Larger Image
Fig. 18.—Sampler. Name Illegible. Date 1742.Formerly in the Author’s Collection.
Animals in any true decorative sense hardly came into sampler ornament. Whilst the tapestry pictures teem with them, so that one wanting in a lion or stag is a rarity, in samplers, probably, the difficulty of obtaining rounded forms with the stitch used in the large grained canvas was a deterrent. The lion only being found on the Fletwood sampler of 1654 (Fig. 44) and the stag, which in tapestry pictures usurps the place of the unicorn, appears but rarely on samplers before the middle of the eighteenth century, when it came into fashion, and afterwards occurs with uninterrupted regularity so long as samplers were made.
This neglect of animals is hardly to be deplored, for when they do occur they are little else than caricatures (see, for instance, those inPlate III.). Birds, which lend themselves to needlework, appear in the later samplers (Plate XI.andFig. 18), but hardly as part of any decorative scheme.
With the practically insignificant exceptions which we have just noticed, the ornamentation of the sampler was confined to floral and geometrical motives, and whilst the latter were for the most part used in drawn-work samplers, the former constituted the stock whence the greater part of the decoration employed in the older examples was derived.
Amongst the floral and vegetable kingdom the selection was a wide one, but a few favourites came in for recognition in almost every sampler, partly because of their decorative qualities, and partly from their being national badges. With few exceptions they were those which were to be met with in English seventeenth-century gardens, and undoubtedly, in some instances, may have been adapted by the makers from living specimens. Chief among the flowers was the rose, white and red, single and double, the emblem for centuries previously of two great parties in the State, a badge of the Tudor kings, a part of the insignia of the realm, and occupying a foremost place upon its coinage. In sampler ornamentation it is seldom used either in profile or in bud, but generally full face, and more often as a single than as a double flower. As a form of decoration it may have been derived from foreign sources, but it clearly owed its popularity to the national significance that attached to it.
The decorative value of the pink or carnation has been recognised from the earliest times, and a piece of Persian ornament is hardly complete without it. It is not surprising, therefore, that the old sampler workers utilised it to the full, and in fact it appears oftener than the rose in seventeenth-century specimens. Ten of the thirteen exhibits of that century at The Fine Art Society’s Exhibition in 1900 contained it as against seven where the rose was figured. It maintains this position throughout, and the most successful of the borders of bordered samplers are those where it is utilised. Specimens will be found inPlates III.,IV., andVI.
The decorative value of the honeysuckle was hardly appreciated, and it only appeared on samplers of the date of 1648 (Plate III.), 1662 (Plate V.), 1668, 1701, and 1711, in the Exhibition, and the undated one reproduced inFig. 4.
Larger Image
Plate X.—Sampler by Catherine Tweedall. Dated 1775.Mrs Arthur Severn.
The Sampler is noteworthy not only on account of its harmonious colour scheme, its symmetry of parts, and the excellence of its needlework, but as having been wrought by a young lady who afterwards became Mrs Ruskin, and the grandmother of John Ruskin. Her name, Cathrine Tweedall, is worked in the lower circle, and is illegible in the otherwise admirable reproduction, owing to its being in a faded shade of the fairest pink. The verse was probably often read by her renowned grandson, and may perchance have spurred his determination to strive in the race in which he won so “high a reward.” Mrs Arthur Severn, to whom the Sampler belongs, notes that the Jean Ross whose name also appears upon it was the sister of the great Arctic explorer. The date of the Sampler is 1775.
Sampler workers were very faithful to the strawberry, which, after appearing in almost every one of the seventeenth-century long samplers, was a favourite object for the later borders, and it may be seen almost unaltered in specimens separated in date by a century at least. We give inFig. 31a very usual version of it. (See alsoPlate XIII.)
Larger Image
Fig. 19.—Sampler by Mary Anderson. 1831.Lady Sherborne.
Other fruits and flowers which now and again find a place are the fig, which will be seen inPlate III.; the pineapple, the thistle (Fig. 21), and the tulip in samplers dated 1662, 1694, 1760, and 1825 (Plate XIII.).
Although the oak tree acquired political significance after the flight of Charles II., that fact can in no way account for such prominence being attached to its fruit and its foliage as, for instance, is the case in samplers dated 1644 and 1648 (Plate III.), where varieties of these are utilised in a most decorative fashion in several of the rows of ornament, or in another of the following years (Fig. 16). But, curiously enough, after appearing in almost every seventeenth-century sampler, it disappeared entirely at the commencement of the eighteenth century.
