of the myriad spectators
+from himself. And surely he was now happy; surely his ambition was now
+gratified to the uttermost; now, in the eyes of all Europe did the two
+proudest of her princes not merely associate with him almost as an
+equal, but openly yield to his suggestions--almost bow to his
+decisions. No--loftily as he bore himself, courtly as was his
+demeanour, rapid and commanding as was his eloquence, and influential
+as seemed his opinions on all and every one around--the cardinal had a
+mind ill at ease, as, despite his self-control, was occasionally
+testified by his contracted brow and thoughtful aspect. After exerting
+all the might of his mighty influence, and for his own aggrandisement,
+to procure this meeting between the two potentates, he had at the
+last moment seen fit to alter his policy. He had sold himself to a
+higher bidder; he had pledged himself to Charles in the very teeth of
+his solemn engagement to Francis. Even whilst celebrating this league
+of amity, he was turning in his own mind the means by which to rupture
+it; and was yet withal, nervously fearful of any accident which should
+prematurely break it, or lead to a discovery of his own
+faithlessness.--So much for his enjoyment!
+
+Our KING HENRY was all delight, and eager impetuous enjoyment. He had
+not outlived the good promise of his youth; nor had his foibles
+become, by indulgence, vices. He loved to see all around him happy; he
+loved, more especially, to make them so. He delighted in all the
+exercises of the field; he was unrivalled in the tilt and the
+tournament; and when engaged in them forgot kings and kingdoms. His
+vanity, outrageous as it was, hardly sat ungracefully on him, so much
+was it elevated then by buoyant good humour--so much was it softened
+at that time by his noble presence, his manly grace, his kingly
+accomplishments, and his regal munificence. The stern and selfish
+tyrant whom one shudders to think upon, was then only "bluff King
+Hal," loving and beloved, courted and caressed by an empire. He gave
+himself up to the gaieties of the time without a care for the present,
+a thought for the future. Could he have glanced dimly into that
+future! But he could not, and he was happy.
+
+FRANCIS was admirably qualified to grace this scene, and to enjoy it,
+as probably he did enjoy it, vividly. Yet was this gratification by no
+means unalloyed. His gentle manly nature was irritated at certain
+stipulations of Henry's advisers, by which their most trivial
+intercourse was subjected to specific regulations. There were recorded
+instances enough of treacherous advantages taken to justify fully this
+conduct on the part of Henry's ministers; but Francis felt its
+injustice, as applied to himself, and at that time, made use of a
+generous and well-known stratagem to convince others. But in the midst
+of his enjoyments he had misgivings on his mind of a more serious
+nature, caused by the Emperor's recent visit to Dover. These
+misgivings were increased by the meeting between Henry and Charles at
+Gravelines; and too surely confirmed by quickly-following
+circumstances.
+
+The gentle and good KATHARINE of England, and the equally amiable
+Queen CLAUDE, the carefully-trained stepdaughter of the noble and
+admirable Anne of Bretagne, probably derived their chief gratification
+here from the pleasure of seeing their husbands amicable and happy.
+For queens though they were, their happiness was in domestic life, and
+their chief empire was over the hearts of those domesticated with
+them.
+
+Not so the DOWAGER QUEEN of France--the lively, and graceful, and
+beautiful Duchess of Suffolk; for though very fond of her royal
+brother, and devoted to her gallant husband, she had yet an eye and an
+ear for all the revelries around, and had a radiant glance and a
+beaming smile for all who crowded to do homage to her charms. And yet
+her heart must have been somewhat hard--and that we know it was
+not--if she could have inhaled the air of France, or trod its sunny
+soil, without recollections which must have dimmed her eye at the
+thoughts of the past, even whilst breathing a thanksgiving for the
+present. Somewhat less than five years ago, she had been taken thither
+a weeping bride; youth, nature, inclination, nay, hope itself,
+sacrificed to that expediency by which the actions of monarchs are
+regulated. We are accustomed to read these things so much as mere
+historical memoranda, to look upon them in their cold unvarnished
+simplicity of detail, like the rigid outlines of stiff old portraits
+which we can scarcely suppose were ever meant to represent living
+flesh and blood--that it requires a strong effort to picture these
+circumstances to our eyes as actually occurring.
+
+In considering the state policy of the thing--and the apparent
+national advantage of the King of England's sister being married to
+the King of France--we forget that this King of England's sister was a
+fair young creature, with warm heart, gushing affections, and passions
+and feelings just opening in all the vividness of early womanhood; and
+that she was condemned to marry a sickly, querulous, elderly man, who
+began his loving rule by dismissing at once, even while she was "a
+stranger in a foreign land," every endeared friend and attendant who
+had accompanied her thither; and that, worse than all, her young
+affections had been sought and gained by a noble English gentleman,
+the favourite of the English king, and the pride of his Court.
+
+Surely her lot was hard; and well might she weepingly exclaim, "Where
+is now my hope?" Little could she suppose (for Louis, though infirm,
+was not aged) that three or four short months would see her not only
+at liberty from her enforced vows, but united to the man of her heart.
+
+Must there not, while watching the tilting of her graceful and gallant
+husband, must there not have been melancholy in her mirth?--must there
+not, in the keen encounter of wits during the banquet or the
+ball--must there not have mingled method with her madness?
+
+Who shall record, or even refer to the hopes, and feelings, and
+wishes, and thoughts, and reflections of the thousands congregated
+thither; each one with feelings as intense, with hopes as individually
+important as those which influenced the royal King of France, or the
+majestic monarch of England! The loftiest of Christendom's knights,
+the loveliest of Christendom's daughters were assembled here; and the
+courteous Bayard, the noble Tremouille, the lofty Bourbon, felt
+inspired more gallantly, if possible, than was even their wont, when
+contending in all love and amity with the proudest of England's
+champions, in presence of the fairest of her blue-eyed maidens,--the
+noblest of her courtly dames.
+
+Nor were the lofty and noble alone there congregated. After the
+magnificent structure for the king and court, after every thing in the
+shape of a tenement in, out, or about the little town of Guisnes, and
+the neighbouring hamlets, were occupied, two thousand eight hundred
+tents were set up on the side of the English alone. No noble or baron
+would be absent; but likewise knights, and squires, and yeomen flocked
+to the scene: citizens and city wives disported their richest silks
+and their heaviest chains; jews went for gain, pedlars for knavery,
+tradespeople for their craft, rogues for mischief. Then there were
+"vagaboundes, plowmen, laborers, wagoners, and beggers, that for
+drunkennes lay in routes and heapes, so great resorte thether came,
+that bothe knightes and ladies that wer come to see the noblenes, were
+faine to lye in haye and strawe, and hold theim thereof highly
+pleased."
+
+The accommodations provided for the king and privileged members of his
+court on this occasion were more than magnificent; a vast and splendid
+edifice that seemed to be endued with the magnificence, and to rise
+almost with the celerity of that prepared by the slaves of the lamp,
+where the richest tapestry and silk embroidery--the costliest produce
+of the most accomplished artisans, were almost unnoticed amid the gold
+and jewellery by which they were surrounded--where all that art could
+produce, or riches devise had been lavished--all this has been often
+described. And the tent itself, the nucleus of the show, the point
+where the "brother" kings were to confer, was hung round with cloth of
+gold: the posts, the cones, the cords, the tents, were all of the same
+precious metal, which glittered here in such excessive profusion as to
+give that title to the meeting which has superseded all others--"The
+Field of the Cloth of Gold."
+
+This gaudy pageant was the prelude to an era of great interest, for
+while dwelling on the "galanty shew" we cannot forget that now reigned
+Solyman the magnificent, and that this was the age of Leo the Tenth;
+that Charles the Fifth was now beginning his influential course; that
+a Sir Thomas More graced England; and that in Germany there was "one
+Martin Luther," who "belonged to an order of strolling friars." Under
+Leo's munificent encouragement, Rafaello produced those magnificent
+creations which have been the inspiration of subsequent ages; and at
+home, under Wolsey's enlightened patronage, colleges were founded,
+learning was encouraged, and the College of Physicians first
+instituted in 1518, found in him one of its warmest advocates and
+firmest supporters.
+
+A modern writer gives the following amusing picture of part of the
+bustle attendant on the event we are considering. "The palace (of
+Westminster) and all its precincts became the elysium of tailors,
+embroiderers, and sempstresses. There might you see many a shady form
+gliding about from apartment to apartment, with smiling looks and
+extended shears, or armed with ell-wands more potent than Mercury's
+rod, driving many a poor soul to perdition, and transforming his
+goodly acres into velvet suits, with tags of cloth of gold. So
+continual were the demands upon every kind of artisan, that the
+impossibility of executing them threw several into despair. One tailor
+who is reported to have undertaken to furnish fifty embroidered suits
+in three days, on beholding the mountain of gold and velvet that
+cumbered his shop-board, saw, like Brutus, the impossibility of
+victory, and, with Roman fortitude, fell on his own shears. Three
+armourers are said to have been completely melted with the heat of
+their furnaces; and an unfortunate goldsmith swallowed molten silver
+to escape the persecutions of the day.
+
+"The road from London to Canterbury was covered during one whole week
+with carts and waggons, mules, horses, and soldiers; and so great was
+the confusion, that marshals were at length stationed to keep the
+whole in order, which of course increased the said confusion a hundred
+fold. So many were the ships passing between Dover and Calais, that
+the historians affirm they jostled each other on the road like a herd
+of great black porkers.
+
+"The King went from station to station like a shepherd, driving all
+the better classes of the country before him, and leaving not a single
+straggler behind."
+
+Though we do not implicitly credit every point of this humorous
+statement, we think a small portion of description from the old
+chronicler Hall (we will really inflict _only_ a small portion on our
+readers) will justify a good deal of it; but more especially it will
+enlighten us as to some of the elaborate conceits of the day, in
+which, it seems, the needle was as fully occupied as the pen.
+
+Indeed, what would the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" have been without
+the skill of the needlewoman? _Would it have been at all?_
+
+"The Frenche kyng sette hymself on a courser barded, covered with
+purple sattin, broched with golde, and embraudered with corbyns
+fethers round and buckeled; the fether was blacke and hached with
+gold. Corbyn is a rauen, and the firste silable of corbyn is _Cor_,
+whiche is a harte, a penne in English, is a fether in Frenche, and
+signifieth pain, and so it stode; this fether round was endles, the
+buckels wherwith the fethers wer fastened, betokeneth sothfastnes,
+thus was the devise, _harte fastened in pain endles, or pain in harte
+fastened endles_.
+
+"Wednesdaie the 13 daie of June, the twoo hardie kynges armed at all
+peces, entered into the feld right nobly appareled, the Frenche kyng
+and all his parteners of chalenge were arraied in purple sattin,
+broched with golde and purple velvet, embrodered with litle rolles of
+white sattin wherein was written _quando_, all bardes and garmentes
+wer set full of the same, and all the residue where was no rolles,
+were poudered and set with the letter ell as thus, L, whiche in
+Frenche is she, which was interpreted to be _quando elle_, when she,
+and ensuyng the devise of the first daie it signifieth together,
+_harte fastened in pain endles, when she_.
+
+"The Frenche kyng likewise armed at al pointes mounted on a courser
+royal, all his apparel as wel bardes as garmentes were purple velvet,
+entred the one with the other, embrodred ful of litle bookes of white
+satten, and in the bokes were written _a me_; aboute the borders of
+the bardes and the borders of the garmentes, a chaine of blewe like
+iron, resemblyng the chayne of a well or prison chaine, whiche was
+enterpreted to be _liber_, a booke; within this boke was written as is
+sayed, _a me_, put these two together, and it maketh _libera me_; the
+chayne betokeneth prison or bondes, and so maketh together in
+Englishe, _deliver me of {bondes}_; put to {the} reason, the fyrst
+day, second day, and third day of chaunge, for he chaunged but the
+second day, and it is _hart fastened in paine endles, when she
+deliuereth me not of bondes_; thus was thinterpretation made, but
+whether it were so in all thinges or not I may not say."
+
+The following animated picture from an author already quoted, has been
+drawn of this spirit-stirring scene:--
+
+"Upon a large open green, that extended on the outside of the walls,
+was to be seen a multitude of tents of all kinds and colours, with a
+multitude of busy human beings, employed in raising fresh pavilions on
+every open space, or in decorating those already spread with
+streamers, pennons, and banners of all the bright hues under the sun.
+Long lines of horses and mules, loaded with armour or baggage, and
+ornamented with gay ribbons to put them in harmony with the scene,
+were winding about all over the plain, some proceeding towards the
+town, some seeking the tents of their several lords, while mingled
+amongst them, appeared various bands of soldiers, on horseback and on
+foot, with the rays of the declining sun catching upon the heads of
+their bills and lances; and together with the white cassock and broad
+red cross, marking them out from all the other objects. Here and
+there, too, might be seen a party of knights and gentlemen cantering
+over the plain, and enjoying the bustle of the scene, or standing in
+separate groups, issuing their orders for the erection and garnishing
+of their tents; while couriers, and poursuivants, and heralds, in all
+their gay dresses, mingled with mule drivers, lacqueys, and peasants,
+armourers, pages, and tent stretchers, made up the living part of the
+landscape.
+
+"The sounding of the trumpets to horse, the shouts of the various
+leaders, the loud cries of the marshals and heralds, and the roaring
+of artillery from the castle, as the king put his foot in the stirrup,
+all combined to make one general outcry rarely equalled. Gradually the
+tumult subsided, gradually also the confused assemblage assumed a
+regular form. Flags, and pennons, and banderols, embroidered banners,
+and scutcheons; silver pillars, and crosses, and crooks, ranged
+themselves in long line; and the bright procession, an interminable
+stream of living gold, began to wind across the plain. First came
+about five hundred of the gayest and wealthiest gentlemen of England,
+below the rank of baron; squires, knights, and bannerets, rivalling
+each other in the richness of their apparel and the beauty of their
+horses; while the pennons of the knights fluttered above their heads,
+marking the place of the English chivalry. Next appeared the proud
+barons of the realm, each with his banner borne before him, and
+followed by a custrel with the shield of his arms. To these again
+succeeded the bishops, not in the simple robes of the Protestant
+clergy, but in the more gorgeous habits of the Church of Rome; while
+close upon their steps rode the higher nobility, surrounding the
+immediate person of the king, and offering the most splendid mass of
+gold and jewels that the summer sun ever shone upon.
+
+"Slowly the procession moved forward to allow the line of those on
+foot to keep an equal pace. Nor did this band offer a less gay and
+pleasing sight than the cavalcade, for here might be seen the
+athletic forms of the sturdy English yeomanry, clothed in the various
+splendid liveries of their several lords, with the family cognisance
+embroidered on the bosom and arm, and the banners and banderols of
+their particular houses carried in the front of each company. Here
+also was to be seen the picked guard of the King of England,
+magnificently dressed for the occasion, with the royal banner carried
+in their centre by the deputy standard bearer, and the banner of their
+company by their own ancient. In the rear of all, marshalled by
+officers appointed for the purpose, came the band of those whose rank
+did not entitle them to take place in the cavalcade, but who had
+sufficient interest at court to be admitted to the meeting. Though of
+an inferior class, this company was not the least splendid in the
+field; for here were all the wealthy tradesmen of the court, habited
+in many a rich garment, furnished by the extravagance of those that
+rode before; and many a gold chain hung round their necks, that not
+long ago had lain in the purse of some prodigal customer."
+
+But we cease, being fully of opinion with the old chronicler that "to
+tell the apparel of the ladies, their riche attyres, their sumptuous
+juelles, their diversities of beauties, and their goodly behaviour
+from day to day sithe the fyrst metyng, I assure you ten mennes wittes
+can scarce declare it."
+
+And in a few days, a few short days, all was at an end; and the pomp
+and the pageantry, the mirth and the revelry, was but as a dream--a
+most bitter, indeed, and painful dream to hundreds who had bartered
+away their substance for the sake of a transient glitter:
+
+    "We seken fast after felicite
+    But we go wrong ful often trewely,
+    Thus may we sayen alle."
+
+Homely indeed, after the paraphernalia of the "Field of the Cloth of
+Gold," would appear the homes of England on the return of their
+masters. For though the nobles had begun to remove the martial fronts
+of their castles, and endeavoured to render them more commodious, yet
+in architecture the nation participated neither the spirit nor the
+taste of its sovereign. The mansions of the gentlemen were, we are
+told, still sordid; the huts of the peasantry poor and wretched. The
+former were generally thatched buildings composed of timber, or, where
+wood was scarce, of large posts inserted in the earth, filled up in
+the interstices with rubbish, plastered within, and covered on the
+outside with coarse clay. The latter were light frames, prepared in
+the forest at small expense, and when erected, probably covered with
+mud. In cities the houses were constructed mostly of the same
+materials, for bricks were still too costly for general use; and the
+stories seem to have projected forward as they rose in height,
+intercepting sunshine and air from the streets beneath. The apartments
+were stifling, lighted by lattices, so contrived as to prohibit the
+occasional and salutary admission of external air. The floors were of
+clay, strewed with rushes, which often remained for years a receptacle
+of every pollution.[112]
+
+In an inventory of the goods and chattels of Sir Andrew Foskewe,
+Knight, dated in the 30th year of King Henry the Eighth, are the
+following furnitures. We select the hall and the best parlour, in
+which he entertained company, first premising that he possessed a
+large and noble service of rich plate worth an amazing sum, and so
+much land as proved him to be a wealthy man:--
+
+"The hall.--A hangin of greine say, bordered with darneng (or
+needlework); item a grete side table, with standinge tressels; item a
+small joyned cuberde, of waynscott, and a short piece of counterfett
+carpett upon it; item a square cuberde, and a large piece of
+counterfett wyndowe, and five formes, &c.
+
+"Perler.--Imprim., a hangynge of greene say and red, panede; item a
+table with two tressels, and a greyne verders carpet upon it; three
+greyne verders cushyns; a joyned cupberd, and a carpett upon it; a
+piece of verders carpet in one window, and a piece of counterfeit
+carpett in the other; one Flemishe chaire; four joyned stooles; a
+joyned forme; a wyker skryne; two large awndyerns, a fyer forke, a
+fyer pan, a payer of tonges; item a lowe joyned stole; two joyned
+foote-stoles; a rounde table of cipress; and a piece of counterfeitt
+carpett upon it; item a paynted table (or picture) of the Epiphany of
+our Lord."[113]
+
+But notwithstanding this apparent meagreness of accommodation, luxury
+in architecture was making rapid strides in the land. Wolsey was as
+magnificent in this taste as in others, as Hampton Court, "a
+residence," says Grotius, "befitting rather a god than a king," yet
+remains to attest. The walls of his chambers at York Place,
+(Whitehall,) were hung with cloth of gold, and tapestry still more
+precious, representing the most remarkable events in sacred
+history--for the easel was then subordinate to the loom.
