lament that this excellent master had wasted so much time
on beggars and ragged boys. Beautiful as it is, the copy came improved
out of the hand of our skilful countrywoman: a judicious change of
colour of part of the drapery has had a most happy effect, and given
new excellence to the admired original."

Whilst recording the triumphs of modern needlework, we must not omit
to mention a school for the education of the daughters of clergy and
decayed tradesmen, in which the art of silk-embroidery was
particularly cultivated. This school was under the especial patronage
of Queen Charlotte; and a bed of lilac satin, which was there
embroidered for her, is now exhibited at Hampton Court, and is really
magnificent.

Could we now take a more extended view of modern needlework, how wide
the range to which we might refer,--from the jewelled and
golden-wrought slippers of the East to the grass-embroidered mocassins
of the West; from the gorgeous and glittering raiment of the courtly
Persian, the voluptuous Turk, or the luxurious Indian, to the simple,
unattractive, yet exquisitely wrought garment made by the Californian
from the entrails of the whale: a range wide as the Antipodes asunder
in every point except one! that is--the equal though very differently
displayed skill, ingenuity, and industry of the needlewoman in almost
every corner of the hearth from the burning equator to the freezing
Pole. This we must now pass.

Finally,--feeling as we do that though ornamental needlework may be a
charming occupation for those ladies whose happy lot relieves them
from the necessity of "darning hose" and "mending nightcaps," yet that
a proficiency in plain sewing is the very life and being of the
comfort and respectability of the poor man's wife,--we cannot close
this book without one earnest remark on the systems of teaching
needlework now in use in the Central, National, and other schools for
the instruction of the poor. There, now, the art is reduced to regular
rule, taught by regular system; and there are books of instruction in
cutting, in shaping, in measuring,--one for the (late) Model School in
Dublin, and another, somewhat similar, for that in the Sanctuary,
Westminster, which would be a most valuable acquisition to the work
table of many a needle-loving and industrious lady of the most
respectable middle classes of society.

Any of our readers who have been accustomed, as we have, to see the
domestic hearths and homes of