and will fitly serve to be wrought, some with gould, some with silke, and some with crewell in coullers: or otherwise at your pleasure. And never but once published before. Printed by Rich. Shorleyker._ No date, in oblong 4to. And, lastly, another oblong quarto entitled _The needles excellency, a new booke wherin are divers admirable workes wrought with the needle. Newly invented and cut in copper for the pleasure and profit of the industrious._ Printed for James Boler, &c. 1640. Beneath this title is a neat engraving of three ladies in a flower garden, under the names of Wisdom, Industrie, and Follie. Prefixed to the patterns are sundry poems in commendation of the needle, and describing the characters of ladies who have been eminent for their skill in needle-work, among whom are Queen Elizabeth and the Countess of Pembroke. These poems were composed by John Taylor the water poet. It appears that the work had gone through twelve impressions, and yet a copy is now scarcely to be met with. This may be accounted for by supposing that such books were generally cut to pieces, and used by women to work upon or transfer to their samplers. From the dress of a lady and gentleman on one of the patterns in the last mentioned book, it appears to have been originally published in the reign of James the First. All the others are embellished with a multitude of patterns elegantly cut in wood, several of which are eminently conspicuous for their taste and beauty. It is therefore apparent that the expression _point-devise_ became applicable, in a secondary sense, to whatever was uncommonly exact, or constructed with the nicety and precision of _stitches made or devised by the needle_. ACT III. SCENE 1. Page 97. VIO. Dost thou live by thy _tabor_? This instrument is found in the hands of fools long before the time of Shakspeare. With respect to _the sign of the tabor_ mentioned in the notes, it might, as stated, have been _the designation of a musick shop_; but that it was _the sign of an eating-house kept by Tarleton_ is a mistake into which a learned commentator has been inadvertently betrayed. It appears from Tarleton's _Jests_, 1611, 4to, that he kept a tavern in Gracious [Gracechurch] street, at the sign of the _Saba_. This is the person who in our _modern_ bibles is called the _queen of Sheba_, and the sign has been corrupted into that of the _bell-savage_, as may be gathered from the inedited metrical _romance of Alexander_, supposed to have been written at the beginning of the fourteenth century by Adam Davie, who, in describing the countries visited by his hero, mentions that of _Macropy_ (the _Macropii_ of Pliny), and adds,