DESIGN FOR BREAD-CLOTH IN TAPE-WORK. BY MRS. WARREN. DESIGN FOR BREAD-CLOTH IN TAPE-WORK. Materials.-Messrs. Walter Evans & Co's. Boar's Head Cottons, Nos. 20 and 30; a penny piece of tape the width as in Engraving; and a fine sewing-needle. In the ordinary way of sewing tape into points, make 16 of the latter (that is, on both edges, there are together 32), but 16 points on each edge; then join these together in a circle evenly, so that the join shall scarcely be perceived; slip the needle to the point nearest the join, and make a tight stitch now through the next point, and through the next; draw up these together, and fasten them with a tight stitch; now slip the needle up the tape to the next point on the outside edge; make a tight stitch; pass the needle to the next point, draw it up close to the former point; make a tight stitch; pass the needle downwards again to the next point below; make a tight stitch; now repeat from *. When finished, make another square, and sew them together as in engraving. Then with 30 cotton fill in the centres with crossed bars, diamonds, and wheels; the latter is simply loose buttonhole stitch worked round; then sew round a stitch loosely the reverse way to which the button-hole stitch was worked. The bars are merely two threads taken across. Then work button-hole stitch to the centre; now take the threads across the reverse way; work button-hole over them to the centre; pass the thread across to the other threads; work button-hole stitch over again to the centre; fasten the threads together well, and finish working over. The diamonds are two threads taken from point to point; then button-hole stitch worked over. Make of a sufficient size, as a border will not be required. DESIGN IN MUSLIN AND TAPE FOR Materials. Some pieces of tape same size as pattern engraved, and of the soft kind which does not curl. Sufficient book-muslin, of good quality, for the size of pillow. Messrs. Walter Evans & Co., No. 24, Boar's Head, and their embroidery cotton, No. 8. First make with a pencil spaces along each edge of muslin an inch and a-half square; crease some lines from point to point, and run a white thread in these DESIGN IN MUSLIN AND TAPE FOR A SOFA-PILLOW. BY MRS. WARREN. creases; now tack on the tape at each intersection, and stitch it in a small square; then with pencil trace out the patterns one at a time, leaving a square of muslin in the centre of each pattern. (This is where the cross-bars of cotton are.) Run the pattern round twice, widening the running at the point of each leaf; then overcast this very thickly with close button-hole stitch; now cut out the small square of muslin in the centre, turn in the edges close to the running, and sew in sewing-stitch thickly over. The cross-bars in the centre of these are worked with 24 cotton. The book-muslin is now to be cut away. The cushion should be covered in coloured material to suit the hangings of the room, and this work made up as a simple pillow-covering, to which a border may be added of the pattern engraved for bread-cloth, only that the tape must be that used for the sofa-pillow. hath trod down the fence, each petty vice will WRONG-DOING.- When once a weighty sin easily step over. A breach once made, the city is in danger to be lost. To think we shall be wiser by being wickeder, is the simple mistake of man. Ignorance herein is better than knowledge; and it is far better to want discourse than guilt. Alas! we know not what rich joys we lose, when first we launch into a new offence. The world cannot re-purchase us our pristine clear integrity. -Feltham. P DOMESTIC LIFE OF GERMAN LADIES tinet memorials than a name in a gene IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. THE roll which the Muse of History bears in her hand is a Palimpsest. Those great events which shape the life of nations; the career of leaders and rulers; the death agony of old beliefs and worn-out empires; the birth throes of the new; these, with their kindred themes, make up its outward record, the record of the sword and the palm. The underwritten chronicle is for the most part fragmentary, its characters often dim and half-effaced; the man who would decipher it must make up his mind to bestow a good deal of patient labour on his task. Here you come upon a vivid picture, followed by a provoking gap; there the faintest possible sketch, a bare outline, which sends the puzzled student on a search for those hints and intimations whence it is to gain some form and colour. Yet the history, once spelled out and put together, shall seem to us not all unworthy of the pains it has cost. It presents sketches of household life; the customs and ways of thinking of the age; the