LAGS.

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cated to tlio “ Tres-Chrestienne Heine de France et de Navarre,Marie de M4dicis,” and bears her cipher and arms, yet in the deco-rated frontispiece is a cushion, with a piece of laeis in progress,the pattern a daisy looking at the sun, the favourite impresa ofher predecessor, the divorced Marguerite, now, by royal ordinance,

“ Marguerite Heine, Duchesse de Valois ” (Fig. 6).

These pattern books being high in price and difficult toprocure, teachers of the art caused the various patterns to bereproduced in “ sam cloths,” 26 as samplers were then termed, andyoung ladies worked diligently at their cutwork, laeis, and rezeuil, 27much as a dame-scliool child did her ABC in the countryvillages of our own day. Proud mothers caused these chefs-d’oeuvre to be framed and glazed ; hence many have come downto us, chiefly of the seventeenth century, uninjured at the presenttime. (Coloured Plate I.)

A most important specimen of laeis was exhibited at the ArtInternational Exhibition of 1874, by Mrs. Hailstone, of WaltonHall, an altar frontal 14 feet by 4 feet, executed in point conte,representing eight scenes of the Passion of our Saviour, in allfifty-six figures, surrounded by Latin inscriptions. It is assumedto be of English workmanship of an early period.

When used for altar-cloths, bed-curtains, or coverlets, to pro-duce a greater effect, it was the custom to alternate laeis withsquares of plain linen:—

“ An apron set with many a diceOf needlework Bae rare,

Wove by nae hand, as ye may guess,

Save that of Fairly fair.”— Ballad of llardyhnute.

These works formed the great delight of the ladies of the age.Jean Godard, in his poem on the Glove, 28 alluding to theoccupation, says:—

“ Une femme gante'e oeuvre en tapisserie,

En raizeaux deliez et toute lingerieElle file— elle coud et fait passomentDe toutes les fassons. . . .”

“ Randle Holme, in “ The School Mis-tris Terms of Art for all her Ways ofSewing,” has, “ A Samcloth, vulgarly, aSamplar.”

” In the S. K. At. (Bock collection)aro specimens of rezeuil d’or, or networkwith patterns worked in with gold threadand coloured silks. Such were the richlywrought “ serviettes snr filez d’or ” ofAlargaret of Austria.

“Autre servyette de Cabes (Cadiz) ou-vree d’or, d’argent sur fillez et borde'ed’or et de gris.

“ Autre serviette a Cubes de soye grisoet verde a ouvrage de fillez bordee d’unetresse de verd et gris .”—Inventory alreadyquoted.

!S “Le Gan, de Jean Godard, Parisien.”1588 .

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