The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages Part 15

But wide as is the range of the Romances of the "Round Table," they form but a portion of those which solaced our ancestors. Charlemagne and his Paladins were, so to speak, the solar system round which another circle revolved; Alexander furnished the radiating star for another, derived chiefly perhaps from the East, where numbers of fict.i.tious tales were prevalent about him; and many Romances were likewise woven around the mangled remains of cla.s.sic heroes.

"The mightiest chiefs of British song Scorn'd not such legends to prolong; They gleam through Spenser's elfic dream, And mix in Milton's heavenly theme; And Dryden in immortal strain, Had raised the 'Table Round' again."

The Stories of the Tapestry in the Royal Palaces of Henry VIII. are preserved in the British Museum.[94]

These are some of them re-copied from Warton:--

In the tapestry of the Tower of London, the original and most ancient seat of our monarchs, there are recited, G.o.dfrey of Bulloign; the Three Kings of Cologne; the Emperor Constantine; St. George; King of Erkenwald; the History of Hercules; Fame and Honour; the Triumph of Divinity; Esther and Ahasueras; Jupiter and Juno; St. George; the Eight Kings; the Ten Kings of France; the Birth of our Lord; Duke Joshua; the Riche History of King David; the Seven Deadly Sins; the Riche History of the Pa.s.sion; the Stem of Jesse; Our Lady and Son; King Solomon; the Woman of Canony; Meleager; and the Dance of Maccabee.

At Durham Place were the Citie of Ladies (a French allegorical Romance); the Tapestrie of Thebes and of Troy; the City of Peace; the Prodigal Son; Esther, and other pieces of Scripture.

At Windsor Castle the Siege of Jerusalem; Ahasueras; Charlemagne; the Siege of Troy; and Hawking and Hunting.

At Nottingham Castle, Amys and Amelion.

At Woodstock Manor, the tapestrie of Charlemagne.

At the More, a palace in Hertfordshire, King Arthur, Hercules, Astyages, and Cyrus.

At Richmond, the arras of Sir Bevis, and Virtue and Vice fighting.

Among the rest we have also Hannibal, Holofernes, Romulus and Remus, aeneas, and Susannah.

Many of these subjects were repeated at Westminster, Greenwich, Oatlands, Bedington in Surrey, and other royal seats, some of which are now unknown as such.

FOOTNOTES:

[84] Warton.

[85] Arras, a very common anachronism. After the production of the arras tapestries, arras became the common name for all tapestries: even for those which were wrought before the looms of Arras were in existence.

[86] Moynes--nun. Lady Werburg

[87] _Spyre_--twig, branch.

[88] _Youre_--burnt.

[89] _Hallynge_--Tapestry.

[90] _Faythtes_--feats, facts.

[91] _Brothered_--embroidered.

[92] Epistolae Ho-Elianae.

[93] "Fifteen acres were covered with the bodies of slaughtered Saracens; and so furious were the strokes of Sir Guy, that the pile of dead men, wherever his sword had reached, rose as high as his breast."--Ellis, vol. ii.

[94] Harl. MSS. 1419.

CHAPTER XIII.

NEEDLEWORK IN COSTUME.--PART I.

"What neede these velvets, silkes, or lawne, Embrodery, feathers, fringe and lace."

Bp. Hall.

"Time was, when clothing sumptuous or for use, Save their own painted skins, our Sires had none.

As yet black breeches were not."

Cowper.

Manifold indeed were the varieties in mode and material before that _beau ideal_ of all that is graceful and becoming--the "black breeches"--were invented. For though in many parts of the globe costume is uniform, and the vest and the turban of a thousand years ago are of much the same make as now, this is not the case in the more polished parts of Europe, where that "turncoat whirligig maniac, yclept Fashion," is the pole-star and beacon of the mult.i.tude of men, from him who has the "last new cut from Stultz," to him who is magnificent and happy in the "reg'lar bang-up-go" from the eastern parts of the metropolis.

It would seem that England is peculiarly celebrated for her devotion at Fashion's shrine; for we are told that "an Englishman, endevoring sometime to write of our attire, made sundrie platformes for his purpose, supposing by some of them to find out one stedfast ground whereon to build the summe of his discourse. But in the end (like an orator long without exercise) when he saw what a difficult peece of worke he had taken in hand, he gave over his travell, and onely drue the picture of a naked man, unto whome he gave a paire of sheares in the one hand, and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end he should shape his apparell after such fashion as himselfe liked, sith he could find no kind of garment that could please him anie while together, and this he called an Englishman. Certes this writer shewed himself herein not to be altogether void of iudgement, sith the phantasticall follie of our nation, even from the courtier to the carter, is such, that no forme of apparell liketh vs longer than the first garment is in the wearing, if it continue so long and be not laid aside, to receive some other trinket newlie devised.

