In Scotland, several noble families, whether they spell their name FRASER or FRAZER, use as a canting charge--“arme che cantano”--of the Italians; the French “frasier,” or strawberry, leafed, flowered, fructed proper; the buck too, figured here, comes in or about their armorial shields. Hence then we are fairly warranted in thinking that it was a Fraser’s lady hand which wrought this small, but elaborate cushion, most likely as a gift, and with a strong meaning about it, to our King James I., whose unicorn is not forgotten here; and, in all probability, whilst she also wished to indicate that an S was the first letter in her own baptismal name. Siren too is another term for mermaid--that emblem so conspicuously figured by the lady’s side. All this, with the love-knot so plentifully broadcast and interwoven after many ways, and sprinkled everywhere as such a favourite device, perhaps may help some future biographer of James to throw a light over a few hidden passages in the life of that sovereign. Human hair, or something very like it, was put into the embroidery on parts of this small cushion. On the under side, to the left, stands a lady with her hair lying in rolls about her forehead. After looking well into them, through a glass, these rolls seem to be real human hair--may be the lady’s own--it is yellow. Peering narrowly into those red roses close by, seeded and barbed, the seeded part or middle is found to be worked with two distinct sorts of human hair--one the very same as the golden hair on the lady’s brow, the other of a light sandy shade: could this have been king James’s? His son, Charles I., used, as it would seem, to send from his prison locks of his own hair to some few of the gentry favourable to his cause, so that the ladies of that house, while working his royal portraiture in coloured silks, might be able to do the head of hair on it, in the very hair itself of that sovereign. One or two of such wrought likenesses of king Charles were, not long ago, shown in the exhibition of miniatures which took place in this Museum. For verifying passages in early as well as mediæval times, little does the historian think of finding in these specimens such a help for the purpose.