NOTE.--The only modern sampler in The Fine Art Society's Exhibition in which beadwork was employed. This is the more remarkable as it apparently dates from about the period when beadwork was so much in fashion for purses, etc. As we shall see in our illustrations of pictures in imitation of tapestry (Plate XXI.), beadwork was very common in the seventeenth century, but we have not seen a single specimen of this material dated in the eighteenth century, unless it be this one, which we place at the end of the eighteenth or the beginning of the nineteenth century.] It has been prophesied that:-- "Untill the world be quite dissolv'd and past So long at least the needles use shall last." I trow not, if for "use" the word "Art" may be substituted. It is true that recent International Exhibitions have included some marvellous specimens of adroitness in needlework, such, for instance, as the wonders from Japan; but these _tours de force_, and even the skilled productions from English schools, as, for instance, "The Royal School of Art Needlework," and which endeavour fitfully to stir up the dying embers of what was once so congenial an employment to womankind, are no indications of any possibility of needlework regaining its hold on either the classes or the masses. Samplers can never again be a necessity whereby to teach the young idea, and every year that passes will relegate them more and more into the category of interesting examples of a bygone and forgotten industry. [Illustration: FIG. 54.--SAMPLER BY ELIZABETH CLARKSON. 1881. _Author's Collection._]