patterns has always been popular here, as also in Denmark, Sweden, and
Norway.

[Illustration: DUCHESSE LACE.

Modern.]

_Russia._

The Russian laces need little more than a passing note. As in Germany,
Lacis and Cutworke form the only hand-made lace known, the people
contenting themselves with these varieties and using coloured threads to
further decorate them. Their laces may be called merely Russian
embroideries. Peter the Great did much to found a lace school, but
only gold laces were made, of a barbaric character. Recently an attempt
has been made to imitate the Venetian laces, with very fair results, but
the character is very stiff and mechanical, going back to the primitive
forms of Reticella rather than the elegancies of Italian Point.

The only other Continental lace requiring note is

_Maltese_,

a lace made entirely with bobbins and on a pillow. This lace is of
ancient make, being known as early as the old Greek laces, which it
strongly resembles. Its very popularity has killed its use as a fine
lace, and at the present day it is copied as a cheap useful lace in
France, England, Ireland, and even India. The old Maltese lace was made
of the finest flax thread, afterwards a silk variety, which is well
known, being made in cream. Black lace was also manufactured, and at the
time of the popularity of black lace as a dress trimming it was much
used. At the present day the lace is not of the old quality, cotton
being frequently mixed with the flax threads. There is no demand for it,
and it is about the most unsaleable lace of the day.

X

A SHORT HISTORY OF LACE IN ENGLAND

[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH: RUFF OF VENETIAN POINT.

(_National Portrait Gallery._)]

X

A SHORT HISTORY OF LACE IN ENGLAND

Early samplers--Lace worn by Queen Elizabeth; by the early
Stuarts--Extravagant use of lace in time of Charles
II.--William and Mary's lace bill.

Even at the risk of being considered utterly unpatriotic, I cannot give
much more than faint praise to the lace-making of England up to the
present date, when notable efforts are at last being made to raise the
poor imitation of the Continental schools to something more in
accordance with artistic conception of what a great National Art might
become.

As in all countries, lace-making apparently commenced in its early
English stages by drawn-thread and cutwork. In many of the charming old
sixteenth-century English sam