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.
![[Larger Image]](#6059282136365608635_img011.jpg.id-7849193828386931213.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Fig. 8.—Long Sampler, signed Ann Turner, 1686.
The late Mr A. Tuer.
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.
![[Larger Image]](#6059282136365608635_img012.jpg.id-6584250904575435282.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Plate V.—Portion of Sampler by Mary Hall.
Dated 1662.
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 8½.
![[Larger Image]](#6059282136365608635_img013.jpg.id-4623182419234499669.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Fig. 9.—Sampler by Eliz. Baker. Dated 1739.
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.
![[Larger Image]](#6059282136365608635_img014.jpg.id-3759699298173064315.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Fig. 10.—Sampler by Charlotte Brontë.
Dated 1829.
Mr Clement Shorter.
![[Larger Image]](#6059282136365608635_img015.jpg.id-7243721726452045664.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Fig. 11.—Sampler by Emily Jane Brontë.
Dated 1829.
Mr Clement Shorter.
![[Larger Image]](#6059282136365608635_img016.jpg.id-5917282696011329901.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Fig. 12.—Sampler by Anne Brontë.
Dated 1830.
Mr Clement Shorter.
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.