at Poissy a couple of coifs, with gold and silver crowns, such as they have made for me before. Remind Breton of his promise to send me from Italy the newest kind of head-dress, veils, and ribands, wrought with gold and silver, and I will repay him.

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September 22.-Deliver to my uncle the cardinal the two cushions of my work which I send herewith Should he be gone to Lyons, he will doubtless send me a couple of beautiful little dogs; and you likewise may procure a couple for me; for, except in reading and working, I take pleasure solely in all the little animals I can obtain. You must send them hither very comfortably put up in baskets.

"February 12, 1576.-I send the king of France some poodle-dogs (barbets), but can only answer for the beauty of the dogs, as I am not allowed either to hunt or to ride."*

It is said that one of the articles which in its preparation beguiled her, perchance, of some melancholy thoughts, was a waistcoat which, having richly and beautifully embroidered, she sent to her son; and that this selfish prince was heartless enough to reject the offering because his mother (still surely Queen of Scotland in his eyes) addressed it to him as prince.

The poet so often quoted wrote the subjoined sonnet in Queen Elizabeth's praise, whose skill with her needle was remarkable. She was especially an adept in the embroidering with gold and silver,

* Von Raumer's Contributions.

and practised it much in the early part of her life, though perhaps few specimens of her notability now exist :

"When this great queene, whose memory shall not

By any terme of time be overcast ;

For when the world and all therein shall rot,
Yet shall her glorious fame for ever last.
When she a maid had many troubles past,
From jayle to jayle by Maries angry spleene:
And Woodstocke, and the Tower in prison fast,
And after all was England's peerelesse queene.
Yet howsoever sorrow came or went,
She made the needle her companion still,
And in that exercise her time she spent,

As many living yet doe know her skill.

Thus shee was still, a captive, or else crown'd,

A needlewoman royall and renown'd."

Of Mary II., the wife of the Prince of Orange, Bishop Fowler writes thus:-" What an enemy she was to idleness! even in ladies, those who had the honour to serve her are living instances. It is well known how great a part of the day they were employed at their needles and several ingenuities; the queen herself, when more important business would give her leave, working with them. And, that their minds might be well employed at the same time, it was her custom to order one to read to them, while they were at work, either divinity or some profitable history."

And Burnet thus:-" When her eyes were endangered by reading too much, she found out the amusement of work; and in all those hours that were not given to better employment she wrought with her own hands, and that sometimes with so constant a diligence as if she had been to earn her

bread by it. It was a new thing, and looked like a sight, to see a queen working so many hours a day."

Her taste and industry in embroidery are testified by chairs yet remaining at Hampton Court.

The beautiful and unfortunate Marie Antoinette, lively as was her disposition, and fond as she was of gaiety, did not find either the duties or gaieties of a court inconsistent with the labours of the needle. She was extremely fond of needlework, and during her happiest and gayest years was daily to be found at her embroidery-frame. Her approach to this was a signal that other ladies might equally amuse themselves with their various occupations of embroidery, of knitting, or of untwisting—the profitable occupation of that day; and which was so fashionable, such a "rage," that the ladies of the court hardly stirred anywhere without two little workbags each-one filled with gold fringes, laces, tassels, or any golden trumpery they could pick up, the other to contain the gold they unravelled, which they sold to Jews.

It is said to be a fact that duchesses-nay, princesses-have been known to go about from Jew to Jew in order to obtain the highest price for their gold. Dolls and all sorts of toys were made and covered with gold brocades; and the gentlemen never failed rendering themselves agreeable to their fair acquaintance by presenting them with these toys!

Every one knows that the court costume of the French noblemen at that period was most expensive; this absurd custom rendered it doubly, trebly

so; and was carried to such an excess, that frequently the moment a gentleman appeared in a new coat the ladies crowded round him and soon divested it of all its gold ornaments.

The following is an instance: The Duke de Coigny one night appeared in a new and most expensive coat suddenly a lady in the company remarked that its gold bindings would be excellent for untwisting. In an instant he was surrounded-all the scissors in the room were at work; in short, in a few moments the coat was stripped of its laces, its galoons, its tassels, its fringes; and the poor duke, notwithstanding his vexation, was forced by politeness to laugh and praise the dexterity of the fair hands that robbed him."

But what a solace did that passion for needlework, which the queen indulged in herself and encouraged in others, become to her during her fearful captivity. This unhappy princess was born on the day of the Lisbon earthquake, which seemed to stamp a fatal mark on the era of her birth; and many circumstances occurred during her life which have since been considered as portentous.

""Tis certain that the soul hath oft foretaste

Of matters which beyond its ken are placed."

One circumstance, simple in itself and easily explained, is recorded by Madame Campan as having impressed Marie with shuddering anticipations of evil:

"One evening, about the latter end of May, she was sitting in the middle of her room, relating several remarkable occurrences of the day. Four wax

candles were placed upon her toilet; the first went out of itself—I relighted it; shortly afterwards the second, and then the third, went out also: upon which the queen, squeezing my hand with an emotion of terror, said to me, Misfortune has power to make us superstitious; if the fourth taper go out like the first, nothing can prevent my looking upon it as a fatal omen!'-The fourth taper went out."

6

At an earlier period Goëthe seems, with somewhat of a poet's inspiration, to have read a melancholy fate for her. When young he was completing his studies at Strasburg. In an isle in the middle of the Rhine a pavilion had been erected, intended to receive Marie Antoinette and her suite, on her way to the French court.

"I was admitted into it," says Goëthe, in his Memoirs: " on my entrance I was struck with the subject depicted in the tapestry with which the principal pavilion was hung, in which were seen Jason, Creusa, and Medea; that is to say, a representation of the most fatal union commemorated in history. On the left of the throne the bride, surrounded by friends and distracted attendants, was struggling with a dreadful death; Jason, on the other side, was starting back, struck with horror at the sight of his murdered children; and the Fury was soaring into the air in her chariot drawn by dragons. Superstition apart, this strange coincidence was really striking. The husband, the bride, and the children, were victims in both cases: the fatal omen seemed accomplished in every point."

The following notices of her imprisonment would but be spoiled by any alteration of language. We