+
+The subjects of the tapestry in York Place consisted, we are told, of
+triumphs, probably Roman; the story of Absalom, bordered with the
+cardinal's arms; the Petition of Esther, and the Honouring of
+Mordecai; the History of Sampson, bordered with the cardinal's arms;
+the History of Solomon; the History of Susannah and the Elders,
+bordered with the cardinal's arms; the History of Jacob, also
+bordered; Holofernes and Judith, bordered; the Story of Joseph, of
+David, of St. John the Baptist; the History of the Virgin; the Passion
+of Christ; the Worthies; the Story of Nebuchadnezzar; a Pilgrimage;
+all bordered.
+
+This place--Whitehall--Henry decorated magnificently; erected splendid
+gateways, and threw a gallery across to the Park, where he erected a
+tilt-yard, with all royal and courtly appurtenances, and converted the
+whole into a royal manor. This was not until after fire had ravaged
+the ancient, time-honoured, and kingly palace of Westminster, a place
+which perhaps was the most truly regal of any which England ever
+beheld. Recorded as a royal residence as early--almost--as there is
+record of the existence of our venerable abbey; inhabited by Knute the
+Dane; rebuilt by Edward the Confessor; remodelled by Henry the Third;
+receiving lustre from the residence, and ever-added splendour from
+the liberality of a long line of illustrious monarchs, it had obtained
+a hold on the mind which is even yet not passed away, although the
+ravages of time, and of fire, and the desecrations of subsequent ages,
+have scarcely left stone or token of the original structure.
+
+After the fire, however, Henry forsook it. He it was who first built
+St. James's Palace on the site of an hospital which had formerly stood
+there. He also possessed, amongst other royal retreats, Havering
+Bower, so called from the legend of St. Edward receiving a ring from
+St. John the Evangelist on this spot by the hands of a pilgrim from
+the Holy Land; which legend is represented at length in Westminster
+Abbey; Eltham, in Kent, where the king frequently passed his
+Christmas; Greenwich, where Elizabeth was born; and Woodstock,
+celebrated for
+
+          "the unhappy fate
+    Of Rosamond, who long ago
+      Prov'd most unfortunate."
+
+The ancient palace of the Savoy had changed its destination as a royal
+residence only in his father's time. With the single exception of
+Westminster--if indeed that--the most magnificent palace which the
+hand of liberality ever raised, which the finger of taste ever
+embellished. Various indeed have been the changes to which it has been
+doomed, and now not one stone remains on another to say that such
+things have been. Now--of the thousands who traverse the spot, scarce
+one, at long and far distant intervals, may glance at the dim memories
+of the past, to think of the plumed knights and high-born dames who
+revelled in its halls; the crowned and anointed kings who, monarch or
+captive, trod its lofty chambers; the gleaming warriors who paced its
+embattled courts; the gracious queen who caused its walls to echo the
+sounds of joy; the subtle heads which plodded beneath its gloomy
+shades; the unhappy exiles who found a refuge within its dim recesses;
+or[114] the lame, the sick, the impotent, who in the midst of
+suffering blessed the home that sheltered them, the hands that
+ministered to their woes.
+
+No. The majestic walls of the Savoy are in the dust, and not merely
+all trace, but all idea of its radiant gardens and sunny bowers, its
+sparkling fountains and verdant lawns, is lost even to the imagination
+in the matter-of-fact, business-like demeanour of the myriads of
+plodders who are ever traversing the dusty and bustling environs of
+Waterloo-bridge. In our closets we may perchance compel the unromantic
+realities of the present to yield beneath the brilliant imaginations
+of the past; but on the spot itself it is impossible.
+
+Who can stand in Wellington-street, on the verge of Waterloo-bridge,
+and fancy it a princely mansion from the lofty battlements of which a
+royal banner is flying, while numerous retainers keep watch below?
+Probably the sounds of harp and song may be heard as lofty nobles and
+courtly dames are seen to tread the verdant alleys and flower-bestrewn
+paths which lead to the bright and glancing river, where a costly
+barge (from which the sounds proceed) is waiting its distinguished
+freight. Ever and anon are these seen gliding along in the sunbeams,
+or resting at the avenue leading to one or other of the noble mansions
+with which the bright strand is sprinkled.
+
+Of these, perhaps, the most gorgeous is York-place, while farthest in
+the distance rise the fortified walls of the old palace of
+Westminster, inferior only to those of the ancient abbey, which are
+seen to rise, dimmed, yet distinct, in the soft but glowing haze cast
+around by the setting sun.
+
+And that building seen on the opposite side of the river? Strangely
+situated it seems, and in a swamp, and with none of the felicity of
+aspect appertaining to its loftier neighbour, the Savoy. Yet its lofty
+tower, its embattled gateway, seem to infer some important
+destination. And such it had. The unassuming and unattractively placed
+edifice has outlived its more aspiring neighbours; and while the
+stately palace of the Savoy is extinct, and the slight remains of
+Westminster are desecrated, the time-honoured walls of Lambeth yet
+shelter the head of learning and dignify the location in which they
+were reared.
+
+Eastward of our position the city looks dim and crowded; but, with the
+exception of the sprinkled mansions to which we have alluded, there is
+little to break the natural characteristics of the scene between
+Temple-bar and the West Minster. The hermitage and hospital on the
+site of Northumberland House harmonise well with the scene; the little
+cluster of cottages at Charing has a rural aspect; and that beautiful
+and touching memento of unfailing love and undiminished
+affection--that tribute to all that was good and excellent in
+woman--the Cross, which, formed of the purest and, as yet, unsoiled
+white marble, raised its emblem of faith and hope, gleaming like
+silver in the brilliant sky--that--would that we had it still!
+
+Somewhat nearer, the May-pole stands out in gay relief from the woods
+which envelop the hills northward, where yet the timid fawn could
+shelter, and the fearful hare forget its watch; where yet perchance
+the fairies held their revels when the moon shone bright; where they
+filled to the brim the "fairy-cups" and pledged each other in dew;
+where they played at "hide and seek" in the harebells, ran races in
+the branches of the trees, and nestled on the leaves, on which they
+glittered like diamonds; where they launched their tiny barks on the
+sparkling rivulets, breathing ere morning's dawn on the flowers to
+awaken them, tinting the gossamer's web with silver, and scattering
+pearls over the drops of dew.
+
+Closer around, among meadows and pastures, are all sounds and emblems
+of rural life; which as yet are but agreeably varied, not ruthlessly
+annihilated, by the encroachments of population and the increase of
+trade.
+
+Truly this is a difficult picture to realise on Waterloo-bridge, yet
+is it nevertheless a tolerably correct one of this portion of our
+metropolis at the time of "The Field of the Cloth of Gold."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[112] Henry.
+
+[113] Strutt's Manners and Customs.
+
+[114] It was at length converted into an hospital.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE NEEDLE.
+
+    "A grave Reformer of old Rents decay'd."
+
+                        J. Taylor.
+
+    "His garment--
+    With thornes together pind and patched was."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+    _Hodge._  "Tush, tush, her neele, her neele, her neele, man; neither
+                      flesh nor fish,
+              A lytle thing with an hole in the ende, as bright as any
+                      syller,
+              Small, long, sharp at the point, and straight as any piller."
+
+    _Diccon._ "I know not what it is thou menest, thou bringst me more in
+                      doubt."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Knowest not what Tom tailor's man sits broching thro' a
+                      clout?
+              A neele, a neele, a neele, my gammer's neele is gone."
+
+                        Gammer Gurton's Needle.
+
+
+It is said in the old chronicles that previous to the arrival of Anne
+of Bohemia, Queen of Richard the Second, the English ladies fastened
+their robes with skewers; but as it is known that pins were in use
+among the early British, since in the barrows that have been opened
+numbers of "neat and efficient" ivory pins were found to have been
+used in arranging the grave-clothes, it is probable that this remark
+is unfounded.
+
+The pins of a later date than the above were made of boxwood, bone,
+ivory, and some few of silver. They were larger than those of the
+present day, which seem to have been unknown in England till about the
+middle of the fifteenth century. In 1543, however, the manufacture of
+brass pins had become sufficiently important to claim the attention of
+the legislature, an Act having been passed that year by which it was
+enacted, "That no person shall put to sale any pins, but only such as
+shall be double headed and have the head soldered fast to the shank,
+the pins well smoothed, and the shank well sharpened."
+
+Gloucestershire is noted for the number of its pin manufactories. They
+were first introduced in that county, in 1626, by John Tilsby; and it
+is said that at this time they employ 1,500 hands, and send up to the
+metropolis upwards of L20,000 of pins annually.
+
+Our motto says, however, that his garment
+
+    "With thornes together pind and _patched_ was;"
+
+and a French writer says, that before the invention of steel needles
+people were obliged to make use of thorns, fish bones, &c., but that
+since "l'etablissement des societes, ce petit outil est devenu d'un
+usage indispensable dans une infinite d'arts et d'occasions."
+
+He proceeds:--"De toutes les manieres d'attacher l'un a l'autre deux
+corps flexibles, celle qui se pratique avec l'aiguille est une des
+plus universellement repandues: aussi distingue-t-on un grand nombre
+d'aiguilles differentes. On a les aiguilles a coudre, ou de tailleur;
+les aiguilles de chirurgie, d'artillerie, de bonnetier, ou faiseur de
+bas au metier, d'horloger, de cirier, de drapier, de gainier, de
+perruquier, de coiffeuse, de faiseur de coiffe a perruques, de piqueur
+d'etuis, tabatieres, et autres semblables ouvrages; de sellier,
+d'ouvrier en soie, de brodeur, de tapissier, de chandelier,
+d'emballeur; a matelas, a empointer, a tricoter, a enfiler, a presser,
+a brocher, a relier, a natter, a boussole ou aimantee, &c. &c."
+
+Needles are said to have been first made in England by a native of
+India, in 1545, but the art was lost at his death; it was, however,
+recovered by Christopher Greening, in 1560, who was settled with his
+three children, Elizabeth, John, and Thomas, by Mr. Damar, ancestor of
+the present Lord Milton, at Long Crendon, in Bucks, where the
+manufactory has been carried on from that time to the present
+period.[115]
+
+Thus our readers will remark, that until far on in the sixteenth
+century, there was not a needle to be had but of foreign manufacture;
+and bearing this circumstance in mind, they will be able to enter more
+fully into the feelings of those who set such inestimable value on a
+needle. And, indeed, _if_ all we are told of them be true, needles
+could not be too highly esteemed. For instance, we were told of an
+old woman who had used one needle so long and so constantly for
+mending stockings, that at last the needle was able to do them of
+itself. At length, and while the needle was in the full perfection of
+its powers, the old woman died. A neighbour, whose numerous "olive
+branches" caused her to have a full share of matronly employment,
+hastened to possess herself of this domestic treasure, and gathered
+round her the weekly accumulation of sewing, not doubting but that
+with her new ally, the wonder-working needle, the unwieldy work-basket
+would be cleared, "in no time," of its overflowing contents. But even
+the all-powerful needle was of no avail without thread, and she
+forthwith proceeded to invest it with a long one. But thread it she
+could not; it resisted her most strenuous endeavours. In vain she
+turned and re-turned the needle, the eye was plain enough to be seen;
+in vain she cut and screwed the thread, she burnt it in the candle,
+she nipped it with the scissars, she rolled it with her lips, she
+twizled it between her finger and thumb: the pointed end was fine as
+fine could be, but enter the eye of the needle it would not. At
+length, determined not to relinquish her project whilst any hope
+remained of its accomplishment, she borrowed a magnifying glass to
+examine the "little weapon" more accurately. And there, "large as life
+and twice as natural," a pearly gem, a translucent drop, a crystal
+_tear_ stood right in the gap, and filled to overflowing the eye of
+the needle. It was weeping for the death of its old mistress; it
+refused consolation; it was never threaded again.
+
+We give this incident on the testimony of a gallant naval officer; an
+unquestionable authority, though we are fully aware that some of our
+readers may be ungenerously sceptical, and perhaps even rude enough to
+attempt some vile pun about the brave sailor's "drawing a long yarn."
+
+If, however, Gammer Gurton's needle resembled the one we have just
+referred to, and that, too, at a time when a needle, even not
+supernaturally endowed, was not to be had of English manufacture, and
+therefore could only be purchased probably at a high price, we cannot
+wonder at the aggrieved feelings of her domestic circle when the
+catastrophe occurred which is depicted as follows:--The parties
+interested were the Dame Gammer Gurton herself; Hodge, her farming
+man; Tib, her maid; Cocke, her boy; and Gib, her cat. The play from
+which our quotation is taken is not without some pretensions to wit,
+though of the coarsest kind: it is supposed to have been first
+performed at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1566; and Warton observes
+on it, that while Latimer's sermons were in vogue at court, Gammer
+Gurton's needle might well be tolerated at the university.
+
+    Act I. Scene 3. Hodge and Tib.
+
+    _Hodge._  "I am agast, by the masse, I wot not what to do;
+              I had need blesse me well before I go them to:
+              Perchance, some felon spirit may haunt our house indeed,
+              And then I were but a noddy to venter where's no need."
+
+    _Tib._    "I'm worse than mad, by the masse, to be at this stay.
+              I'm chid, I'm blam'd, and beaten all th' hours on the day.
+              Lamed and hunger starved, pricked up all in jagges,
+              Having no patch to hide my backe, save a few rotten ragges."
+
+    _Hodge._  "I say, Tib, if thou be Tib, as I trow sure thou be,
+              What devil make ado is this between our dame and thee?"
+
+    _Tib._    "Truly, Hodge, thou had a good turn thou wart not here this
+                      while;
+              It had been better for some of us to have been hence a mile:
+              My Gammer is so out of course, and frantike all at once,
+              That Cocke, our boy, and I poor wench, have felt it on our
+                      bones."
+
+    _Hodge._  "What is the matter, say on, Tib, whereat she taketh so on?"
+
+    _Tib._    "She is undone, she saith (alas) her life and joy is gone:
+              If she hear not of some comfort, she is she saith but dead,
+              Shall never come within her lips, on inch of meat ne bread.
+              And heavy, heavy is her grief, as, Hodge, we all shall feel."
+
+    _Hodge._  "My conscience, Tib, my Gammer has never lost her neele?"
+
+    _Tib._    "Her neele."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Her neele?"
+
+    _Tib._    "Her neele, by him that made me!"
+
+    _Hodge._  "How a murrain came this chaunce (say Tib) unto her dame?"
+
+    _Tib._    "My Gammer sat her down on the pes, and bade me reach thy
+                      breches,
+              And by and by, a vengeance on it, or she had take two
+                      stitches
+              To clout upon the knee, by chaunce aside she lears,
+              And Gib our cat, in the milk pan, she spied over head
+                      and ears.
+              Ah! out, out, theefe, she cried aloud, and swapt the
+                      breeches down,
+              Up went her staffe, and out leapt Gib at doors into the town:
+              And since that time was never wight cold set their eyes
+                      upon it.
+              God's malison she have Cocke and I bid twentie times light
+                      on it."
+
+    _Hodge._  "And is not then my breches sewed up, to-morrow that I shuld
+                      wear?"
+
+    _Tib._    "No, in faith, Hodge, thy breches lie, for all this never the
+                      near."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Now a vengeance light on al the sort, that better shold
+                      have kept it;
+              The cat, the house, and Tib our maid, that better should
+                      have swept it.
+              Se, where she cometh crawling! Come on, come on thy
+                      lagging way;
+              Ye have made a fair daies worke, have you not? pray you,
+                      say."
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+    Act I. Scene 4. Gammer, Hodge, Tib, Cocke.
+
+    _Gammer._ "Alas, alas, I may well curse and ban
+              This day, that ever I saw it, with Gib and the milke pan.
+              For these, and ill lucke together, as knoweth Cocke my boy,
+              Have stacke away my dear neele, and rob'd me of my joy,
+              My fair long straight neele, that was mine only treasure,
+              The first day of my sorrow is, and last of my pleasure."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Might ha kept it when ye had it; but fools will be fools
+                      still:
+              Lose that is fast in your hands? ye need not, but ye will."
+
+    _Gammer._ "Go hie the, Tib, and run along, to th' end here of the town.
+              Didst carry out dust in thy lap? seek where thou porest
+                      it down;
+              And as thou sawest me roking in the ashes where I morned,
+              So see in all the heap of dust thou leave no straw unturned."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Your neele lost? it is pitie you shold lacke care and
+                      endles sorrow.
+              Tell me, how shall my breches be sewid? shall I go thus
+                      to-morrow?"
+
+    _Gammer._ "Ah, Hodge, Hodge, if that I could find my neele, by the
+                      reed,
+              I'd sew thy breches, I promise the, with full good double
+                      threed,
+              And set a patch on either knee, shall last this months twain,
+              Now God, and Saint Sithe, I pray, to send it back again."
+
+    _Hodge._  "Whereto served your hands and eyes, but your neele keep?
+              What devil had you els to do? ye keep, I wot, no sheep.
+              I'm fain abrode to dig and delve, in water, mire and clay,
+              Sossing and possing in the dirt, still from day to day
+              A hundred things that be abroad, I'm set to see them weel;
+              And four of you sit idle at home, and cannot keep a neele."
+
+    _Gammer._ "My neele, alas, I lost, Hodge, what time I me up hasted,
+              To save milk set up for thee, which Gib our cat hath wasted."
+
+    _Hodge._  "The devil he take both Gib and Tib, with all the rest;
+              I'm always sure of the worst end, whoever have the best.
+              Where ha you ben fidging abroad, since you your neele lost?"
+
+    _Gammer._ "Within the house, and at the door, sitting by this same
+                      post;
+              Where I was looking a long hour, before these folke came
+                      here;
+              But, wel away! all was in vain, my neele is never the near!"
+
+"Gammer Gurton's Needle," says Hazlitt, "is a regular comedy, in five
+acts, built on the circumstance of an old woman having lost her needle
+which throws the whole village into confusion, till it is at last
+providentially found sticking in an unlucky part of Hodge's dress.
+This must evidently have happened at a time when the manufactures of
+Sheffield and Birmingham had not reached the height of perfection
+which they have at present done. Suppose that there is only one sewing
+needle in a village, that the owner, a diligent notable old dame,
+loses it, that a mischief-making wag sets it about that another old
+woman has stolen this valuable instrument of household industry, that
+strict search is made every where in-doors for it in vain, and that
+then the incensed parties sally forth to scold it out in the open air,
+till words end in blows, and the affair is referred over to the higher
+authorities, and we shall have an exact idea (though, perhaps, not so
+lively a one) of what passes in this authentic document between Gammer
+Gurton and her gossip Dame Chat; Dickon the Bedlam (the causer of
+these harms); Hodge, Gammer Gurton's servant; Tyb, her maid; Cocke,
+her 'prentice boy; Doll Scapethrift; Master Baillie, his master; Dr.
