The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages Part 25

Could any thing afford a stronger contrast to the grave and certainly severe study to which Elizabeth had habituated herself, than the vain and fantastic puerility of many of her recreations and habits,--the unintellectual brutality of the bearbaits which she admired, or the gaudy and glittering pageants in which she delighted? She built a gallery at Whitehall at immense expense, and so superficially, that it was in ruins in her successor's time; but it was raised, in order to afford a magnificent reception to the amba.s.sadors who, in 1581, came to treat of an alliance with the Duke of Anjou. It was framed of timber, covered with painted canvas, and decorated with the utmost gaudiness. Pendants of fruit of various kinds (amongst which cuc.u.mbers and even carrots are enumerated) were hung from festoons of flowers intermixed with evergreens, and the whole was powdered with gold spangles; the ceiling was painted like a sky with stars, sunbeams, and clouds, intermixed with scutcheons of the royal arms; and gla.s.s l.u.s.tres and ornaments were scattered all around. Here were enacted masques and pageants chiefly remarkable for their pedantic prolixity of composition, and the fulsome and gross flattery towards the queen with which they were throughout invested.

Everything, in accordance with the rage of the day, a.s.sumed an erudite, or, more truly speaking, a pedantic cast. When the queen (says Warton) paraded through a country town, almost every pageant was a pantheon. When she paid a visit at the house of any of her n.o.bility, at entering the hall she was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privy chamber by Mercury. Even the pastry cooks were expert mythologists. At dinner, select transformations of Ovid's metamorphoses were exhibited in confectionary; and the splendid iceing of an immense historic plum-cake was embossed with a delicious ba.s.so-relievo of the destruction of Troy. In the afternoon, when she condescended to walk in the garden, the lake was covered with Tritons and Nereids; the pages of the family were converted into wood-nymphs, who peeped from every bower; and the footmen gambolled over the lawns in the figure of satyrs.

Scarcely we think could even the effusions of Euphues--a fashion also of this period--be more wearisome to the spirit than a repet.i.tion of these dull delights.

This predilection for learning, and the time perforce given to its acquisition, must necessarily have subtracted from those hours which might otherwise have been bestowed on the lighter labours and beguiling occupations of the needle. Nor does it appear that after her accession Elizabeth did much patronise this gentle art. She was cast in a more stirring mould. In her father's court, under her sister's jealous eye, within her prison's solitary walls, her needle might be a prudent disguise, a solacing occupation, "woman's pretty excuse for thought." But after her own accession to the throne _action_ was her characteristic.

Nevertheless we are not to suppose that, because needlework was not "a rage," it was frowned upon and despised. By no means. It is perhaps fortunate that Elizabeth did not especially patronise it; for so dictatorial and absolute was she, that by virtue of the "right divine"

she would have made her statesmen embroider their own robes, and her warriors lay aside the sword for the distaff. But as, happily, it now only held a secondary place in her esteem, we have Raleigh's poems instead of his sampler, and Bacon's learning instead of his st.i.tchery.

But it was not in her nature to suffer any thing in which she excelled to lie quite dormant. She was an accomplished needlewoman; some exquisite proofs of her skill were then glowing in all their freshness, and her excellence in this art was sufficiently obvious to prevent the ladies of her court from entirely forsaking it. Many books, with patterns for needlework, were published about this time, and in a later one Queen Elizabeth is especially celebrated in a laudatory poem for her skill in it. That proficiency in ornamental needlework was an absolute requisite in the accomplishments of a country belle, may be inferred from the prominent place it holds in Drayton's description of the well-educated daughter of a country knight in Elizabeth's days:

"The silk well couth she twist and twine, And make the fine march pine, And with the needlework: And she couth help the priest to say His mattins on a holy day, And sing a psalm in kirk.

"She wore a frock of frolic green, Might well become a maiden queen, Which seemly was to see; A hood to that so neat and fine, In colour like the columbine, Ywrought full featously."

