[Larger Image]

Fig. 48.—Sampler by Martha C. Hooton. 1827.
Mr A. W. Drake’s Collection.

If one may judge from the photographs which collectors in America have sent me, and for which I have to thank Dr James W. Walker of Chicago and Mr A. W. Drake of New York, and those noted in an article on the subject in the Century Magazine,[8] specimens between the period just named, that is the middle of the seventeenth century and the end of the eighteenth century, are rare. We have but two such figured, each dated 1795, and, as will be seen by the illustrations ([Figs. 45] and [46]), they are entirely British in character. I am glad, however, to add several interesting specimens of later date from the collections of these gentlemen. Unfortunately, not having the originals, I can only give them in monochrome. [Plate XIII.], however, represents in colour an American sampler. It belongs to Mr Pennell, the well-known artist and author, and was worked by an ancestress, Martha C. Barton, in 1825. From Mrs Longman’s collection I also give ([Fig. 51]) one, worked in silk on a curious loose canvas, which was obtained by her in Massachusetts, and has the following inscription:—

“Persevere. Be not weary in well doing.
Youth in society are like flowers
Blown in their native bed, ’tis there alone
Their faculties expand in full bloom
Shine out, there only reach their proper use.

“Wrought by Lydia J. Cotton. Aged 9 years. August 27. 1819. Love learning and improve.”

Foreign Samplers

It has been my endeavour in this volume to confine the survey of samplers and embroideries entirely to the production of the English-speaking race, in part because other authors have drawn almost all their material from foreign sources, and the subject is sufficiently ample and interesting without having recourse to them, and also because the collections containing foreign samplers or embroideries are very few, and although they, perhaps, surpass the efforts of our own countrywomen in the variety of their stitches and the proficiency with which they are executed, they take a less important place where interest of subject is the main recommendation.