+Rat, the curate; and Gib, the cat, who may fairly be reckoned one of
+the _dramatis personae_, and performs no mean part."
+
+From the needle itself the transition is easy to the needlework which
+was in vogue at the time when this little implement was so valuable
+and rare a commodity. We are told that the various kinds of needlework
+practised at this time would, if enumerated, astonish even the most
+industrious of our modern ladies. The lover of Shakspeare will
+remember that the term _point device_ is often used by him, and that,
+indeed, it is a term frequently met with in the writers of that age
+with various applications; and it is originally derived, according to
+Mr. Douce, from the fine stitchery of the ladies.
+
+It has been properly stated, that _point device_ signifies _exact_,
+_nicely_, _finical_; but nothing has been offered concerning the
+etymology, except that we got the expression from the French. It has,
+in fact, been supplied from the labours of the needle. _Poinct_, in
+the French language, denotes a _stitch_; _devise_ any thing
+_invented_, disposed, or _arranged_. _Point devise_ was, therefore, a
+particular sort of patterned lace worked with the needle; and the term
+_point lace_ is still familiar to every female. They had likewise
+their _point-coupe_, _point-compte_, _dentelle au point devant
+l'aiguille_, &c. &c.
+
+But it is apparent, he adds, that the expression _point devise_ became
+applicable, in a _secondary_ sense, to whatever was uncommonly exact,
+or constructed with the nicety and precision of stitches made or
+devised with the needle.
+
+Various books of patterns of needlework for the assistance and
+encouragement of the fair stitchers were published in those days. Mr.
+Douce[116] enumerates some of them, and the omission of any part of
+his notation would be unpardonable in the present work.
+
+The earliest on the list is an Italian book, under the title of
+"Esemplario di lavori: dove le tenere fanciulle et altre donne nobile
+potranno facilmente imparare il modo et ordine di lavorare, cusire,
+raccamare, et finalmente far tutte quelle gentillezze et lodevili
+opere, le quali po fare una donna virtuosa con laco in mano, con li
+suoi compasse et misure. Vinegia, per Nicolo D'Aristotile detto
+Zoppino, MDXXIX. 8vo."
+
+The next that occurs was likewise set forth by an Italian, and
+entitled, "Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts du Seigneur Federic
+de Vinciolo Venitien, pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de lingerie.
+Paris, 1588. 4to." It is dedicated to the Queen of France, and had
+been already twice published.
+
+In 1599 a second part came out, which is much more difficult to be met
+with than the former, and sometimes contains a neat portrait, by
+Gaultier, of Catherine de Bourbon, the sister of Henry the Fourth.
+
+The next is "Nouveaux pourtraicts de point coupe et dantelles en
+petite moyenne et grande forme, nouvellement inventez et mis en
+lumiere. Imprime a Montbeliard, 1598. 4to." It has an address to the
+ladies, and a poem exhorting young damsels to be industrious; but the
+author's name does not appear. Vincentio's work was published in
+England, and printed by John Wolfe, under the title of "New and
+Singular Patternes and Workes of Linnen, serving for paternes to make
+all sortes of lace, edginges, and cutworkes. Newly invented for the
+profite and contentment of ladies, gentilwomen, and others that are
+desireous of this Art. 1591. 4to." He seems also to have printed it
+with a French title.
+
+We have then another English book, of which this is the title: "Here
+foloweth certaine Patternes of Cutworkes; newly invented and never
+published before. Also, sundry sortes of spots, as flowers, birdes,
+and fishes, &c., and will fitly serve to be wrought, some with gould,
+some with silke, and some with crewell in coullers; or otherwise at
+your pleasure. And never but once published before. Printed by Rich.
+Shorleyker." No date. In oblong quarto.
+
+And lastly, another oblong quarto, entitled, "The Needle's Excellency,
+a new booke, wherein are divers admirable workes wrought with the
+needle. Newly invented and cut in copper for the pleasure and profit
+of the industrious." Printed for James Boler, &c., 1640. Beneath this
+title is a neat engraving of three ladies in a flower garden, under
+the names of Wisdom, Industrie, and Follie. Prefixed to the patterns
+are sundry poems in commendation of the needle, and describing the
+characters of ladies who have been eminent for their skill in
+needlework, among whom are Queen Elizabeth and the Countess of
+Pembroke. The poems were composed by John Taylor the water poet. It
+appears that the work had gone through twelve impressions, and yet a
+copy is now scarcely to be met with. This may be accounted for by
+supposing that such books were generally cut to pieces, and used by
+women to work upon or transfer to their samplers. From the dress of a
+lady and gentleman on one of the patterns in the last mentioned book,
+it appears to have been originally published in the reign of James the
+First. All the others are embellished with a multitude of patterns
+elegantly cut in wood, several of which are eminently conspicuous for
+their taste and beauty.
+
+We are happy to add a little further information on some of these
+works, and on others preserved in the British Museum.
+
+"Les singuliers et nouveaux Pourtraicts du Seigneur Federic de
+Vinciolo Venitien, pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de Lingerie. Dedie a
+la Reyne. A Paris, 1578."[117]
+
+The book opens with a sonnet to the fair, which announces to them an
+admirable motive for the work itself:--
+
+    "Pour tromper vos ennuis, et l'esprit employer."
+
+Aux Dames et Damoyselles.
+
+    SONNET.
+
+    "L'un s'efforce a gaigner le coeur des {grands} Seigneurs
+    Pour posseder en fin une exquise richesse;
+    L'autre aspire aux estats, pour monter en altesse,
+    Et l'autre, par la guerre alleche les honneurs.
+
+    "Quand a moy, seulement pour chasser mes langueurs,
+    Je me sen satisfaict de vivre en petitesse,
+    Et de faire si bien, qu'aux Dames ie delaisse
+    Un grand contentement en mes graves labeurs.
+
+    "Prenez doncques en gre (mes Dames) ie vous prie,
+    Ces pourtrais ouvragez lesquels ie vous dedie,
+    Pour tromper vos ennuis, et l'esprit employer.
+
+    "En ceste nouveaute, pourrez beaucoup apprendre,
+    Et maistresses en fin en cest oeuvre vous rendre,
+    Le travail est plaisant: Si grand est le loyer."
+
+Which, barring elegant diction and poetic rule, may be read thus:--
+
+    Whilst one man worships lordly state
+      As yielding all that he desires--
+    This, fertile acres begs from fate;
+      Another, bloody laurels fires.
+
+    To dissipate my devils blue,
+    Trifles, I'm satisfied to do;
+    For surely if the fair I please,
+    My very labours smack of ease.
+
+    Take then, fair ladies, I you pray,
+    The book which at your feet I lay,
+    To make you happy, brisk and gay.
+
+    There's much you here may learn anew,
+    Which _comme il faut_ will render you,
+    And bring you joy and honour too.
+
+Proceed we to the--
+
+"Ouvrages de point Coupe," of which there are thirty-six. Some birds,
+animals, and figures are introduced; but the patterns are chiefly
+arabesque, set off in white, on a thick black ground.
+
+Then, with a repetition of the ornamented title-page, come about fifty
+patterns, which are represented much like the German patterns of the
+present day, in squares for stitches, but not so finely wrought as
+some which we shall presently notice. These patterns consist of
+arabesques, figures, birds, beasts, flowers, in every variety. To many
+the stitches are ready counted (as well as pourtrayed), thus:--
+
+"Ce Pelican contient en longueur 70 mailles, et en hauteur 65." This
+pattern of maternity is represented as pecking her breast, towards
+which three young ones are flying; their course being indicated by the
+three lines of white stitches, all converging to the living nest.
+
+"Ce Griffon {contient} en hauteur 58 mailles, et en {longueur} 67."
+Small must be the skill of the needlewoman who does not make this a
+very rampant animal indeed.
+
+"Ce Paon contient en longueur 65 mailles, et en hauteur 61."
+
+"La Licorne en hauteur {contient} 44 mailles, et en longueur 62, &c.
+&c."
+
+"La bordure contient 25 mailles."
+
+"La bordure de haut {contient} 35 mailles." This is a very handsome
+one, resembling pine apples.
+
+"Ce quarre contient 65 mailles." There are several of these squares,
+and borders appended, of very rich patterns.
+
+But the book contains far more ambitious designs. There are Sol, Luna,
+Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Neptune, and others, whose
+dignities and vocation must be inferred from the emblematical
+accompaniments.
+
+There is "La Deesse des fleurs representant le printemps."
+
+"La Deesse des Bleds representant l'este."
+
+"Ce Bacchus representant l'Autonne."
+
+"Ceste figure representant l'hiver," &c. &c.
+
+Appended is this "Extraict du Privilege."
+
+"Per grace et privelege du Roy, est permis a Jean le Clerc le jeune,
+tailleur d'histoires a Paris, d'imprimer ou faire imprimer {vendre} et
+distribuer un livre intitule livre de patrons de Lingerie, DEDIE A LA
+ROYNE, nouvellement invente par le Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo
+Venitien, avec deffences a tous Libraires, Imprimeurs, ou autres, de
+quelque condition et qualite quilz soyent, de faire ny contrefaire,
+aptisser ny {agrandir}, ou pocher lesdits figures, ny exposer en vente
+ledict Livre sans le {conge} ou permission dudict le Clerc, et ce
+jusques au temps et terme de neuf ans finis et accomplis, sur peine de
+confiscation de tous les livres qui se trouveront imprimez, et damande
+arbitraire: comme plus a plein est declare en lettres patentes,
+donnees a Paris ce douziesme jour de Novembre, 1587."
+
+Another work, preserved in the British Museum, was published at
+Strasbourg, 1596, seemingly from designs of the same Vinciolo. These
+consist of about six-and-thirty plates, with patterns in white on a
+black ground, consisting of a few birds and figures, but chiefly of
+stars and wreaths pricked out in every possible variety; and at the
+end of the book a dozen richly wrought patterns, without any edging,
+were seemingly designed for what we should now call "insertion" work
+or lace.
+
+There is another, by the same author, printed at Basil in 1599, which
+varies but slightly from the foregoing.
+
+This Frederick de Vinciolo is doubtless the same person who was
+summoned to France, by Catherine de Medicis, to instruct the ladies of
+the court in the art of netting the lace of which the then fashionable
+ruffs were made.
+
+In another volume we have--
+
+"Corona delle Nobili et virtuose Donne, nel quale si dimostra in varij
+Dissegni tutte le sorti di Mostre di punti tagliati, punti in Aria,
+punti Fiamenghi, punti a Reticelle, e d'ogni altre sorte, cosi per
+Freggi, per Merli, e Rosette, che con l'Aco si usano hoggidi per tutta
+l'Europa.
+
+"E molte delle quali Mostre possono servire ancora per opere a
+Mazzette.
+
+"Con le dichiarationi a le Mostre a Lavori fatti da Lugretia Romana.
+
+"In Venetia appresso Alessandro di Vecchi, 1620."
+
+The plates here are very similar to those in the above-mentioned
+works. Some are accompanied by short explanations, saying where they
+are most used and to whom they are best suited, as--
+
+"Hopera Bellissima, che per il piu le Signore Duchese, et altre
+Signore si servono per li suoi lavori."
+
+"Queste bellissime Rosette usano anco le gentildonne Venetiane da far
+traverse."
+
+But certainly the best work of the kind is, "The Needle's Excellency,"
+referred to in Mr. Douce's list. It contains a variety of plates, of
+which the patterns are all, or nearly all, arabesque. They are
+beautifully executed, many of them being very similar to, and equally
+fine with, the German patterns before the colouring is put on, which,
+though it guides the eye, defaces the work. These are seldom seen
+uncoloured, the Germans having a jealousy of sending them; but we have
+seen, through the polite attention of Mr. Wilks, of Regent Street, one
+or two in this state, and we could not but admire the extreme delicacy
+and beauty of the work. Some few of the patterns in the book we are
+now referring to are so extremely similar, that we doubt not the
+modern artists have borrowed the _idea_ of their beautifully traced
+patterns from this or some similar work; thereby adding one more proof
+of the truth of the oft quoted proverb, "There is nothing new under
+the sun."
+
+As a fitting close to this chapter, we give the Needle's praises in
+full, as sung by the water poet, John Taylor, and prefixed to the
+last-mentioned work.
+
+    THE PRAISE OF THE NEEDLE.
+
+    "To all dispersed sorts of arts and trades,
+    I write the needles prayse (that never fades)
+    So long as children shall be got or borne,
+    So long as garments shall be made or worne,
+    So long as hemp or flax, or sheep shall bear
+    Their linnen wollen fleeces yeare by yeare:
+    So long as silkwormes, with exhausted spoile,
+    Of their own entrailes for man's gaine shall toyle:
+    Yea till the world be quite dissolv'd and past,
+    So long at least, the needles use shall last:
+    And though from earth his being did begin,
+    Yet through the fire he did his honour win:
+    And unto those that doe his service lacke,
+    He's true as steele and mettle to the backe
+    He hath indeed, I see, small single sight,
+    Yet like a pigmy, _Polipheme_ in fight:
+    As a stout captaine, bravely he leades on,
+    (Not fearing colours) till the worke be done,
+    Through thicke and thinne he is most sharpely set,
+    With speed through stitch, he will the conquest get.
+    And as a souldier (Frenchefyde with heat)
+    Maim'd from the warres is forc'd to make retreat;
+    So when a needles point is broke, and gone,
+    _No point Mounsieur_, he's maim'd, his worke is done,
+    And more the needles honour to advance,
+    It is a tailor's javelin, or his lance;
+    And for my countries quiet, I should like,
+    That women kinde should use no other pike.
+    It will increase their peace, enlarge their store,
+    To use their tongues lesse, and their needles more.
+    The needles sharpnesse, profit yields, and pleasure,
+    But sharpnesse of the tongue, bites out of measure.
+    A needle (though it be but small and slender)
+    Yet it is both a maker and a mender:
+    A grave Reformer of old rents decay'd,
+    Stops holes and seames and desperate cuts display'd,
+    And thus without the needle we may see
+    We should without our bibs and biggins bee;
+    No shirts or smockes, our nakednesse to hide,
+    No garments gay, to make us magnifide:
+    No shadowes, shapparoones, caules, bands, ruffs, kuffs,
+    No kerchiefes, quoyfes, chinclouts, or marry-muffes,
+    No croscloaths, aprons, handkerchiefes, or falls,
+    No table-cloathes, for parlours or for halls,
+    No sheetes, no towels, napkins, pillow beares,
+    Nor any garment man or woman weares.
+    Thus is a needle prov'd an instrument
+    Of profit, pleasure, and of ornament.
+    Which mighty queenes have grac'd in hand to take,
+    And high borne ladies such esteeme did make,
+    That as their daughters daughters up did grow,
+    The needles art, they to the children show.
+    And as 'twas then an exercise of praise,
+    So what deserves more honour in these dayes,
+    Than this? which daily doth itselfe expresse
+    A mortall enemy to idlenesse.
+    The use of sewing is exceeding old,
+    As in the sacred text it is enrold:
+    Our parents first in Paradise began,
+    Who hath descended since from man to man:
+    The mothers taught their daughters, sires their sons
+    Thus in a line successively it runs
+    For generall profit, and for recreation,
+    From generation unto generation.
+    With work like cherubims embroidered rare,
+    The covers of the tabernacle were.
+    And by the Almighti's great command, we see,
+    That Aaron's garments broidered worke should be;
+    And further, God did bid his vestments should
+    Be made most gay, and glorious to behold.
+    Thus plainly and most truly is declar'd
+    The needles worke hath still bin in regard,
+    For it doth art, so like to nature frame,
+    As if it were her sister, or the same.
+    Flowers, plants and fishes, beasts, birds, flyes, and bees,
+    Hills, dales, plaines, pastures, skies, seas, rivers, trees;
+    There's nothing neere at hand, or farthest sought,
+    But with the needle may be shap'd and wrought.
+    In clothes of arras I have often seene,
+    Men's figur'd counterfeits so like have beene,
+    That if the parties selfe had been in place,
+    Yet art would vie with nature for the grace;
+    Moreover, posies rare, and anagrams,
+    Signifique searching sentences from names,
+    True history, or various pleasant fiction,
+    In sundry colours mixt, with arts commixion,
+    All in dimension, ovals, squares, and rounds,
+    Arts life included within natures bounds:
+    So that art seemeth merely naturall,
+    In forming shapes so geometricall;
+    And though our country everywhere is fild
+    With ladies, and with gentlewomen, skild
+    In this rare art, yet here they may discerne
+    Some things to teach them if they list to learne.
+    And as this booke some cunning workes doth teach,
+    (Too hard for meane capacities to reach)
+    So for weake learners, other workes here be,
+    As plaine and easie as are A B C.
+    Thus skilful, or unskilful, each may take
+    This booke, and of it each good use may make,
+    All sortes of workes, almost that can be nam'd,
+    Here are directions how they may be fram'd:
+    And for this kingdomes good are hither come,
+    From the remotest parts of Christendome,
+    Collected with much paines and industrie,
+    From scorching _Spaine_ and freezing _Muscovie_,
+    From fertill _France_, and pleasant _Italy_,
+    From _Poland_, _Sweden_, _Denmark_, _Germany_,
+    And some of these rare patternes have beene fet
+    Beyond the bounds of faithlesse _Mahomet_:
+    From spacious _China_, and those kingdomes East,
+    And from great _Mexico_, the Indies West.
+    Thus are these workes, _farrefetcht_ and _dearely bought_,
+    And consequently _good for ladies thought_.
+    Nor doe I derogate (in any case)
+    Or doe esteeme of other teachings base,
+    For _tent worke_, _rais'd worke_, _laid worke_, _frost works_,
+            _net worke_,
+    Most curious _purles_, or rare _Italian cut worke_,
+    Fine, _ferne stitch_, _finny stitch_, _new stitch_, and _chain stitch_,
+    Brave _bred stitch_, _Fisher stitch_, _Irish stitch_, and _Queen
+            stitch_,
+    The _Spanish stitch_, _Rosemary stitch_, and _Mowse stitch_
+    The smarting _whip stitch_, _back stitch_, and the _crosse stitch_
+    All these are good, and these we must allow,
+    And these are everywhere in practise now:
+    And in this booke there are of these some store,
+    With many others, never seene before.
+    Here practise and invention may be free.
+    And as a squirrel skips from tree to tree,
+    So maids may (from their mistresse or their mother)
+    Learne to leave one worke, and to learne another,
+    For here they may make choice of which is which,
+    And skip from worke to worke, from stitch to stitch,
+    Until, in time, delightful practise shall
+    (With profit) make them perfect in them all.
+    Thus hoping that these workes may have this guide,
+    To serve for ornament, and not for pride:
+    To cherish vertue, banish idlenesse,
+    For these ends, may this booke have good successe."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[115] It is worth while to remark the circumstance, that by a machine
+of the simplest construction, being nothing in fact but a tray, 20,000
+needles thrown promiscuously together, mixed and entangled in every
+way, are laid parallel, heads to heads, and points to points, in the
+course of three or four minutes.
