"Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door,
Pillow and bobbins all her little store;
Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,
Shuffling her threads about the livelong day:
Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light."—Cowper.
The bone lace manufactures of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries appear to have extended over a much wider area than they occupy in the present day. From Cambridge to the adjacent counties of Northampton and Hertfordshire, by Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Oxfordshire, the trade spread over the southern counties[[1092]] of Wiltshire, Somersetshire,[[1093]] Hampshire, and Dorset, to the more secluded valleys of Devon—the county which still sustains the ancient reputation of "English point"—terminating at Launceston, on the Cornish coast.
Various offsets from these fabrics were established in Wales.[[1094]] Ripon,[[1095]] an isolated manufactory, represented the lace industry of York; while the dependent islands of Man,[[1096]] Wight[[1097]] and Jersey,[[1098]] may be supposed to have derived their learning from the smugglers who frequented their coast, rather than from the teaching of the Protestant refugees[[1099]] who sought an asylum on the shores of Britain.
Many of these fabrics now belong to the past, consigned to oblivion even in the very counties where they once flourished. In describing, therefore, the lace manufactures of the United Kingdom, we shall confine ourselves to those which still remain, alluding only slightly to such as were once of note, and of which the existence is confirmed by the testimony of contemporary writers.
The "women of the mystery of thread-working" would appear to have made lace in London,[[1100]] and of their complaints and grievances our public records bear goodly evidence. Of the products of their needle we know little or nothing.