This small Sampler (it measures only 17 × 7) is a remarkable testimony to the goodness of the materials used by our ancestors, and the care that has been taken in certain instances to preserve these early documents of family history. For it is over two hundred and sixty years since Elizabeth Calthorpe's very deft fingers produced what even now appears to be a very skilled performance, and every thread of silk and of the canvas groundwork is as fresh as the day that it emerged from the dyer's hands. The design is one of the unusual pictorial and ornamental combinations, the pictorial representing the Sacrifice of Isaac in two scenes.] Texts and mottoes also furnish a clue to age, for they extend backwards beyond 1686 on but one known sampler, namely that of Martha Salter in the Victoria and Albert Museum, dated 1651, which has the maxim, "The feare of God is an excellent gift," although on such articles as purses and the like they are to be found much earlier, and the "Sonnet to Queen Elizabeth," to which we have referred, shows that they were in vogue in 1612. Age may also be approximated by the ornament and by the material of which the sampler is made, which differs as time goes on. The following table has been formed from many specimens that have come under my inspection; it shows the earliest date at which various forms of ornament appear on dated samplers so far as I have been able to trace them. Adam and Eve, figure of 1709 Alphabet 1643 Border enclosing sampler 1726 Border of flowing naturalistic flowers 1730 Boxers (and until 1758) 1648 Crown 1691 Eyelet form of lettering (? Anne Gover's, _circ._ 1610) 1672 _Fleur-de-Lys_ (see, however, Plate III.) 1742 Flower in vase 1742 Heart 1751 House 1765 Inscription 1662 Motto or text 1651 Mustard-coloured canvas 1728 Name of maker (? Anne Gover's, _circ._ 1610) 1648 Numerals 1655 Rows of ornament (latest 1741) 1648 Stag (but only common between 1758 and 1826) 1648 The Spies to Canaan 1804 Verse (? Lora Standish, _circ._ 1635) 1696 Lettering on Samplers