The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages Part 30

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 s.e.x whom their native modesty, and the tenderness of men towards them exempt from public business, to pa.s.s 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 wis.h.i.+ng that several writers of that s.e.x 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 st.i.tches 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 st.i.tched, 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 h.o.a.rds 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 enn.o.bling 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 gla.s.s, all the majesty and all the beauty of the mighty PAST, to revel in all the acc.u.mulated 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 enn.o.bles 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.dlike men and angelic women. We see the mighty and majestic fathers of the human race ere sin had corrupted all their G.o.dlike 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 grat.i.tude.

"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 p.r.o.nouncing an irrevocable sentence of d.a.m.nation 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 a.s.semble 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 G.o.d 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 Inst.i.tutes, 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 const.i.tutions 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 ma.s.s 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.