Chapter III: Part I: Samplers (1)

The sampler as a pattern, or example, from which to learn varieties of needlework, whether of design or stitches, must have existed almost as long as the Art of Embroidery, which we know dates back into as distant a past as any of the Arts. But when we set about the investigation of its evolution, we did not propose to trouble our readers with the history of an infancy which would have been invested with little interest and less Art; we did, however, hope to be able to extend our illustrated record backwards to a date which would be limited only by the ravages which time had worked upon the material of which the sampler was composed--a date which would probably take us back to an epoch when the Art displayed upon it was of an unformed but still of an interesting character.

We must at the outset admit that we have been altogether disappointed in our quest. For some two hundred and fifty years, which most will admit to be a fair stretch of time, we can easily compile a record of genuinely dated and well-preserved specimens, filling not only every decade, but almost every year. The Art displayed, whether it be in design or dexterity with the needle, improves as we proceed backwards, until, in the exact centre of the seventeenth century, we arrive at a moment when little is left to be desired. We then have before us a series of samplers wherein the design is admirable, the stitches are of great variety, and the materials of which they are composed are, in an astonishing number of instances, as fresh and well preserved as those of to-day. But at that moment, to our astonishment, the stream is arrested, and the supply fails, for no, at present, discoverable reason. This sudden arrest can in no way be explained. It would appear as if, with the downfall of the monarchy under Charles I., with which it almost exactly corresponds, a holocaust had been made of every sampler that existed. It is most exasperating, for it is as if one had studied the life of a notable character backwards through its senility, old age, and manhood, to lose all trace of its youth and infancy. Nor is there any apparent reason for this failure of the output. As we shall show later on, needlework for a century previously was in the heyday of its fashion. Every article of dress and furniture was decked out with it. As an instance, the small branch of needlework which we discuss in our second part was mainly in vogue in the first half of the seventeenth century, when we are searching in vain for specimens of samplers. Samplers, too, for generations previously are recorded in the literature of the time as common objects of household furniture. The specimens even of our earliest recorded decade cover no less than five years, 1651 (three), 1649, 1648 (three), 1644, 1643, and yet beyond the last-named date we encounter an entire blank.

This cannot be the limit of dated specimens. Earlier ones must exist, but the publicity of a very well advertised exhibition, which brought notifications of samplers by the thousand, did not produce them. Neither have the public museums, nor indefatigable collectors of many years' standing, been able to obtain them, save two of the earliest years, 1643 and 1644, which have been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, and of which that of 1643 is reproduced in Fig. 7. Our study of the sampler must therefore be based upon the materials at our disposal, and from these we shall analyse it with reference to its _raison d'être_, age, decorative qualities, characteristics, and the persons by whom it was worked.

The Need of Samplers

In these days of sober personal attire, in which the adornment of our houses is almost entirely confined to the products of the loom, the absorbing interest which needlework possessed, and the almost entire possession which, in the Middle Ages, it took of the manual efforts of womankind, is apt to be lost sight of. In 1583, Stubbes, in his "Anatomy of Abuses," wrote that the men were "decked out in fineries even to their shirts, which are wrought throughout with needlework of silke, curiously stitched with open seams and many other knacks besides," and that it was impossible to tell who was a gentleman "because all persons dress indiscriminately in silks, velvets, satins, damasks, taffeties, and such like." So, too, as regards the fair sex it was the same, from the Queen, who had no less than 2,000 dresses in her wardrobe, downwards. In France, almost at the same moment (in 1586), a petition was presented to Catherine de Medicis on "The Extreme Dearness of Living," setting forth that "mills, lands, pastures, woods, and all the revenues are wasted on embroideries, insertions, trimmings, tassels, fringes, hangings, gimps, needleworks, small chain stitchings, quiltings, back stitchings, etc., new diversities of which are invented daily." Everyone worked with the needle. We read that the lady just named gathered round her her daughters, their cousins, and sometimes the exiled Marie Stuart, and passed a great portion of the time after dinner in needlework. A little later Madame de Maintenon worked at embroidery, not only in her apartments, but even when riding or driving she was "hardly fairly ensconced in her carriage than she pulled her needlework out of the bag she carried with her."

The use of embroidery was not confined to personal adornment, but was employed in the decoration of the various objects which then went to make up the furniture of a house, such as curtains, bed-hangings, tablecloths, chair coverings, cushions, caskets, books, purses, and even pictures.