The crown seems to have been suddenly seized upon by sampler makers as a form of decoration, and for half a century it was used with a tiresome reiteration. It had, of course, been largely used in Tudor decoration, and on the restoration of the monarchy it would be given prominence. But it probably was also in vogue because it lent itself to filling up spaces caused by alphabets not completing a line, and also because it allowed of variation through the coronets used by different ranks of nobility. We have seen in the sampler,Fig. 20, that the coronet of each order was used with a letter beneath, indicating duke, earl, etc. On occasions crowns were also used with some effect as a border. It is possible that the fashion for coronets wasderived from foreign samplers, where this form of decoration was frequently used about the end of the seventeenth century, doubtless owing to the abundance of ennobled personages; they may well have come over with many other fancies which followed in the train of the House of Hanover. The earliest sampler in the Exhibition before referred to which bore a crown was one of 1693; but the coronet was there placed in conjunction with the initials M. D., and might be that of a titled lady who worked it. After that it appeared in one dated 1705 (where it was clearly a royal one connected with “Her Majesti Queen Anne”), and in samplers dated 1718, 1726, 1728 (1740, in which there were at least fifty varieties), and so on almost yearly up to 1767, after which it gradually disappeared, two only out of seventy subsequent samplers containing it. These were dated 1798 and 1804. In countries where almost every family bore a rank which warranted the use of a coronet, there would be a reason for their appearance as part of what would have to be embroidered on table linen, etc.
Larger Image
Fig. 20.—Sampler. Scottish (?). 18th Century.Formerly in the Author’s Collection.
Note.—The bright colouring, coarse canvas, and ornate lettering of this piece suggest a Scottish origin. It dates from about 1730, and is one of the earliest of the bordered samplers, the border being at present an altogether insignificant addition. It is also one of the first specimens of decoration with crowns and coronets, the initials underneath standing for king, duke, marquis, earl, viscount, lord, count, and baron.
Fig. 21.—Sampler by J. H. [Jane Heath].A.D.1725.Mr Ashby Sterry.
The tiny sampler with crown illustrated inFig. 21was one of four contributed to the Exhibition by Mr Ashby Sterry, each of them representing a generation in his family. It is unfinished, the background only having been completed in the lower half; its crown and thistle denote its Scottish origin.
Larger Image
Fig. 22.—Sampler by Mary Bywater.1751.Formerly in the Author’s Collection.
Larger Image
Fig. 23.—Heart-shaped Sampler by Mary Ives.Dated 1796.Miss Haldane.
Note.—This delightful little sampler is reproduced in its full size, and is most delicately adorned with a pink frilled ribbon edging. We do not know which of the three ladies whose names it bears worked it, or to which of them the lines, “Be unto me kind and true as I be unto you,” were addressed. The date, it will be seen, is 1796, and it shows that at the end of the century there was still an affection for the little flying Cupids so usual upon eighteenth-century gravestones. We have remarked upon the absence of the cross in samplers: even here we do not find it, although we have the heart and anchor.
This emblem, which one would have imagined to be a much more favourite device with impressionable little ladies than the crown, is more seldom met with. In fact, it only figured on four of the hundreds of samplers which composed the Exhibition, and in three of these cases it was in conjunction with a crown. When it is remembered how common the heart used to be as an ornament to be worn, and how it is associated with the crown in foreign religious Art, its infrequency is remarkable. The unusually designed small sampler (the reproduction being almost the size of the original),Fig. 22, dated 1751, simply worked in pale blue silk, on a fine khaki-coloured ground, has a device of crowns within a large heart.Fig. 23shows a sampler in the form of a heart, and has, in conjunction with this symbol, anchors. It is dated 1796.
The sampler with a border was the direct and natural outcome of the sampler in “rows.” A case, for instance, probably occurred, as inFig. 24,[6]where a piece of decoration had a vacant space at its sides, and resort was at once had to a portion of a row, in this case actually the top one. From this it would followas a matter of course that the advantage, from a decorative point of view, of an ornamental framework was seen and promptly followed. The earliest border I have seen is that reproduced inFig. 25, from a sampler dated 1726, but it is certain that many must exist between that date and 1700, the date upon the sampler inFig. 24just referred to. The 1726 border consists of a pattern of trefoils, worked in alternating red and yellow silks, connected by a running stem of a stiff angular character; the device being somewhat akin to the earlier semi-border inFig. 24.
