Samplers and Tapestry Embroideries Part 2

"Favour is deceitful And beauty is vain But a woman that feareth the Lord She shall be praised."--_Mary Gardner, aged 9_, 1740.

Another undated one of the period is:--

"Awake, arise behold thou Hast thy Life ALIFe ThY Breath ABLASt at night LY Down Prepare to have thy Sleep thy Death thy Bed Thy Grave."

One with leisure might search out the authors of the doggerel religious and moral verses which adorned samplers. The majority are probably due to the advent of Methodism, for we only find them occurring in any numbers in the years which followed that event. It may be noted that "Divine and Moral Songs for Children," by Isaac Watts, was first published in 1720, that Wesley's Hymns appeared in 1736, and Dr Doddridge's in 1738.

We may here draw attention to the eighteenth-century fas.h.i.+on of setting out the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments (Fig. 9), and other lengthy ma.n.u.scripts from the Old Testament in tablets similar to those painted and hung in the churches of the time. The tablets in the samplers are flanked on either side by full length figures of Christ and Moses, or supported by the chubby winged cherubs of the period which are the common adornments of the Georgian gravestones. In the exhibition at The Fine Art Society's were specimens dated 1715, 1735, 1740, 1757, and 1762, the Belief taking, in three instances, the place of the Commandments. On occasions the pupil showed her proficiency in modern languages as well as with the needle, by setting out the Lord's Prayer in French, or even in Hebrew.

Contemporaneously with such lengthy tasks in lettering as the Tables of the Law, came other feats of compa.s.sing within the confines of a sampler whole chapters of the Bible, such as the 37th Chapter of Ezekiel, worked by Margaret Knowles in 1738; the 134th Psalm (a favourite one), by Elizabeth Greensmith in 1737, and of later dates the three by members of the Bronte family.

The last-named samplers (Figs. 10, 11, and 12) by three sisters of the Bronte family which, through the kindness of their owner, Mr Clement Shorter, I am able to include here, have, it will be seen, little except a personal interest attaching to them. In comparison with those which accompany them they show a strange lack of ornament, and a monotony of colour (they are worked in black silk on rough canvas) which deprive them of all attractiveness in themselves. But when it is remembered who made them, and their surroundings, these appear singularly befitting and characteristic. For, as the dates upon them show, they were produced in the interval which was pa.s.sed by the sisters at home between leaving one ill-fated school, which caused the deaths of two sisters, and their pa.s.sing to another. It was a mournful, straitened home in which they lived, one in which it needed the ardent Protestantism that is breathed in the texts broidered on the samplers to uphold them from a despair that can almost be read between the lines. It was also, for one at least of them, a time of ceaseless activity of mind and body, and we can well understand that the child Charlotte, who penned, between the April in which her sampler was completed and the following August, the ma.n.u.script of twenty-two volumes, each sixty closely written pages, of a catalogue, did not take long to work the sampler which bears her name. The ages of the three girls when they completed these samplers were: Charlotte, 13; Emily Jane, 11; and Anne, 10.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 10.--SAMPLER BY CHARLOTTE BRONTe. DATED 1829. _Mr Clement Shorter._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 11.--SAMPLER BY EMILY JANE BRONTe. DATED 1829. _Mr Clement Shorter._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 12.--SAMPLER BY ANNE BRONTe. DATED 1830. _Mr Clement Shorter._]

But the lengthiest task of all was set to six poor little mortals in the Orphans' School, near Calcutta, in Bengal, East Indies. These wrought six samplers "by the direction of Mistress Parker," dividing between them the longest chapter in the Bible, namely, the 119th Psalm. It was evidently a race against time, for on each is recorded the date of its commencement and finish, being accomplished by them between the 14th of February and the 23rd of June 1797. At the top of each is a view of a different portion of the school; one of these is reproduced in Fig. 3.

Returning to the chronological aspect of sampler inscriptions. As the eighteenth century advances we find verses coming more and more into fas.h.i.+on, although at first they are hardly distinguishable from prose, as, for instance, in the following of 1718:--

"You ask me why I love, go ask the glorius son, why it throw the world doth run, ask time and fat [fate?] the reason why it flow, ask dammask rosees why so full they blow, and all things elce suckets fesh which forceeth me to love. By this you see what car my parents toock of me.

Elizabeth Matrom is my name, and with my nedell I rought the same, and if my judgment had beene better, I would have mended every letter. And she that is wise, her time will pris (e), she that will eat her breakfast in her bed, and spend all the morning in dressing of her head, and sat at deaner like a maiden bride, G.o.d in His mercy may do much to save her, but what a cas is he in that must have her.