The luxury of the dwelling and the household had also of late increased to an extent that called for the possession of numbers of each article, whether it were clothing, table, or bed napery. Identification by marking and numbering became necessary, and as, probably, the very limited library of the house seldom contained books of ornamental lettering and numerals, samplers were made to furnish them. The evolution of the sampler is thus easily traceable. First of all consisting of decorative patterns thrown here and there without care upon the surface of a piece of canvas (see Plate II.); then of designs placed in more orderly rows, and making in themselves a harmonious whole; then added thereto alphabets and figures for the use of those who marked the linen, and as an off-shoot imitation of tapestry pictures by the additions of figures, houses, etc. Finally it was adopted as an educational task in the schools, as a specimen of phenomenal achievement at an early age, and as a means whereby moral precept might be prominently advertised.

As we have said, the samplers which have come down to us, and the age of which is certified by their bearing a date, do not extend beyond two hundred and seventy years, but those even of that age are writ all over with evidence that the sampler was then a fully developed growth, and must have been the descendant of a long line of progenitors. That they were in vogue long before this is proved by the references to them in literature as articles the use of which was a common one. Before proceeding further it may be well to cite some of these.

The earliest record which we have met with is one by the poet Skelton (1469-1529), who speaks of "the sampler to sowe on, the laces to embroide."

The next is an inventory of Edward VI. (1552), which notes a parchment book containing--

"_Item_: Sampler or set of patterns worked on Normandy canvas, with
green and black silks."

To Shakespeare we naturally turn, and are not disappointed, for we find that in his "Midsummer Night's Dream," Act iii. scene 2, Helena addresses Hermia as follows:--

"O, is all forgot?
All schooldays' friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both working of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds
Had been incorporate."

And in "Titus Andronicus," Act ii. scene 4, Marcus speaks of Philomel as follows:--

"Fair Philomel, she but lost her tongue,
And in a tedious sampler sewed her mind."

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), in his "Arcadia," introduces a sampler as follows:--

"And then, O Love, why dost thou in thy beautiful sampler set such a
work for my desire to take out?"

And Milton in "Comus" (1634):--

"And checks of sorry grain will serve to ply
The sampler, and to tear the housewife's wool."

In "The Crown Garland of Golden Roses," 1612, is "A short and sweet sonnet made by one of the Maides of Honor upon the death of Queene Elizabeth, which she sowed upon a sampler, in red silk, to a new tune of 'Phillida Flouts Me'"; beginning

"Gone is Elizabeth whom we have lov'd so dear."

In the sixteenth century samplers were deemed worthy of mention as bequests; thus Margaret Tomson, of Freston in Holland, Lincolnshire, by her will proved at Boston, 25th May 1546, gave to "Alys Pynchbeck, my systers doughter, my sampler with semes."

In Lady Marian Cust's work on embroidery, mention is made of a sampler of the reign of Henry VIII., and a rough illustration is given of it; we have endeavoured to trace this piece, but have been unable to find it either in the possession of Viscount Middleton or of Lord Midleton, although both of them are the owners of other remarkable specimens of needlework.

It is evident from these extracts that samplers were common objects at least as early as the sixteenth century.

* * * * *

The sampler in its latest fashion differed very materially both in form and design from its progenitors. Consisting originally of odds and ends of decorative designs, both for embroidery and lacework, scattered without any order over the surface of a coarse piece of canvas, its first completed form was one of considerable length and narrow breadth, the length being often as much as a yard, and the breadth not more than a quarter. The reason for this may well have been the necessity of using a breadth of material which the looms then produced, for the canvas is utilised to its full extent, and is seldom cut or hemmed at the sides. Be that as it may, the shape was not an inconvenient one, for whilst its width was sufficient to display the design, its height enabled a quantity of patterns to follow one another from top to bottom. These consisted at first of designs only, in embroidery and lace, to which were subsequently added numerals and alphabets. Later followed texts, and then verses, which, with the commencement of the eighteenth century, practically supplanted ornaments. The sampler thereupon ceased to be a text-book for the latter, and became only a chart on which are set out varieties of lettering and alphabets. Still later it was transformed into a medium for the display of the author's ability in stitching, the alphabet even disappearing, and the ornament (if such it can be called) being merely a border in which to frame a pretty verse, and a means whereby empty spaces could be filled, Art at that epoch not having learnt that an empty space could be of any value to a composition. How these changes came about, with their approximate dates, may now be considered.

The Age of a Sampler

The approximate date of any sampler, which is not more than two hundred and fifty years old, should, from the illustrations given in this volume, be capable of being arrived at without much difficulty, and it is, therefore, only those undated specimens which, from their appearance, may be older than that period that call for consideration here. They are but few in number, and a comparison of one or two of them may be of service as indicating the kind of examination to which old specimens should be subjected.

