velvet, is also suitable for bags, slippers, sachets, caps, pillows, etc. Satin, edged with chenille, is sometimes used; as also morocco leather, or kid, stamped with designs in gold when placed on satin, velvet, or cloth, the latter should be edged with gold braid or cord, and may be further enriched, by the margin of the leather being cut into scallops or vandykes, and the gold cord turned into a circle at each point. For table-cover borders, ottomans, and other large pieces of work, a set pattern may be used with good effect, when embroidery can be introduced into some of the compartments, giving it a very rich and Persian-like ap

pearance.

A beautiful description of appliqué, combined with embroidery, was much in vogue a few years since, particularly for handscreens, where the flowers and leaves were formed of velvet, and the stalks embroidered with gold bullion. Some of these "fleurs de fantaisie” were made flat, others were raised by numerous small velvet

leaves, carefully laid one partly over the other, and tacked down with a fine silk; these leaves (lames de velours) required to be accurately cut with a steel punch.

HE Germans excel in all kinds of bead work, some of which are extremely beautiful; they are principally applicable to small articles, such as folios, presse-papiers, card and cigar cases. Purses and bags are made of beads, but their

weight renders them sometimes objectionable.

The paucity of colours in which glass beads can be obtained, limits this description of work to arabesque, gem, and scroll patterns, or for working flowers in neutral tints other designs, such as flowers and figures, are sometimes executed, but, from the want

:

proper shades, they are extremely defective. The opaque

turquoise beads,-among the most beautiful of those manufactured, are generally used for the grounds; an opal bead, lately introduced, is extremely pretty intermixed with others.

Besides glass beads, gilt and silver beads, both plain and cut, and steel beads, are frequently used for this kind of work; the latter, for the sake of variety, being sometimes manufactured of a dark purple tint.

The designs for bead work are generally taken from Berlin patterns: the beads are attached to a canvas by a waxed sewing silk, but a fine twisted cotton thread is used for this purpose in Germany. Half cross stitch, or across two threads each way of the canvas on the slant, is the usual method of working them.

Beads of all kinds are commonly introduced by the Germans into their patterns, the principal portions of which are worked with wool or silk, whether on cotton or silk canvas, and not unfrequently with a pleasing effect. The use of beads, however, in the higher departments of the art, when we wish to imitate painting, is totally inadmissible—at least, if we have any regard for the laws of good taste. In historical subjects, even the admixture of gold and silver threads, is not in good keeping; but to enrich parts of the drapery and other portions of the design with heavy masses of beads, or with raised work, as is frequently done in Germany, is so gross an infringement of all the proprieties of art, that it cannot be too scrupulously avoided.

Some of the most beautiful bead work is done in tricot, with a fine cotton or silk; but it is a more laborious and expensive method of producing the same effect, although for some few purposes it is infinitely superior. Purses made with beads, in imitation of netting, are also very than useful.

pretty, but perhaps more curious

With respect to beads, it may not here be improper to observe,

that a great difference exists in the quality of all sorts of steel and gilt beads, causing a variation sometimes of as much as three or four hundred per cent. in their value to those who cannot at first perceive the difference, time will soon show the inferiority in the wear of the one in comparison with the other.

Bead work may be done on canvas of several sizes, according to the size of the beads; the canvas usually employed measures about thirty-eight threads to the inch.*

* It is, perhaps, not generally known, that all the glass beads used for needlework are manufactured at Murano, near Venice. Tubes of coloured glass are drawn out to great lengths and fineness, in the same manner as those of more moderate lengths are made in this country for thermometers; these are cut into very small pieces, of nearly uniform lengths, on the upright edge of a fixed chisel. These elementary cylinders are then put into a mixture of fine sand and wood ashes, where they are stirred about until their cavities get filled. This mixture is then put into an iron pan, suspended over a moderate fire, where, by being kept continually stirred, they assume a smooth rounded form. They are then removed from the fire, cleared out in the bore, and strung in bunches, constituting the beads as we meet with them in commerce. Great quantities of these beads, packed in casks, are exported to all parts of the world.

CHAPTER XXI.

Needlework of the

English Queens and Princesses.

"And, round about, her worke she did empale
With a faire border wrought of sundrie flowres,
Enwoven with an yvie-winding trayle:

A goodly worke, full fit for kingly bowres;
Such as dame Pallas, such as Envie pale,

That all good things with venomous tooth devowres,
Could not accuse."

SPENSER.

"She wrought so well in needle-worke, that shee,
Nor yet her workes, shall ere forgotten be."

JOHN TAYLOR.

HEN this volume was commenced, a list of contents was framed, to which we intended to adhere, and each chapter has been written in accordance with the plan. The present one was proceeding in the steps of its predecessors, when we dis

covered that we had already exceeded the limits proposed, and we