Larger Image
Fig. 24.—Drawn-work Sampler by S. W. a.d. 1700.Mrs C. J. Longman.
It is astonishing with what persistency the samplerists followed the designs which they had had handed to them in the “row” samplers, confining their attentions to a few favourites, and repeating them again and again for a hundred and fifty years, and losing, naturally, with each repetition somewhatof the feeling of the original. We give a few examples which show this persistency of certain ideas.
Fig. 25.—Border of Mary Lounds’s Sampler. a.d. 1726.
Fig. 26.—Border of Mary Heaviside’s Sampler. a.d. 1735.
The border inFig. 26is dated 1735, and presents but little advance from a decorative point of view. It is the production of Mary Heaviside, and is upon an Easter sampler, which bears, besides the verse to the Holy Feast of Easter, the Lord’s Prayer and the Belief. The border may possibly typify the Cross and the Tree of Life.
Fig. 27.—Border of Elizabeth Greensmith’s Sampler. Aged 10. July ye 26, 1737.
Elizabeth Greensmith’s sampler (Fig. 27), worked two years later, in 1737, is more pretentious in form, the body of the work being taken up with a spreading tree, beneath which repose a lion and a leopard. The border consists of an ill-composed and ill-drawn design of yellow tulips, blue-bells, and red roses. The stem, which runs through this and almost every subsequent design, is here very feebly arranged; it is, however, only fair to say that the work is that of a girl in her tenth year.
Fig. 28.—Border of Margaret Knowles’s Sampler. Aged 9. a.d. 1738.
Margaret Knowles’s sampler (Fig. 28), made in the next year—A.D.1738—is the earliest example I know of the use on a border of that universal favourite the pink, which is oftentimes hardly distinguishable from the corn blue-bottle. In the present instance it is, however, flattened almost out of recognition, whilst the design is spoilt by the colossal proportions of the connecting stem. In the second row of the sampler,Fig. 24, it is seen in a much simpler form, and it will also be found inPlate VI.
Fig. 29.—Border to Sampler by Elizabeth Turner. a.d. 1771.
Larger Image
Plate XI.—Sampler by Ann Chapman. Dated 1779.Mrs C. J. Longman.
Incongruity between the ornament and the lettering of a Sampler could hardly be carried to a more ludicrous extreme than in Ann Chapman’s, which is here reproduced in colour. The two points of Agur’s prayer, which fills the panel, are that before he dies vanity shall be removed far from him, and that he shall have neither poverty nor riches. Yet as surroundings and supporters to this appeal we have two figures posing as mock shepherd and shepherdess, and decked out in all the vanities of the time. Agur’s prayer was apparently often selected, for we see it again in the Sampler of Emily Jane Brontë (Fig. 10), but there it has the quietest of ornament to surround it, and it is worked in black silk; whereas in the present case there is no Sampler in the collection where the whole sheaf of colours has been more drawn upon.
The remaining illustrations of borders are selected as beingthose where the design is well carried out, and as showing how the types continue. The first (Fig. 29), worked by Elizabeth Turner in 1771, represents a conventional rose in two aspects; the second, by Sarah Carr (Fig. 30), in 1809, is founded on the honeysuckle; whilst the third (Fig. 31) is a delightfully simple one of wild strawberries that is frequently found in samplers from the earliest (inPlate II.) onwards. In that from which this example is taken, worked by Susanna Hayes in 1813, it is most effective with its pink fruit and green stalks and band. It will be noticed that it even crossed the Atlantic, for it reappears in Mr Pennell’s American sampler,Plate XIII.
Fig. 30.—Border to Sampler by Sarah Carr. a.d. 1809.
Fig. 31.—Border to Sampler by Susanna Hayes. a.d. 1813.
How even the border degenerated as the nineteenth century advanced may be seen in the monotonous Greek fret used in the three samplers of the Brontës (Figs. 10,11,12), and in that of Mary Anderson (Fig. 19).
Miscellanea respecting Samplers
Under this heading we group what remains to be said concerning samplers, namely:—
In modern times samplers have been almost universally the product of children’s hands; but the earliest ones exhibit so much more proficiency that it would seem to have been hardly possible that they could have been worked by those who were not yet in their teens. This supposition is in a way supported by an examination of samplers. Of those prior to the year 1700, I have seen but one in which the age of the maker is mentioned. It reads thus, “Mary Hall is my name and when I was thirteen years of age I ended this in 1662.” On the other hand, the rhyme which we quoted at page 50, attached to one in Mrs Longman’s possession, which, although undated, is certainly of the seventeenth century, points to it being the work of a grown-up and possibly a married lady.