+
+[116] Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 92.
+
+[117] This seems to be a somewhat earlier edition of the second book
+in Mr. Douce's list.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+TAPESTRY FROM THE CARTOONS.
+
+      "For, round about, the walls yclothed were
+      With goodly Arras of great majesty,
+      Woven with gold and silk so close and nere,
+      That the rich metal lurked privily,
+      As faining to be hidd from envious eye;
+      Yet here, and there, and every where unwares
+      It shew'd itselfe and shone unwillingly;
+      Like to a discolour'd Snake, whose hidden snares
+    Through the greene gras his long bright burnisht back declares."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+
+Raphael, whose name is familiar to all "as a household word," seems to
+have been equally celebrated for a handsome person, an engaging
+address, an amiable disposition, and high talents. Language exhausts
+itself in his eulogy.[118] But the extravagant encomiums of Lanzi and
+others must be taken in a very modified sense, ere we arrive at the
+rigid truth. The tone of morals in Italy "did not correspond with
+evangelical purity;" and Raphael's follies were not merely permitted,
+but encouraged and fostered by those who sought eagerly for the
+creations of his pencil. His thousand engaging qualities were
+disfigured by a licentiousness which probably shortened his career,
+for he died at the early age of thirty-seven.
+
+Great and sincere was the grief expressed at Rome for his untimely
+death, and no testimony of sorrow could be more affecting, more
+simple, or more highly honourable to its object than the placing his
+picture of the Transfiguration over his mortal remains in the chamber
+wherein he died.
+
+It was probably within two years of the close of his short life when
+he was engaged by Pope Leo the Tenth to paint those cartoons which
+have more than all his works immortalised his name, and which render
+the brief hints we have given respecting him peculiarly appropriate to
+this work.
+
+The cartoons were designs, from Scripture chiefly, from which were to
+be woven hangings to ornament the apartments of the Vatican; and their
+dimensions being of course proportioned to the spaces they were
+designed to fill, the tapestries, though equal in height, differed
+extremely in breadth.
+
+The designs were,
+
+    1. The Nativity.
+
+    2. The Adoration of the Magi.
+
+    3. }
+       }
+    4. } The Slaughter of the Innocents.
+       }
+    5. }
+
+    6. The Presentation in the Temple.
+
+    7. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes.
+
+    8. St. Peter receiving the Keys.
+
+    9. The Descent of Christ into Limbus.
+
+    10. The Resurrection.
+
+    11. Noli me tangere.
+
+    12. Christ at Emmaus.
+
+    13. The Ascension.
+
+    14. The Descent of the Holy Ghost.
+
+    15. The Martyrdom of St. Stephen.
+
+    16. The Conversion of St. Paul.
+
+    17. Paul and Barnabas at Lystra.
+
+    18. Paul Preaching.
+
+    19. Death of Ananias.
+
+    20. Elymas the Sorcerer.
+
+    21. An earthquake; showing the delivery of Paul and
+    Silas from prison: named from the earthquake which shook
+    the foundations of the building. The artist endeavours
+    to render it ideally visible to the spectator by placing
+    a gigantic figure, which appears to be raising the
+    superincumbent weight on his shoulders; but the result
+    is not altogether successful.
+
+    22. St. Peter healing the cripple.
+
+    23-24. Contain emblems alluding to Leo the Tenth. These
+    are preserved in one of the private apartments of the
+    Vatican palace.
+
+    25. Justice. In this subject the figures of Religion,
+    Charity, and Justice are seen above the papal armorial
+    bearings. The last figure gives name to the whole.
+
+When the cartoons were finished they were sent into Flanders to be
+woven (at the famous manufactory at Arras) under the superintendence
+of Barnard Van Orlay of Brussels, and Michael Coxis, artists who had
+been for some years pupils of Raphael at Rome. Two sets were executed
+with the utmost care and cost, but the death of Raphael, the murder of
+the Pope, and subsequent intestine troubles seem to have delayed their
+appropriation. They cost seventy thousand crowns, a sum which is said
+to have been defrayed by Francis the First of France, in consideration
+of Leo's having canonised St. Francis of Paola, the founder of the
+Minims.
+
+Adrian the Second was a man "alienissimo da ogni bell'arte;" an
+indifference which may account for the cartoons not being sent with
+the tapestries to Rome, though some accounts say that the debt for
+their manufacture remained unliquidated, and that the paintings were
+kept in Flanders as security for it. They were carried away by the
+Spanish army in 1526-7 during the sack of Rome, but were restored by
+the zeal and spirit of Montmorenci the French general, as set forth in
+the woven borders of the tapestries Nos. 6 and 9. Pope Paul the Fourth
+(1555) first introduced them to the gaze of the public by exhibiting
+them before the Basilica of St. Peter on the festival of Corpus
+Domini, and also at the solemn "function of Beatification." This use
+of them was continued through part of the last century, and is now
+resumed.
+
+In 1798 they were taken by the French from Rome and sold to a Jew at
+Leghorn, and one of them was burnt by him in order to extract the gold
+with which they were richly interwoven; but happily they did not
+furnish so much spoil as the speculator hoped, and this devastation
+was arrested. The one that was destroyed represented Christ's Descent
+into Limbus; the rest were repurchased for one thousand three hundred
+crowns, and restored to the Vatican in 1814.
+
+We have alluded to two sets of these tapestries, and it is believed
+that there were two; whether _exactly_ counterparts has not been
+ascertained. We have traced the migrations of one set. The other was,
+according to some authorities, presented by Pope Leo the Tenth to our
+Henry the Eighth; whilst others say that our king purchased it from
+the state of Venice. It was hung in the Banqueting House of
+Whitehall, and after the unhappy execution of Charles the First, was
+put up, amongst other royal properties, to sale. Being purchased by
+the Spanish ambassador, it became the property of the house of Alva,
+and within a few years back was sold by the head of that illustrious
+house to Mr. Tupper, our consul in Spain, and by him sent back to this
+country.
+
+These tapestries were then exhibited for some time in the Egyptian
+Hall, Piccadilly, and were afterwards repurchased by a foreigner.
+Probably they have been making a "progress" throughout the kingdom, as
+within this twelvemonth we had the satisfaction of viewing them at the
+principal town in a northern county. The motto of our chapter might
+have been written expressly for these tapestries, so exquisitely
+accurate is the description as applied to them of the gold thread:--
+
+        "As here and there, and every where unwares
+        It shew'd itselfe and shone unwillingly;
+        Like to a discolour'd snake, whose hidden snares
+    Through the greene gras his long bright burnisht back declares."
+
+The cartoons themselves, the beautiful originals of these magnificent
+works, remained in the Netherlands, and were all, save seven, lost and
+destroyed through the ravages of time, and chance, and revolution.
+These seven, much injured by neglect, and almost pounced into holes by
+the weaver tracing his outlines, were purchased by King Charles the
+First, and are now justly considered a most valuable possession. It is
+supposed that the chief object of Charles in the purchase was to
+supply the then existing tapestry manufactory at Mortlake with
+superior designs for imitation. Five of them were _certainly_ woven
+there, and it is far from improbable that the remaining ones were
+also.[119]
+
+There was also a project for weaving them by a person of the name of
+James Christopher Le Blon, and houses were built and looms erected at
+Chelsea expressly for that purpose, but the design failed.
+
+The "British Critic," for January, this year, has the following
+spirited remarks with regard to the present situation of the cartoons.
+"The cartoons of Raffaelle are very unfairly seen in their present
+locale; a long gallery built for the purpose by William the Third, but
+in which the light enters through common chamber windows, and therefore
+is so much below the cartoons as to leave the greater part of them in
+shade. We venture to say there is no country in Europe in which such
+works as these--unique, and in their class invaluable--would be treated
+with so little honour. It has been decided by competent opinions, that
+their removal to London would be attended with great risk to their
+preservation, from the soot, damp, accumulation of dust, and other
+inconveniences, natural or incident to a crowded city. This, however,
+is no fair reason for their being shut up in their present ill-assorted
+apartment. There is not a petty state in Germany that would not erect a
+gallery on purpose for them; and a few thousand pounds would be well
+bestowed in providing a fitting receptacle for some of the finest
+productions of human genius in art; and of the full value of which we
+_alone_, their possessors, seem to be comparatively insensible. Various
+portions of cartoons by Raffaelle, part of the same series or set,
+exist in England; and it is far from unlikely that, were there a proper
+place to preserve and exhibit the whole in, these would in time, by
+presentation or purchase, become the property of the country, and we
+should then possess a monument of the greatest master of his art, only
+inferior to that which he has left on the walls of the Vatican."
+
+Of all these varied and beautiful paintings, that of the Adoration of
+the Magi, from the variety of character and expression, the splendor
+and oriental pomp of the whole, the multitude of persons, between
+forty and fifty, the various accessaries, elephants, horses, &c., with
+the variety of splendid and ornamental illustrations, and the
+exquisite grouping, is considered as the most attractive and brilliant
+in tapestry. As a piece of general and varied interest it may be so;
+but we well remember being, not so suddenly struck, as attracted and
+fascinated by the figure of the Christ when, after his resurrection,
+he is recommending the care of his flock to St. Peter. The colours
+have faded gradually and equably--(an advantage not possessed by the
+others, where some tints which have stood the ravages of time better
+than those around them, are in places strikingly and painfully
+discordant)--but in this figure the colours, though greatly faded,
+have yet faded so harmoniously as to add very much to the illusion,
+giving to the figure really the appearance of one risen from the
+dead. The outline is majestic; turn which way we would, we
+involuntarily returned to look again. At length we mentioned our
+admiration to the superintendent, and the reply of the enthusiastic
+foreigner precluded all further remark--for nothing further could be
+said:--
+
+"Madam, I should have been astonished if you had not admired that
+figure: _it is itself_; it is precisely _the finest thing in the
+world_."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[118] For example:--"Egli avea tenuto sempre un contegno da
+guadagnarsi il cuore di tutto. Rispettoso verso il maestro, ottenne
+dal Papa che le sue pitture in una volta delle camere Vaticane
+rimanessero intatte; giusto verso i suoi emuli ringraziava Dio
+d'averlo fatto nascere a' tempi del Bonarruoti; grazioso verso i
+discepoli gl'istrui e gli amo come figli; cortese anche verso
+gl'ignoti, a chiunque ricorse a lui per consiglio presto liberalmente
+l'opera sua, e per far disegni ad altrui o dar gl'indirizzo lascio
+indietro talvolta i lavori propri, non sapendo non pure di negar
+grazia, ma differirla."--Lanzi, vol. ii.
+
+Consequently when his body before interment lay in the room in which
+he was accustomed to paint, "Non v'ebbe si duro artefice che a quello
+spettacolo non lagrimasse."--"Ne pianse il Papa."
+
+Of his works:--"Le sue figure veramente amano, languiscono, temono,
+sperano, ardiscono; mostrano ira, placabilita, umilta, orgoglio, come
+mette bene alla storia: spesso chi mira que' volti, que' guardi,
+quelle mosse, non si ricorda che ha innanzi una immagine; si sente
+accendere, prende partito, crede di trovarsi in sul fatto.--Tutto
+parla nel silenzio; ogni attore, _Il cor negli occhi e nella fronte ha
+scritto_; i piccioli movimenti degli occhi, degli narici, della bocca,
+delle dita corrispondono a' primi moti d'ogni passione; i gesti piu
+animati e piu vivi ne descrivono la violenza; e cio ch'e piu, essi
+variano in cento modi senza uscir mai del naturale, e si attemperano a
+cento caratteri senza uscir mai dalla proprieta. L'eroe ha movimenti
+da eroe, il volgar da volgare; e quel che non descriverebbe lingua ne
+penna, descrive in pochissimi tratti l'ingegno e l'arte di
+Raffaello."--p. 65.
+
+"Il paese, gli elementi, gli animali, le fabbriche, le manifatture,
+ogni eta dell'uomo, ogni condizione, ogni affetto, tutte comprese con
+la divinita del suo ingegno, tutto ridusse piu bello."--p. 71.
+
+I have thought this long extract pardonable as applied to one whose
+finest designs are now, through so many channels, rendered familiar to
+us.
+
+[119] In a priced catalogue of His Majesty's collection of "Limnings,"
+edited by Vertue, is the following entry. "Item, in a slit box-wooden
+case, some TWO CARTOONS of Raphael Urbinus for hangings to be made by,
+and _the other FIVE are by the King's appointment delivered to Mr.
+Francis Cleen at Mortlake, to make hangings by_."--Cartonensia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE DAYS OF "GOOD QUEEN BESS."
+
+    "A worthie woman judge, a woman sent for staie."
+
+    "When Fame resounds with thundring trump, which rends the ratling
+            skies,
+    And pierceth to the hautie Heavens, and thence descending flies
+    Through flickering ayre: and so conjoines the sea and shore togither,
+    In admiration of thy grace, good Queene, thou'rt welcome hither."
+
+                        _The Receyving of the Queene's Maiestie
+                            into hir Citie of Norwich._
+
+    "We may justly wonder what has become of the industry of
+    the English ladies; we hear no more of their rich
+    embroiderings, and curious needlework. Is all the
+    domestic simplicity of the former ages entirely
+    vanished?"--Aikin.
+
+
+The age of Elizabeth presents a never-failing field of variety through
+which people of all tastes may delightedly rove, gathering flowers at
+will. The learned statesman, the acute politician, the subtle lawyer,
+will find in the measures of her Burleigh, her Walsingham, her Cecil,
+abundant food for approbation or for censure; the heroic sailor will
+glory over the achievements of her time; the adventurous traveller
+will explore the Eldoradic regions with Raleigh, or plough the waves
+with Drake and Frobisher; the soldier will recal glorious visions of
+Essex and Sidney, while poesy wreathes a bay round the memory of the
+last, which shines freshly and bright even in the age which produced a
+Ben Jonson, and him "who was born with a star on his forehead to last
+through all time"--Shakspeare.
+
+The age of Elizabeth was especially a learned age. The study of the
+dead languages had hitherto been confined almost exclusively to
+ecclesiastics and scholars by profession, but from the time of Henry
+the Seventh it had been gradually spreading amongst the higher
+classes. The great and good Sir Thomas More gave his daughters a
+learned education, and they did honour to it; Henry the Eighth
+followed his example; Lady Jane Grey made learning lovely; and
+Elizabeth's pedantry brought the habit into full fashion.
+
+If a queen were to talk Sanscrit, her court would endeavour to do so
+likewise. The example of learned studies was given by the queen
+herself, who translated from the Greek a play of Euripides, and parts
+of Isocrates, Xenophon, and Plutarch; from the Latin considerable
+portions of Cicero, Seneca, Sallust, Horace, &c. She wrote many Latin
+letters, and is said to have spoken five languages with facility. As a
+natural consequence the nobility and gentry, their wives and
+daughters, became enthusiasts in the cause of letters. The novelty
+which attended these studies, the eager desire to possess what had
+been so long studiously and jealously concealed, and the curiosity to
+explore and rifle the treasures of the Greek and Roman world, which
+mystery and imagination had swelled into the marvellous, contributed
+to excite an absolute passion for study and for books. The court, the
+ducal castle, and the baronial hall were suddenly converted into
+academies, and could boast of splendid tapestries. In the first of
+these, according to Ascham, might be seen the queen reading "more
+Greeke every day than some prebendarie of this church doth read
+_Latin_ in a whole week;" and while she was translating Isocrates or
+Seneca, it may be easily conceived that her maids of honour found it
+convenient to praise and to adopt the disposition of her time. In the
+second, observes Warton, "the daughter of a duchess was taught not
+only to distil strong waters, but to construe Greek; and in the third,
+every young lady who aspired to be fashionable was compelled, in
+imitation of the greater world, to exhibit similar marks of
+erudition."
+
+A contemporary writer says, that some of the ladies of the court
+employ themselves "in continuall reading either of the holie
+Scriptures, or histories of our owne or forren nations about us, and
+diverse in writing volumes of their owne, or translating of other mens
+into our English and Latine toongs. I might here (he adds) make a
+large discourse of such honorable and grave councellors, and noble
+personages, as give their dailie attendance upon the queene's
+majestie. I could in like sort set foorth a singular commendation of
+the vertuous beautie, or beautiful vertues of such ladies and
+gentlewomen as wait upon his person, betweene whose amiable
+countenances and costlinesse of attire there seemeth to be such a
+dailie conflict and contention, as that it is verie difficult for me
+to gesse whether of the twaine shall beare awaie the preheminence.
+This further is not to be omitted, to the singular commendation of
+both sorts and sexes of our courtiers here in England, that there are
+verie few of them which have not the use and skill of sundrie
+speaches, beside an excellent veine of writing before-time not
+regarded. Would to God the rest of their lives and conversations were
+correspondent to these gifts! for as our common courtiers (for the
+most part) are the best lerned and endued with excellent gifts, so are
+manie of them the worst men when they come abroad, that anie man shall
+either heare or read of. Trulie it is a rare thing with us now to
+heare of a courtier which hath but his owne language. And to saie how
+many gentlewomen and ladies there are, that beside sound knowledge of
+the Greeke and Latine toongs, are thereto no lesse skilful in the
+Spanish, Italian, and French, or in some one of them, it resteth not
+in me. Sith I am persuaded, that as the noblemen and gentlemen doo
+surmount in this behalfe, so these come verie little or nothing at all
+behind them for their parts, which industrie God continue, and
+accomplish that which otherwise is wanting!"[120]
+
+At this time the practice (derived from the chivalrous ages, when
+every baronial castle was the resort of young persons of gentle birth,
+of both sexes) was by no means discontinued of placing young women, of
+gentle birth, in the establishment of ladies of rank, where, without
+performing any menial offices, they might be supposed to have their
+own understood duties in the household, and had in return the
+advantage of a liberal education, and constant association with the
+best company. Persons of rank and fortune often retained in their
+service many young people of both sexes of good birth, and bestowed on
+them the fashionable education of the time. Indeed their houses were
+the best, if not then the only schools of elegant learning. The
+following letter, written in 1595, is from a young lady thus situated:
+
+    "To my good mother Mrs. Pake, at Broumfield, deliver this.
+
+    "Deare Mother,
+
+    "My humble dutye remembred unto my father and you, &c. I
+    received upon Weddensday last a letter from my father
+    and you, whereby, I understand, it is your pleasures
+    that I should certifie you what times I do take for my
+    lute, and the rest of my exercises. I doe for the most
+    part playe of my lute after supper, for then commonlie
+    my lady heareth me; and in the morninges, after I am
+    reddie, I play an hower; and my wrightinge and
+    siferinge, after I have done my lute. For my drawinge I
+    take an hower in the afternowne, and my French at night
+    before supper. My lady hath not bene well these tooe or
+    three dayes: she telleth me, when she is well, that she
+    will see if Hilliard will come and teche me; if she can
+    by any means she will, &c. &c.--As touchinge my newe
+    corse in service, I hope I shall performe my dutye to my
+    lady with all care and regard to please her, and to
+    behave myselfe to everye one else as it shall become me.
