ere enjoying perfect protection, and were
clumsily taking advantage of our security from all competition. In the
Italian palaces this was the moment of the finest secular embroideries
in satin stitches, gold and silver, and "inlaid" and "onlaid"
appliques. Likewise in Spain and Portugal the Oriental work,
especially that executed at Goa, filled the palaces and the convents
with gorgeous hangings, carpets, table-covers, and bed furniture. We
feel it painful to contrast with these our own shortcomings in art,
and our faded glories.

The fact is, that, owing to our art-killing protectionist laws,
embroidery had the misfortune to be treated at that time as textile
manufacture, and not as art at all.

In the reign of William and Mary, Dutch taste had naturally been
brought to the front.[612] This included Japanese art, or imitations
of it, and also had something of late Spanish. The Georges brought
into England, and naturalized a rather heavy work, in gold and
silver--the design being decidedly a German "Louis Quatorze"--richly
stitched and heavily fringed, and much employed on court dresses and
on state furniture. We have seen royal beds and court suits which show
very little difference in style. It does not appear that this was
worked by ladies. It has, somehow, a professional look.

[Illustration: Fig. 29.
Part of James II.'s Coronation Dress.
From an old Print.]

Occasionally, however, we meet with pieces of exceptionally beautiful
work of the end of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth
centuries. The style is the most refined Louis Quatorze, but the work
is actually English. The white satin coverlets belonging to the
Marquis of Bath and the Duke of Leeds are not to be exceeded in
delicacy and splendour. The embroidered dresses of the Duke and
Duchess of Buckingham, in Westminster Abbey (early eighteenth
century) are of this description.

From Queen Anne to George III., a great deal of furniture was covered
with the different cushion stitches, either in geometrical or
kaleidoscope patterns, or else displaying groups of flowers or
figures, quaint and sometimes pretty. These designs are generally,
however, wanting in grace, and their German feeling shows them to be
the precursors of the Berlin wool patterns.

When the crewel-work hangings ceased to be the fashion, home work took
another direction. All the ladies imitated Indian dimity patterns, on
muslin, in coloured silks or thread, with the