says Mr. Planché, "the art progressed rapidly, in consequence of the increasing demand for a material which clothed the cold, comfortless stone walls of the castles and mansions of the nobility, and not only gave warmth and cheerfulness to the chamber, but frequently illustrated the actions of its owner or his chivalrous ancestors. The tapestries of Flanders were in great repute as early as the twelfth century; but although England was celebrated long previously for her wonderful needlework so much so, indeed, that all peculiarly fine embroidery obtained the name of 'English work' (opus Anglicum)-it does not appear that any successful attempts were made to introduce the weaving of hangings in this country, whilst manufactories were successively established at Brussels, Antwerp, Oudenarde, Lisle, Tournay, Bruges, Arras, Florence, and Venice. Of all these, that of Arras appears to have shortly become the most famous, and, indeed, almost substituted its own name for that of its production. Arras became in England synonymous with tapestry, and Arrazzi in Italy signified the most perfect description of this manufacture."

In the sixteenth century Francis I. established the manufactory of Fontainebleau, where gold and silver thread was woven into the work after the Florentine and Venetian manner. Henry II., besides keeping up this manufactory, established another in the Hôpital de la Trinité; and Henry IV. esta

blished another in the Hôtel de la Maque, where gold and silver threads were woven as at Fontainebleau. The famous manufactory of the Gobelins was established by Louis XIV., who purchased the premises of some clever dyers of that name (Gobelin) about 1666; and the productions of the Hôtel Royal des Gobelins are said to have attained the highest degree of perfection in the time of Louis's great minister, Colbert, and his successor, Louvois. "It was probably the reputation of the French, Flemish, and Italian tapestries of the sixteenth century that induced an English gentleman, named Sheldon, later in the reign of Henry VIII., to introduce tapestry weaving on a large scale into England. The Countess of Wilton, in her 'Art of Needlework,' states that Sheldon appropriated his manor house at Burcheston, in Warwickshire, to this purpose; the works being then under the direction of an artist named Robert Hicks, whom he mentions in his will, dated 1570, as 'the only author and beginner of tapestry and arras within this realm.' To James I. we are indebted for the establishment of the better known manufactory at Mortlake, under the management of Sir Francis Crane, about 1619. Two thousand pounds were given by the king towards the foundation of it; and an artist named Klein, born at Rostock, in the Duchy of Mecklenburg, was engaged to supply it with original designs. Charles I. continued the royal patronage, allowing Sir Francis Crane two

thousand pounds per annum for ten years in lieu of one thousand originally granted, 'toward the furtherance, upholding, and maintenance of the work of tapestries laterlie brought into this our kingdom by the said Sir Francis Crane, and now by him and his workmen practised and put in use at Mortlake in our county of Surrey.' Six thousand pounds was also granted as due to the establishment for three suits of gold tapestries. The king settled upon Klein an annuity of one hundred pounds in addition, which he enjoyed until the commencement of the civil war. The premises at Mortlake having been sold to the king by Sir Richard Crane, on the death of his brother Francis, were seized by the Parliamentarians as royal property; and though, after the Restoration, Charles II. endeavoured to revive the manufacture, and employed Verrio to make designs for it, the attempt was not successful. Foreign tapestry appears still to have maintained its superiority, or at least its vogue, as we find an Act of Parliament passed in 1663 to encourage the tapestry manufactures of England, and to restrain the great importance of foreign linen and tapestry." Tapestry was usually suspended on hooks in the

wall. The hooks for them remain along the nave walls of Winchester, and examples are preserved at Beauvais ; St. Peter's Mancroft, Norwich, 1573; Denbigh; a dorsal (1530), at Chester, of French manufacture, till lately used as a dorsal; at Merton College, Oxford; and Westminster, of the time of James II.

Polydore Vergil, in the sixteenth century, gave hangings embroidered with his arms for the stalls at Wells. Those given by Prior Goldstone to Canterbury are now at Aix. The screen hangings used for shelter and ornament at Exeter represent the story of the Duke of Burgundy, and were blazoned with the arms of the Courtenays. At Peterborough, in the transept, tapestry with the deliverance of St. Peter out of prison, of the time of Henry VIII., is the solitary relic of sixteen pieces used on festivals, and suspended till 1643 from the choir triforium. At Manchester, there is tapestry (c. 1661). From Christmas to Purification, from Easter Eve to the octave of Trinity Sunday, from the Assumption to Michaelmas, and on St. Chad's Day, Lichfield was adorned with silken hangings and cloths. At York, Archbishop Lamplugh gave tapestries for hanging the reredos. At Westminster, tapestries were hung round the easternmost bays at the coronation of Charles I., and remained till the last century. Until 1765, the bays between the pillars were hung with tapestry at Carlisle. The tapestry hangings remained at Norwich till 1740.-(Walcott.)

Of domestic tapestry examples remain in most of the old mansions of the kingdom.

CHAPTER XII.

AMONG PERSONAL ORNAMENTS.

ADORNMENT for the body, even when dress was wholly unknown or only partly used, has ever been a characteristic of the human race. At the present hour the Andamanese women, though entirely devoid of clothing, wear a chaplet or string of bones round the head; while other nude races will hang some rude ornament to the ear or nose, or round the neck, arm, or leg. As it is with them now, so it was with the earliest inhabitants of our island, and when dress became known, rude though it was, ornaments of one kind or other became more frequent. Necklaces, pendants, armlets, and one thing or other were worn by our Celtic foremothers at a very early period, and to these, and some of the adornments belonging to a later period, a half-hour may pleasantly be devoted.

Necklaces formed of jet (or cannel coal) and bone, or jet only, or amber, were worn by the ancient Britons, and are now and then found in the barrows