private life and surroundings of those men who in any way stood before the world in their day and gen eration. Most full of deep significance, of tender touches, of soft light and shadows cast from household joys and sorrows, is this story of the olive." Let us open on one of the most remarkable pages in the history of Europe: Germany in the sixteenth century. The superficial chronicle is familiar enough to us all. The voice of the monk of Wittemberg rings along the lines; on the horizon the day is surely breaking, but how red and stormy is that dawn! War, war; it is the key-note of the century. Nobles arming against their sovereign; the sorely-oppressed peasants rising on the nobles; war with the French, the Turks, the Russians, and the Spaniards. And most bloody, as most lasting of all, the fierce religious wars; all who could bear arms using them on one side or the other; every man's sword drawn against his neighbour. A history of strife and struggle which shall through all ages speak to the human heart as with the voice of a trumpet. From all this stir and tumult, however, the task to which we have addressed our pen lies far apart. Be it ours to lift in some degree the veil which time, and change, and circumstance, have all combined to weave over the real every-day life led by the ladies of that age and nation; those figures which appear as it were by chance in general history, and claim no more dis alogy, the monument they share with their husbands in some church, or a faded por trait on the walls of an ancient castle. Still, in mouldering letters and dusty archives traces of their personal existence may be found, and we present the truthful, though far too imperfect, sketch thus obtained to our readers, in the hope that some may share our own interest in this leaf we have borrowed from the records of the olive. Giving precedence to what forms at once the most imposing scene in social life, and the great event of a woman's existence, her marriage, we will describe one royal wedding of the period, which gives a faithful picture, with slight variations, of them all. No sooner had the preliminaries been arranged, than letters full of tremendous flourishes, with hundred-fold repetitions of every imaginable title, were despatched to the different Transparencies, High-borns, High-mightinesses, Royal Dignities, etc., to bid them all to the wedding. And they obeyed the summons in spite of distance or foul weather. Between two and three hundred guests were often gathered at one of these festivals. A ride of fifty leagues or more, through woods where they could scarce find a bridle path, over roads most wretchedly bad, over wastes where there were no roads at all, but more rivers than bridges, was esteemed a mere bagatelle in those times with a wedding-feast in perspective. Let us mix with that goodly company, who have been shadows for more than three centuries past, the company which gathered on that May morning in 1535, at Heidel berg, to honour the nuptials of Duke Frederick of Bavaria, second son of the Elector Palatine, Philip the Upright, with the Princess Dorothea, daughter of Christian II., King of Denmark. Down the slope of the Geisberg, on which stood the magnificent castle of the electors palatine, rode three hundred royal and noble guests to meet and welcome the bride. A brave show nobles and ladies with their countless retainers must have made, as they rode three abreast through the town, their horses glittering with the gayest trappings, the riders all clad in black velvet, countless plumes waving in the breeze, unnumbered jewels sparkling in the sunshine; and these by no means displayed by the ladies alone, for all the German nobles wore on such occasions massive gold chains, great golden eagles with fiery ruby eyes, diamond crosses, and magnificent necklaces of pre cious stones. Out they rode to a very unmusical uproar of trumpets and kettledrums; the burghers with their wives and daughters lining the way, the half-fed ragged populace all astir and agape to see the show. About a mile from Heidelberg the duke's procession met that of the princess, which had been formed at a neighbouring castle where she had rested the previous night after the fatigues of her journey. The bride, a fair girl in her eighteenth year, was attired in cloth of gold, and rode a white palfrey with crimson velvet trappings. On her right and left rode the bride-leaders, a queen and a duke; her governess, some staid elderly lady of the Danish court, followed close behind; then came a bevy of fair young maidens, the daughters of noble families in Denmark, transplanted with their princess into a foreign country; they all wore black velvet and were