oloured wools (royal blue and rose-pink, magenta,
emerald-green, and deep crimson were supposed to represent the actual
colours of Nature), on very coarse canvas. Landseer's paintings were
favourite studies, "Bolton Abbey in the Olden Times" lending itself to a
choice range of violent colours and striking incidents. Nothing was too
sacred for the Berlin-wool worker to lay hands upon. "The Crucifixion,"
"The Nativity," "The Flight into Egypt," "The Holy Family" were not only
supposed to show the skill of the worker, but also the proper frame of
mind the embroideress possessed. Pleasing little horrors such as the
"Head of the Saviour in His Agony," and that of the Virgin with all her
tortured mother love in her eyes were considered fit ornaments for
drawing-room, which by the way were also adorned with wool and cotton
crochet antimacassars, waxwork flowers under glass, and often
astonishingly good specimens of fine Chelsea, Worcester, and Oriental
china.

Never was the questions of how "having eyes and yet seeing not" more
fully exemplified. The nation abounded in paintings, prints, fine
needlework, and the product of our greatest period of porcelain
manufacture. Fine examples were at hand everywhere. Exquisite prints
belonging to our only good period, the eighteenth century, were common;
yet rather than try their skill in copying these, the needlewomen, who
possessed undoubted skill, enthusiasm, and infinite patience, preferred
to copy realistic paintings of the Landseer school and the highly
coloured prints of the Baxter and Le Blond period.

Unfortunately, the craze is by no means buried. Within the last twelve
months I was invited to see the "works" of a wonderful needlewoman in a
little Middlesex village. The local clergyman and doctor were
sufficiently benighted even in these days of universal culture to admire
her work, and her fame had spread. Room after room was filled with 10 by
8-feet canvases; every drawer in the house was crammed with the result
of this clever woman's work--for clever she undoubtedly was. After
exhausting all the known subjects of Landseer and his school, she had
struck out a line for herself, and had copied the _Graphic_ and
_Illustrated London News_ Supplements of the stirring scenes from the
South African War, such as "The Siege of Ladysmith," "The Death of the
Prince Imperial" in all its gruesome local colouring, were worked on
gigantic canvases. Her great _chef d'oeuvre_ was, however, t