There is a very particular kind of Work, which of late several Ladies here in our Kingdom seem very fond of, which seems very well adapted to a Poetical Genius: It is the making of Grottos. I know a Lady who has a very Beautiful one, composed by herself, nor is there one Shell in it not stuck up by her own Hands.[382]
Pope wrote an inscription for a "Grotto of Shells at Crux Easton, the Work of Nine young Ladies." These young ladies were sisters and their grotto was also celebrated by "N. H."[383] In 1735 "S. J." wrote a poem to a Lady to accompany a present of shells and stones for her grotto.[384] In 1746 Mr. Graves congratulated Lady Fane on her "grotto divine" where "miracles are wrought by shells."[385]
Paper-cutting also remained something of an art. Waller had praised a lady who skillfully cut a tree in paper.[386] Cutting silhouettes was one of the diversions of the circle of Dr. Swift, Dr. Delany, and Mr. Sheridan. There is a series of poems, concerning "Dan Jackson's Picture Cut in Silk and Paper," by Lady Betty.[387] The most important cut-paper work on record is Mrs. Delany's herbarium or paper mosaics, but this did not come till the last quarter of the century.[388]
Mrs. Barber's Patch-Work Screen gets its name from another sort of device. Screens were adorned by pasting odds and ends of pictures all over them. Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe wrote to the Duchess of Somerset in 1734: "The screen your Ladyship sent me is a Rareeshew for all the women and children about town who have anything of a nice and elegant taste." The Duchess was at this time doing tent-stitch concerning which Mrs. Rowe wrote:
I am delighted with all your entertainments, except the Tent-stitch; and that I own, I admire, but then 't is as some people admire virtue, only in speculation. It seems to me an ante-diluvian invention, a task for those long-breath'd people, who spent a sort of eternity on earth, compar'd to the short duration of a modern period. However, I am in no pain for your Ladyship: whether your attempt is a chair or a stool, I suppose it will be an hereditary occupation; if you finish the branch of a tree, and Lady ——, a shepherd's crook, the service of your generation is done, and you may contentedly leave the rest to be finished by your children's children.
In 1758 Lady Bute had just completed a carpet concerning which she wrote to her mother, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lady Mary answered:
You need not excuse to me taking notice of your carpet. I think you have great reason to value your-self on the performance, but will have better than I have had if you can persuade anybody else to do so. I could never get people to believe that I set a stitch, when I worked six hours in a day.
Perhaps the most popular of all the arts was japanning. Molly (b. 1675), the daughter of Edmund Verney, was sent at eight to Mrs. Priest's school at Great Chelsey. Her father wrote to her:
I find you have a desire to learn to Jappan, as you call it, and I approve of it; and so I shall of anything that is Good & Virtuous, therefore learn in God's name all Good Things, & I will willingly be at the Charge so farr as I am able—tho' they come from Japan or from never so farr & Looke of an Indian Hue & Odour, for I admire all accomplishments that will render you considerable, and Lovely in the sight of God and man.[389]
The continued favor accorded japanning is shown by a letter from Mrs. Rowe to the Duchess of Somerset in 1734: