The earliest samplers present but little of the regularity of design which marks the dated ones. They were made for use and not for ornament, a combination which was probably always aimed at in those where regularity and order marked the whole. They would resemble that illustrated in Plate II., which bears evidence that it was nothing more or less than an example, whence a variety of patterns could be worked, for in almost every instance the design is shown in both an early and complete condition. It is somewhat difficult to assign a date to it, but the employment of silver and gold wirework to a greater or lesser extent in almost every part,[2] the coarse canvas upon which it is worked, and the colours, point to its being of the Elizabethan or early Jacobean period, the linked S's in Fig. 5 perhaps denoting the Stuart period. One of the two specimens of 1648 (Plate III.) continues in its upper portion this dropping of the decoration in a haphazard way on the canvas, although the greater part of it is strictly confined to rows of regular form. At first sight Fig. 4 should for the same reason be assigned to an earlier date than 1648, for the greater, and not the lesser, portion of it is embroidered without any apparent design. But more careful consideration discloses the fact that the sampler was evidently begun at the top with thorough regularity, and it was only at a later stage that the worker probably tired, and decided to amuse herself with more variety and less formality. Nor can an earlier date be assigned to Fig. 5 on account of the irregularity and incompleteness of the lines, which have evidently been carried out no further than to show the pattern.[3] [Illustration: FIG. 5.--PORTION OF SAMPLER. 17TH CENTURY.] [Illustration: FIG. 6.--PORTION OF SAMPLER OF CUT AND EMBROIDERED WORK. 17TH CENTURY. _The late Mrs Head._] The forms which the lettering takes will probably be found to be one of the best guides to the age of the early samplers, and on this ground Fig. 6, with its peculiar G and its reversed P for a Q, may be earlier than 1650, although the stags and the pear-shaped ornament beneath them are closely allied to those in Plate III., dated 1648. [Illustration: FIG. 7.--SAMPLERS IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM. DATED 1643, 1667, AND 1696.] [Illustration: PLATE IV.--SAMPLER BY ELIZABETH CALTHORPE. DATED 1656. _Mrs Charles Longman._