mounted on white palfreys with velvet trappings. Imagine how the trumpets roared; and those strong German voices rent the sky as Duke Frederick alighted from his horse, the princess was lifted down by her bride-leaders, and the bridegroom saluted the bride. The processions joined, they wound slowly up the Geisberg, the cavalcade vanished under the castle gateway, and there was to be no more show that day for the people of the town. Let us hope for them that though there was no more show, there might be good cheer, and plenty of it too; but on this head our chronicle is silent; these old yellow archives of court life have very little to say about the people. As for the peasantry, their condition at this period was even more intolerable than it had been before they rose in 1522. They were oppressed with the most cruel tyranny and extortion under the pretence of feudal rights, and might think themselves fortunate if their share in these festivities was not to whip the moats and ditches all night long, lest the sleep of their lords should be broken through the croaking of the frogs. ber of richly-dressed pages, with fifteen counts and knights, all bearing lighted torches. After a pause, the princess ap peared on her white palfrey, its crimson housings changed for snow white, fringed with gold; her wedding-dress was white satin, wrought with silver flowers; on her head she wore a crown of pearls. Her cortège was entirely composed of royal and noble ladies. The bride-leaders rode by her: side and supported her to the altar, where Duke Frederick was waiting to receive her, accompanied, of course, by those eternal trumpets and kettle-drums. These martial instruments figure considerably in the chronicle; they seem to have been quite as indispensable to a wedding as the bride. herself. They go to meet her, they follow her to church, they din the wedding party back into the castle; and afterwards, when we have had hardly an hour's rest, they start afresh, in accompaniment to the duke's herald, who rides thrice round the great court to summon all that troop of the fair and the brave into the castle court to take part in, or to witness, the tourney and other mimic feats of arms. The Princess Dorothea herself, seated under a canopy of cloth of gold, gave each victor his reward. Duke Frederick broke a lance in honour of his bride; the bold Count Philip of the Rhine won a golden spear; one of the duke's courtiers a sword of gold; the knight Von Leenrode a golden scabbard; and John of Heidek, who appeared as proxy for Duke Philip the Warlike, was graced with a golden gauntlet. The tourney over, the guests were marshalled in great state to the banquet, where a wild boar, roasted whole, formed one of the pièces de résistance, in every sense, we should imagine. As to good wine, there could be no lack of that in the castle of Heidelberg, where the famous tun is still a sight to see in one of the cellars. Kurfurst, Herzog, Landgraf, Ritter, all are gone; the castle itself is a heap of ruins; but the great tun from which the red wine Early next morning, Sunday morning-flowed, remains to show what mighty men the German princes especially favoured Sunday in their choice of a wedding-day, there was tapestry flying from all the houses, flowers flung down in abundance in the streets, and who shall say how many pairs of eyes to stare at the marriage procession to the church! The bridegroom, preceded by a herald, rode first, the proxy for the Emperor Charles V. on his right, that for the King of the Romans on his left; then princes, dukes, and nobles, according to their rank; these were followed by a num of the bottle were those old electors palatine and their guests. Fifty tables were daily spread for the wedding party through a whole fortnight at Duke Frederick's marriage, but the bride and all the ladies with her took their meals by themselves in another apartment. This was absolutely a savage old custom, and we are glad to find it beginning to go out at the Reformation. Imagine, if you can, a wedding breakfast, or rather a series of wedding breakfasts, without the bride; no well pleased mamma to beam benignantly from the head of the table; no pretty bridesmaids with just enough colour, pink, blue, or mauve, about their dress to make it coquettish and charming. No neat speeches and courteous healths; but a good deal of deep drinking and great varieties of feudal service paid by one half of the guests to the other. Kurfurst Johann frowning darkly because Duke Albert has set the wild boar before the Emperor's proxy, an office he swears to be his right; a margrave giving the golden wine-cup to Duke Eric; Count Otto and Ritter Wilhelm fiercely disputing who holds