Owing to its great length this Sampler is not shown in its entirety. A portion of the upper part, which consists of various unconnected designs, and figures of birds, beetles, flies, and crayfish, has been omitted. In the portion illustrated is a man with a staff followed by a stag bearing a leaf in its mouth, a unicorn and lion, and the initials "A.S.," with date 1648. The bands of ornaments which follow are in several instances those which find a place nearly two centuries later as the borders of Samplers still. The lower portion is interesting for the changes which are rung upon the oak leaf and acorn. The silks of which it is made are in three colours only--blue, pink, and a yellowish green--which are worked upon a coarsish linen. Size, 34-3/4 × 8-1/2. It is in the author's collection. A somewhat similar Sampler, dated 1666, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.]

The earliest samplers present but little of the regularity of design which marks the dated ones. They were made for use and not for ornament, a combination which was probably always aimed at in those where regularity and order marked the whole. They would resemble that illustrated in Plate II., which bears evidence that it was nothing more or less than an example, whence a variety of patterns could be worked, for in almost every instance the design is shown in both an early and complete condition. It is somewhat difficult to assign a date to it, but the employment of silver and gold wirework to a greater or lesser extent in almost every part,[2] the coarse canvas upon which it is worked, and the colours, point to its being of the Elizabethan or early Jacobean period, the linked S's in Fig. 5 perhaps denoting the Stuart period. One of the two specimens of 1648 (Plate III.) continues in its upper portion this dropping of the decoration in a haphazard way on the canvas, although the greater part of it is strictly confined to rows of regular form. At first sight Fig. 4 should for the same reason be assigned to an earlier date than 1648, for the greater, and not the lesser, portion of it is embroidered without any apparent design. But more careful consideration discloses the fact that the sampler was evidently begun at the top with thorough regularity, and it was only at a later stage that the worker probably tired, and decided to amuse herself with more variety and less formality. Nor can an earlier date be assigned to Fig. 5 on account of the irregularity and incompleteness of the lines, which have evidently been carried out no further than to show the pattern.[3]

The forms which the lettering takes will probably be found to be one of the best guides to the age of the early samplers, and on this ground Fig. 6, with its peculiar G and its reversed P for a Q, may be earlier than 1650, although the stags and the pear-shaped ornament beneath them are closely allied to those in Plate III., dated 1648.

This small Sampler (it measures only 17 × 7) is a remarkable testimony to the goodness of the materials used by our ancestors, and the care that has been taken in certain instances to preserve these early documents of family history. For it is over two hundred and sixty years since Elizabeth Calthorpe's very deft fingers produced what even now appears to be a very skilled performance, and every thread of silk and of the canvas groundwork is as fresh as the day that it emerged from the dyer's hands. The design is one of the unusual pictorial and ornamental combinations, the pictorial representing the Sacrifice of Isaac in two scenes.]

Texts and mottoes also furnish a clue to age, for they extend backwards beyond 1686 on but one known sampler, namely that of Martha Salter in the Victoria and Albert Museum, dated 1651, which has the maxim, "The feare of God is an excellent gift," although on such articles as purses and the like they are to be found much earlier, and the "Sonnet to Queen Elizabeth," to which we have referred, shows that they were in vogue in 1612.

Age may also be approximated by the ornament and by the material of which the sampler is made, which differs as time goes on. The following table has been formed from many specimens that have come under my inspection; it shows the earliest date at which various forms of ornament appear on dated samplers so far as I have been able to trace them.

Adam and Eve, figure of 1709
Alphabet 1643
Border enclosing sampler 1726
Border of flowing naturalistic flowers 1730
Boxers (and until 1758) 1648
Crown 1691
Eyelet form of lettering (? Anne Gover's, _circ._ 1610) 1672
_Fleur-de-Lys_ (see, however, Plate III.) 1742
Flower in vase 1742
Heart 1751
House 1765
Inscription 1662
Motto or text 1651
Mustard-coloured canvas 1728
Name of maker (? Anne Gover's, _circ._ 1610) 1648
Numerals 1655
Rows of ornament (latest 1741) 1648
Stag (but only common between 1758 and 1826) 1648
The Spies to Canaan 1804
Verse (? Lora Standish, _circ._ 1635) 1696

Lettering on Samplers

It is from this, rather than from any other feature, that we trace the evolution of the sampler. Originally a pattern sheet of devices and ornaments, there were added to it in time alphabets and numerals of various kinds, which the increased luxury of the house called for as aids to the marking of the linen and clothes. Later on the monotony of alphabets and numerals was varied by the addition of the maker's name, the year, an old saw or two, and ultimately flights into moral or religious verse.