"And as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a world to see the costlinesse and the curiositie; the excesse and the vanitie; the pompe and the brauerie; the change and the varietie; and, finallie, the ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees; insomuch that nothing is more constant in England than inconstancie of attire.

"In women, also, it in most to be lamented, that they doo now far exceed the lightnesse of our men (who nevertheless are transformed from the cap even to the verie shoo) and such staring attire as in time past was supposed meet for none but light housewives onlie, is now become a habit for chast and sober matrons.

"Thus _it is now come to pa.s.se, that women are become men, and men transformed into monsters_."

This ever-revolving wheel is still turning; and so all-important now is THE MODE that one half of the world is fully occupied in providing for the personal embellishment of the other half and themselves; and could we contemplate the possibility of a return to the primitive simplicity of our ancient "sires," we must look in the same picture on one half of the world as useless--as a drug on the face of creation.

Why, what a desert would it be were all dyers, fullers, cleaners, spinners, weavers, printers, mercers and milliners, haberdashers and modistes, silk-men and manufacturers, cotton-lords and fustian-men, tailors and habit makers, mantuamakers and corset professors, exploded? We pa.s.s over pin and needle makers, comb and brush manufacturers, jewellers, &c. The ladies would have nothing to live for; (for on grave authority it has been said, that "woman is an animal that delights in the toilette;") the gentlemen nothing to solace them. "The toilette" is the very zest of life with both; and if ladies are more successful in the results of their devoirs to it, it is because "nous sommes faites pour embellir le monde," and not because gentlemen practice its duties with less zeal, devotion, or a.s.siduity--as many a valet can testify when contemplating his modish patron's daily heap of "failures." Indeed to put out of view the more obvious, weighty, and important cares attached to the due selection and arrangement of coats, waistcoats, and indispensables, the science of "Cravatiana" alone is one which makes heavy claims on the time, talents, and energies of the thorough-going gentleman of fashion. He should be thoroughly versed in all its varieties--The Royal George: The Plain Bow: The Military: The Ball Room: The Corsican: The Hibernian Tie: The Eastern Tie: The Hunting Tie: The Yankee Tie: (the "alone original" one)--The Osbaldiston Tie: The Mail Coach Tie: The Indian Tie, &c. &c. &c.

Though of these and their numberless offshoots, the Yankee Tie lays most claim to originality, the Ball Room one is considered the most exquisite, and requires the greatest practice. It is thus described by a "talented" professor:--

"The cloth, of virgin white, well starched and folded to the proper depth, should be made to sit easy and graceful on the neck, neither too tight nor loose; but with a gentle pressure, curving inwards from the further extension of the chin, down the throat to the centre dent in the middle of the neck. This should be the point for a slight dent, extending from under each ear, between which, more immediately under the chin, there should be another slight horizontal dent just above the former one. It has no tie; the ends, crossing each other in broad folds in front, are secured to the braces, or behind the back, by means of a piece of white tape. A brilliant broach or pin is generally made use of to secure more effectually the crossing, as well as to give an additional effect to the neckcloth."

What a world of wit and invention--what a fund of fancy and taste--what a mine of zeal and ability would be lost to the world, "if those troublesome disguises which we wear" were reduced to their old simplicity of form and material! Industry and talent would be at discount, for want of materials whereon to display themselves; and money would be such a drug, that politicians would declaim on the miseries of being _without_ a national debt. Commerce, in many of its most important branches, would be exploded; the "manufacturing districts" would be annihilated; the "agricultural interest" would, consequently and necessarily, be at a "very low ebb;" and the "New World," the magnificent and imperial empress (that is to be) of the whole earth, might sink again to the embraces of those minute and wonderful artificers from whom, I suppose, she at first proceeded--the coral insects; for who would want cotton! No, no. Selfish preferences, individual wishes, must merge in the general good of the human race; and however "their own painted skins" might suffice our "sires,"

clothing, "sumptuous," as well as "for use," must decorate ourselves.