+    Mr. Harrisone was with me upone Fridaye; he heard me
+    playe, and brought me a dusson of trebles; I had some of
+    him when I came to London. Thus desiring pardone for my
+    rude writinge, I leave you to the Almightie, desiringe
+    him to increase in you all health and happines.
+
+        "Your obedient daughter,
+
+            "Rebecca Pake."
+
+Could any thing afford a stronger contrast to the grave and certainly
+severe study to which Elizabeth had habituated herself, than the vain
+and fantastic puerility of many of her recreations and habits,--the
+unintellectual brutality of the bearbaits which she admired, or the
+gaudy and glittering pageants in which she delighted? She built a
+gallery at Whitehall at immense expense, and so superficially, that it
+was in ruins in her successor's time; but it was raised, in order to
+afford a magnificent reception to the ambassadors who, in 1581, came
+to treat of an alliance with the Duke of Anjou. It was framed of
+timber, covered with painted canvas, and decorated with the utmost
+gaudiness. Pendants of fruit of various kinds (amongst which cucumbers
+and even carrots are enumerated) were hung from festoons of flowers
+intermixed with evergreens, and the whole was powdered with gold
+spangles; the ceiling was painted like a sky with stars, sunbeams, and
+clouds, intermixed with scutcheons of the royal arms; and glass
+lustres and ornaments were scattered all around. Here were enacted
+masques and pageants chiefly remarkable for their pedantic prolixity
+of composition, and the fulsome and gross flattery towards the queen
+with which they were throughout invested.
+
+Everything, in accordance with the rage of the day, assumed an
+erudite, or, more truly speaking, a pedantic cast. When the queen
+(says Warton) paraded through a country town, almost every pageant was
+a pantheon. When she paid a visit at the house of any of her nobility,
+at entering the hall she was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to
+her privy chamber by Mercury. Even the pastry cooks were expert
+mythologists. At dinner, select transformations of Ovid's
+metamorphoses were exhibited in confectionary; and the splendid iceing
+of an immense historic plum-cake was embossed with a delicious
+basso-relievo of the destruction of Troy. In the afternoon, when she
+condescended to walk in the garden, the lake was covered with Tritons
+and Nereids; the pages of the family were converted into wood-nymphs,
+who peeped from every bower; and the footmen gambolled over the lawns
+in the figure of satyrs.
+
+Scarcely we think could even the effusions of Euphues--a fashion also
+of this period--be more wearisome to the spirit than a repetition of
+these dull delights.
+
+This predilection for learning, and the time perforce given to its
+acquisition, must necessarily have subtracted from those hours which
+might otherwise have been bestowed on the lighter labours and
+beguiling occupations of the needle. Nor does it appear that after her
+accession Elizabeth did much patronise this gentle art. She was cast
+in a more stirring mould. In her father's court, under her sister's
+jealous eye, within her prison's solitary walls, her needle might be a
+prudent disguise, a solacing occupation, "woman's pretty excuse for
+thought." But after her own accession to the throne _action_ was her
+characteristic.
+
+Nevertheless we are not to suppose that, because needlework was not "a
+rage," it was frowned upon and despised. By no means. It is perhaps
+fortunate that Elizabeth did not especially patronise it; for so
+dictatorial and absolute was she, that by virtue of the "right divine"
+she would have made her statesmen embroider their own robes, and her
+warriors lay aside the sword for the distaff. But as, happily, it now
+only held a secondary place in her esteem, we have Raleigh's poems
+instead of his sampler, and Bacon's learning instead of his stitchery.
+But it was not in her nature to suffer any thing in which she excelled
+to lie quite dormant. She was an accomplished needlewoman; some
+exquisite proofs of her skill were then glowing in all their
+freshness, and her excellence in this art was sufficiently obvious to
+prevent the ladies of her court from entirely forsaking it. Many
+books, with patterns for needlework, were published about this time,
+and in a later one Queen Elizabeth is especially celebrated in a
+laudatory poem for her skill in it. That proficiency in ornamental
+needlework was an absolute requisite in the accomplishments of a
+country belle, may be inferred from the prominent place it holds in
+Drayton's description of the well-educated daughter of a country
+knight in Elizabeth's days:
+
+    "The silk well couth she twist and twine,
+    And make the fine march pine,
+        And with the needlework:
+    And she couth help the priest to say
+    His mattins on a holy day,
+        And sing a psalm in kirk.
+
+    "She wore a frock of frolic green,
+    Might well become a maiden queen,
+        Which seemly was to see;
+    A hood to that so neat and fine,
+    In colour like the columbine,
+        Ywrought full featously."
+
+The march pine or counterpanes here alluded to, taxed in these days to
+the fullest extent both the purse of the rich and the fingers of the
+fair. Elizabeth had several most expensively trimmed with ermine as
+well as needlework; the finest and richest embroidery was lavished on
+them; and it was no unusual circumstance for the counterpane for the
+"standing" or master's bed to be so lavishly adorned as to be worth a
+thousand marks.
+
+At no time was ornamental needlework more admired, or in greater
+request in the every-day concerns of life, than now. Almost every
+article of dress, male and female, was adorned with it. Even the
+boots, which at this time had immense tops turned down and fringed,
+and which were commonly made of russet cloth or leather, were worn by
+some exquisites of the day of very fine cloth (of which enough was
+used to make a shirt), and were embroidered in gold or silver, or in
+various-coloured silks, in the figures of birds, animals, or
+antiques; and the ornamental needlework alone of a pair of these boots
+would cost from four to ten pounds. The making of a single shirt would
+frequently cost 10_l._, so richly were they ornamented with
+"needleworke of silke, and so curiously stitched with other knackes."
+
+"Woman's triflings," too, their handkerchiefs, reticules, workbags,
+&c., were decorated richly. We have seen within these few days a
+workbag which would startle a modern fair one, for, as far as regards
+_size_, it has a most "industrious look," but which, despite the
+ravages of near three centuries, yet gives token of much original
+magnificence. It is made of net, lined with silk; the material, the
+net itself, (a sort of honeycomb pattern, like what we called a few
+years ago the Grecian lace,) was made by the fair workwoman in those
+days, and was a fashionable occupation both in France and England.
+This bag is wrought in broad stripes with gold thread, and between the
+stripes various flowers are embroidered in different coloured silks.
+The bag stands in a sort of card-board basket, covered in the same
+style; it is drawn with long cords and tassels, and is large enough
+perhaps, on emergency, to hold a good sized baby.
+
+It is more than probable that female skill was in request in various
+matters of household decoration. The Arras looms, indeed, had long
+superseded the painful fingers of notable dames in the construction of
+hangings for walls, which were universally used, intermingled and
+varied in the palaces and nobler mansions by "painted cloth," and
+cloth of gold and silver. Thus Shakspeare describes Imogen's chamber
+in Cymbeline:
+
+    "Her bed-chamber was hanged
+    With tapestry of silk and silver."
+
+We have remarked that Henry the Eighth's palaces were very splendid;
+Elizabeth's were equally so, and more consistently finished in minor
+conveniences, as it is particularly remarked that "easye quilted and
+lyned formes and stools for the lords and ladyes to sit on" had
+superseded the "great plank forms, that two yeomen can scant remove
+out of their places, and waynscot stooles so hard, that since great
+breeches were layd asyde men can skant indewr to sitt on." Her two
+presence chambers at Hampton Court shone with tapestry of gold and
+silver, and silk of various colours; her bed was covered with costly
+coverlids of silk, wrought in various patterns, by the needle; and she
+had many "chusions," moveable articles of furniture of various shapes,
+answering to our large family of tabourets and ottomans, embroidered
+with gold and silver thread.
+
+But it was not merely in courts and palaces that arras was used; it
+was now, of a coarser fabric, universally adopted in the houses of the
+country gentry. "The wals of our houses on the inner sides be either
+hanged with tapisterie, arras-work,[121] or painted cloths, wherein
+either diverse histories, or hearbes, beasts, knots, and such like are
+stained, or else they are seeled with oke of our owne, or wainescot
+brought hither out of the east countries." The tapestry was now
+suspended on frames, which, we may infer, were often at a considerable
+distance from the walls, since the portly Sir John Falstaff ensconced
+himself "behind the arras" on a memorable occasion; Polonius too met
+his death there; and indeed Shakspeare presses it into the service on
+numerous occasions.
+
+The following quotation will give an accurate idea of properties
+thought most valuable at this time; and it will be seen that
+ornamental needlework cuts a very distinguished figure therein. It is
+a catalogue of his wealth given by Gremio when suing for Bianca to her
+father, who declares that the wealthiest lover will win her, in the
+Taming of the Shrew.
+
+    _Gremio._ "First, as you know, my house within the city
+              Is richly furnished with plate and gold;
+              Basons and ewers, to lave her dainty hands;
+              My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
+              In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;
+              In cypres chests my _arras_, counterpoints,
+              Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
+              Fine linen, _Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,
+              Valence of Venice gold, in needlework_,
+              Pewter and brass, and all things that belong
+              To house or house-keeping."
+
+The age of Elizabeth was one which powerfully appeals to the
+imagination in various ways. The aera of warlike chivalry was past; but
+many of its lighter observances remained, and added to the variety of
+life, and perhaps tended to polish it. We are told, for instance,
+that as the Earl of Cumberland stood before Elizabeth she dropped her
+glove; and on his picking it up graciously desired him to keep it. He
+caused the trophy to be encircled with diamonds; and ever after, at
+all tilts and tourneys, bore it conspicuously placed in front of his
+high crowned hat. Jousting and tilting in honour of the ladies (by
+whom prizes were awarded) continued still to be a favourite diversion.
+There were annual contentions in the lists in honour of the sovereign,
+and twenty-five persons of the first rank established a society of
+arms for this purpose, of which the chivalric Sir Henry Lee was for
+some time president.
+
+The "romance of chivalry" was sinking to be succeeded by the heavier
+tomes of Gomberville, Scudery, &c., but the extension of classical
+knowledge, the vast strides in acquirement of various kinds, the utter
+change, so to speak, in the system of literature, all contributed to
+the downfall of the chivalric romance. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia
+introduced a rage for high-flown pastoral effusions; and now too was
+re-born that taste for metaphorical effusion and spiritual romance,
+which was first exhibited in the fourth century in the Bishop of
+Tricca's romance of "Barlaam and Josaphat," and which now pervaded the
+fast-rising puritan party, and was afterwards fully developed in that
+unaccountably fascinating work, "The Pilgrim's Progress."
+Nevertheless, as yet
+
+                  "Courted and caress'd,
+    High placed in hall, a welcome guest,"
+
+the harper poured to lord and lady gay not indeed "his unpremeditated
+lay," but a poetical abridgment (the precursor of a fast succeeding
+race of romantic ballads) of the doughty deeds of renowned knights, so
+amply expatiated upon in the time-honoured folios of the "olden time."
+The wandering harper, if fallen somewhat from his "high estate," was
+still a recognised and welcome guest; his "matter being for the most
+part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of
+Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the
+Clough, and such other old romances or historical rhimes." Though the
+character of the minstrel gradually lost respectability, yet for a
+considerable part of Elizabeth's reign it was one so fully
+acknowledged, that a peculiar garb was still attached to the office.
+
+    "Mongst these, some bards there were that in their sacred rage
+    Recorded the descents and acts of everie age.
+    Some with their nimbler joynts that strooke the warbling string;
+    In fingering some unskild, but onelie vsed to sing
+    Vnto the other's harpe: of which you both might find
+    Great plentie, and of both excelling in their kind."
+
+The superstitions of various kinds, the omens, the warnings, the
+charms, the "potent spells" of the wizard seer, which
+
+    "Could hold in dreadful thrall the labouring moon,
+    Or draw the fix'd stars from their eminence,
+    And still the midnight tempest,"--
+
+the supernatural agents, the goblins, the witches, the fairies, the
+satyrs, the elves, the fauns, the "shapes that walk," the
+
+        "Uncharnel'd spectres, seen to glide
+    Along the lone wood's unfrequented path"--
+
+the being and active existence of all these was considered "true as
+holy writ" by our ancestors of the Elizabethan age. On this subject we
+will transcribe a beautifully illustrative passage from Warton:--
+
+"Every goblin of ignorance" (says he) "did not vanish at the first
+glimmerings of the morning of science. Reason suffered a few demons
+still to linger, which she chose to retain in her service under the
+guidance of poetry. Men believed, or were willing to believe, that
+spirits were yet hovering around, who brought with them _airs from
+heaven, or blasts from hell_; that the ghost was duly relieved from
+his prison of torment at the sound of the curfew, and that fairies
+imprinted mysterious circles on the turf by moonlight. Much of this
+credulity was even consecrated by the name of science and profound
+speculation. Prospero had not yet _broken and buried his staff_, nor
+_drowned his book deeper than did ever plummet sound_. It was now that
+the alchemist and the judicial astrologer conducted his occult
+operations by the potent intercourse of some preternatural being, who
+came obsequious to his call, and was bound to accomplish his severest
+services, under certain conditions, and for a limited duration of
+time. It was actually one of the pretended feats of these fantastic
+philosophers to evoke the queen of the fairies in the solitude of a
+gloomy grove, who, preceded by a sudden rustling of the leaves,
+appeared in robes of transcendant lustre. The Shakspeare of a more
+instructed and polished age would not have given us a magician
+darkening the sun at noon, the sabbath of the witches, and the
+cauldron of incantation."
+
+It were endless, and indeed out of place here, to attempt to specify
+the numberless minor superstitions to which this credulous tendency of
+the public mind gave birth or continuation; or the marvels of
+travellers,--as the Anthropophagi, the Ethiops with four eyes, the
+Hippopodes with their nether parts like horses, the Arimaspi with one
+eye in the forehead, and the Monopoli who have no head at all, but a
+face in their breast--which were all devoutly credited. One potent
+charm, however, we are constrained to particularise, since its
+infallibility was mainly dependent on the needlewoman's skill. It was
+a waistcoat which rendered its owner invulnerable: we believe that if
+duly prepared it would be found proof not only against "silver
+bullets," but also against even the "charmed bullet" of German
+notoriety. Thus runs the charm:--
+
+"On Christmas daie at night, a thread must be sponne of flax, by a
+little virgine girle, in the name of the divell; and it must be by hir
+woven, and also _wrought with the needle_. In the brest or forepart
+thereof must be made _with needleworke_ two heads; on the head at the
+right side must be a hat and a long beard, and the left head must have
+on a crowne, and it must be so horrible that it maie resemble
+Belzebub; and on each side of the wastcote must be _wrought_ a
+crosse."
+
+The newspaper, that now mighty political engine, that "thewe and
+sinew" of the fourth estate of the realm, took its rise in Elizabeth's
+day. How would her legislators have been overwhelmed with amazement
+could they have beheld, in dim perspective, this child of the press,
+scarcely less now the offspring of the imagination than those chimeras
+of their own time to which we have been alluding; and would not the
+wrinkled brow of the modern politician be unconsciously smoothened,
+would not the careworn and profound diplomatist "gather up his face
+into a smile before he was aware," if the FIRST NEWSPAPER were
+suddenly placed before him? It is not indeed in existence, but was
+published under the title of "_The English Mercurie_," in April, 1588,
+on the first appearance near the shores of England of the Spanish
+Armada, a crisis which caused this innovation on the usual public
+news-letter circulated in manuscript. No. 50, dated July 23, 1588, is
+the first now in existence; and as the publication only began in
+April, it shows they must have been issued frequently. We have seen
+this No. 50, which is preserved in the British Museum.[122]
+
+In it are no advertisements--no fashions--no law reports--no court
+circular--no fashionable arrivals--no fashionable intelligence--no
+murders--no robberies--no reviews--no crim. cons.--no elopements--no
+price of stocks--no mercantile intelligence--no police reports--no
+"leaders,"--no literary memoranda--no poets' corner--no spring
+meetings--no radical demonstrations--no conservative dinners--but
+
+    "The
+
+    "English Mercurie,
+
+    "Published by AUTHORITIE,
+
+    "For the Prevention of False Reportes,
+
+    "_Whitehall, July 23, 1588._"
+
+Contains three pages and a half, small quarto, of matter of fact
+information.
+
+Two pages respecting the Armada then seen "neare the Lizard, making
+for the entrance of the Channell," and appearing on the surface of the
+water "like floating castles."
+
+A page of news from Ostend, where "nothing was talked of but the
+intended invasion of England. His Highnesse the Prince of Parma having
+compleated his preparationes, of which the subjoined Accounte might be
+depended upon as _exacte and authentique_."
+
+Something to say--for a newspaper.
+
+And a few lines dated "London, July 13, of the lord mayor, aldermen,
+common councilmen, and lieutenancie of this great citie" waiting on
+Her Majesty with assurances of support, and receiving a gracious
+reception from her.
+
+Such was the newspaper of 1588.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great events of Elizabeth's reign, in war, in politics, in
+legislation, belong to the historian; the great march of mind, the
+connecting link which that age formed between the darkness of the
+preceding ones (for during the period of the wars of the Roses all
+sorts of art and science retrograded), and the high cultivation of
+later days, it is the province of the metaphysician and philosopher to
+analyse; and even the lighter characteristics of the time have become
+so familiar through the medium of many modern and valuable works, that
+we have ventured only to touch very superficially on some few of the
+more prominent of them.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[120] Harrison.
+
+[121] From this separate mention of _tapisterie_ and _arras-work_ by
+so accurate a describer as Harrison, it would seem that tapestry of
+the needle alone was not, even yet, quite exploded.
+
+[122] Sloane MSS. No. 4106.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+TAPESTRY OF THE SPANISH ARMADA, BETTER KNOWN AS TAPESTRY OF THE HOUSE
+OF LORDS.
+
+    "He did blow with his wind, and they were scattered."
+
+                        'Inscription on the Medal.'
+
+
+The year 1588 had been foretold by astrologers to be a wonderful year,
+the "climacterical year of the world;" and the public mind of England
+was at that period sufficiently credulous and superstitious to be
+affected with vague presentiments, even if the preparation of an
+hostile armada so powerful as to be termed "invincible," had not
+seemed to engraft on these vague surmises too real and fearful a
+groundwork of truth.