Alphabets and Numerals

Although a sampler without either alphabets or numerals would seem to be lacking in the very essence of its being, it is almost certain that the earliest forms did not contain either, but (like that in Plate II.) were merely sheets of decorative designs. For the need of pattern-books of designs would as certainly precede that of copy-books of alphabets and numerals, as the pleasure of embroidering designs upon garments preceded that of marking their ownership by names, and their quantity by figures. A sampler would seldom, if ever, be used as a text-book for children to learn letters or figures from, except with the needle, and the need for lettering and figuring upon them would, therefore, as we have said, only arise when garments or napery became sufficiently common and numerous to need marking. This period had clearly been reached when our earliest dated samplers were made, for, out of dated specimens of the seventeenth century that I have examined, two-thirds carry the alphabet upon them, and the majority have the numerals. It is rare to find later samplers without them, those of the eighteenth century containing assortments of every variety of lettering, Scottish ones especially laying themselves out for elaborately designed and florid alphabets. With the advent of the nineteenth century, however, the sampler began to lose its _raison d'être_, and quite one-half of those then made omit either the alphabet, or numerals, or both.

Signatures

Initials, which are followed by signatures, occur upon samplers of the earliest date. It is true that one or two of the undated samplers, which probably are earlier than any of the dated ones, carry neither, but as a rule initials, or names, are found upon all the early specimens. Thus the early one in Plate II. has the initials "M. C.," and the two dated in 1648 are marked respectively "A. S." and "Rebekah Fisher," and that of 1649, "S. I. D." In later times unsigned samplers are the exception.

Inscriptions

The earliest inscriptions are practically only signatures, thus: "Mary Hall is my name and when I was thirteen years of age I ended this in 1662"; or, somewhat amplified: "Ann Wattel is my name with my needle and thred I ded this sam and if it hath en beter I wold----" (Remainder illegible.)[4]

The earliest inscriptions, other than a signature such as the foregoing, that I have met with are Lora Standish's (Fig. 43) and Miles Fletwood's referred to under "American Samplers," dated 1654 (Fig. 44), and which has the rhyme, "In prosperity friends will be plenty but in adversity not one in twenty." The next, dated 1686, has a saw which is singularly appropriate to a piece of needlework: "Apparell thy self with ivstice and cloth thy self with chastitie so shall thov bee happi and thy works prosper. Ann Tvrner" (Fig. 8). It is dated 1686.

In Plate VI., on a sampler of the same year, we have wording which is not infrequently met with in the cycles which follow, as, for instance, in Mrs Longman's sampler, dated 1696, and in one of 1701. It runs thus:--

"Look well to that thoo takest in Hand Its better worth then house or
Land. When Land is gone and Money is spent Then learning is most
Excelent Let vertue be Thy guide and it will keep the out of pride
Elizabeth Creasey Her Work done in the year 1686."

Dated in 1693-94 are the set of samplers recording national events, to which reference will be made elsewhere. In the last-named year (1694) a sampler bears the verse:

"Love thou thee Lord and he will be a tender father unto thee."

And one of 1698, "Be not wise in thy own eyes."--_Sarah Chamberlain._

This plate only shows the upper half of a remarkably preserved Sampler. Like its fellow (_Plate VI._) it is distinguished by its admirable decorative qualities of colour and design. The lower portion, not reproduced, consists of three rows of designs in white thread, and four rows of drawn work. The inscription, which is in the centre, and is reproduced in part, runs thus:

"MaRy HaLL IS My NaMe AnD WHen I WaS THIRTeen
yeaRS OF AGE I ENDED THIS In 1662."

Size, 34 x 8-1/2.]

A preference for saws rather than rhymes continues until the eighteenth century is well advanced. The following are instances:--

"If you know Christ you need know little more if not Alls lost that
you have LaRnt before."--_Elisabeth Bayles_, 1703.

"The Life of Truth buteafieth Youth and maketh it lovely to behold
Blessed are they that maketh it there staey and pryes it more than
gold it shall be to them a ryoul diadem transending all earthly
joy."--_Elisabeth Chester_, 1712.

"Keep a strict guard over thy tongue, thine ear and thine eye, lest
they betray thee to talk things vain and unlawful. Be sparing of thy
words, and talk not impertinently or in passion. Keep the parts of thy
body in a just decorum, and avoid immoderate laughter and levity of
behaviour."--_Sarah Grimes_, 1730.

"Favour is deceitful And beauty is vain But a woman that feareth the
Lord She shall be praised."--_Mary Gardner, aged 9_, 1740.

Another undated one of the period is:--

"Awake, arise behold thou Hast thy Life ALIFe ThY Breath ABLASt at
night LY Down Prepare to have thy Sleep thy Death thy Bed Thy Grave."

