The Spectator of that time sarcastically tells of two sisters highly educated in domestic arts who spend so much time making cushions and “sets of hangings” that they had never learned to read and write! A sober-minded old lady, grieved by frivolous nieces, begs the Spectator “to take the laudable mystery of embroidery into your serious consideration,” for, says she, “I have two nieces, who so often run gadding abroad that I do not know when to have them. Those hours which, in this age, are thrown away in dress, visits, and the like, were employed in my time in writing out receipts, or working beds, chairs, and hangings for the family. For my part I have plied the needle these fifty years, and by my good-will would never have it out of my hand. It grieves my heart to see a couple of proud, idle flirts sipping the tea for a whole afternoon in a room hung round with the industry of their great-grandmothers.” Another old lady of the eighteenth century, Miss Hutton, proudly makes the following statement of the results of years of close application to the needle: “I have quilted counterpanes and chest covers in fine white linen, in various patterns of my own invention. I have made patchwork beyond calculation.”

Emblems and motifs were great favourites with the quilt workers of “ye olden times” and together with mottoes were worked into many pieces of embroidery. The following mottoes were copied from an old quilt made in the seventeenth century: “Covet not to wax riche through deceit,” “He that has lest witte is most poore,” “It is better to want riches than witte,” “A covetous man cannot be riche.”

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MORNING GLORIES

In one of their many beautiful and delicate varieties were chosen for this quilt, and while the design is conventional to a certain extent it shows the natural grace of the growing vine

The needle and its products have always been held in great esteem in England, and many of the old writers refer to needlework with much respect. In 1640 John Taylor, sometimes called the “Water Poet,” published a collection of essays, etc., called “The Needle’s Excellency,” which was very popular in its day and ran through twelve editions. In it is a long poem entitled, “The Prayse of the Needle.” The following are the opening lines:

“To all dispersed sorts of Arts and Trades
I write the needles prayse (that never fades)
So long as children shall begot and borne,
So long as garments shall be made and worne.
So long as Hemp or Flax or Sheep shall bear
Their linnen Woollen fleeces yeare by yeare;
So long as silk-worms, with exhausted spoile,
Of their own entrailes for man’s game shall toyle;
Yea, till the world be quite dissolved and past,
So long at least, the Needles use shall last.”

It is interesting to read what Elizabeth Glaister, an Englishwoman, writes of quilts in England: