26 
House & Garden 
EMBROIDERED PRIMERS OF THE PAST 
// hereon It JJ as Customary for the Very Young Lady to Record Her Knowledge of Needlework and Numerals, 
Animals and Alphabets, Together with Whatever Devices and Mottoes Her Imagination Suggested 
GARDNER TEALL 
I DO not know who, 
nowadays, reads Miss 
Mitford, but every time 
I turn to “Our Village” 
and read one of the de¬ 
lightful sketches it con¬ 
tains I feel sure that 
even-one ought to read 
Miss Mitford. Only to¬ 
day I browsed through 
the volume and in the 
sketch which bears the 
title “Lucy” I found this 
bit which touched a ten¬ 
der chord in the heart of 
one who must confess to 
finding much joy in col¬ 
lecting antiques and 
curios: 
. .-There are some 
girls now in the school 
working samplers to be 
framed. ‘Such a waste 
of silk, and time, and 
trouble!’ I said to Mrs. 
Smith. . . . Then Mrs. 
Smith recounted the 
whole battle of the sam¬ 
plers, and her defeat; 
and then she sent for one 
which, in spite of her 
declaration that her girls 
never furnished anything, 
was quite completed 
(probably with a good deal of her assistance), 
and of which, notwithstanding her rational ob¬ 
jection to its uselessness, Lucy was not a little 
proud. She held it up with great delight, 
pointed cut all the beauties, selected her own 
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Young Miss Bulger’s knowl¬ 
edge of letters and numbers, 
to say nothing of flowers, is 
recorded within a neat bor¬ 
der. Metropolitan Museum 
of Art 
favorite parts, especially 
a certain square rosebud, 
and the landscape at the 
bottom; and finally 
pinned it against the 
wall, to show the effect it 
would have when framed. 
“Really that sampler 
was a superb thing in its 
way. First came a plain 
pink border; then a green 
border, zigzag; then a 
crimson, wavy; then a 
brown, of a different, 
more complicated zig¬ 
zag; then the alphabet, 
great and small, in every 
color of the rainbow, fol¬ 
lowed by a row of figures, 
flanked on one side, by a 
flower, name unknown, 
tulip, poppy, lily—some¬ 
thing orange or scarlet, 
or orange scarlet; on the 
other by the famous rose¬ 
bud, then divejs sen¬ 
tences, religious and 
moral;—Lucy was quite 
provoked with me for not 
being able to read them; 
I daresay she thought in 
her heart that I was as 
stupid as any of her 
scholars; but never was 
Ms so illegible, not even my own, as the print 
work of that sampler;—then last and finest 
the landscape, in all its glory. It occupied the 
whole narrow line at the bottom, and was com¬ 
posed with great regularity. In the centre was 
sit 
(Left) A sampler from the 
18 th Century, of either 
Scotch or English origin, is 
of combined drawnwork and 
relief embroidery in intricate 
design 
\ Virtue's th* cWefe,--, Wut.r at the 
Th* noblest emptmtfft of Inman kml,/>iwv!*vC 
Virtue'.? our safeguard antf our guiding star, 
That stir? up reason when our sense? err 
A Pill 
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Although she was only ten years old in 1824 , 
Priscilla Hosking, of England, placed no 
faith in the future. And yet, she evidently 
possessed a lively imagination 
Even royalty made samplers. 
7 his one is attributed to 
Queen Victoria’s mother, the 
Duchess of Kent 
Another English sampler, this time from the 
year 1826 . Some modern versification ex¬ 
presses less of rhyme and theme than does 
this old piece of needlework 