+
+The preparations of Philip II. in Spain, combined with those of the
+Duke of Parma in the Low Countries, and furthered by the valued and
+effective benediction of the shaken and tottering, but still
+influential and powerful head of the Roman church, had produced a
+hostile array which, with but too much probability of success,
+threatened the conquest of England, and its subjugation to the papal
+yoke. Not since the Norman Conquest had any event occurred which, if
+successful, would be fraught with results so harassing and distressing
+to the established inhabitants of the island. Though the Norman
+Conquest had, undoubtedly, _in the course of time_, produced a
+beneficial and civilising and ennobling influence on the island, it
+was long and bitter years ere the groans of the subjugated and
+oppressed Anglo-Saxons had merged in the contented peacefulness of a
+united people.
+
+Yet William was certainly of a severe temper, and was incited by the
+unquenchable opposition of the English to a cruel and exterminating
+policy. Philip of Spain seemed not to promise milder measures. He was
+a bigot, and moreover hated the English with an utter hatred. During
+his union with Mary he had utterly failed to gain their good will, and
+his hatred to them increased in an exact ratio to the failure of his
+desired influence with them. Neither time, nor trouble, nor care, nor
+expense, was spared in this his decided invasion; and it is said that
+from Italy, Sicily, and even America, were drafted the most
+experienced captains and soldiers to aid his cause. Well, then, might
+England look with anxiety, and even with terror, to this threatened
+and fast approaching event.
+
+But her energies were fully equal to the emergency. Elizabeth, now in
+the full plenitude of her power, was at the acme of her influence over
+the wills, and in a great degree over the affections of her subjects,
+at least over by far the greater portion of them; one factious and
+discontented party there was, but too insufficient to be any effectual
+barrier to her designs. And the cause was a popular one: Protestants
+and Romanists joined in deprecating a foreign yoke. Her powerful and
+commanding energies did not forsake her. Her appeal to her subjects
+was replied to with heart-thrilling readiness, the city of London
+setting a noble example; for when ministers desired from it five
+thousand men and fifteen ships, the lord mayor, in behalf of the city,
+craved their sovereign to accept of ten thousand soldiers and thirty
+ships.
+
+This spirited precedent was followed all through the empire, all
+classes vied with each other in contributing their utmost quota of
+aid, by means and by personal service, and amongst many similar
+instances it is recorded of "that noble, vertuous, honourable man, the
+Viscount Montague, that he now came, though he was very sickly, and in
+age, with a full resolution to live and dye in defence of the queene,
+and of his countrie, against all invaders, whether it were pope, king,
+and potentate whatsoever, and in that quarrell he would hazard his
+life, his children, his landes and goods. And to shew his mynde
+agreeably thereto, he came personally himselfe before the queene, with
+his band of horsemen, being almost two hundred; the same being led by
+his owne sonnes, and with them a yong child, very comely, seated on
+horseback, being the heire of his house, that is, ye eldest sonne to
+his sonne and heire; a matter much noted of many, to see a
+grandfather, father, and sonne, at one time on horsebacks afore a
+queene for her service."
+
+For three years had Philip been preparing, in all parts of his
+dominions, for this overwhelming expedition, and his equipments were
+fully equal to his extensive preparations; and so popular was the
+project in Spain, and so ardent were its votaries, that there was not
+a family of any note which had not contributed some of its dearest and
+nearest members; there were also one hundred and eighty Capuchins,
+Dominicans, Jesuits, and Mendicant friars; and so great was the
+enthusiastic anticipation, that even females hired vessels to follow
+the fleet which contained those they loved; two or three of these were
+driven by the storm on the coast of France.
+
+This Armada consisted of about one hundred and fifty ships, most of
+which were of an uncommon size, strength, and thickness, more like
+floating castles than anything else; and to this unwieldy size may,
+probably, be attributed much of their discomfiture. For the greater
+holiness of their action, twelve were called the Twelve Apostles; and
+a pinnace of the Andalusian squadron, commanded by Don Pedro de
+Valdez, was called the "Holy Ghost." The fleet is said to have
+contained thirty-two thousand persons, and to have cost every day
+thirty thousand ducats.
+
+The Duke of Parma's contemporary preparations were also prodigious,
+and of a nature which plainly declared the full certainty and
+confidence in which the invaders indulged of making good their object.
+But the preparations were doomed not to be even tried. The finesse and
+manoeuvres of the shrewd Sir Francis Walsingham[123] had caused the
+invasion to be retarded for a whole year, and by this time England
+was fully prepared for her foes. The result is known. The hollow
+treaty of peace into which Parma had entered in order, when all
+preparations were completed, to take her by surprise, was entered into
+with an equal share of hypocritical policy by Elizabeth. "So (says an
+old historian) as they seemed on both sides to sew the foxe's skin to
+the lion's."
+
+So powerful was the effect on the public mind, not only of this
+projected enterprise, but of its almost unhoped for discomfiture, that
+all possible means were taken to commemorate the event. One method
+resorted to was the manufacture of tapestry representing a series of
+subjects connected with it. At that time Flanders excelled all others
+in the manufacture of tapestry, it was scarcely indeed introduced into
+England; and our ancestors had a series of ten charts, designed by
+Henry Cornelius Vroom, a celebrated painter of Haarlem, from which
+their Flemish neighbours worked beautiful draperies, which ornamented
+the walls of the House of Lords.
+
+At the time of the Union with Ireland, when considerable repairs and
+alterations were made here, these magnificent tapestries were taken
+down, cleaned, and replaced, with the addition of large frames of dark
+stained wood, which set off the work and colouring to advantage. They
+formed a series of ten pictures, round which portraits of the
+distinguished officers who commanded the fleet were wrought into a
+border.
+
+With a prescience, which might now almost seem prophetic, Mr. John
+Pine, engraver, published in 1739 a series of plates taken from these
+tapestries; and "because," says he, "time, or accident, or moths may
+deface these valuable shadows, we have endeavoured to preserve their
+likeness in the preceding prints, which, by being multiplied and
+dispersed in various hands, may meet with that security from the
+closets of the curious, which the originals must scarce always hope
+for, even from the sanctity of the place they are kept in."
+
+"On the 17th day of July, 1588, the English discovered the Spanish
+fleet with lofty turrets like castles, in front like a half moon, the
+wing thereof spreading out about the length of seven miles, sailing
+very slowly, though with full sails, the winds being as it were tired
+with carrying them, and the ocean groaning under the weight of them."
+
+This forms the subject of the first tableau. The English commanders
+suffered the Spaniards to pass them unmolested, in order that they
+might hang upon their rear, and harass them when they should be
+involved in the Channel; for the English navy were unable to confront
+such a power in direct and close action. The second piece represents
+them thus, near Fowey, the English coast displayed in the back-ground,
+diversified perhaps somewhat too elaborately into hill and dale, and
+the foliage scattered somewhat too regularly in lines over each hill,
+but very pretty nevertheless. A small village with its church and
+spire appears just at the water edge, Eddystone lighthouse lifts its
+head above the waters, and, fit emblem of the patriotism which now
+burned throughout the land, and even glowed on the waters, a huge sea
+monster uprears itself in threatening attitude against the invading
+host, and shows a countenance hideous enough to scare any but
+Spaniards from its native shores.
+
+No. 3 represents the first engagement between the hostile fleets, and
+also the subsequent sailing of the Spanish Armada up the channel,
+closely followed by the English, whose ships were so much lighter,
+that in a running warfare of this kind they had greatly the advantage.
+The sea is alive too with dolphins and other strange fish, with right
+British hearts, as it has been said that "they seemed to oppose
+themselves with fierce and grim looks to the progress of the Spanish
+fleet." The view of the coast here is very good; and, where it retires
+from Start Point so as to form a bay or harbour, the perspective is
+really admirably indicated by two vessels dimly defined in the
+horizon.
+
+The views of the coast are varied and interesting; and the distances
+and perspective views are much more accurately delineated than was
+usual at the time; but, as we have remarked, they were designed by an
+eminent painter, and one whose particular _forte_ was the delineation
+of shipping and naval scenes.
+
+The pictures are certainly as a series devoid of variety. In two of
+them the Calais shore is introduced; and the intermixture of
+fortifications, churches, houses, and animated spectators, eagerly
+crowding to behold the fleets sailing by, produces an enlivening and
+busy scene, which, set off by the varied, lively, and appropriate
+colouring of the tapestry, would have a most striking effect. But the
+man who, unmoved by the excitement about him, is calmly fishing under
+the walls, without even turning his head toward the scene of tumult,
+must be blessed with an apathy of disposition which the poor enraged
+dolphins and porpoises might have envied.
+
+With these exceptions the tapestries are all sea pieces with only a
+distant view of the coast, and portray the two fleets in different
+stages of their progress, sometimes with engagements between single
+ships, but generally in an apparent state of truce, the English always
+the pursuers, and the Spaniards generally drawn up in form of a
+crescent. The last however shows the invading fleet hurriedly and in
+disorder sailing away, when bad weather, the Duke of Parma's delay,
+and a close engagement of fourteen hours, in which they "suffered
+grievously," having "had to endure all the heavy cannonading of their
+triumphant opponents, while they were struggling to get clear of the
+shallows," convinced them of the impossibility of a successful close
+to their enterprise, and made them resolve to take advantage of a
+southern breeze to make their passage up the North sea, and round
+Scotland home.
+
+    "He that fights and runs away,
+    May live to fight another day."
+
+So, however, did _not_ the Spaniards. "About these north islands their
+mariners and soldiers died daily by multitudes, as by their bodies
+cast on land did appear. The Almighty ordered the winds to be so
+contrary to this proud navy, that it was, by force, dissevered on the
+high seas west upon Ireland; and so great a number of them driven into
+sundry dangerous bays, and upon rocks, and there cast away; some
+sunk, some broken, some on the sands, and some burnt by the Spaniards
+themselves."
+
+Misfortune clung to them; storm and tempest on the sea, and
+inhospitable and cruel treatment when they were forced on shore so
+reduced them, that of this magnificent Armada only sixty shattered
+vessels found their home; and their humbled commander, the Duke de
+Medina Sidonia, was led to understand that his presence was not
+desired at court, and that a private country residence would be the
+most suitable.
+
+It was on this occasion, when the instant danger was past but by no
+means entirely done away, as for some time it was supposed that the
+Armada, after recruiting in some northern station, would return, that
+Elizabeth with a general's truncheon in her hand rode through the
+ranks of her army at Tilbury, and addressed them in a style which
+caused them to break out into deafening and tumultuous shouts and
+cries of love, and honour, and obedience to death. Thus magnificently
+the English heroine spoke:
+
+"My loving People,--We have been persuaded by some that are careful of
+our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed Multitudes;
+but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and
+loving People. Let Tyrants fear; I have always so behaved myself that,
+under GOD, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the
+loyal Hearts and Goodwill of my Subjects; and therefore I am come
+amongst you, as you see at this time, not for my Recreation and
+Disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the Battle, to
+live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my GOD, and for my
+kingdom, and for my People, my Honour, and my Blood, even in the dust.
+I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble Woman, but I have the
+Heart and Stomach of a King, and of a King of England too; and think
+foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince of Europe should dare to
+invade the Borders of my Realm; to which, rather than any Dishonour
+shall grow by me, I myself will take up Arms, I myself will be your
+General, Judge, and Rewarder of every one of your Virtues in the
+Field; I know already, for your forwardness, you have deserved Rewards
+and Crowns; and we do assure you, in the word of a Prince, they shall
+be duly paid you. In the mean time my Lieutenant-general shall be in
+my stead, than whom never Prince commanded a more noble or worthy
+subject; not doubting but, by your obedience to my General, by your
+Concord in the camp, and your Valour in the Field, we shall shortly
+have a famous victory over those Enemies of my GOD, of my Kingdoms,
+and of my People."
+
+The tapestry, the magnificent memorial of this great event, was lost
+irreparably in the devastating fire of 1834. Some fragments, it is
+said, were preserved, but we have not been able to ascertain this
+fact. One portion still exists at Plymouth, though shorn of its
+pristine brilliancy, as some of the silver threads were drawn out by
+the economists of the time of the Commonwealth. This piece was cut out
+to make way for a gallery at the time of the trial of Queen Caroline,
+was secreted by a German servant of the Lord Chamberlain, and sold by
+him to a broker who offered it to Government for 500_l._
+
+Some inquiry was made into the circumstances, which, however, do not
+seem to have excited very great interest, since the relic was
+ultimately bought by the Bishop of Landaff (Van Mildert) for 20_l._ By
+him it was presented to the corporation of Plymouth, who still possess
+it.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[123] He contrived, by means of a Venetian priest, his spy, to obtain
+a copy of a letter from Philip to the Pope; a gentleman of the
+bedchamber taking the keys of the cabinet from the pockets of his
+holiness as he slept. Upon intelligence thus obtained, Walsingham got
+those Spanish bills protested at Genoa which should have supplied
+money for the preparations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+ON STITCHERY.
+
+    "Here have I cause in men just blame to find,
+      That in their proper praise too partial bee,
+    And not indifferent to womankind,
+
+         *   *   *   *   *
+
+      Scarse do they spare to one, or two, or three,
+    Rowme in their writtes; yet the same writing small
+    Does all their deedes deface, and dims their glories all."
+
+                        Faerie Queene.
+
+    "Christine, whiche understode these thynges of Dame
+    Reason, replyed upon that in this manere. Madame Ise wel
+    {that} ye myght fynde ynowe & of grete nombre of women
+    praysed in scyences and in crafte; but knowe ye ony that
+    by {the} vertue of their felynge & of subtylte of wytte
+    _haue founde of themselfe_ ony newe craftes and scyences
+    necessary, good, & couenable that were neuer founde
+    before nor knowne? for it is not so grete maystry to
+    folowe and to lerne after ony other scyence founde and
+    comune before, as it is to fynde of theymselfe some newe
+    thynge not accustomed before.
+
+    "_Answere._--Ne doubte ye not {the} contrary my dere
+    frende but many craftes and scyences ryght notable hathe
+    ben founde by the wytte and subtylte of women, as moche
+    by speculacyon of understandynge, the whiche sheweth
+    them by wrytynge, as in craftes, {that} sheweth theym
+    _in werkynge of handes_ & of laboure."
+
+                        _The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes._
+
+
+Again we must lament that the paucity of historical record lays us
+under the necessity of concluding, by inference, what we would fain
+have displayed by direct testimony. The respectable authority quoted
+above affirms that "many craftes and scyences ryght notable hathe ben
+founde by the wytte and subtylte of women," and it specifies
+particularly "werkynge of handes," by which we suppose the "talented"
+author means needlework. That the necessity for this pretty art was
+first created by woman, no one, we think, will disallow; and that it
+was first practised, as it has been subsequently perfected, by her, is
+a fact of which we feel the most perfect conviction.
+
+This conviction has been forced upon us by a train of reasoning which
+will so readily suggest itself to the mind of all our readers, that we
+content ourselves with naming the result, assured that it is
+unnecessary to trouble them with the intervening steps. One only link
+in the chain of "circumstantial evidence" will we adduce, and that is
+afforded by the ancient engraving to which we have before alluded in
+our remarks upon Eve's needle and thread. There whilst our "general
+mother" is stitching away at the fig-leaves in the most edifying
+manner possible, our "first father," far from trying to "put in a
+stitch for himself," is gazing upon her in the most utter amazement.
+And while she plies her busy task as if she had been born to
+stitchery, his eyes, _not_ his fingers,
+
+    "Follow the nimble fingers of the fair,"
+
+with every indication of superlative wonder and admiration.
+
+In fact, it is no slight argument in favour of the original invention
+of sewing by women, that men very rarely have wit enough to learn it,
+even when invented. There has been no lack of endeavour, even amongst
+the world's greatest and mightiest, but poor "work" have they made of
+it. Hercules lost all the credit of his mighty labours from his
+insignificance at the spinning wheel, and the sceptre of Sardanapalus
+passed from his grasp as he was endeavouring to "finger the fine
+needle and nyse thread."
+
+These love-stricken heroes might have said with Gower--had he then
+said it--
+
+    "What things she bid me do, I do,
+    And where she bid me go, I go.
+    And where she likes to call, I come,
+    I serve, I bow, I look, I lowte,
+    My eye followeth her about.
+    What so she will, so will I,
+    When she would set, I kneel by.
+    And when she stands, then will I stand,
+    _And when she taketh her work in hand_,
+    Of _wevyng or of embroidrie_.
+    Then can I _only_ muse and prie,
+    Upon her fingers long and small."
+
+Our modern Hercules, the Leviathan of literature, was not more
+successful.
+
+_Dr. Johnson._--"Women have a great advantage that they may take up
+with little things, without disgracing themselves; a man cannot,
+except with fiddling. Had I learnt to fiddle I should have done
+nothing else."
+
+_Boswell._--"Pray, Sir, did you ever play on any musical instrument?"
+
+_Dr. Johnson._--"No, Sir; I once bought a flageolet, but I never made
+out a tune."
+
+_Boswell._--"A flageolet, Sir! So small an instrument? I should have
+liked to hear you play on the violoncello. _That_ should have been
+your instrument."
+
+_Dr. Johnson._--"Sir, I might as well have played on the violoncello
+as another; but I should have done nothing else. No, Sir; a man would
+never undertake great things could he be amused with small. I once
+tried knotting; Dempster's sister undertook to teach me, but _I could
+not learn it_."
+
+_Boswell._--"So, Sir; it will be related in pompous narrative, 'once
+for his amusement he tried knotting, nor did this Hercules disdain the
+distaff.'"
+
+_Dr. Johnson._--"Knitting of stockings is a good amusement. As a
+freeman of Aberdeen, I should be a knitter of stockings."
+
+Nor was Dr. Johnson singular in his high appreciation of the value of
+some sort of stitchery to his own half of the human race, if their
+intellects unfortunately had not been too obtuse for its acquisition.
+The great censor of the public morals and manners a century ago, the
+Spectator, recommends the same thing, though with his usual policy he
+feigns merely to be the medium of another's advice.
+
+"Mr. Spectator,--You are always ready to receive any useful hint or
+proposal, and such, I believe, you will think one that may put you in
+a way to employ the most idle part of the kingdom; I mean that part of
+mankind who are known by the name of the women's men, beaux, &c. Mr.
+Spectator, you are sensible these pretty gentlemen are not made for
+any manly employments, and for want of business are often as much in
+the vapours as the ladies. Now what I propose is this, that since
+knotting is again in fashion, which has been found a very pretty
+amusement, that you will recommend it to these gentlemen as something
+that may make them useful to the ladies they admire. And since it is
+not inconsistent with any game or other diversion, for it may be done
+in the playhouse, in their coaches, at the tea-table, and, in short,
+in all places where they come for the sake of the ladies (except at
+church, be pleased to forbid it there to prevent mistakes), it will be
+easily complied with. It is besides an employment that allows, as we
+see by the fair sex, of many graces, which will make the beaux more
+readily come into it; and it shows a white hand and a diamond ring to
+great advantage; it leaves the eyes at full liberty to be employed as
+before, as also the thoughts and the tongue. In short, it seems in
+every respect so proper that it is needless to urge it further, by
+speaking of the satisfaction these male knotters will find when they
+see their work mixed up in a fringe, and worn by the fair lady for
+whom, and with whom, it was done. Truly, Mr. Spectator, I cannot but
+be pleased I have hit upon something that these gentlemen are capable
+of; for it is sad so considerable a part of the kingdom (I mean for
+numbers) should be of no manner of use. I shall not trouble you
+further at this time, but only to say, that I am always your reader
+and generally your admirer.                             C. B.