It is not until we reach the year 1704 that I have found a sampler (Fig. 32) which was the product of a child under ten, namely, that bearing the inscription “Martha Haynes ended her sampler in the 9th year of her age, 1704.”
This is quickly followed by one by “Anne Michel, the daughter of John and Sarah Michel ended Nov. the 21 being 11 years of age and in the 3 year of Her Majesti Queen Anne and in the year of ovr Lord 1705.”
1740 is the next date upon one worked by Mary Gardner, aged 9 (page 27).
Larger Image
Fig. 32.—Small Sampler by Martha Haynes.Dated 1704.Late in the Author’s Collection.
From 1750 onwards the majority of samplers are endorsed with the age of the child, and the main interest in the endorsements lies in the remarkable proficiency which many of them exhibit, considering the youth of the worker, and in the tender age at which they were wrought. Almost one half of the tiny workers have not reached the space when their years are marked with two figures, and we even have one mite of six producing the piece of needlework reproduced inFig. 33, and talking of herself as in her prime in the verse set out upon it.
Larger Image
Fig. 33.—Sampler by Sarah Pelham, aged 6.
But perhaps the most remarkable achievement is the “goldfinch” sampler illustrated inPlate XII., which was worked by Ann Maria Wiggins at the age of seven.
It is notunreasonable to suppose that samplers were on occasions worked by children of both sexes. One’s own recollection carries back to canvas and Berlin wool-work having been one way of passing the tedious hours of a wet day. But specimens where the Christian name of a male appears are few and far between, and more often than not they are worked in conjunction with others, which would seem to indicate that they are only there as part and parcel of a list (which is not unusual) of the family. In the sampler illustrated inFig. 34the boy’s name, Robert Henderson, is in black silk, differing from any of the rest of the lettering, which is perhaps testimony to his having produced it. This sampler shows the perpetuation until 1762 of the form in which rows are the predominant feature. A sampler, formerly in the author’s collection, was more clearly that of a boy, being signed Lindsay Duncan, Cuper [sic], 1788. Another Scottish one bears the name or names Alex. Peter Isobel Dunbar, whilst a third of the same kind is signed “Mathew was born on April 16, 1764, and sewed this in August, 1774.”
The ravages of time and the little value attached to them have probably reduced to very small numbers the tiny samplers such as those which are seen inFigs. 35and36, and which must have usually been very infantine efforts. Those illustrated, however, show the progress made by two sisters, Mary and Lydia Johnson, in two years. Presumably Lydia was the elder, and worked the sampler which bears her name and the date 1784. This was copied by her sister Mary in the following year, but in a manner which showed her to be but a tyro with the needle; nor much advanced in stitchery in the following year, in which she attempted the larger sampler which bears her name. Lydia, on the other hand, in the undated sampler, but which was probably made in the year 1786, showed progress in everything except the power of adapting the well-known design of a pink to the small sampler on which she was engaged, as to which she clearly could not manage the joining of the pattern at the corners. The originals of these samplers measure from four to six inches in their largest dimensions.
Larger Image
Fig. 34.—Scottish Sampler by Robert Henderson. Dated 1762.
Larger Image
Fig. 35.—Small Samplers by Mary Johnson. 1785-6.Author’s Collection.
Larger Image
Fig. 36.—Small Samplers by Lydia Johnson. 1784.Author’s Collection.
Collectors, in discussing samplers among themselves, have wondered whether it would be possible to assign differences in construction and material to their having been produced in localities where the characteristic forms and patterns had not permeated. But those specimens which the author has examined, and which by a superscription gave a clue as to their place of origin, certainly afford insufficient foundation for such assumptions. In the first place, samplers so marked are certainly not sufficiently numerous to warrant any opinion being formed on the subject, and, as to those not so marked, the places where they have been found cannot be taken into account as being their birthplaces, as families to whom they have for long belonged may naturally have removed from quite different parts of the kingdom since the samplers were made.
It is surprising how seldom the workers of samplers deemed it necessary to place upon them the name of the district which they inhabited. There are few who followed the example of the girl who describes herself on a sampler dated 1766, thus:—
“Ann Stanfer is my nameAnd England is my nationBlackwall is my dwelling placeAnd Christ is my salvation.”
Larger Image
Fig. 37.—Scottish Sampler by Mary Bayland. 1779.