To whom, then, are the fullers, the dyers, the cleaners--to whom are the spinners and weavers, and printers and mercers, and milliners and haberdashers, and modistes, and silk-men and manufacturers, cotton lords and fustian men, mantuamakers and corset professors, indebted for that nameless grace, that exquisite finish and appropriateness, which gives to all their productions their charm and their utility?--To the NEEDLEWOMAN, a.s.suredly. For though the raw materials have been grown at Sea Island and shipped at New York,--have been consigned to the Liverpool broker and sold to the Manchester merchant, and turned over to the manufacturer, and spun and woven, and bleached and printed, and placed in the custody of the warehouseman, or on the shelf of the shopkeeper--of what good would it be that we had a fifty-yard length of calico to shade our oppressed limbs on a "dog-day," if we had not the means also to render that material agreeably available? Yet not content with merely rendering it available, this beneficent fairy, the needlewoman, casts, "as if by the spell of enchantment, that ineffable grace over beauty which the choice and arrangement of dress is calculated to bestow." For the love of becoming ornament--we quote no less an authority than the historian of the 'State of Europe in the Middle Ages,'--"is not, perhaps, to be regarded in the light of vanity; it is rather an instinct which woman has received from Nature to give effect to those charms which are her defence." And if it be necessary to woman with her charms, is it not tenfold necessary to those who--Heaven help them!--have few charms whereof to boast? For, as Harrison says, "it is now come to pa.s.se that men are transformed into monsters."

"Better be out of the world than out of the fashion," is a proverb which, from the universal a.s.sent which has in all ages been given to it, has now the force of an axiom. It was this self evident proposition which emboldened the beau of the fourteenth century, in spite of the prohibitions of popes and senators,--in spite of the more touching personal inconvenience, and even risk and danger, attendant thereupon--to persist in wearing shoes of so preposterous a length, that the toes were obliged to be fastened with chains to the girdle ere the happy votary of fashion could walk across his own parlour!

Happy was the favourite of Croesus, who could display chain upon chain of ma.s.sy gold wreathed and intertwined from the waistband to the shoe, until he seemed almost weighed down by the burthen of his own wealth. Wrought silver did excellently well for those who could not produce gold; and for those who possessed not either precious metal, and who yet felt they "might as well be out of the world as out of the fashion," latteen chains, silken cords, aye, and cords of even less costly description, were pressed into service to tie up the _crackowes_, or piked shoes. For in that day, as in this, "the squire endeavours to outshine the knight, the knight the baron, the baron the earl, the earl the king, in dress." To complete the outrageous absurdity of these shoes, the upper parts of them were cut in imitation of a church-window, to which fashion Chaucer refers when describing the dress of Absalom, the Parish Clerk. He--

"Had Paul 'is windowes corven on his shose."

Despite the decrees of councils, the bulls of the Pope, and the declamations of the Clergy, this ridiculous fashion was in vogue near three centuries.

And the party-coloured hose, which were worn about the same time, were a fitting accompaniment for the crackowes. We feel some difficulty in realising the idea that gentlemen, only some half century ago, really dressed in the gay and showy habiliments which are now indicative only of a footman; but it is more difficult to believe, what was nevertheless the fact, that the most absurd costume in which the "fool" by profession can now be decked on the stage, can hardly compete in absurdity with the _outre_ costume of a beau or a belle of the fourteenth century. The shoes we have referred to: the garments, male or female, were divided in the middle down the whole length of the person, and one half of the body was clothed in one colour, the other half in the most opposite one that could be selected. The men's garments fitted close to the shape; and while one leg and thigh rejoiced in flaming yellow or sky-blue, the other blushed in deep crimson. John of Gaunt is portrayed in a habit, one half white, the other a dark blue; and Mr. Strutt has an engraving of a group a.s.sembled on a memorable occasion, where one of the figures has a boot on one leg and a shoe on the other. The Dauphiness of Auvergne, wife to Louis the Good, Duke of Bourbon, born 1360, is painted in a garb of which one half all the way down is blue, powdered with gold fleurs-de-lys, and the other half to the waist is gold, with a blue fish or dolphin (a cognizance, doubtless) on it, and from the waist to the feet is crimson, with white "fishy" ornaments; one sleeve is blue and gold, the other crimson and gold.

In addition to these absurd garments, the women dressed their heads so high that they were obliged to wear a sort of curved horn on each side, in order to support the enormous superstructure of feathers and furbelows. And these are what are meant by the "horned head-dresses"

so often referred to in old authors. It is said that, when Isabel of Bavaria kept her court at Vincennes, A.D. 1416, it was necessary to make all the doors of the palace both higher and wider, to admit the head-dresses of the queen and her ladies, which were all of this horned kind.