One with leisure might search out the authors of the doggerel religious and moral verses which adorned samplers. The majority are probably due to the advent of Methodism, for we only find them occurring in any numbers in the years which followed that event. It may be noted that "Divine and Moral Songs for Children," by Isaac Watts, was first published in 1720, that Wesley's Hymns appeared in 1736, and Dr Doddridge's in 1738.

We may here draw attention to the eighteenth-century fashion of setting out the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments (Fig. 9), and other lengthy manuscripts from the Old Testament in tablets similar to those painted and hung in the churches of the time. The tablets in the samplers are flanked on either side by full length figures of Christ and Moses, or supported by the chubby winged cherubs of the period which are the common adornments of the Georgian gravestones. In the exhibition at The Fine Art Society's were specimens dated 1715, 1735, 1740, 1757, and 1762, the Belief taking, in three instances, the place of the Commandments. On occasions the pupil showed her proficiency in modern languages as well as with the needle, by setting out the Lord's Prayer in French, or even in Hebrew.

Contemporaneously with such lengthy tasks in lettering as the Tables of the Law, came other feats of compassing within the confines of a sampler whole chapters of the Bible, such as the 37th Chapter of Ezekiel, worked by Margaret Knowles in 1738; the 134th Psalm (a favourite one), by Elizabeth Greensmith in 1737, and of later dates the three by members of the Brontë family.

The last-named samplers (Figs. 10, 11, and 12) by three sisters of the Brontë family which, through the kindness of their owner, Mr Clement Shorter, I am able to include here, have, it will be seen, little except a personal interest attaching to them. In comparison with those which accompany them they show a strange lack of ornament, and a monotony of colour (they are worked in black silk on rough canvas) which deprive them of all attractiveness in themselves. But when it is remembered who made them, and their surroundings, these appear singularly befitting and characteristic. For, as the dates upon them show, they were produced in the interval which was passed by the sisters at home between leaving one ill-fated school, which caused the deaths of two sisters, and their passing to another. It was a mournful, straitened home in which they lived, one in which it needed the ardent Protestantism that is breathed in the texts broidered on the samplers to uphold them from a despair that can almost be read between the lines. It was also, for one at least of them, a time of ceaseless activity of mind and body, and we can well understand that the child Charlotte, who penned, between the April in which her sampler was completed and the following August, the manuscript of twenty-two volumes, each sixty closely written pages, of a catalogue, did not take long to work the sampler which bears her name. The ages of the three girls when they completed these samplers were: Charlotte, 13; Emily Jane, 11; and Anne, 10.

But the lengthiest task of all was set to six poor little mortals in the Orphans' School, near Calcutta, in Bengal, East Indies. These wrought six samplers "by the direction of Mistress Parker," dividing between them the longest chapter in the Bible, namely, the 119th Psalm. It was evidently a race against time, for on each is recorded the date of its commencement and finish, being accomplished by them between the 14th of February and the 23rd of June 1797. At the top of each is a view of a different portion of the school; one of these is reproduced in Fig. 3.

Returning to the chronological aspect of sampler inscriptions. As the eighteenth century advances we find verses coming more and more into fashion, although at first they are hardly distinguishable from prose, as, for instance, in the following of 1718:--

"You ask me why I love, go ask the glorius son, why it throw the world
doth run, ask time and fat [fate?] the reason why it flow, ask dammask
rosees why so full they blow, and all things elce suckets fesh which
forceeth me to love. By this you see what car my parents toock of me.
Elizabeth Matrom is my name, and with my nedell I rought the same, and
if my judgment had beene better, I would have mended every letter. And
she that is wise, her time will pris (e), she that will eat her
breakfast in her bed, and spend all the morning in dressing of her
head, and sat at deaner like a maiden bride, God in His mercy may do
much to save her, but what a cas is he in that must have her.
Elizabeth Matrom. The sun sets, the shadows fleys, the good consume,
and the man he deis."

More than one proposal has been made, in all seriousness, during the compilation of this volume, that it would add enormously to its interest and value if every inscription that could be found upon samplers were herein set out at length. It is needless to say that it has been altogether impossible to entertain such a task. It is true that the feature of samplers which, perhaps, interests and amuses persons most is the quaint and incongruous legends that so many of them bear, but I shall, I believe, have quite sufficiently illustrated this aspect of the subject if I divide it into various groups, and give a few appropriate examples of each. These may be classified under various headings.

Verses commemorating Religious Festivals

These are, perhaps, more frequent than any others. Especially is this the case with those referring to Easter, which is again and again the subject of one or other of the following verses:--

"The holy feast of Easter was injoined
To bring Christ's Resurrection to our Mind,
Rise then from Sin as he did from the Grave,
That by his Merits he your Souls may save.