The only names of places in England recorded on samplers in The Fine Art Society’s Exhibition were Chipping Norton, Sudbury, Hawkchurch, and Tottenham, and certain orphan schools or hospitals, such as Cheltenham and Ashby. Curiously enough, the Scottish lassies were more particular in adding their dwelling-place, thus, in the sampler reproduced inFig. 37, and which is interesting as a survival as late as 1779 of a long sampler, Mary Bayland gives her residence as Perth, and others have been noted at Cupar, Dunbar, and elsewhere in Scotland. It might be expected that these Scottish ones would differ materially from those made far away in the southern parts of the kingdom, but whilst those inFigs. 32and34have a certain resemblance and difference from others in the decoration of their lettering, that inFig. 36might well have been worked in England, showing that there were no local peculiarities such as we might expect.
It will be seen that two of the American samplers figured here have their localities indicated, namely Miss Damon’s school at Boston (Fig. 50) and Brooklyn (Fig. 47).
Larger Image
Fig. 38.—Sampler by Mary Minshull.Dated June 29, 1694.
A largely added interest might have been given to samplers had a fashion arisen of lettering them with some historical occurrence which was then stirring the locality, but unfortunately their makers very rarely rose to so much originality. Three rare instances were to be seen in The Fine Art Society’s Exhibition. These, curiously enough, came together from different parts of the country—one from Nottingham, a second from Hockwold, Norfolk, and the third from the author’s collection in London—but they were worked by two persons only, one by Mary Minshull, and two by Martha Wright. They are all unusual in their form of decoration (as will be seen by that illustrated inFig. 38), and were practically similar in design, colour, and execution, each having a set of single pinks worked in high relief in the centre of the sampler. Their presence together was certainly a testimonyto the all-embracing character of the Exhibition. The inscriptions upon them were as follows:—
(1) “The Prince of Orang landed in the West of England on the 5th of November 1688, and on the 11th April 1689 was crowned King of England, and in the year 1692 the French came to invade England, and a fleet of ships sent by King William drove them from the English seas, and took, sunk, and burned twenty-one of their ships.”—Signed “Martha Wright, March 26th, 1693.”(2) “There was an earthquake on the 8th September 1692 in the City of London, but no hurt tho it caused most part of England to tremble.”—Signed “Mary Minshull.”
(1) “The Prince of Orang landed in the West of England on the 5th of November 1688, and on the 11th April 1689 was crowned King of England, and in the year 1692 the French came to invade England, and a fleet of ships sent by King William drove them from the English seas, and took, sunk, and burned twenty-one of their ships.”—Signed “Martha Wright, March 26th, 1693.”
(2) “There was an earthquake on the 8th September 1692 in the City of London, but no hurt tho it caused most part of England to tremble.”—Signed “Mary Minshull.”
Larger Image
Plate XII.—Sampler by Ann Maria Wiggins.19th Century.Mrs C. J. Longman.
This “Goldfinch” Sampler was one of the most elaborate Samplers in the Bond Street Exhibition, and is really a wonderful production for a child of seven years of age. It was probably made early in the nineteenth century.
The third was a combination of the two inscriptions.
Nothing of a similar character in work of the eighteenth century has come under my notice, but the Peace of 1802 produced the following lines on a sampler:—
“Past is the storm and o’er the azure sky serenely shines the sunWith every breeze the waving branches nod their kind assent.”ON PEACE“Hail England’s favor’d Monarch: round thy headShall Freedom’s hand Perennial laurels spread.Fenc’d by whose sacred leaves the royal browMock’d the vain lightnings aim’d by Gallic foeAlike in arts and arms illustrious foundProudly Britannia sits with laurel crown’dInvasion haunts her rescued Plains no moreAnd hostile inroads flies her dangerous shoreWhere’er her armies march her ensigns PlayFame points the course and glory leads the way.*******O Britain with the gifts of Peace thou’rt blestMay thou hereafter have Perpetual restAnd may the blessing still with you remainNor cruel war disturb our land again.“The Definitive Treaty of Peace was signed March 27th1802 proclaimed in London April the 29th1802—Thanksgiving June the 1st 1802.Mary Ann CrouzetDecbr17 1802.”
