this stitch, especially in shades-a species of needlework executed with great elaborateness on cachemir and merino, in the Levant. Fine netting silk is the material best adapted for working in tambour: it is also very beautiful with gold passing on white crêpe.

The material on which tambour work is to be executed, must have the pattern traced on it, and should be stretched either in a tambour or square embroidery frame. In working, the right hand, which directs the needle, should always be above the frame, and the left beneath, to supply the silk or cotton, which is caught by the hook of the tambour needle, and drawn up through the work so as to form a loop on its surface; the needle should then be passed through that loop, and, piercing the material, be again drawn up with another loop on its hook, which is drawn through the first; a third and fourth, and so on, are then made, drawing each succeeding loop through the former. In flowers and leaves, it is advisable to work the outline of each first, and fill up the centres with successive rows of stitches. Round or oval leaves should be commenced on the outside, and worked one row within another, terminating in the centre. leaves require great care in the disposal of the to give a neatness and finish to the work. The stalks may be worked either in single, double, or treble rows, as their size requires, and according to the coarseness of the material employed.

The points of stitches, in order

The elegant embroideries and tambour work on net, muslin, and cambric, do not come within the scope of our department of decorative needlework, but the above directions are equally applicable to them.

* See page 96.

Chain stitch, an imitation of tambour work, is generally done on the hand with a common sewing needle, looping the stitches in a similar manner to that above described.*

* It would have been supposed that embroidery, the work of ladies' fingers, could never have been supplanted by machinery, yet such is the case. At the exposition of the products of national industry at Paris in 1834, a M. Heilmann, of Mulhause, exhibited a machine he had invented, by which a female could embroider with eighty or one hundred and forty needles, more accurately and expeditiously than she formerly could with one. This remarkable invention attracted considerable notice at the time; and several of these machines are now used in France, Germany, and Switzerland, and also at Manchester, where much of the sprigged embroidery for ladies' dresses is done, at a price which human labour cannot compete with, as it only requires the superintendence of one grown up person and two children, to do the daily work of fifteen expert embroiderers. The latter are merely employed to change the needles when all the thread is used, and to see that no needle misses its pincers, which, in this machine, supply the place of the finger and thumb of the embroiderer. We cannot here enter into a description of this machine, but the following short account by Dr. Ure may not be uninteresting:-" The operative must be well taught to use the machine, for he has many things to attend to: with the one hand he traces out, or rather follows the design, with the point of the pantograph; with the other he turns a handle to plant and pull all the needles, which are seized by pincers, and moved along by carriages, approaching to, and receding from, the web, rolling all the time along an iron railway; lastly, by means of two pedals, upon which he presses alternately with one foot and the other, he opens the one hundred and thirty pincers of the first carriage, which ought to give up the needles after planting them in the stuff, and he shuts with the same pressure the one hundred and thirty pincers of the second carriage, which is to receive the needles, to draw them from the other side, and to bring them back again."

Having so far trespassed, we cannot better conclude the subject of imitations of the needle, than by quoting the following beautiful lines from Barry Cornwall:

THE WEAVER'S SONG.

"WEAVE, brothers, weave!-Swiftly throw

The shuttle athwart the loom,

And show us how brightly your flowers grow,

That have beauty but no perfume!

Come, show us the rose, with a hundred dyes,
The lily, that hath no spot;

The violet, deep as your true love's eyes,
And the little forget me-not!

Sing,-sing. brothers! weave and sing!
'Tis good both to sing and to weare:
'Tis better to work than live idle,
'Tis better to sing than grieve.

"Weave, brothers, weave!-Weave, and bid The colours of sunset glow!

Let grace in each gliding thread be hid!

Let beauty about ye blow!

Let your skein be long, and your silk be fine,

And your hands both firm and sure,

And time nor chance shall your work untwine,

But all, like a truth,-endure !

So,-sing, brothers, &c.

"Weave, brothers, weave!-Toil is ours;

But toil is the lot of men:

One gathers the fruit, one gathers the flowers,

One soweth the seed again!

There is not a creature, from England's King,

To the peasant that delves the soil,

That knows half the pleasures the seasons bring, If he have not his share of toil!

So, sing, brothers, &c.

CHAPTER XV.

Canvas Work.

"The threaded steel

Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds."

COWPER.

In needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground."

BACON.

HE reason for comprising the various subjects included in this chapter under one head, is, that they are so intimately connected one with the other, that the rules relating to them, if any exist (a point on which we are ourselves sceptical), are of so general a nature as to apply partly to all. Certain it is, as has been elsewhere observed, that "there is a right and a wrong way of doing everything;" yet as we have so often seen beautiful effects produced without attention to rules, we feel extremely diffident in pronouncing any as imperatively necessary, except that of observing the right way of the

stitch. Beautiful groundings, both in cross and tent stitch, have been executed diagonally, as well as in straight lines; as also, when in cross stitch, where the whole piece has been half stitched one way before it has been crossed. The following rules and observations, therefore, are intended rather to show one certain and easy plan for attaining success in this branch of needlework, than to be considered as exclusive of all others. They are founded on observation, and the experience of those who have spent the greater part of what may be termed long lives in the practical part of each department. Every day shows how much there is still to improve and to learn in the art; and past days have often taught us how much we have been indebted to the superior taste and elegance of idea of those with whom our vocation has brought us in contact.

It is obvious that all Berlin patterns are intended for tent or single stitch, the checks on the pattern corresponding with the squares in the canvas, excepting designs where the faces and hands are drawn on a smaller scale; these can only be worked either in cross or Gobelin stitch. Some Berlin patterns, when closely shaded, and of a general uniformity of tint, lose none of their effect when enlarged by working in cross stitch, and even if copied on a gigantic scale, please from their boldness, whilst others, less calculated to be enlarged, are deprived of all grace, and become mere distorted masses of colouring. When it is intended to increase the scale of a pattern by working in cross stitch on a coarse canvas, the colours should be selected from the middle tints, avoiding very strong lights and shades, a rule to be observed whether the ground be light or dark. German wools may be used for working flower pieces; but English wool will be found smoothest and best for the grounding, or real German worsted perhaps is even preferable, and, in very large