"White robes were worn in ancient Times they say,
And gave Denomination to this Day
But inward Purity is required most
To make fit Temples for the Holy Ghost."
_Mary Wilmot_, 1761.

Or the following:--

"See how the lilies flourish wite and faire,
See how the ravens fed from heaven are;
Never distrust thy God for cloth and bread
While lilies flourish and the Raven's fed."
_Mary Heaviside_, 1735.

Or the variation set out on Fig. 19.

This Sampler, of which only the upper half is reproduced, is remarkable not only for the decorative qualities of its design but for its perfect state of preservation. It consists, besides the four rows which are seen, of one other in which the drawn work is subservient in quantity to the embroidery, and of seven rows in which the reverse is the case. The inscription, which is set out below, alternates in rows with those of the design. The butter colour of the linen ground is well reproduced in the plate. The original measures 32×8.

INSCRIPTION.

"Look Well to that thou takest in
Hand Its Better Worth Then house
Or Land When Land is gone and
Money is spent Then learn
ing is most Excelent
Let vertue Be Thy guide and it will kee
p the out of pride Elizabeth Creasey
Her work Done in the year 1686."]

As also in that by Kitty Harison, in our illustration, Fig. 13.

The Christmas verse is usually:--

"Glory to God in the Highest";

but an unusual one is that in Margaret Fiddes's sampler, 1773:--

"The Night soon past, it ran so fast. The Day
Came on Amain. Our Sorrows Ceast Our Hopes
Encreast once more to Meet again A Star appears
Expells all Fears Angels give Kings to
Know A Babe was sent With that intent to
Conquer Death below."

Ascension Day is marked by:--

"The heavens do now retain our Lord
Until he come again,
And for the safety of our souls
He there doth still remain.
And quickly shall our King appear
And take us by the hand
And lead us fully to enjoy
The promised Holy Land."
_Sarah Smith_, 1794.

Whilst Passion Week is recognisable in:--

"Behold the patient Lamb, before his shearer stands," etc.

The Crucifixion itself, although it is portrayed frequently in German samplers (examples in The Fine Art Society's Exhibition were dated 1674, 1724, and 1776), is seldom, if ever, found in English ones, but for Good Friday we have the lines:--

"Alas and did my Saviour bleed
For such a worm as I?"

Verses taking the Form of Prayers, Dedications, Etc.

Amongst all the verses that adorn samplers there were none which apparently commended themselves so much as those that dedicated the work to Christ. The lines usually employed are so familiar as hardly to need setting out, but they have frequent varieties. The most usual is:--

"Jesus permit thy gracious name to stand
As the first Effort of young Phoebe's hand
And while her fingers on this canvas move
Engage her tender Heart to seek thy Love
With thy dear Children let her Share a Part
And write thy name thyself upon her Heart."
_Harriot Phoebe Burch, aged 7 years_, 1822.

A variation of this appears in the much earlier piece of Lora Standish (Fig. 43).

Another, less common, but which again links the sampler with a religious aspiration, runs:--

"Better by Far for Me
Than all the Simpsters Art
That God's commandments be
Embroider'd on my Heart."
_Mary Cole_, 1759.

Verses to be used upon rising in the morning or at bedtime are not unfrequent; the following is the modest prayer of Jane Grace Marks (1807).

"If I am right, oh teach my heart
Still in the right to stay,
If I am wrong, thy grace impart
To find that better way."

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 hell."

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.

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.]

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 weathercock
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 Passing Bells," and such like, brought death and the grave into constant view before the young and hardened sinner thus:--

ODE TO A PASSING 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 rôle 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:--

"Oh Mighty God that knows how inclinations lead
Keep mine from straying lest my Heart should bleed.

Grant that I honour and succour my parents dear
Lest I should offend him who can be most severe.

I implore ore me you'd have a watchful eye
That I may share with you those blessings on high.

And if I should by a young youth be Tempted,
Grant I his schemes defy and all He has invented."
_Elizabeth Bock_, 1764.

Samplers were so seldom worked by grown-up folk that one can hardly believe that the following verse records an actual catastrophe to the peace of mind of Eleanor Knot:--

ON DISINGENUITY

"With soothing wiles he won my easy heart
He sigh'd and vow'd, but oh he feigned the smart;
Sure of all friends the blackest we can find
Are those ingrates who stab our peace of mind."

A not uncommon and much more agreeable verse sets forth the duties of man towards woman in so far as matrimony is concerned:--

"Adam alone in Paradise did grieve
And thought Eden a desert without Eve,
Until God pitying his lonesome state
Crown'd all his wishes with a lovely mate.
Then why should men think mean, or slight her,
That could not live in Paradise without her."

