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HISTORY OF LACE.
Setting aside tlie jewels which still glitter around her parchmentform, no daughter of Pharaoh was ever so richly swathed.”
In Spain, it is related as the privilege of a grandee : all peopleof a lower rank are interred in the habit of some religious order. 18
Taking the grave-clothes of St. Cuthbert as an example, webelieve the same custom to have prevailed in England from theearliest times. 19
Mrs. Oldfield, the celebrated actress, who died in 1730, causedherself to be thus interred. The lines of Pope have long sinceimmortalised the story :—
“ Odious'. in woollen 1 ’twonld a saint provoke !
(Were tlie last words that poor Narcissa spoke.)
No, let a charming chintz and Brussels laceWrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face ;
One would not, sure, be frightful when one’s dead—
And—Betty—give this cheek a little red.”
“ She was laid in her coffin,” says her maid, “ in a very fineBrussels lace head, a Holland shift with a tucker of double ruffles,and a pair of new kid gloves.” Previous to her interment in West-minster Abbey, she lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber. 20 For
” Alluding to this custom of interringladies of rank in full dress, Madame deSevigne" writes to her daughter:—“ MonDieu, ma clicre enfant, quo vos femmessont sottes, vivantes et mortes ! Vous mefaites horreur de cette fontange; quelleprofanation ! cola sent le paganisme, ho!cela me degohteroit bien de mourir enProvence; it faudroit que du moins jefusse assure qu’on no m’iroit pas chercherune coeffeuse en meme temps qu’un plom-bier. Ah ! vraiment! fi! ne parlez plusdecela.”— Lettre 627. Paris, 13 Dec. 1688.
18 I.aborde, “ Itin. de l’Espagne.”Again, the Due de Luynes says: “ TheCure' of St. Sulpice related to me thefashion in which the Duke of Alva, whodied in Paris in 1730, was by his ownwill interred. A shirt of the finest Hol-land, trimmed witli new point lace, thefinest to be had for money; a new coat ofVardez cloth, embroidered in silver; anew wig; his cane on the right, his swordou the left of his coffin.”— Me'moires.
19 That grave-clothes were lace-trimmedwe infer by the following strange an-nouncement in the “ London Gazette ”
for August 12 to 15, 1678:—“Whereasdecent and fashionable lace shifts andDre.-sings for the dead, made of woollen,have been presented to his Majesty byAmy Potter, widow (the first that putthe making of such things in practice),and his Majesty well liking the same,hath upou her humble Petition, beengraciously pleased to give her leaveto insert this advertisement, that it maybe known she now wholly applies hen-elfin making both lace and plain of all sorts,at reasonable prices, and lives in CraneCourt in the Old Change, near St. Paul sChurch Yard.” Again, in November ofthe same year, we find another advertise-ment :—“ His Majesty, to increase thewoollen manufacture and to encourageobedience to the late act for burying inwoollen, has granted to Amy Potter thesole privilege of making all sorts of wool-len laces for the decent burial of the deador otherwise, for fourteen years, being thefirst inventor thereof.”
M Betterton’s “ History of the EnglishStage.” Her kindness to the poet Savageis well known.