yde;
A coronall on her hede sett,
Her clothes with byrdes of gold were bette
All about for pryde."

[211] In St. Paul's in London there was formerly an
amice adorned with the figures of two bishops and a
king, hammered out of silver, and gilt. Dugdale, ed.
1818, p. 318. See also Rock, pp. xxix-xxxii.

[212] Museum at Berne.

[213] A piece of Venetian work to be seen at the South
Kensington Museum is an altar frontal, worked in coral,
gold beads, seed pearls, and spangles. All jewellers'
work, including enamel, was much admired and introduced
into their embroideries. (See Rock's Introduction to
Catalogue of the Kensington Museum, pp. civ-cviii, ed.
1870.)

[214] On this gorgeous piece of Italian art there are
added a number of buttons (for we can give them no other
name), with crosses and hearts under crystal, which seem
to have belonged to another period and workmanship, or
else are to be attributed to a superstitious feeling on
the part of the maker, who placed these Christian signs,
perhaps, surreptitiously, and for the good of his own
soul.

[215] The Museum of National Art at Munich has a fine
collection of gold and silver, spangled, and black bead
head-dresses, now mostly antiquated, though in peasant
dress it yet survives.

[216] It is embroidered in gold, with red silk and gems;
and I have elsewhere said that it probably issued from
the Hotel de Tiraz at Messina.

[217] Terry, in his "Voyage to the East Indies," speaks
of the rich carpets (p. 128): "The ground of some of
these is silver or gold, about which such arabesques in
flowers and figures as I have before named are most
excellently disposed."

[218] These of late years have been the most gorgeous
objects at exhibitions of old needlework, and the
ambition and despair of collectors.

[219] Gold thread was also made of gilt paper, equally
by the Moors and the Japanese.

[220] In Aikin's "Life of James I.," p. 205, we have a
curious account of the monopoly of gold thread, that had
been granted, with others, to George Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham. The thread was so scandalously debased with
copper as to corrode the hands of the artificers, and
even the flesh of those who wore it. This adulterated
article they sold at an exorbitant price, and i