Elizabeth Matrom. The sun sets, the shadows fleys, the good consume, and the man he deis."

More than one proposal has been made, in all seriousness, during the compilation of this volume, that it would add enormously to its interest and value if every inscription that could be found upon samplers were herein set out at length. It is needless to say that it has been altogether impossible to entertain such a task. It is true that the feature of samplers which, perhaps, interests and amuses persons most is the quaint and incongruous legends that so many of them bear, but I shall, I believe, have quite sufficiently ill.u.s.trated this aspect of the subject if I divide it into various groups, and give a few appropriate examples of each. These may be cla.s.sified under various headings.

Verses commemorating Religious Festivals

These are, perhaps, more frequent than any others. Especially is this the case with those referring to Easter, which is again and again the subject of one or other of the following verses:--

"The holy feast of Easter was injoined To bring Christ's Resurrection to our Mind, Rise then from Sin as he did from the Grave, That by his Merits he your Souls may save.

"White robes were worn in ancient Times they say, And gave Denomination to this Day But inward Purity is required most To make fit Temples for the Holy Ghost."

_Mary Wilmot_, 1761.

Or the following:--

"See how the lilies flourish wite and faire, See how the ravens fed from heaven are; Never distrust thy G.o.d for cloth and bread While lilies flourish and the Raven's fed."

_Mary Heaviside_, 1735.

Or the variation set out on Fig. 19.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VI.--PORTION OF SAMPLER BY ELIZABETH CREASEY. DATED 1686. _The Late Mr A. Tuer._

This Sampler, of which only the upper half is reproduced, is remarkable not only for the decorative qualities of its design but for its perfect state of preservation. It consists, besides the four rows which are seen, of one other in which the drawn work is subservient in quant.i.ty to the embroidery, and of seven rows in which the reverse is the case. The inscription, which is set out below, alternates in rows with those of the design. The b.u.t.ter colour of the linen ground is well reproduced in the plate. The original measures 328.

INSCRIPTION.

"Look Well to that thou takest in Hand Its Better Worth Then house Or Land When Land is gone and Money is spent Then learn ing is most Excelent Let vertue Be Thy guide and it will kee p the out of pride Elizabeth Creasey Her work Done in the year 1686."]

As also in that by Kitty Harison, in our ill.u.s.tration, Fig. 13.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 13.--EASTER SAMPLER BY KITTY HARISON. DATED 1770.]

The Christmas verse is usually:--

"Glory to G.o.d in the Highest";

but an unusual one is that in Margaret Fiddes's sampler, 1773:--

"The Night soon past, it ran so fast. The Day Came on Amain. Our Sorrows Ceast Our Hopes Encreast once more to Meet again A Star appears Expells all Fears Angels give Kings to Know A Babe was sent With that intent to Conquer Death below."

Ascension Day is marked by:--

"The heavens do now retain our Lord Until he come again, And for the safety of our souls He there doth still remain.

And quickly shall our King appear And take us by the hand And lead us fully to enjoy The promised Holy Land."

_Sarah Smith_, 1794.

Whilst Pa.s.sion Week is recognisable in:--

"Behold the patient Lamb, before his shearer stands," etc.

The Crucifixion itself, although it is portrayed frequently in German samplers (examples in The Fine Art Society's Exhibition were dated 1674, 1724, and 1776), is seldom, if ever, found in English ones, but for Good Friday we have the lines:--

"Alas and did my Saviour bleed For such a worm as I?"

Verses taking the Form of Prayers, Dedications, Etc.

Amongst all the verses that adorn samplers there were none which apparently commended themselves so much as those that dedicated the work to Christ. The lines usually employed are so familiar as hardly to need setting out, but they have frequent varieties. The most usual is:--

"Jesus permit thy gracious name to stand As the first Effort of young Phoebe's hand And while her fingers on this canvas move Engage her tender Heart to seek thy Love With thy dear Children let her Share a Part And write thy name thyself upon her Heart."

_Harriot Phoebe Burch, aged 7 years_, 1822.

A variation of this appears in the much earlier piece of Lora Standish (Fig. 43).

Another, less common, but which again links the sampler with a religious aspiration, runs:--

"Better by Far for Me Than all the Simpsters Art That G.o.d's commandments be Embroider'd on my Heart."

_Mary Cole_, 1759.

Verses to be used upon rising in the morning or at bedtime are not unfrequent; the following is the modest prayer of Jane Grace Marks (1807).

"If I am right, oh teach my heart Still in the right to stay, If I am wrong, thy grace impart To find that better way."