Samplers bearing the foregoing verse are usually decorated with a picture of our first parents and the Tree of Knowledge, supported by a demon and angel.

The parent or teacher sometimes spoke through the sampler, as thus, in Lucia York's, dated 1725:--

"Oh child most dear
Incline thy ear
And hearken to God's voice."

Or again:--

"Return the kindness that you do receive
As far as your ability gives leave."
_Mary Lounds._

"Humility I'd recommend
Good nature, too, with ease,
Be generous, good, and kind to all,
You'll never fail to please."
_Susanna Hayes._

Samplers Expatiating upon Virtue or Vice, Wealth or Poverty, Happiness or Misery

Amongst these may be noted:--

"Happy is he, the only man,
Who out of choice does all he can
Who business loves and others better makes
By prudent industry and pains he takes.
God's blessing here he'll have and man's esteem,
And when he dies his works will follow him."

Of those dealing with wealth or poverty none, perhaps, is more incisive than this:--

"The world's a city full of crooked streets,
And Death's the market-place where all men meet;
If life was merchandise that men could buy
The rich would always live, the poor alone would die."

An American sampler has the following from Burns's "Grace before Meat":--

"Some men have meat who cannot eat
And some have none who need it.
But we have meat and we can eat,
And so the Lord be thanked."

An early specimen of a bordered Sampler, dated 1747, the rows being relegated to a small space in the centre, where they are altogether an insignificant feature in comparison with the border. Some of the ornament to which we have been accustomed in the rows survives, as for instance the pinks, but a new one is introduced, namely, the strawberry. Here are also the Noah's Ark animals, trees, etc., which henceforward become common objects and soon transform the face of the Sampler. The border itself is in evident imitation of the worsted flower work with which curtains, quilts, and other articles were freely adorned in the early eighteenth century.]

Inscriptions having an Interest owing to their Quaintness

The following dates from 1740, and has as appendix the line, "God prosper the war":--

"The sick man fasts because he cannot eat
The poor man fasts because he hath no meat
The miser fasts to increase his store
The glutton fasts because he can eat no more
The hypocrite fasts because he'd be condemned
The just man fasts cause he hath offended."

An American version of this ends with:--

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow
We have meat enow."

That self-conceit was not always considered a failing, is evident from the following verses:--

"This needlework of mine may tell
That when a child I learned well
And by my elders I was taught
Not to spend my time for nought,"

which is concentrated and intensified in one of Frances Johnson, worked in 1797:--

"In reading this if any faults you see
Mend them yourself and find no fault in me."

In a much humbler strain is this from an old sampler in Mrs Longman's collection:--

"When I was young I little thought
That wit must be so dearly bought
But now experience tells me how
If I must thrive, then I must bowe
And bend unto another will,
That I might learn both arte & skill."

Owing to the portrayal of an insect, which was not infrequently met with in days gone by, upon the face of the sampler which bears the following lines, it has been suggested that they were presumably written by that creature:--

"Dear Debby
I love you sincerely
My heart retains a grateful sense of your past kindness
When will the hours of our
Separation be at an end?
Preserve in your bosom the remembrance
of your affectionate
Deborah Jane Berkin."

The following, coming about the date when the abolition of the slave trade was imminent, may have reference to it:--

"THERE'S mercy in each ray of light, that mortal eye e'er saw,
There's mercy in each breath of air, that mortal lips can draw,
There's mercy both for bird, and beast, in God's indulgent plan,
There's mercy for each creeping thing--But man has none for man."
_Elizabeth Jane Gates Aged 12 years_, 1829.

Riddle samplers, such as that of Ann Witty, do not often occur:--

"I had both | | and a | | by both I set great store
I lent my | Money | to my | Friend | and took his word therefor
I asked my | | of my | | and nought but words I got
I lost my | | and my | | for sue him, I would not."

Here, too, is an "Acrostick," the first letters of whose lines spell the name of the young lady who "ended" it "Anno Dom. 1749."

"A virgin that's Industrious Merits Praise,
Nature she Imitates in Various Ways,
Now forms the Pink, now gives the Rose its blaze.
Young Buds, she folds, in tender Leaves of green,
Omits no shade to beautify her Scene,
Upon the Canvas, see, the Letters rise,
Neatly they shine with intermingled dies,
Glide into Words, and strike us with Surprize."
_E. W._

As illustrations of tales the sampler of Sarah Young (Fig. 15) is an unusual example. It deals with Sir Richard Steele's story of the loves of Inkle and Yarico. Inkle, represented as a strapping big sailor, was cast away in the Spanish Main, where he met and loved Yarico, an Indian girl, but showed his baseness by selling her for a slave when he reached Barbadoes in a vessel which rescued him. The story evidently had a considerable, if fleeting, popularity, for it was dramatised.