“Past is the storm and o’er the azure sky serenely shines the sunWith every breeze the waving branches nod their kind assent.”ON PEACE“Hail England’s favor’d Monarch: round thy headShall Freedom’s hand Perennial laurels spread.Fenc’d by whose sacred leaves the royal browMock’d the vain lightnings aim’d by Gallic foeAlike in arts and arms illustrious foundProudly Britannia sits with laurel crown’dInvasion haunts her rescued Plains no moreAnd hostile inroads flies her dangerous shoreWhere’er her armies march her ensigns PlayFame points the course and glory leads the way.*******O Britain with the gifts of Peace thou’rt blestMay thou hereafter have Perpetual restAnd may the blessing still with you remainNor cruel war disturb our land again.
“The Definitive Treaty of Peace was signed March 27th1802 proclaimed in London April the 29th1802—Thanksgiving June the 1st 1802.
Mary Ann CrouzetDecbr17 1802.”
Later samplers gave expression to the universal sympathy elicited by the death of Queen Charlotte.
Needlework maps may very properly be classed under the head of samplers, for they originated in exactly the same way, namely, as specimens of schoolgirl proficiency, which when taken home were very lasting memorials of the excellence of that teaching termed “the use of the globes.”
Maps were only the product of the latter half of the eighteenth century; at least, none that I have seen go back beyond that time, the earliest being dated 1777. Their interest for the most part is no more than that of a map of a contemporary date; for instance, the North America reproduced inFig. 39has nothing whatever in the way of needlework to recommend it, but it shows what any map would, namely, how little was known at that date of the Western States or Canada.
A map of Europe in the Exhibition, dated 1809, was a marvellous specimen of patient proficiency in lettering, every place of note being wonderfully and minutely sewn in silk. The executant was Fanny le Gay, of Rouen.
Larger Image
Fig. 39.—Map of North America by M.A.K. 1738.
Larger Image
Fig. 40.—Map of England and Wales by Ann Brown.
A map printed on satin or other material was sometimes worked over, not always as regards all the lettering, but as to the markings of the degrees of latitude and longitude,[7]and some of the principal names. These have naturally less interest and value as specimens of needlework than those which are entirely hand worked, although for the purposes of geographical reference they were at all events reliable, which is more than can be said for some of the original efforts; as, for instance, that of little Ann Brown, whose map of England and Wales is reproduced (Fig. 40). Starting bravely, her delineation of Northumberland takes her well down the canvas, so that by the time she has reached Newcastle she has carried it abreast of Dumfries in Scotland, and Cork in Ireland! Yorkshire is so expansive that it grows downward beyond Exeter and Lundy Island, which last-named places have, however, by some mishap, crept up to the northward of Manchester and Leeds. It is a puzzle to think where the little lassie lived who could consort London with Wainfleet, the River Thames with the Isle of Wight, Lichfield with Portland, or join France to England. Although one would imagine that the dwelling-place of the sempstress would usually be made notable in the map either by large lettering or by more florid colouring, we have not found this to be the case.
Larger Image
Fig. 41.—Map of Africa. Dated 1784.
The map of Africa (Fig 41), which is surrounded by a delightful border of spangles, and which seems to have been used as a fire-screen, is interesting now that so much more is known of the continent, for many of the descriptions have undergone considerable change, such as the Grain Coast, Tooth Coast, and Slave Coast, which border on the Gulf of Guinea. The sampler is also noteworthy as having been done at Mrs Arnold’s, which was presumably a school in Fetherstone Buildings, High Holborn, hardly the place where one would expect to find a ladies’ seminary nowadays.
Tapestry pictures have such a Royalist air about them that it is hardly probable that they found favour with the Puritan damsels of the Stuart reigns, and, consequently, it may be doubted whether the fashion for making them crossed the Atlantic to the New World with the Pilgrim Fathers, or those who followed in their train. Samplers, on the other hand, with their moralities and their seriousness, would seem to be quite akin to the old-fashioned homesof the New Englanders, and doubtless there must be many specimens hanging in the houses of New England and elsewhere which were produced from designs brought from the Old Country, but over which a breath of native art has passed which imparts to them a distinctive interest and value. Three notable ones, we know, crossed the Atlantic with the early settlers. One, that of Anne Gower (spelled Gover on the sampler), first wife of Governor Endicott (Fig. 42), is now a cherished possession of the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts. As Governor Endicott’s wife arrived at Salem in 1628, and died the following year, we have in her sampler the earliest authentic one on record. The inscription of very well-designed and elaborately-worked letters, difficult to distinguish in the photograph, is:—
ANNE ♢ GOVERS T V W X Y ZJ K L M N O P Q RA a B C d E F G H