t. There are also miniature
pincushions worked in silk like the old samplers and brocade pocket
books, some of which were woven in France in the seventeenth century.
There are also holdalls and needle cases in embroidery and cross stitch.
The favourite colours worked by English ladies in the eighteenth century
were pink, orange, and light green. On these were often worked mottoes
and rhyme. One will serve as a sample:--

"When Judah's daughters captive led
Behold their mighty kings subdued."

Loyal mottoes were frequently worked, especially during the days when
the Pretenders were carrying on their hopeless campaign. There is a
subtle reminder of the desire to make known loyal feelings, intermixed
with prudence in concealing them, in the quaint embroidered garter in
the British Museum which is inscribed "GOD BLESS P.C."

To smokers were given embroidered tobacco pouches in green, pink, and
silver; one charming old beadwork tobacco pouch in Taunton Castle is
embroidered "LOVE ME FOR I AM THINE, 1631." There were necklaces and
bracelets of needlework, and some of coloured glass beads, as well as
the long watchguards worn round the neck, chiefly of the nineteenth
century.

[Illustration: FIG. 77.--OLD WORKBOX FITTINGS.

(_In the Author's collection._)]

Old Samplers.

Old samplers may well be regarded as educational, belonging to the
schoolroom as well as to the workbox. They were intended to teach
needlework, and served as reminders of alphabets, sums, and mapping.
Many worked in silk on yellow linen in the eighteenth century were quite
elaborate pieces of needlework. Those of the seventeenth century,
chiefly of linen, were much cruder and simpler in design. During the
latter half of the eighteenth century samplers were mostly worked on
canvas or sampler cloth, a material which was used almost as long as
samplers were in fashion. Different stitches were employed; there was
the early drawn and cut work, and then the silk embroidery showing the
girl's acquirement of the darning stitch.

Some early tapestry maps are numbered among the educational curios in
which samplers are so prominent. The Yorkshire Philosophical Society own
two unique specimens of sixteenth-century tapestry, formerly in the
possession of Horace Walpole. They measure about 16 ft. by 12 ft., the
sections including Herefordshire, Shropshire, Gloucestershire,
Oxfordshire, and a part of Berkshire. These remarkable maps are vividly
coloure