The Dutch possessed one advantage over most other nations, especially over England, in her far-famed Haarlem[695] thread, once considered the best adapted for lace in the world. "No place bleaches flax," says a writer of the day,[696] "like the meer of Haarlem."[697] Still the points of Holland made little noise in the world. The Dutch strenuously forbade the entry of all foreign lace, and what they did not consume themselves they exported to Italy, where the market was often deficient.[698] Once alone in England we hear tell of a considerable parcel of Dutch lace seized between Deptford and London from the Rotterdam hoy. England, however, according to Anderson, in 1764, received in return for her products from Holland "fine lace, but the balance was in England's favour." In 1770 the Empress Queen (Marie Theresa) published a declaration prohibiting the importation of Dutch lace into any of her Imperial Majesty's hereditary dominions in Germany.[699] As in other matters, the Dutch carried their love of lace {260}to the extreme, tying up their knockers with rich point to announce the birth of an infant. A traveller who visited France in 1691, remarks of his hotel: "The warming-pans and brasses were not here muffled up in point and cut-work, after the manner of Holland, for there were no such things to be seen."[700] The Dutch lace most in use was thick, strong and serviceable (Fig. 113). That which has come under our notice resembles the fine close Valenciennes, having a pattern often of flowers or fruit strictly copied from nature. "The ladies wear," remarks Mrs. Calderwood, "very good lace mobs." The shirt worn by William the Silent when he fell by the assassin is still preserved at The Hague; it is trimmed with a lace of thick linen stitches, drawn and worked over in a style familiar to those acquainted with the earlier Dutch pictures. SAXONY. "Here unregarded lies the rich brocade, There Dresden lace in scatter'd heaps is laid; Here the gilt china vase bestrews the floor, While chidden Betty weeps without the door." --"Eclogue on the death of Shock, a pet lapdog." _Ladies' Magazine._ 1750. "His olive-tann'd complexion graces With little dabs of Dresden laces; While for the body Mounseer Puff Would think e'en dowlas fine enough." --_French Barber._ 1756. [Illustration: Fig. 113. DUTCH BOBBIN-LACE.--Eighteenth century. _To face page 260._] {261}[Illustration: Fig. 114. TOMB OF BARBARA UTTMANN, AT ANNABERG.]