The sampler "contrived a double debt to pay" of teaching letters and stitches; it was, in fact, a needlework hornbook, containing the alphabet, a verse indicative of good morals or industry, or a sentence from the Bible, the name and date, and some crude representations of impossible birds, beasts, flowers, trees, or human beings. Though the sampler's reign in every American household was in the eighteenth century and the earlier years of the nineteenth, it was the direct successor of the glories of needlework of English women of earlier years, which was known and admired on the Continent as Opus Anglicanum. The chief excellency of English needlework has even been closely associated with a high state of social morals. In Elizabeth's day Englishwomen still loved needlecraft. Shakespeare, Sidney, Milton, Herrick, all refer to women's samplers. In a collection of old ballads printed in 1725 is "A Short and Sweet Sonnet made by one of the Maids of Honour upon the death of Q. Elizabeth, which she sewed upon a Sampler of Red Silk":—
"Gone is Elizabeth whom we have loved so dear,
She our kind Mistress was full four and Forty Year,
England she govern'd well not to be blamed.
Flanders she govern'd well, and Ireland famed.
France she befriended, Spain she had toiled,
Papists rejected, and the Pope spoiled.
To Princes powerful, to the World vertuous,
To her Foes merciful, to subjects gracious.
Her Soul is in Heaven, the World keeps her glory,
Subjects her good deeds, so ends my Story."
In the licentious days of King James and King Charles there is little record of women's needlework in court or country, but the Puritan women, the virtuous home makers, revived and encouraged all household arts.
There is no doubt that as a rule the long and narrow samplers are older than those more nearly square. These ancient samplers, especially the few bearing dates of the seventeenth century, are much finer in design, more closely worked, and better in execution than those of later date. The linen background is much more closely covered. They have more curious and varied stitches. Occasionally they are of minute size, but four or five inches long, with exquisitely fine stitches.
Fleetwood-Quincy Sampler
Two ancient samplers are here depicted. One shown on page 327 was made by Lora Standish, the daughter of a Pilgrim Father, and it is now at Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth. The interesting and beautiful sampler known as the Fleetwood-Quincy Sampler has such perfect stitches that both sides are alike. It bears the names Miles and Abigail Fleetwood, and the date 1654. It has been in the possession of Mrs. Henry Quincy and her descendants since 1750. There is little doubt that the Miles Fleetwood of the sampler was the brother or nephew of Charles Fleetwood who married Anne Ireton, eldest daughter of great Cromwell. A splendid piece of Anne Fleetwood's embroidery was recently exhibited in the Kensington Museum. It was scarcely a sampler for it bore a curious design in applique work of a lozenge formed by four right-angled triangles, each of a different bit of rich brocade of gold and silver figures on amber or pink ground; all worked together with curious vines and stitches. Miles Fleetwood clung to the royal cause, and thus fell into the obscurity hinted at in the sampler verses:—
"In prosperity friends will be plenty,
But in adversity not one in twenty."