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

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 b...

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 pa...

"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."

"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 t...

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 indulgen...

"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 b...

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 l...

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, p...

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 cann...

"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 conjoine...

"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 sc...

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 sil...

_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...

"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...

"------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...

"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...

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...

"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 w...

"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 l...

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 cred...

"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!"

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 wh...

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 n...

"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 h...

"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 w...

_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 po...

_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...