The march pine or counterpanes here alluded to, taxed in these days to the fullest extent both the purse of the rich and the fingers of the fair. Elizabeth had several most expensively trimmed with ermine as well as needlework; the finest and richest embroidery was lavished on them; and it was no unusual circ.u.mstance for the counterpane for the "standing" or master's bed to be so lavishly adorned as to be worth a thousand marks.

At no time was ornamental needlework more admired, or in greater request in the every-day concerns of life, than now. Almost every article of dress, male and female, was adorned with it. Even the boots, which at this time had immense tops turned down and fringed, and which were commonly made of russet cloth or leather, were worn by some exquisites of the day of very fine cloth (of which enough was used to make a shirt), and were embroidered in gold or silver, or in various-coloured silks, in the figures of birds, animals, or antiques; and the ornamental needlework alone of a pair of these boots would cost from four to ten pounds. The making of a single shirt would frequently cost 10_l._, so richly were they ornamented with "needleworke of silke, and so curiously st.i.tched with other knackes."

"Woman's triflings," too, their handkerchiefs, reticules, workbags, &c., were decorated richly. We have seen within these few days a workbag which would startle a modern fair one, for, as far as regards _size_, it has a most "industrious look," but which, despite the ravages of near three centuries, yet gives token of much original magnificence. It is made of net, lined with silk; the material, the net itself, (a sort of honeycomb pattern, like what we called a few years ago the Grecian lace,) was made by the fair workwoman in those days, and was a fashionable occupation both in France and England.

This bag is wrought in broad stripes with gold thread, and between the stripes various flowers are embroidered in different coloured silks.

The bag stands in a sort of card-board basket, covered in the same style; it is drawn with long cords and ta.s.sels, and is large enough perhaps, on emergency, to hold a good sized baby.

It is more than probable that female skill was in request in various matters of household decoration. The Arras looms, indeed, had long superseded the painful fingers of notable dames in the construction of hangings for walls, which were universally used, intermingled and varied in the palaces and n.o.bler mansions by "painted cloth," and cloth of gold and silver. Thus Shakspeare describes Imogen's chamber in Cymbeline:

"Her bed-chamber was hanged With tapestry of silk and silver."

We have remarked that Henry the Eighth's palaces were very splendid; Elizabeth's were equally so, and more consistently finished in minor conveniences, as it is particularly remarked that "easye quilted and lyned formes and stools for the lords and ladyes to sit on" had superseded the "great plank forms, that two yeomen can scant remove out of their places, and waynscot stooles so hard, that since great breeches were layd asyde men can skant indewr to sitt on." Her two presence chambers at Hampton Court shone with tapestry of gold and silver, and silk of various colours; her bed was covered with costly coverlids of silk, wrought in various patterns, by the needle; and she had many "chusions," moveable articles of furniture of various shapes, answering to our large family of tabourets and ottomans, embroidered with gold and silver thread.

But it was not merely in courts and palaces that arras was used; it was now, of a coa.r.s.er fabric, universally adopted in the houses of the country gentry. "The wals of our houses on the inner sides be either hanged with tapisterie, arras-work,[121] or painted cloths, wherein either diverse histories, or hearbes, beasts, knots, and such like are stained, or else they are seeled with oke of our owne, or wainescot brought hither out of the east countries." The tapestry was now suspended on frames, which, we may infer, were often at a considerable distance from the walls, since the portly Sir John Falstaff ensconced himself "behind the arras" on a memorable occasion; Polonius too met his death there; and indeed Shakspeare presses it into the service on numerous occasions.

The following quotation will give an accurate idea of properties thought most valuable at this time; and it will be seen that ornamental needlework cuts a very distinguished figure therein. It is a catalogue of his wealth given by Gremio when suing for Bianca to her father, who declares that the wealthiest lover will win her, in the Taming of the Shrew.

_Gremio._ "First, as you know, my house within the city Is richly furnished with plate and gold; Basons and ewers, to lave her dainty hands; My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry; In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns; In cypres chests my _arras_, counterpoints, Costly apparel, tents, and canopies, Fine linen, _Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl, Valence of Venice gold, in needlework_, Pewter and bra.s.s, and all things that belong To house or house-keeping."

