The material of the back is rich green velvet, but it is thickly covered with embroidery: there has not indeed, originally, been space to lay a fourpenny-piece. It is entirely covered with animals and flowers, in green, crimson, lilac, and yellow silk, and gold thread. Round the edge is a border about an inch broad, of gold thread. Of the date of 1624 is a book of magnificent penmanship, by the hand of a female, of emblems and inscriptions. It is bound in crimson silk, having in the centre a Prince's Feather worked in gold-thread, with the feathers bound together with large pearls, and round it a wreath of leaves and flowers. Round the edge there is a broader wreath, with corner sprigs all in gold thread, thickly interspersed with spangles and gold leaves. All these books, with the exception of the one quoted from Ballard's Memoirs, were most obligingly sought out and brought to me by the gentlemen at the British Museum. Probably there are more; but as, unfortunately for my purpose, the books there are catalogued according to their authors, their contents, or their intrinsic value, instead of their outward seeming, it is not easy, amidst three or four hundred thousand volumes, to pick out each insignificant book which may happen to be-- "In velvet bound and broider'd o'er." FOOTNOTES: [126] Southey. [127] We have seen cartouche-boxes embroidered precisely in the same style, and probably therefore of the same period as some of the embroidered books here referred to. [128] Ballard's Memoirs. CHAPTER XXIV. NEEDLEWORK OF ROYAL LADIES. "Thus is a Needle prov'd an Instrument Of profit, pleasure, and of ornament, Which mighty Queenes have grac'd in hand to take." John Taylor. Needlework is an art so attractive in itself; it is capable of such infinite variety, and is such a beguiler of lonely, as of social hours, and offers such scope to the indulgence of fancy, and the display of taste; it is withal--in its lighter branches--accompanied with so little bodily exertion, not deranging the most _recherche_ dress, nor incommoding the most elaborate and exquisite costume, that we cannot wonder that it has been practised with ardour even by those the farthest removed from any necessity for its exercise. Therefore has it been from the earliest ages a favourite employment of the high and nobly born. The father of song hardly refers at all to the noble dames of Greece and Troy but as occupied in "painting with the needle." Some, the heroic achievements of their countrymen on curtains and draperies, others various rich and rare devices on banners, on robes and mantles, destined for festival days, for costly presents to ambassadors, or for offerings to friends. And there are scattered notices at all periods of the prevalence of this custom. In all ages until this of "inventions rare Steam towns and towers."