The doxology, "From all that dwell below the skies," etc., appears on samplers; and these lines:-- "Though life is fair And pleasure young, And Love on ev'ry Shepherd's Tongue, I turn my thoughts To serious things, Life is ever on the wing." Another rhyme is found with varying words in some of the lines:-- "Young Ladyes fair when youthful minds incline To all that's curious, Innocent, and fine With Admiration let your worke be made The various textures and the twining thread Then let your fingers with unrivalled skill Exalt the Needle, Grace the noble Quill." Some of the verses are as short as the scant but sweet English words on the sampler of Katherine, the wife of Charles II.:-- "21st of Maye Was our Wedding Daye." A sampler in the Old South Church in Boston has this inscription:-- "Dorothy Lynde is my Name And this Work is mine My Friends may have When I am Dead and laid in Grave This Needlework of mine can tell That in my youth I learned well And by my elders also taught Not to spend my time for naught." [Illustration: Polly Coggeshall's Sampler] In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was high fashion to have mottoes and texts carved or painted on many articles where they would frequently catch the eye. Printed books were then rare possessions, and these mottoes, whether of vanity or piety, took their place. Perhaps inscriptions on various pieces of tableware and drinking utensils were the most common. Specially beautiful and interesting early examples are the sets of "beechen roundels" known to collectors; that is, sets of wooden plates or trenchers carved with mottoes. Women dexterous of the needle embroidered mottoes and words on articles of clothing. Whole texts of the Bible are said to have been inscribed on the edges of gowns and petticoats. "She is a Puritan at her needle too She works religious petticoats." Elaborate vines of flowers and other scroll designs were worked on petticoats, often in colored crewels. There still exists the linen petticoat of Rebecca Taylor Orne, a Salem dame who lived to be one hundred and twenty years old. It is deeply embroidered with trees, vines, flowers, and fruits, on homespun linen. Silk petticoats were also embroidered and painted by young girls, and are beautiful pieces of work. In New York newspapers we find proof that New York girls were taught decorative accomplishments similar to those which were so fashionable in Boston:--