ations;
but although generally speaking _well worked_, they are too
complicated to be easy of execution, and very few indeed of those
brought to this country are ever _finished_ by the purchaser.

The history of the progress of the modern tapestry-needlework in this
country is brief. Until the year 1831, the Berlin patterns were known
to very few persons, and used by fewer persons still. They had for
some time been imported by Ackermann and some others, but in very
small numbers indeed. In the year 1831, they, for the first time, fell
under the notice of Mr. Wilks, Regent-street, (to whose kindness I am
indebted for the valuable information on the Berlin patterns given
above,) and he immediately purchased all the good designs he could
procure, and also made large purchases both of patterns and working
materials direct from Berlin, and thus laid the foundation of the
trade in England. He also imported from Paris a large selection of
their best examples in tapestry, and also an assortment of silks of
those exquisite tints which, as yet, France only can produce; and by
inducing French artists, educated for this peculiar branch of design,
to accompany him to England, he succeeded in establishing in England
this elegant art.

This fashionable tapestry-work, certainly the most useful kind of
ornamental needlework, seems quite to have usurped the place of the
various other embroideries which have from time to time engrossed the
leisure moments of the fair. It may be called mechanical, and so in a
degree it certainly is; but there is infinitely more scope for fancy,
taste, and even genius here, than in any other of the large family of
"satin sketches" and embroideries.

Yes, there is certainly room in worsted work for genius to exert
itself--the genius of a painter--in the selection, arrangement, and
combination of colours, of light and shade, &c.; we do not mean in
glaring arabesques, but in the landscape and the portrait. There is an
instance given by Pennant,[131] where the skill and taste of the
needlewoman imparted a grace to her picture which was wanting in the
original.

"In one of the apartments of the palace (Lambeth) is a performance
that does great honour to the ingenious wife of a modern dignitary--a
copy in needlework of a Madonna and Child, after a most capital
performance of the Spanish Murillo. There is most admirable grace in
the original, which was sold last winter at the price of 800 guineas.
It made me