t at first appears, without becoming
deeply interested in the task. The outline engravings of it in the
"Tapisseries Anciennes Historiees" are beautifully executed, but are
inferior in interest to Mr. Stothart's (published by the Society of
Antiquarians), because these have the advantage of being coloured
accurately from the original. In the study of these plates alone, days
and weeks glided away, nor left us weary of our task.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] The Comet of 1618 carried dismay and horror in its course. Not
only mighty monarchs, but the humblest private individuals seem to
have considered the sign as sent to them, and to have set a double
guard on all their actions. Thus Sir Symonds D'Ewes, the learned
antiquary, having been in danger of an untimely end by entangling
himself among some bell-ropes, makes a memorandum in his private diary
never more to exercise himself in bell-ringing when there is a comet
in the sky.--Aikin.

[39] By Thomas Amyot, Esq., F.S.A.--Archaeol., vol. xix

CHAPTER X.

NEEDLEWORK OF THE TIMES OF ROMANCE AND CHIVALRY.

"As ladies wont
To finger the fine needle and nyse thread."

Faerie Queene.

Though, during bygone ages, the fingers of the fair and noble were
often sedulously employed in the decoration and embellishment of the
church, and of its ministers, they were by no means universally so.
Marvellous indeed in quantity, as well as quality, must have been the
stitchery done in those industrious days, for the "fine needle and
nyse thread" were not merely visible but conspicuous in every
department of life. If, happily, there were not proof to the contrary,
we might be apt to imagine that the women of those days came into the
world _only_ "to ply the distaff, broider, card, and sew." That this
was not the case we, however, well know; but before we turn to those
embroideries which are more especially the subject of this chapter, we
will transcribe, from a recent work,[40] an interesting detail of the
household responsibilities of the mistress of a family in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

"While to play on the harp and citole (a species of lute), to execute
various kinds of the most costly and delicate needle-work, and in some
instances to 'pourtraye,' were, in addition to more literary pursuits,
the accomplishments of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the
functions which the mistress of an extensive household was expected to
ful