The Design, Ornament and Colouring of Samplers

Whilst important clues to the age of a sampler may be gathered from its form and legend, its design and colouring are factors from which almost as much may be learnt.

Design can be more easily learned from considering in detail the illustrations, which have been mainly chosen for their typifying one or other form of it, but certain general features are so usually present that they may be summarised here.

No one with any knowledge of design can look through the specimens of samplers selected for this volume without noting, first, that it is, in the earlier specimens, appropriate to the subject, decorative in treatment, and lends itself to a variety of treatment with the needle. Secondly, that the decoration is not English in origin, but is usually derived from foreign sources. Indeed, if we are to believe an old writer of the Jacobean time, the designs were

"Collected with much praise and industrie,
From scorching Spaine and freezing Muscovie,
From fertile France and pleasant Italie,
From Poland, Sweden, Denmarke, Germanie,
And some of these rare patternes have been set
Beyond the boundes of faithlesse Mahomet,
From spacious China and those Kingdomes East
And from great Mexico, the Indies West.
Thus are these workes farre fetch't and dearly bought,
And consequently good for ladyes thought."

Thirdly, that after maintaining a remarkable uniformity until the end of the seventeenth century, design falls away, and with rare exceptions continuously declines until it reaches a mediocrity to which the term can hardly be applied.

The same features are noticeable in the colouring. The samplers of the Caroline period are in the main marked by a softness and delicacy, with a preference for tender and harmonious shades of pinks, greens, and blues, but these quickly pass out of the schemes of colouring until their revival a few years ago through the influence of Japan and the perspicuity, of Sir Lazenby Liberty. This delicacy is not, as some suppose, due to time having softened the colours, for examination shows that fading has seldom taken place, in fact one of the most remarkable traits of the earlier samplers is the wonderful condition of their colouring (see Mrs Longman's sampler of 1656, Plate IV., as an example). Towards the end of the seventeenth century the adoption of a groundwork of roughish close-textured canvas of a canary hue also militated against this ensemble of the colour scheme, which is now and again too vivid, especially in the reds, a fact which may, in part, be due to their retaining their original tint with a persistency that has not endured with the other dyes.

During the early Georgian era sampler workers seem to have passed through a stage of affection for deep reds, blues, and greens, with which they worked almost all their lettering. The same colours are met with in the large embroidered curtains of the time; it is probably due to the influence of the tapestries and the Chinese embroideries then so much in vogue.

In the opening years of the eighteenth century a pride in lettering gave rise to a series of samplers of little interest or artistic value, consisting, as they did, of nothing else than long sentences, not readily readable, and worked in silks in colours of every imaginable hue used indiscriminately, even in a single word, without any thought bestowed on harmony or effect of colouring.

Later on, towards the middle of the century, more sober schemes of colour set in, consisting in the abandonment of reds and the employment of little else than blues, greens, yellows, and blacks (see Plate IX.), which are attractive through their quietness and unity. Subsequently but little praise can be bestowed upon samplers so far as their design is concerned. Occasionally, as in that of Mr Ruskin's ancestress (Plate X.), a result which is satisfactory, both in colour and design, is arrived at, but this is generally due to individual taste rather than to tuition or example. In this respect samplers only follow in the wake of all the other arts--furniture and silversmiths' work, perhaps, excepted, as regards both of which the taste displayed was also individual rather than national.

An evil which cankered later sampler ornamentation was a desire for novelty and variety. The earliest samplers exhibit few signs of attempts at invention in design. A comparison of any number of them shows ideas repeated again and again with the slightest variation. The same floral motives are adapted in almost every instance, and one and all may well have been employed since the days when they arrived from the Far East, brought, it may be, by the Crusaders. But it is in no derogatory spirit that I call attention to this lack of originality. A craftsman is doing a worthier thing in assimilating designs which have shown their fitness by centuries of use, patterns which are examples of fine decorative ornament that really beautifies the object to which it is applied, than in inventing weak and imperfect originals. No architect is accused of plagiarism if he introduces the pointed arch, and the great designs of the past are free and out of copyright. The Greek fret, or the Persian rose, is as much the property of anyone as the daisy or the snowdrop, and it was far better to make sound decorative pieces of embroidery on the lines of these than to attempt, as was done later on, feeble originals, which have nothing ornamental or decorative in their composition. The workers of the East, when perfection was arrived at in a design, did not hesitate to reproduce it again and again for centuries.