+
+"P.S.--The sooner these fine gentlemen are set to work the better;
+there being at this time several fringes that stay only for more
+hands."
+
+But, alas! the sanguine writer was mistaken in supposing that at last
+gentlemen had found a something "of which they were capable." The days
+of knotting passed away before they had made any proficiency in it; nor
+have we ever heard that they have adopted any other branch or stitch of
+this extensive art. There is variety enough to satisfy anybody, and
+there are gradations enough in the stitches to descend to any capacity
+but a man's. There are tambour stitch--satin--chain--finny--new--bred--
+ferne--and queen-stitches; there is slabbing--veining--and button stitch;
+seeding--roping--and open stitch: there is sockseam--herring-bone--long
+stitch--and cross stitch: there is rosemary stitch--Spanish stitch--and
+Irish stitch: there is back stitch--overcast--and seam stitch:
+hemming--felling--and basting: darning--grafting--and patching: there
+is whip stitch--and fisher stitch: there is fine drawing--gathering--
+marking--trimming--and tucking.
+
+Truly all this does require some +nous+, and the lords of the creation
+are more to be pitied than blamed for that paucity of intellect which
+deprives them of "woman's pretty excuse for thought."
+
+Raillery apart, sewing is in itself an agreeable occupation, it is
+essentially a useful one; in many of its branches it is quite
+ornamental, and it is a gentle, a graceful, an elegant, and a truly
+feminine occupation. It causes the solitary hours of domestic life to
+glide more smoothly away, and in those social unpretending reunions
+which in country life and in secluded districts are yet not abolished,
+it takes away from the formality of sitting for conversation, abridges
+the necessity for scandal, or, to say the least of it, as we have
+heard even ungallant lordly man allow, it keeps us out of mischief.
+
+And there are frequent and oft occurring circumstances which invest it
+with characteristics of a still higher order. How many of "the sweet
+solicitudes that life beguile" are connected with this interesting
+occupation! either in preparing habiliments for those dependent on our
+care, and for love of whom many an unnecessary stitch which may tend
+to extra adornment is put in; or in those numberless pretty and not
+unuseful tokens of remembrance, which, passing from friend to friend,
+soften our hearts by the intimation they convey, that we have been
+cared for in our absence, and that while the world looked dark and
+desolate about us, unforgetting hearts far, far away were holding us
+in remembrance, busy fingers were occupied in our behoof. Oh! a
+reticule, a purse, a slipper, how valueless soever in itself, is, when
+fraught with these home memories, worth that which the mines of
+Golconda could not purchase. And of such a nature would be the
+feelings which suggested these well-known but exquisite lines:--
+
+    "The twentieth year is well nigh past,
+    Since first our sky was overcast,
+    Ah, would that this might be the last!
+                                    My Mary!
+
+    "Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
+    I see thee daily weaker grow,
+    'Twas my distress that brought thee low,
+                                    My Mary!
+
+    "Thy needles, once a shining store,
+    For my sake restless heretofore,
+    Now rust disused and shine no more,
+                                    My Mary!
+
+    "For though thou gladly would'st fulfil
+    The same kind office for me still,
+    Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
+                                    My Mary!
+
+    "But well thou play'dst the housewife's part,
+    And all thy threads with magic art,
+    Have wound themselves about this heart,
+                                    My Mary!"
+
+An interesting circumstance connected with needlework is mentioned in
+the delightful memoir written by lady Murray, of her mother, the
+excellent and admirable Lady Grisell Baillie. The allusion itself is
+very slight, merely to the making of a frill or a collar; but the
+circumstances connected with it are deeply interesting, and place
+before us a vivid picture of the deprivations of a family of rank and
+consequence in "troublous times," and moreover offer us a portrait
+from _real life_ of true feminine excellence, of a young creature of
+rank and family, of cultivated and refined tastes and of high
+connexions, utterly forgetting all these in the cheerful and
+conscientious discharge, for years, of the most arduous and humble
+duties, and even of menial and revolting offices. It may be that my
+readers all are not so well acquainted with this little book as
+ourselves, and, if so, they will not consider the following extract
+too long.
+
+"They lived three years and a half in Holland, and in that time she
+made a second voyage to Scotland about business. Her father went by
+the borrowed name of Dr. Wallace, and did not stir out for fear of
+being discovered, though who he was, was no secret to the wellwishers
+of the revolution. Their great desire was to have a good house, as
+their greatest comfort was at home; and all the people of the same way
+of thinking, of which there were great numbers, were continually with
+them. They paid for their house what was very extravagant for their
+income, nearly a fourth part; they could not afford keeping any
+servant, but a little girl to wash the dishes.
+
+"All the time they were there, there was not a week that my mother did
+not sit up two nights, to do the business that was necessary. She went
+to market, went to the mill to have the corn ground, which it seems is
+the way with good managers there, dressed the linen, cleaned the
+house, made ready the dinner, mended the children's stockings and
+other clothes, made what she could for them, and, in short, did
+everything.
+
+"Her sister, Christian, who was a year or two younger, diverted her
+father and mother and the rest who were fond of music. Out of their
+small income they bought a harpsichord for little money, but is a
+_Rucar_ now in my custody, and most valuable. My aunt played and sang
+well, and had a great deal of life and humour, but no turn to
+business. Though my mother had the same qualifications, and liked it
+as well as she did, she was forced to drudge; and many jokes used to
+pass betwixt the sisters about their different occupations. Every
+morning before six my mother lighted her father's fire in his study,
+then waked him (she was ever a good sleeper, which blessing, among
+many others, she inherited from him); then got him, what he usually
+took as soon as he got up, warm small beer with a spoonful of bitters
+in it, which he continued his whole life, and of which I have the
+receipt.
+
+"Then she took up the children and brought them all to his room, where
+he taught them everything that was fit for their age; some Latin,
+others French, Dutch, geography, writing, reading, English, &c.; and
+my grandmother taught them what was necessary on her part. Thus he
+employed and diverted himself all the time he was there, not being
+able to afford putting them to school; and my mother, when she had a
+moment's time, took a lesson with the rest in French and Dutch, and
+also diverted herself with music. I have now a book of songs of her
+writing when there; many of them interrupted, half-writ, some broke
+off in the middle of a sentence. She had no less a turn for mirth and
+society than any of the family, when she could come at it without
+neglecting what she thought more necessary.
+
+"Her eldest brother, Patrick, who was nearest her age, and bred up
+together, was her most dearly beloved. My father was there, forfeited
+and exiled, in the same situation with themselves. She had seen him
+for the first time in the prison with his father, not long before he
+suffered;[124] and from that time their hearts were engaged. Her
+brother and my father were soon got in to ride in the Prince of
+Orange's Guards, till they were better provided for in the army, which
+they were before the Revolution. They took their turn in standing
+sentry at the Prince's gate, but always contrived to do it together,
+and the strict friendship and intimacy that then began, continued to
+the last.
+
+"Though their station was then low, they kept up their spirits; the
+prince often dined in public, then all were admitted to see him: when
+any pretty girl wanted to go in they set their halberts across the
+door and would not let her pass till she gave each of them a kiss,
+which made them think and call them very pert soldiers. I could relate
+many stories on this subject; my mother could talk for hours and never
+tire of it, always saying it was the happiest part of her life. Her
+_constant attention was to have her brother appear right in his linen
+and dress_; they wore little point cravats and cuffs, which many a
+night she sat up to have in as good order for him as any in the place;
+and one of their greatest expenses was in dressing him as he ought to
+be.
+
+"As their house was always full of the unfortunate people banished
+like themselves, they seldom went to dinner without three, four, or
+five of them to share it with them; and many a hundred times I have
+heard her say she could never look back upon their manner of living
+there without thinking it a miracle. They had no want, but plenty of
+everything they desired, and much contentment, and always declared it
+the most pleasing part of her life, though they were not without their
+little distresses; but to them they were rather jokes than grievances.
+The professors and men of learning in the place came often to see my
+grandfather; the best entertainment he could give them was a glass of
+alabast beer, which was a better kind of ale than common. He sent his
+son Andrew, the late Lord Kimmerghame, a boy, to draw some for them
+in the cellar, and he brought it up with great diligence, but in the
+other hand the spigot of the barrel. My grandfather said, 'Andrew!
+what is that in your hand?' When he saw it he ran down with speed, but
+the beer was all run out before he got there. This occasioned much
+mirth, though perhaps they did not well know where to get more.
+
+"It is the custom there to gather money for the poor from house to
+house, with a bell to warn people to give it. One night the bell came,
+and no money was there in the house but a orkey, which is a doit, the
+smallest of all coin; everybody was so ashamed no one would go to give
+it, it was so little, and put it from one to the other: at last my
+grandfather said, 'Well, then, I'll go with it; we can do no more than
+give all we have.' They were often reduced to this by the delay of the
+ships coming from Scotland with their small remittances; then they put
+the little plate they had (all of which they carried with them) in the
+lumber, which is pawning it, till the ships came: and that very plate
+they brought with them again to Scotland, and left no debt behind
+them."
+
+This is a long but not an uninteresting digression, and we were led to
+it from the recollection that Lady Grisell Baillie, when encompassed
+with heavy cares, not only sat up a night or two every week, but felt
+a satisfaction, a pleasure, in doing so, to execute the needlework
+required by her family. And when sewing with a view to the comfort and
+satisfaction of others, the needlewoman--insignificant as the details
+of her employment may appear--has much internal satisfaction; she has
+a definite vocation, an important function.
+
+Nor few nor insignificant are her handmaidens, one or other of whom is
+ever at her side, inspiriting her to her task. Her most constant
+attendant is a matron of stayed and sober appearance, called UTILITY.
+The needlewoman's productions are found to vary greatly, and this
+variation is ascribed with truth to the influencing suggestions of the
+attendant for the time being.
+
+Thus, for instance, when Utility is her companion all her labours are
+found to result in articles of which the material is unpretending, and
+the form simple; for however she may be led wandering by the vagaries
+of her other co-mates, it is always found that in moments of steady
+reflection she listens with the most implicit deference to the
+intimations of this her experienced and most respectable friend.
+
+But occasionally, indeed frequently, Utility brings with her a fair
+and interesting relative, called TASTE; a gentle being, of modest and
+retiring mien, of most unassuming deportment, but of exquisite grace;
+and it is even observed that the needlewoman is more happy in her
+labours, and more universally approved when accompanied by these two
+friends, than by any other of the more eccentric ones who occasionally
+take upon themselves to direct her steps.
+
+Of these latter, FASHION is one of her most frequent visitors, and it
+is very often found that as she approaches Utility and Taste retire.
+This is not, however, invariably the case. Sometimes the three agree
+cordially together, and their united suffrages and support enhance
+the fame of the needlewoman to the very highest pitch; but this happy
+cordiality is of infrequent occurrence, and usually of short duration.
+Fashion is fickle, varying, inconstant; given to sudden partialities
+and to disruptions unlooked for, and as sudden. She laughs to scorn
+Utility's grave maxims, and exaggerates the graceful suggestions of
+Taste until they appear complete caricatures. Consequently they,
+offended, retire; and Fashion, heedless, holds on her own course,
+keeping the needlewoman in complete subjection to her arbitrary rule,
+which is often enforced in her transient absence by her own peculiar
+friend and intimate--CAPRICE. This fantastic being has the greatest
+influence over Fashion, who having no staple character of her own, is
+easily led every way at the beck of this whimsical and absurd
+dictator. The productions which emanate from the hands of the
+needlewoman under their guidance are much sought for, much looked at,
+but soon fall into utter contempt.
+
+But there is another handmaiden created for the delight and solace of
+mankind in general, and who from the earliest days, even until now,
+has been the loving friend of the needlewoman; ever whispering
+suggestions in her ear, or tracing patterns on her work, or gently
+guiding her finger through the fantastic maze. She is of the most
+exquisite beauty: fragile in form as the gossamer that floats on a
+summer's breath--brilliant in appearance as the colours that illumine
+the rainbow. So light, that she floats on an atom; so powerful that
+she raises empires, nay, the whole earth by her might. Her habits are
+the most vagrant imaginable; she is indeed the veriest little gossip
+in creation, but her disposition to roam is not more boundless than
+her power to gratify it.
+
+One instant she is in the depths of the ocean, loitering upon coral
+beds; the next above the stars, revelling in the immensity of space;
+one moment she tracks a comet in his course, the next hobnobs with the
+sea-king, or foots a measure with mermaids. A most skilful architect,
+she will build palaces on the clouds radiant with splendour and
+beautiful as herself; then, demolishing them with a breath, she flies
+to some moss-grown ruin of the earth, where a glimpse of her
+countenance drives away the bat and the owl; the wallflower, the moss,
+and the ivy, are displaced by the rose, the lily, and the myrtle; the
+damp building is clothed in freshness and splendour, the lofty halls
+resound with the melody of the lute and the harp, and the whole scene
+is vivid with light and life, with brilliancy and beauty. Again, in an
+instant, all is mute, and dim, and desolate, and the versatile
+sorceress is hunting the otter with an Esquimaux; or, pillowed on
+roses whose fragrance is wafted by softest zephyrs around, she listens
+to the strain which the Bulbul pours; or, wrapped in deepest maze of
+philosophic thought, she "treads the long extent of backward time," by
+the gigantic sepulchres of Egyptian kings; or else she flies "from the
+tempest-rocked Hebrides or the icebound Northern Ocean--from the red
+man's wilderness of the west--from the steppes of Central Asia--from
+the teeming swamps of the Amazon--from the sirocco deserts of
+Africa--from the tufted islands of the Pacific--from the heaving
+flanks of AEtna--or from the marbled shores of Greece;"--and draws the
+whole circle of her enchantments round the needlewoman's fingers,
+within the walls of an humble English cottage.
+
+But it were equally unnecessary and useless to dilate on her fairy
+wanderings. Suffice it to say that so great is the beneficent
+liberality of this fascinating being, that every corner of her rich
+domain is open to the highest or lowest of mortals without reserve;
+and so lovely is she herself, and so bewitching is her company, that
+few, few indeed, are they who do not cherish her as a bosom friend and
+as the dearest of companions.
+
+Bearing, however, her vagrant characteristics in mind, we shall not be
+surprised at the peculiar ideas some people entertain of her haunts,
+nor at the strange places in which they search for her person. One
+would hardly believe that hundreds of thousands have sought her
+through the smoke, din, and turmoil of those lines "where all
+antipathies to comfort dwell,"--the railroads; while others, more
+adventurous, plough the ocean deep, scale the mighty mountains, or
+soar amid the clouds for her; or, strange to say, have sought her in
+the battle field 'mid scenes of bloody death. Like Hotspur, such would
+pluck her--
+
+    "From the pale-faced moon;"
+
+or would
+
+    "Dive into the bottom of the deep,
+    Where fathom-line could never touch the ground"
+
+for her.
+
+But she is a lady before whom strength and pride fall nerveless and
+abased; her gracious smiles are to be wooed, not commanded; her bright
+presence may be won, not forced;
+
+    "For spotless, and holy, and gentle, and bright,
+    She glides o'er the earth like an angel of light."
+
+Possessing all the gentleness of her mother--_Taste_, she shrinks from
+everything rude or abrupt; and when, as has frequently been the case,
+persons have attempted to lay violent hands upon her, she has invariably
+eluded their vigilance, by leaving in her place, tricked out in her
+superabundant ornaments to blind them, her half-brother--_Whim_, who
+sprang from the same father--_Wit_, but by another mother--_Humour_. She
+herself, wanderer as she is, is not without her favourite haunts, in
+which she lingers as if even loath to quit them at all.
+
+Finally, wherever yet the _accomplished_ needlewoman has been found,
+in the Jewish tabernacle of old--in the Grecian dome where the "Tale
+of Troy divine" glowed on the canvass--or in the bower of the
+high-born beauty of the "bright days of the sword and the lance"--in
+the cell of the pale recluse--or in the turretted prison of the royal
+captive--there has FANCY been her devoted friend, her inseparable
+companion.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[124] She was then a mere child, not more, if I remember rightly, than
+twelve years old.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+"LES ANCIENNES TAPISSERIES;" TAPESTRY OF ST. MARY'S HALL, COVENTRY;
+TAPESTRY OF HAMPTON COURT.
+
+    "There is a sanctity in the past."
+
+                        Bulwer.
+
+
+All monuments of antiquity are so speedily passing away, all traces of
+those bygone generations on which the mind loves to linger, and which
+in their dim and indistinct memories exercise a spell, a holy often,
+and a purifying spell on the imagination are so fleeting, and when
+_irrevocably_ gone will be so lamented--that all testimonies which
+throw certain light on the habits and manners of the past, how slight
+soever the testimonies they afford, how trivial soever the
+characteristics they display, are of the highest possible value to an
+enlightened people, who apply the experience of the past to its
+legitimate and noblest use, the guidance and improvement of the
+present.
+
+In this point of view the work which forms the subject of this
+chapter[125] assumes a value which its intrinsic worth--beautiful as
+is its execution--would not impart to it; and it is thus rendered not
+less valuable as an historical record, than it is attractive as a work
+of taste.
+
+"La chez eux, (we quote from the preface to the work itself,) c'est un
+siege ou un tournoi; ici un festin, plus loin une chasse; et toujours,
+chasse, festin, tournoi, siege, tout cela est _pourtraict au vif_,
+comme aurait dit Montaigne, tout cela nous retrace au naturel la vie
+de nos peres, nous montre leurs chateaux, leurs eglises, leurs
+costumes, leurs armes et meme, grace aux legendes explicatives, leur
+langage a diverses epoques. Il y a mieux. Si nous nous en rapportons a
+l'inventaire de Charles V., execute en 1379, toute la litterature
+francaise des siecles feconds qui precederent celui de ce sage
+monarque, aurait ete par ces ordres traduite en laine."
+
+This book consists of representations of all the existing ancient
+tapestries which activity and research can draw from the hiding-places
+of ages, copied in the finest outline engraving, with letter-press
+descriptions of each plate. They are published in numbers, and in a
+style worthy of the object. We do not despair of seeing this spirited
+example followed in our own country, where many a beautiful specimen
+of ancient tapestry, still capable of renovation by care--is
+mouldering unthought of in the lumber-rooms of our ancient mansions.
+
+We have seen twenty-one numbers of this work, with which we shall deal
+freely: excepting, however, the eight parts which are entirely
+occupied by the Bayeux Tapestry. Our own chapters on the subject were
+written before we were fortunate enough to obtain a sight of these,
+which include the whole of the correspondence on the tapestry to
+which we in our sketch alluded.