the silver wash-basin, and who the towel, to his suze rain. On rising from the long protracted revel all the company gathered in the grand hall of the castle to form the celebrated torchdance. Two counts paid feudal homage by arranging the dance and marshalling the guests, four others by dancing immediately before the bride and bridegroom, and two others by following them; all the dancers bore lighted wax tapers. Imagine the pageant of that stately dance as it wound in and out, round lofty halls and through tortuous passages; jewels blazing and flashing to the uncertain light; the gorgeous costumes, purple or crimson velvet flowered with gold, many-coloured satins and rich damasks, and the northern bride shining among them all, like one of King Solomon's rival lilies, in snow-white satin and silver, with the crown of pearls in her fair tresses. The torch-dance closed with the beilager, a ceremony always strictly observed, and which often lent its name to the wedding festival. The bride-leaders conducted the princess in her wedding-dress to a richly decorated couch, the duke was placed by her side in the presence of the guests; they rose immediately, and, with the torchdance and the beilager, the marriage ceremonies were completed. Early next day came the presentation of the morning-gifts (morgengabe). The company assembled in the castle hall, where the princess sat on a raised dais, under a canopy of cloth of gold. Duke Frederick first presented his morning gift to his bride, and after all the royal and noble guests had followed his example, the deputies from different towns in Denmark and Bavaria made their offerings. This sort of levee was concluded by a courteous speech from the duke's marshal, Count Eberhard Von Erback, in which he returned thanks on behalf of the bride and bridegroom. These presents were very splendid, and always 66 consisted of jewellery; gold chains, much more massive than those of London aldermen, wrought into curious twists and cables, and often set with precious stones; bracelets, necklaces, pendants, crosses, and rings. An ornament we should now-a-days only regard as a curiosity, but especially prized in those times as a wedding present, was a necklace made of large amber beads, or paternosters" as they were called, an insect imbedded in every bead. Happy the fortunate possessor, still more happy the fortunate wearer of so rare a treasure; he, or she might ride through the darkest wood secure of finding the way, feast unchecked by dread of apoplexy, and dwell in a plaguesmitten city without fear of infection; still more-and what bride would not covet so precious a cestus?-as amber possessed the virtue of attracting other substances to itself, so, wrought into a necklace, it caused the hearts of others to be drawn towards its wearer. Another favourite ornament, though it could not boast the potent virtues of an amber necklace, was the medallion or me daye. We give a description of a beautiful specimen bestowed by the Duke of Prussia,* as morgengabe, on his second wife, Anna Maria, daughter of Duke Eric of Brunswick. It was surmounted by a crown of diamonds, supported by two lions, underneath was a large heart-shaped ruby set with emeralds; three diamond lilies interlaced above the crown; the whole was surrounded by a border of the finest pearls. But let Master Arnold Wenck himself, the skilful Nuremberg artist, interpret the gage d'amour for us. He writes thus to the duke, and speaks like a man who loves the work of his own hands:-"I should have fashioned the jewel entirely of diamonds, had I not desired the signification of the emeralds and ruby. The emeralds with the ruby set forth chastity in ardent love; the diamonds signify constant faithfulness in love and sorrow; and the pearl pendant is a token of virtue. They are joined and interwoven with forget-me-not and honeysucklet wrought in enamel." All honour, say we, Duke Albert of Prussia, head of the ancient house of Hohenzollern, and grand master of the Tea tonic order. In 1522 he visited Luther, for the purpose of consulting the reformer on two important projects he entertained, viz., the secularisation of the Teutonic Order, and his own adoption of the title of Hereditary Duke of Prussia. These plans he carried into exec tion, thereby laying the foundation of the Prussian monarchy. In 1592 the Duchy of Prussia was united to the Electorate of Brandenburg by the marriage of the Elector, John Sigismund, with the heiress of the last Duke of Prussia. In 1701 his descendant the Elector Frederick obtained the royal dignity from the emperor, and was crowned at Konigsberg as Frederick I., King of Prussia. In German, Jelangerjelieber; the longer the dearer. |