Samplers and Tapestry Embroideries Part 3

But one in my possession loses, by its ludicrousness, all the impressiveness which was intended:--

"Oh may thy powerful word Inspire a breathing worm To rush into thy kingdom Lord To take it as by storm.

Oh may we all improve Thy grace already given To seize the crown of love And scale the mount of heaven."

_Sarah Beckett_, 1798.

Lastly, a prayer for the teacher:--

"Oh smile on those whose liberal care Provides for our instruction here; And let our conduct ever prove We're grateful for their generous love."

_Emma Day_, 1837.

Verses Referring to Life and Death

The fact that "Religion never was designed to make our pleasures less"

appears seldom or never to have entered into the minds of those who set the verses for young sampler workers. From the earliest days when they plied their needle their thoughts were directed to the shortness of life and the length of eternity, and many a healthy and sweet disposition must have run much chance of being soured by the morbid view which it was forced to take of the pleasures of life. For instance, a child of seven had the task of broidering the following lines:--

"And now my soul another year Of thy short life is past I cannot long continue here And this may be my last."

And one, no older, is made to declare that:--

"Thus sinners trifle, young and old, Until their dying day, Then would they give a world of gold To have an hour to pray."

Or:--

"Our father ate forbidden Fruit, And from his glory fell; And we his children thus were brought To death, and near to h.e.l.l."

Or again:--

"There's not a sin that we commit Nor wicked word we say But in thy dreadful book is writ Against the judgment day."

A child was not even allowed to wish for length of days. Poor little Elizabeth Raymond, who finished her sampler in 1789, in her eighth year, had to ask:--

"Lord give me wisdom to direct my ways I beg not riches nor yet length of days My life is a flower, the time it hath to last Is mixed with frost and shook with every blast."

A similar idea runs through the following:--

"Gay dainty flowers go simply to decay, Poor wretched life's short portion flies away; We eat, we drink, we sleep, but lo anon Old age steals on us never thought upon."

Not less lugubrious is Esther Tabor's sampler, who, in 1771, amidst charming surroundings of pots of roses and carnations, intersperses the lines:--

"Our days, alas, our mortal days Are short and wretched too Evil and few the patriarch says And well the patriarch knew."

A very common verse, breathing the same strain, is:--

"Fragrant the rose, but it fades in time The violet sweet, but quickly past the Prime White lilies hang their head and soon decay And whiter snow in minutes melts away Such and so with'ring are our early joys Which time or sickness speedily destroys."

And the melancholy which pervades the verse on the sampler of Elizabeth Stockwell (Fig. 14) is hardly atoned for by the brilliant hues in which the house is portrayed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VII.--SAMPLER BY HANNAH DAWE. 17TH CENTURY. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._

This is a much smaller specimen than we are wont to find in "long"

Samplers, for it measures only 18 7-1/4. It differs also from its fellows in that the petals of the roses in the second and third of the important bands are in relief and superimposed. The rest of the decoration, on the other hand, partakes much more of an outline character than is usual. As a specimen of a seventeenth-century Sampler it leaves little to be desired. It is signed Hannah Dawe.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 14.--SAMPLER BY ELIZABETH STOCKWELL. 1832. _The late Mr A. Tuer._]

The gruesomeness of the grave is forcibly brought to notice in a sampler dated 1736:--

"When this you see, remember me, And keep me in your mind; And be not like the weatherc.o.c.k That turn att every wind.

When I am dead, and laid in grave, And all my bones are rotten, By this may I remembered be When I should be forgotten."

Ann French put the same sentiment more tersely in the lines:--

"This handy work my friends may have When I am dead and laid in grav." 1766.

It is a relief to turn to the quainter and more genuine style of Marg't Burnell's verse taken from Quarles's "Emblems," and dated 1720:--

"Our life is nothing but a winters day, Some only breake their fast, & so away, Others stay dinner, & depart full fed, The deeper age but sups and goes to bed.

Hee's most in debt, that lingers out the day, Who dyes betimes, has lesse and lesse to pay."

This verse has crossed the Atlantic, and figures on American samplers.

But the height of despair was not reached until the early years of the nineteenth century, when "Odes to Pa.s.sing Bells," and such like, brought death and the grave into constant view before the young and hardened sinner thus:--

ODE TO A Pa.s.sING BELL

"Hark my gay friend that solemn toll Speaks the departure of a soul 'Tis gone, that's all we know not where, Or how the embody'd soul may fare Only this frail & fleeting breath Preserves me from the jaws of death Soon as it fails at once I'm gone And plung'd into a world not known."

_Ann Gould Seller, Hawkchurch_, 1821.

Samplers oftentimes fulfilled the role of funeral cards, as, for instance, this worked in black:--

"In memory of my beloved Father John Twaites who died April 11 1829.

Life how short--Eternity how long.

Also of James Twaites My grandfather who died Dec. 31, 1814.

How loved, how valu'd once, avails thee not To whom related, or by whom begot, A heap of dust alone remains of thee, 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be."

Curiously enough, whilst compiling this chapter the writer came across an artillery non-commissioned officer in the Okehampton Camp who, in the intervals of attending to the telephone, worked upon an elaborate Berlin woolwork sampler, ornamented with urns, and dedicated "To the Memory of my dear father," etc.

Duties to Parents and Preceptors

That the young person who wrought the sampler had very much choice in the selection of the saws and rhymes which inculcate obedience to parents and teachers is hardly probable, and it is not difficult to picture the households or schools where such doctrines as the following were set out for infant hands to copy:--

"All youth set right at first, with Ease go on, And each new Task is with new Pleasure done, But if neglected till they grow in years And each fond Mother her dear Darling spares, Error becomes habitual and you'll find 'Tis then hard labour to reform the Mind."

The foregoing is taken from the otherwise delightful sampler worked by a child with the euphonious name of Ann Maria Wiggins, in her seventh year, that is reproduced in Plate XII.

Preceptors also appear to have thought it well to early impress upon pliable minds the dangers which beset a child inclined to thoughts of love:--