Even to read of the marvellous works of embroidery that were fashioned in bygone ages is pleasant.  Time has kept a few fragments of Greek embroidery of the fourth century B.C. for us.  One is figured in M. Lefebure’s book—­a chain-stitch embroidery of yellow flax upon a mulberry-coloured worsted material, with graceful spirals and palmetto-patterns:  and another, a tapestried cloth powdered with ducks, was reproduced in the Woman’s World some months ago for an article by Mr. Alan Cole. {334a} Now and then we find in the tomb of some dead Egyptian a piece of delicate work.  In the treasury at Ratisbon is preserved a specimen of Byzantine embroidery on which the Emperor Constantine is depicted riding on a white palfrey, and receiving homage from the East and West.  Metz has a red silk cope wrought with great eagles, the gift of Charlemagne, and Bayeux the needle-wrought epic of Queen Matilda.  But where is the great crocus-coloured robe, wrought for Athena, on which the gods fought against the giants?  Where is the huge velarium that Nero stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by steeds?  How one would like to see the curious table-napkins wrought for Heliogabalus, on which were displayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast; or the mortuary-cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden bees; or the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of Pontus, and were embroidered with ’lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests, rocks, hunters—­all, in fact, that painters can copy from nature.’  Charles of Orleans had a coat, on the sleeves of which were embroidered the verses of a song beginning ‘Madame, je suis tout joyeux,’ the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold thread, and each note, of square shape in those days, formed with four pearls. {334b} The room prepared in the palace at Rheims for the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy was decorated with ’thirteen hundred and twenty-one papegauts (parrots) made in broidery and blazoned with the King’s arms, and five hundred and sixty-one butterflies, whose wings were similarly ornamented with the Queen’s arms—­the whole worked in fine gold.’  Catherine de Medicis had a mourning-bed made for her ’of black velvet embroidered with pearls and powdered with crescents and suns.’  Its curtains were of damask, ’with leafy wreaths and garlands figured upon a gold and silver ground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls,’ and it stood in a room hung with rows of the Queen’s devices in cut black velvet on cloth of silver.  Louis XIV. had gold-embroidered caryatides fifteen feet high in his apartment.  The state-bed of Sobieski, King of Poland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises and pearls, with verses from the Koran; its supports were of silver-gilt, beautifully chased and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions.  He had taken it from