When the old trunkhose was found to fray the sacred epidermis of Christian kings and queens, the first fruits of a remedial discovery were presented for the benefit of the illustrious sufferers. Thus we hear that when stockings were first known in Europe, a Spanish grandee manifested his loyalty and love for his Queen, by presenting a pair to the Prime Minister, with a request that that official would place them at, if not on, the feet of his sovereign lady. The Minister was shocked at the grandee’s assurance and lack of modesty. “Take back thy stockings,” said he, “and name the thing not again; for know, O foolish Sir Duke, that the Queen of Spain has no legs!” Our Henry III., less nice with regard to his own sister the Princess Isabella, did not scruple to present her with a pair of stockings of cloth, embroidered with gold. These cloth hose went out of fashion in the reign of Elizabeth. Her silk-woman, Montague, had presented her Majesty with a pair of black knit silk stockings; and these were so pleasant to the legs of “England,” that her Majesty discarded hot cloth for ever. She found double comfort in the first; namely, to herself, and further comfort that by adopting them she was encouraging a home-made article. The first pair of English-knit worsted stockings were worn by Elizabeth’s Peer, “proud Pembroke.” They had been imitated from an Italian knit pair by William Rider, apprentice to Thomas Burdett, at the Bridge foot, opposite St. Magnus’ Church; and their presentation to Pembroke was, doubtless, profitable to the apprentice. Disappointed love has been the cause of various dire effects, but I do not know that it ever caused effect so singular as when it invented a stocking-frame. This too was in Elizabeth’s time. In those golden days, Will Lee, of Woodborough, in Norfolk, was a student at Cambridge; somewhat given to maidens as well as to mathematics, but not so utterly wasting his time with the former pleasant trifles but that he found both learning and leisure to achieve an M.A. degree, and obtain a Fellowship. Master Lee was especially addicted to talk agreeable nonsense to an honest lass in the town, who gained her living, and increased the smiles on her pretty face, by knitting stockings, to her very great profit. Now this Cambridge damsel did not care the value of a dropped stitch for such love as rich Will Lee brought her at sundown every coming eve; and she told him as much. “Ay, marry!” said the vindictive lover, “then thou shalt rue thy words and thy contempt.”—“_Marry_ scenteth of Rome,” said the orthodox knitter; “and thou art as false in love as in faith.”