cross stitch.

The Chinese, the Chaldeans, and the Assyrians long continued to show
in their buildings the tradition of this style of decoration. In Egypt
there has been found some unfinished mural painting where the plaster
has been previously prepared by dividing it into small rectangular
spaces, apparently on the principle of the canvas ground for cross
stitches.

The name "mosaic" stitch does not interfere with, or militate against
the classical appellation of _opus pulvinarium_, which means "shrine
work" or "cushion stitches." These appear to have been from the first
considered as the best suited for adorning cushions, chairs,
footstools, and the beds on which men reclined at their feasts, as
they are firmly-set stitches which will stand friction.

Most of the work now done in Syria, Turkey, Greece, and the
Principalities, shows different forms of the mosaic stitches; so also
does the national Russian work, which is Byzantine. All these designs
are conventional and mostly geometrical.

This work, in the East, is generally the same on both sides. We may
infer that the spoil anticipated by Sisera's mother, "the garments
embroidered on both sides, fit for the necks of those who divide the
spoil," was of this kind.

Thus we see that the "opus pulvinarium" has a very respectable
ancestry; and though it had somewhat degenerated in the early part of
our century, and had languished and almost died out under the name of
Berlin wool work, yet it has done good service through the days of
mediaeval art down to the present time, both in England and throughout
Europe (pl. 42); and it will probably revive and continue to be
generally used.

Though the least available for historical or pictorial work, and not
by any means the best for flower-pieces (as the squareness of the
stitches refuses to lend itself to flowing lines or gradations of
colour, unless the stitches are extremely fine, and the work, in
consequence, very laborious), yet it finds its especial fitness in all
geometrical designs. It is also particularly well suited to heraldic
subjects.

A remarkable example of the use of cross stitches exists in the
borders of the Syon cope, in which the coats-of-arms are so executed.
This is of the thirteenth century; and besides these cushion stitches,
it exhibits all those which are grouped in the style called opus
Anglicum or Anglicanum.

[Illustration: Pl. 42.
Italian "Nun's Work," from a pyx cloth, sixteenth c