The sampler "contrived a double debt to pay" of teaching letters and stitches; it was, in fact, a needlework hornbook, containing the alphabet, a verse indicative of good morals or industry, or a sentence from the Bible, the name and date, and some crude representations of impossible birds, beasts, flowers, trees, or human beings. Though the sampler's reign in every American household was in the eighteenth century and the earlier years of the nineteenth, it was the direct successor of the glories of needlework of English women of earlier years, which was known and admired on the Continent as _Opus Anglicanum_. The chief excellency of English needlework has even been closely associated with a high state of social morals. In Elizabeth's day Englishwomen still loved needlecraft. Shakespeare, Sidney, Milton, Herrick, all refer to women's samplers. In a collection of old ballads printed in 1725 is "A Short and Sweet Sonnet made by one of the Maids of Honour upon the death of Q. Elizabeth, which she sewed upon a Sampler of Red Silk":-- "Gone is _Elizabeth_ whom we have loved so dear, She our kind Mistress was full four and Forty Year, _England_ she govern'd well not to be blamed. _Flanders_ she govern'd well, and _Ireland_ famed. France she befriended, Spain she had toiled, _Papists_ rejected, and the _Pope_ spoiled. To _Princes_ powerful, to the _World_ vertuous, To her _Foes_ merciful, to subjects gracious. Her Soul is in Heaven, the World keeps her glory, Subjects her good deeds, so ends my Story." In the licentious days of King James and King Charles there is little record of women's needlework in court or country, but the Puritan women, the virtuous home makers, revived and encouraged all household arts. There is no doubt that as a rule the long and narrow samplers are older than those more nearly square. These ancient samplers, especially the few bearing dates of the seventeenth century, are much finer in design, more closely worked, and better in execution than those of later date. The linen background is much more closely covered. They have more curious and varied stitches. Occasionally they are of minute size, but four or five inches long, with exquisitely fine stitches. [Illustration: Fleetwood-Quincy Sampler]