+
+LA TAPISSERIE DE NANCY.--"aurait une illustre origine, et remonterait
+a une assez haute antiquite. Prise dans la tente de Charles le
+Temeraire, lors de la mort de ce prince, en 1477, devant la capitale
+de la Lorraine, qu'il assiegeait, elle serait devenue un meuble de la
+couronne, et aurait servi au palais des ducs de ce pays, depuis Rene 2
+jusqu'a Charles IV.----C'est une de ces anciennes tapisseries
+flamandes dont le tissu, de laine tres fine, est eclaire par l'or et
+la soie. La soie et la laine subsistent encore, mais l'or ne
+s'apercoit plus que dans quelques endroits et a la faveur d'un beau
+soleil. Nous ferons remarquer que le costume des divers personnages
+que figurent dans notre monument est tout a fait caracteristique. Ce
+sont bien la les vetements et les ornements en usage vers la moitie du
+quinzieme siecle, et la disposition artistique, le choix du sujet,
+ainsi que l'execution elle-meme portent bien l'empreinte du style des
+oeuvres de 1450 environ.----La maison de Bourgogne etait fort riche
+en joyaux, en vaisselle d'or ou d'argent et en _tapis_."
+
+The tapestry presents an allegorical history, of which the object is
+to depict the inconveniences consequent on what is called "good
+cheer." Later on this formed the subject of "a morality." Originally
+this tapestry was only one vast page, the requisite divisions being
+wrought in the form of ornamented columns. It was afterwards cut in
+pieces, and unfortunately the natural divisions of the subject were
+not attended to in the severment. More unhappily still the pieces have
+since been rejoined in a wrong order; and after every possible
+endeavour to read them aright, the publishers are indebted to the
+"Morality" before referred to, which was taken from it, and was
+entitled "La Nef de Sante, avec le gouvernail du corps humain, et la
+condamnacion des bancquetz, a la louenge de Diepte et Sobriete, et la
+Traictie des Passions de l'ame."
+
+Banquet, Bonnecompagnie, Souper, Gourmandise, Friandise, Passetemps,
+Je pleige d'autant, Je boy a vous, and other rare personifications,
+not forgetting that indispensable guest _then_ in all courtly pastime,
+Le fol, "go it" to their hearts' content, until they are interrupted
+_vi et armis_ by a ghastly phalanx in powerful array of Apoplexie,
+Ydropsie, Epilencie, Pleurisie, Esquinancie, Paralasie, Gravelle,
+Colicque, &c.
+
+TAPISSERIE DE DIJON.--"On conviendra qu'il serait difficile de trouver
+un monument de ce genre plus fidele sur le rapport historique, plus
+interessant pour les arts, et plus digne d'etre reproduit par la
+gravure. Je ferai en outre remarquer combien cet immense tableau de
+laine, qui est unique, renferme de details precieux a la fois pour la
+panoplie, pour les costumes, et l'architecture du commencement du 16
+siecle, ainsi que pour l'histoire monumentale de Dijon."
+
+This tapestry, judging by the engravings in the work we quote, must be
+very beautiful. The groups are spirited and well disposed; and the
+countenances have so much _nature_ and expression in them, as to lead
+us readily to credit the opinion of the writer that they were
+portraits. The buildings are well outlined; and in the third piece an
+excellent effect is produced by exposing--by means of an open window,
+or some simple contrivance of the sort--part of the interior of the
+church of Notre Dame, and so displaying the brave leader of the French
+army, La Tremouille, as he offers thanks before the shrine of the
+Virgin.
+
+The tapestry was worked immediately after the siege of Dijon, (1513)
+and represents in three scenes the most important circumstances
+relating to it; the costumes, the arms, and the architecture of the
+time being displayed with fidelity and exactitude. The first
+represents the invading army before the walls; the second a solemn
+procession in honour of Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Espoir. In the midst is
+elevated the image of the Virgin, which is surrounded by the clergy in
+their festal vestments, by the religious communities, by the nobility,
+the bourgeois, and the military, all bearing torches.
+
+To this solemn procession was attributed the truce which led to a more
+lasting peace, though there are some heterodox dissentients who
+attribute this substantial advantage to the wisdom and policy of the
+able commander La Tremouille, who shared with Bayard the honourable
+distinction of being "sans peur et sans reproche."
+
+TAPISSERIES DE BAYARD.--A chateau which belonged to this noted hero
+was despoiled at the Revolution, and it was doubtless only owing to an
+idea of its worthlessness that some of the ancient tapestry was left
+there. These fragments, in a deplorable state, were purchased in 1807,
+and there are yet sufficient of them to bear testimony to their former
+magnificence, and to decide the date of their creation at the close
+of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century. The subjects
+are taken from Homer's "Iliad," and "il est probable (says M. Jubinal)
+que ce poeme se trouvait originairement reproduit en laine presque
+tout entier, malgre sa longueur, car ce n'etait pas le travail qui
+effrayait nos aieux."
+
+Valenciennes was celebrated for the peculiar fineness and gloss of its
+tapestry. By the indefatigable industry of certain antiquarians, some
+pieces in good preservation representing a tournament, have lately
+been taken from a garret, dismantled of their triple panoply of dust,
+cleaned and hung up; after being traced from their original abode in
+the state apartments of a prince through various gradations, to the
+damp walls of a registry office, where, from their apparent fragility
+alone, they escaped being cut into floor mats.
+
+Those of the CHATEAU D'HAROUE, and of the COLLECTION DUSOMMERARD, are
+also named here; but there is little to say about them, as the
+subjects are more imaginary than historical. They are of the sixteenth
+century, representing scenes of the chase, and are enlivened with
+birds in every position, some of them being, in proportion to other
+figures, certainly _larger_ than life, and "twice as natural."
+
+TAPISSERIES DE LA CHAISE DIEU.--"L'Abbaye de la Chaise Dieu fut fondee
+en 1046 par Robert qu'Alexandre 2de canonisa plus tard en 1070; et
+dont l'origine se rattachait a la famille des comtes de Poitou.
+
+"Robert fut destine de bonne heure aux fonctions du sacerdoce." He
+went on pilgrimage to the tombs of some of the Apostles, and it was on
+his return thence that he was first struck with the idea of founding a
+coenobitical establishment.
+
+"Reuni a un soldat nomme Etienne, a un solitaire nomme Delmas, et a un
+chanoine nomme Arbert, il se retira dans la solitude, et s'emparant du
+desert au profit de la religion, il planta la croix du Sauveur dans
+les lieux jusqu'a-la couverts de forets et de bruyeres incultes, et
+rassembla quelques disciples pour vivre aupres de lui sous la regle
+qu'un ange lui avait, disait il, apportee du ciel.
+
+"Bientot la reputation des cenobites s'etendit; Robert fut reconnu
+comme leur chef. De toutes parts on accourut les visiter. Des
+donations leur furent faites, et sur les ruines d'une ancienne eglise
+une nouvelle basilique s'eleva.
+
+"Telle est a peu pres l'histoire primitive de l'abbaye de la
+Chaise-Dieu."
+
+The Chaise-Dieu tapestries are fourteen in number, three of them are
+ten feet square, and the others are six feet high by eighteen long,
+excepting one which measures nearly twenty-six feet. Twelve are hung
+on the carved wood-work of the choir of the great church, and thus
+cover an immense space. Further off is the ancient choir of the monks,
+of which the wood-work of sculptured oak is surprisingly rich. Not
+even the cathedral of Rheims, of which the wood-work has long been
+regarded as the most beautiful in the kingdom, contains so great a
+number. Unhappily in times of intestine commotion this chef d'oeuvre
+has been horribly mutilated by the axes of modern iconoclasts, more
+ferocious than the barbarians of old. The two other tapestries are
+placed in the Church of the Penitents, an ancient refectory of the
+monks which now forms a dependent chapel to the great temple.
+
+These magnificent hangings are woven of wool and silk, and one yet
+perceives almost throughout, golden and silver threads which time has
+spared. When the artist prepared to copy them for the work we are
+quoting, no one dreamt of the richness buried beneath the accumulated
+dust and dirt of centuries. They were carefully cleaned, and then,
+says the artist, "Je suis ebloui de cette magnificence que nous ne
+soupconnions plus. C'est admirable. Les Gobelins ne produisent pas
+aujourd'hui de tissus plus riches et plus eclatans. Imaginez-vous que
+les robes des femmes, les ornemens, les colonnettes sont emailles,
+ruisselants de milliers de pierres fines et de perles," &c.
+
+It would be tedious to attempt to describe individually the subjects
+of these tapestries. They interweave the histories of the Old and New
+Testaments; the centre of the work generally representing some passage
+in the life of our Saviour, whilst on each side is some correspondent
+typical incident from the Old Testament. Above are rhymed quatrains,
+either legendary or scriptural; and below and around are sentences
+drawn from the prophets or the psalms.
+
+These tapestries appear to have been the production of the close of
+the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, denoting
+in the architecture and costumes _more_ the reigns of Charles VIII.
+and Louis XI., than of Louis XII. and Francis I. Such pieces were
+probably long in the loom, since the tapestry of Dijon, composed of a
+single _lai_ of twenty-one feet, required not less, according to a
+competent judge, than ten years' labour.
+
+There are some most beautiful, even amongst these all-beautiful
+engravings, which we much regret to see there--engravings of the
+tapestry in the cathedral of Aix, which tapestry ought still to enrich
+our own country. Shame on those under whose barbarous rule these,
+amongst other valuable and cherished monuments, were, as relics of
+papistry, bartered for foreign gold. "L'histoire manuscrite de la
+ville d'Aix dit que cette tapisserie avait servi a l'eglise de St.
+Paul de Londres ou a toute autre eglise cathedrale d'Angleterre; qu'a
+l'epoque de la Reformation, les tableaux et les tapisseries ayant ete
+exclus des temples, les Anglais chercherent a vendre dans les pays
+etrangers quelques-unes des tapisseries qui ornaient leurs
+cathedrales, et _qu'ils en brulerent un plus grand nombre_!"
+
+This tapestry represents the history of our Saviour, in twenty seven
+compartments, being in the whole about 187 feet long. It is supposed
+to have been woven about 1511, when William Warham was Archbishop of
+Canterbury, and Chancellor. Warham had been previously Bishop of
+London; and as his arms are on this tapestry, and also the arms of two
+prior bishops of London who are supposed to have left legacies to
+ornament the church which were applied towards defraying the expenses
+of this manufacture, it seems quite probable that its destination was
+St. Paul's, and not any other cathedral church. The arms of the king
+are inwrought in two places; for Henry contributed to the
+embellishment of this church. He loved the arts; he decorated
+churches; and though he seceded from the Roman communion, he
+maintained throughout his life magnificent decorations in his
+favourite churches as well as the worship of the ancient Catholic
+Church. It was first under Edward, and more decidedly under Elizabeth,
+that the ceremonies of the church were completely changed, and that
+those which had been considered only decent and becoming were
+stigmatised as popish. Nor did this fantasy reach its height until the
+time of Cromwell.
+
+Lord Douglas, Earl of Buchan, who founded the Society of Antiquaries
+in Edinburgh, endeavoured during the interval of the Peace of Amiens,
+to treat with the Archbishop of Aix for the repurchase of this
+tapestry. He would have placed it in a Gothic church belonging to an
+ancient Scotch Abbey on his domains. He had already ornamented this
+church with several beautiful monuments of antiquity, and he wished to
+place this tapestry there as a national monument, but the treaty was
+broken off.
+
+The TAPESTRIES OF AULHAC, representing the siege of Troy, and those of
+BEAUVAIS, embracing a variety of subjects from history both sacred and
+profane; of the LOUVRE, representing the Miracle of St. Quentin,
+tapestry representing ALEXANDER, King of Scotland; and those of ST.
+REMI, at Rheims, are all engraven and described.
+
+Those of the magnificent cathedral church at Rheims, consisting of
+forty tapestries, forming different collections, but all on religious
+subjects, will probably form the material for future numbers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That there are ancient tapestries existing in England fully equal to
+those in France is, we think, almost certain; but of course they are
+not to be summoned from the "vasty deep" of neglect and oblivion by
+the powerless voice of an obscure individual. Gladly would we, had it
+been in our power, have enriched our sketch by references to some of
+them.
+
+The following notice of a tapestry at Coventry is drawn from "Smith's
+Selections of the ancient Costume of Britain;" and the names of the
+tapestries at Hampton Court Palace from "Pyne's Royal Residences." We
+have recently visited Hampton Court for the express purpose of viewing
+the tapestries. There, we believe, they were, entirely (with the
+exception of a stray inch or two here and there) hung over with
+paintings.
+
+The splendid though neglected tapestry of St. Mary's Hall at Coventry
+offers a variety of materials no less interesting on account of the
+sanctity and misfortunes of the prince (Henry VI.) who is there
+represented, than curious as specimens of the arts of drawing, dyeing,
+and embroidery of the time in which it was executed.
+
+It is thirty feet in length and ten in height; and is divided into six
+compartments, three in the upper tier and three in the lower,
+containing in all upwards of eighty figures or heads. The centre
+compartment of the upper row, in its perfect and original state,
+represented the usual personification of the Trinity--(the Trinity
+Guild held its meetings in the hall of St. Mary) surrounded by angels
+bearing the various instruments of the Passion. But the zeal of our
+early reformers sacrificed this part of the work, and substituted in
+its stead a tasteless figure of Justice, which now holds the scales
+amidst the original group of surrounding angels.
+
+The right hand division of this tier is occupied with sundry figures
+of saints and martyrs, and the opposite side is filled with a group of
+female saints.
+
+In the centre compartment below is represented the Virgin Mary in the
+clouds, standing on the crescent, surrounded by the twelve Apostles
+and many cherubs. But the two remaining portions of this fine tapestry
+constitute its chief value and importance to the city of Coventry, as
+they represent the figures of Henry VI., his Queen, the ambitious, and
+crafty, and cruel, yet beautiful and eloquent and injured Margaret of
+Anjou, and many of their attendants. During all the misfortunes of
+Henry, the citizens of Coventry zealously supported him; and their
+city is styled by historians "Queen Margaret's secret bower." As the
+tapestry was purposely made for the hall, and probably placed there
+during the lives of the sovereigns, the figures may be considered as
+authentic portraits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first Presence Chamber in Hampton Court is (or was) hung with rich
+ancient tapestry, representing a landscape, with the figures of
+Nymphs, Fawns, Satyrs, Nereides, &c.
+
+There is some fine ancient tapestry in the King's Audience Chamber,
+the subjects being, on one side, Abraham and Lot dividing their lands;
+and on the other, God appearing to Abraham purchasing ground for a
+burying-place.
+
+The tapestry on the walls of the King's Drawing-Room represents
+Abraham entertaining the three Angels; also Abraham, Isaac, and
+Rebecca.
+
+The tapestry which covers three sides of the King's State Bedchamber
+represents the history of Joshua.
+
+The walls of the Queen's Audience Chamber are covered with tapestry
+hangings, which represent the story of Abraham and Melchisedec, and
+Abraham and Rebecca.
+
+The Ball Room is called also the Tapestry Gallery, from the superb
+suite of hangings that ornament its walls, which was brought from
+Flanders by General Cadogan, and set up by order of George I. The
+series of seven compartments describes the history of Alexander the
+Great, from the paintings of the celebrated Charles le Brun. The first
+represents the story of Alexander and his horse Bucephalus; the
+second, the visit of Alexander to Diogenes; the third, the passage of
+Alexander over the Granicus; the fourth, Alexander's visit to the
+mother and wife of Darius, in their tent, after the battle of Arbela;
+the fifth, Alexander's triumphal entrance into Babylon; the sixth,
+Alexander's battle with Porus; the seventh, his second entrance into
+Babylon.--These magnificent hangings were wrought at the Gobelins.
+
+The tapestry hangings in the king's private bedchamber describe the
+naval battle of Solebay between the combined fleets of England and
+France and the Dutch fleet, in 1672.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of all the tapestries here recorded, the last only, representing the
+Battle of Solebay, are now visible.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[125] "Les Anciennes Tapisseries Historiees, ou Collection des
+Monumens les plus remarquables, de ce genre, qui nous soient restes du
+moyen age." A Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+EMBROIDERY.
+
+    "Flowers, Plants and Fishes, Beasts, Birds, Flyes, and Bees,
+    Hils, Dales, Plaines, Pastures, Skies, Seas, Rivers, Trees,
+    There's nothing neere at hand, or farthest sought,
+    But with the Needle may be shap'd and wrought."
+
+                        John Taylor.
+
+
+Perhaps of all nations in very ancient times the Medes and Babylonians
+were most celebrated for the draperies of the apartments, about which
+they were even more anxious than about their attire. All their noted
+hangings with which their palaces were so gorgeously celebrated were
+wrought by the needle. And though now everywhere the loom is in
+request, still these and other eastern nations maintain great practice
+and unrivalled skill in needle embroidery. Sir John Chardin says of
+the Persians, "Their tailors certainly excel ours in their sewing.
+They make carpets, cushions, veils for doors, and other pieces of
+furniture of felt, in Mosaic work, which represents just what they
+please. This is done so neatly, that a man might suppose the figures
+were painted instead of being a kind of inlaid work. Look as close as
+you will, the joining cannot be seen;" and the Hall of Audience at
+Jeddo, we are told, is a sumptuous edifice; the roof covered with gold
+and silver of exquisite workmanship, the throne of massy gold enriched
+with pearls, diamonds, and other precious stones. The tapestry is of
+the finest silk, wrought by the _most curious hands_, and adorned with
+pearls, gold, and silver, and other costly embellishments.
+
+About the close of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century, the
+Caliph Moctadi's whole army, both horse and foot, (says Abulfeda) were
+under arms, which together made a body of 160,000 men. His state
+officers stood near him in the most splendid apparel, their belts
+shining with gold and gems. Near them were 7000 black and white
+eunuchs. The porters or door-keepers were in number 700. Barges and
+boats, with the most superb decorations, were swimming on the Tigris.
+Nor was the palace itself less splendid, in which were hung _38,000
+pieces of tapestry, 12,500 of which were of silk embroidered with
+gold_. The carpets on the floor were 22,000. A hundred lions were
+brought out with a keeper to each lion. Among the other spectacles of
+rare and stupendous luxury, was a tree of gold and silver, which
+opened itself into eighteen larger branches, upon which, and the other
+less branches sate birds of every sort, made also of gold and silver.
+The tree glittered with leaves of the same metals, and while its
+branches, through machinery, appeared to move of themselves, the
+several birds upon them warbled their natural notes.
+
+The skill of the eastern embroiderer has always had a wide field for
+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; ..."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Art of Needle-work, from the
+Earliest Ages, 3rd ed., by Elizabeth Stone
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