"The seventeenth-century German samplers are rather small, and much squarer in shape than English ones of the same date. With the eighteenth century long, narrow ones came in, a quite common size being 44 in. long, by about 10 in. broad, the usual width of the linen; the selvage is left at the top and bottom. "There is seldom much arrangement in the earlier German samplers. They usually have one alphabet, and various conventional flowers, birds, and other designs scattered over them. "With the long shape of sampler a more methodical arrangement came in. A typical one is as follows: Lines of alphabets and numerals across the top, some large subjects in the centre, and designs for borders arranged in lines across the bottom. "The central subjects very often include a representation of the Crucifixion and emblems of the Passion, namely, the crown of thorns, scourge, ladder, nails, hammer, tweezers, sponge, hour-glass, dice, cock. Adam and Eve under the Tree of Knowledge is another favourite subject, and animals such as lions, deer, or parrots frequently occur. One does not often find houses or domestic scenes. One sampler, dated 1771, has a christening depicted on it, which I imagine to be very unusual. "The borders are very various. In them trefoils, grapes, conventional pinks, roses, pears, and lilies and occasionally deer and birds are worked in; but I have never seen the 'Boxers' or other figures that one finds in the English borders, and I have only one specimen with acorns. "The earliest German samplers seem to be worked entirely in cross-stitch, beautifully fine, and the same on both sides of the material; the back-stitching so often found on early English ones I have never seen. In the eighteenth century other stitches were sometimes used, and I have one German sampler, dated 1719, which is almost entirely worked in knots. On others some elaborate stitches are shown, which are mostly worked in square patches, and are not made use of for improving the design of the samplers. "The earliest examples of darned samplers that I have seen come from Germany, and I think that one may give the Germans the credit of inventing them; for, whereas, in England they do not appear much before the end of the eighteenth century, I have a German one dated 1725, and several others from the middle of the same century. The darns on these samplers show every kind of ordinary and damask darning, the material being usually cut away from underneath and the hole entirely filled in. I have never seen German darning worked into designs of flowers, birds and so on, as we see on English darned samplers. "As in all countries, the colours of the earlier German samplers are the best, but they are in no case striking.