FOOTNOTES:

“inventions rareSteam towns and towers.”

“inventions rareSteam 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.”

“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 remainTo guard these lonely towers,And shut the silver bolt that keepsSae 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 diceOf needlewark sae rare,Wove by nae hand, as ye may guess,Save that of Fairly fair.”

“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 remainTo guard these lonely towers,And shut the silver bolt that keepsSae 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 diceOf 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 diceOf needlework sae rare,”

“Apron set with mony a diceOf 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 throneof 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 calledThe 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 thecorners 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 theneedle. 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 fusiInchinar non degnò la man superba.”

“Ai lavori d’Aracne, all’ago, ai fusiInchinar 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 traineOf 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 passIn working with theneedlecuriously,As in the Tower, and places more beside,Her excellent memorials may be seen;Whereby theneedle’sprayse is dignifideBy 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.”

“I read that in the seventh King Henrie’s reigne,Fair Katharine, daughter to the Castile king,Came into England with a pompous traineOf 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 passIn working with theneedlecuriously,As in the Tower, and places more beside,Her excellent memorials may be seen;Whereby theneedle’sprayse is dignifideBy 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 disreputationTo take the needle in her royal hand;Which was a good example to our nationTo 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.”

“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 disreputationTo take the needle in her royal hand;Which was a good example to our nationTo 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 seenin 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 hereAt 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?’

“‘This was thy home then, gentle Jane,This thy green solitude; and hereAt 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 wasplaced 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 meat 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 notBy 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.”

“When this great queene, whose memory shall notBy 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 herbread 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 ofuntwisting—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 anygoldentrumpery 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, treblyso; 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 bypolitenessto 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 foretasteOf matters which beyond its ken are placed.”

“’Tis certain that the soul hath oft foretasteOf 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 waxcandles 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. Weshall 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 marksout, 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 confinementshould 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 anélégante—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 asœur de la charitéand Josephine, in a time of peculiar excitement and trouble. At the conclusion of it, thesœur, 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 scrupulousBritish 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.

[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.

[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.

[130]Von Raumer’s Contributions.

“Our Country everywhere is fildWith Ladies, and with Gentlewomen, skildIn this rare Art.”Taylor.

“Our Country everywhere is fildWith Ladies, and with Gentlewomen, skildIn this rare Art.”Taylor.

“For here the needle plies its busy task,The pattern grows, the well-depicted flowerWrought 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.

“For here the needle plies its busy task,The pattern grows, the well-depicted flowerWrought 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 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. “MissLinwood’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 arebonâ fideneedlework. 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——”

“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 aretold, 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 tocolourthese 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 theexporters, and probably will so remain, whatever be thequalityof the wool produced in England, until the art ofdyeingbe 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 ofcolour 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 moregoodthings are produced here as articles of furniture than in France.

The present mode of furnishing houses isfavourable 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 speakingwell worked, they are too complicated to be easy of execution, and very few indeed of those brought to this country are everfinishedby 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 wassold 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 ornamentalneedlework 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 andPRACTICEin sewing which next, the very next, to the knowledge of their catechism, is of vital importanceto 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 flightof 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 itmightbe, 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.

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