The age of Elizabeth was one which powerfully appeals to the imagination in various ways. The aera of warlike chivalry was past; but many of its lighter observances remained, and added to the variety of life, and perhaps tended to polish it. We are told, for instance, that as the Earl of c.u.mberland stood before Elizabeth she dropped her glove; and on his picking it up graciously desired him to keep it. He caused the trophy to be encircled with diamonds; and ever after, at all tilts and tourneys, bore it conspicuously placed in front of his high crowned hat. Jousting and tilting in honour of the ladies (by whom prizes were awarded) continued still to be a favourite diversion.

There were annual contentions in the lists in honour of the sovereign, and twenty-five persons of the first rank established a society of arms for this purpose, of which the chivalric Sir Henry Lee was for some time president.

The "romance of chivalry" was sinking to be succeeded by the heavier tomes of Gomberville, Scudery, &c., but the extension of cla.s.sical knowledge, the vast strides in acquirement of various kinds, the utter change, so to speak, in the system of literature, all contributed to the downfall of the chivalric romance. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia introduced a rage for high-flown pastoral effusions; and now too was re-born that taste for metaphorical effusion and spiritual romance, which was first exhibited in the fourth century in the Bishop of Tricca's romance of "Barlaam and Josaphat," and which now pervaded the fast-rising puritan party, and was afterwards fully developed in that unaccountably fascinating work, "The Pilgrim's Progress."

Nevertheless, as yet

"Courted and caress'd, High placed in hall, a welcome guest,"

the harper poured to lord and lady gay not indeed "his unpremeditated lay," but a poetical abridgment (the precursor of a fast succeeding race of romantic ballads) of the doughty deeds of renowned knights, so amply expatiated upon in the time-honoured folios of the "olden time."

The wandering harper, if fallen somewhat from his "high estate," was still a recognised and welcome guest; his "matter being for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rhimes." Though the character of the minstrel gradually lost respectability, yet for a considerable part of Elizabeth's reign it was one so fully acknowledged, that a peculiar garb was still attached to the office.

"Mongst these, some bards there were that in their sacred rage Recorded the descents and acts of everie age.

Some with their nimbler joynts that strooke the warbling string; In fingering some unskild, but onelie vsed to sing Vnto the other's harpe: of which you both might find Great plentie, and of both excelling in their kind."

The superst.i.tions of various kinds, the omens, the warnings, the charms, the "potent spells" of the wizard seer, which

"Could hold in dreadful thrall the labouring moon, Or draw the fix'd stars from their eminence, And still the midnight tempest,"--

the supernatural agents, the goblins, the witches, the fairies, the satyrs, the elves, the fauns, the "shapes that walk," the

"Uncharnel'd spectres, seen to glide Along the lone wood's unfrequented path"--

the being and active existence of all these was considered "true as holy writ" by our ancestors of the Elizabethan age. On this subject we will transcribe a beautifully ill.u.s.trative pa.s.sage from Warton:--

"Every goblin of ignorance" (says he) "did not vanish at the first glimmerings of the morning of science. Reason suffered a few demons still to linger, which she chose to retain in her service under the guidance of poetry. Men believed, or were willing to believe, that spirits were yet hovering around, who brought with them _airs from heaven, or blasts from h.e.l.l_; that the ghost was duly relieved from his prison of torment at the sound of the curfew, and that fairies imprinted mysterious circles on the turf by moonlight. Much of this credulity was even consecrated by the name of science and profound speculation. Prospero had not yet _broken and buried his staff_, nor _drowned his book deeper than did ever plummet sound_. It was now that the alchemist and the judicial astrologer conducted his occult operations by the potent intercourse of some preternatural being, who came obsequious to his call, and was bound to accomplish his severest services, under certain conditions, and for a limited duration of time. It was actually one of the pretended feats of these fantastic philosophers to evoke the queen of the fairies in the solitude of a gloomy grove, who, preceded by a sudden rustling of the leaves, appeared in robes of transcendant l.u.s.tre. The Shakspeare of a more instructed and polished age would not have given us a magician darkening the sun at noon, the sabbath of the witches, and the cauldron of incantation."

It were endless, and indeed out of place here, to attempt to specify the numberless minor superst.i.tions to which this credulous tendency of the public mind gave birth or continuation; or the marvels of travellers,--as the Anthropophagi, the Ethiops with four eyes, the Hippopodes with their nether parts like horses, the Arimaspi with one eye in the forehead, and the Monopoli who have no head at all, but a face in their breast--which were all devoutly credited. One potent charm, however, we are constrained to particularise, since its infallibility was mainly dependent on the needlewoman's skill. It was a waistcoat which rendered its owner invulnerable: we believe that if duly prepared it would be found proof not only against "silver bullets," but also against even the "charmed bullet" of German notoriety. Thus runs the charm:--

"On Christmas daie at night, a thread must be sponne of flax, by a little virgine girle, in the name of the divell; and it must be by hir woven, and also _wrought with the needle_. In the brest or forepart thereof must be made _with needleworke_ two heads; on the head at the right side must be a hat and a long beard, and the left head must have on a crowne, and it must be so horrible that it maie resemble Belzebub; and on each side of the wastcote must be _wrought_ a crosse."

The newspaper, that now mighty political engine, that "thewe and sinew" of the fourth estate of the realm, took its rise in Elizabeth's day. How would her legislators have been overwhelmed with amazement could they have beheld, in dim perspective, this child of the press, scarcely less now the offspring of the imagination than those chimeras of their own time to which we have been alluding; and would not the wrinkled brow of the modern politician be unconsciously smoothened, would not the careworn and profound diplomatist "gather up his face into a smile before he was aware," if the FIRST NEWSPAPER were suddenly placed before him? It is not indeed in existence, but was published under the t.i.tle of "_The English Mercurie_," in April, 1588, on the first appearance near the sh.o.r.es of England of the Spanish Armada, a crisis which caused this innovation on the usual public news-letter circulated in ma.n.u.script. No. 50, dated July 23, 1588, is the first now in existence; and as the publication only began in April, it shows they must have been issued frequently. We have seen this No. 50, which is preserved in the British Museum.[122]

In it are no advertis.e.m.e.nts--no fashions--no law reports--no court circular--no fashionable arrivals--no fashionable intelligence--no murders--no robberies--no reviews--no crim. cons.--no elopements--no price of stocks--no mercantile intelligence--no police reports--no "leaders,"--no literary memoranda--no poets' corner--no spring meetings--no radical demonstrations--no conservative dinners--but

"The

"English Mercurie,

"Published by AUTHORITIE,

"For the Prevention of False Reportes,

"_Whitehall, July 23, 1588._"

Contains three pages and a half, small quarto, of matter of fact information.

Two pages respecting the Armada then seen "neare the Lizard, making for the entrance of the Channell," and appearing on the surface of the water "like floating castles."

A page of news from Ostend, where "nothing was talked of but the intended invasion of England. His Highnesse the Prince of Parma having compleated his preparationes, of which the subjoined Accounte might be depended upon as _exacte and authentique_."

Something to say--for a newspaper.

And a few lines dated "London, July 13, of the lord mayor, aldermen, common councilmen, and lieutenancie of this great citie" waiting on Her Majesty with a.s.surances of support, and receiving a gracious reception from her.

Such was the newspaper of 1588.

The great events of Elizabeth's reign, in war, in politics, in legislation, belong to the historian; the great march of mind, the connecting link which that age formed between the darkness of the preceding ones (for during the period of the wars of the Roses all sorts of art and science retrograded), and the high cultivation of later days, it is the province of the metaphysician and philosopher to a.n.a.lyse; and even the lighter characteristics of the time have become so familiar through the medium of many modern and valuable works, that we have ventured only to touch very superficially on some few of the more prominent of them.

FOOTNOTES:

[120] Harrison.