noticed that the pictures and descriptions of embroidered specimens have been the most keenly appreciated, and this favourable sign has led me to examine and consider such examples as have come in my way more carefully than I might otherwise have done.  Very little study sufficed to show that in England alone there was for a considerable period a regular and large production of embroidered books, and further, that the different styles of these embroideries are clearly defined, equally from the chronological and artistic points of view.  A peculiarly English art which thus lends itself to orderly treatment may fairly be made the subject of a brief monograph.

With the exception of point-lace, which is sometimes made in small pieces for such purposes as ladies’ cuffs or collars, decorative work produced by the aid of the needle is generally large.  Certainly this is so in its finest forms, which are probably to be found in the ecclesiastical vestments and in the altar frontals of the Renaissance period, or even earlier.  On the other hand, such work as exists on books is always of small size, and, unlike the point-lace, it almost invariably has more than one kind of ‘stitchery’ upon it—­chain, split, tapestry, satin, or what not.

Thus it can be claimed as a distinction for embroidered book-covers that as a class they are the smallest complete embroideries existing, ranging upwards from about 6 inches by 3-1/2 inches—­the size of the smallest specimen known to me, when opened out to its fullest extent, sides and back in one.  This covers a copy of the Psalms, printed in London in 1635, and is of white satin, with a small tulip worked in coloured silk on each side.

An ‘Embroidered Book,’ it should be said, means for my purpose a book which is covered, sides and back, by a piece of material ornamented with needlework, following a design made for the purpose of adorning that particular book.  A cover consisting of merely a piece of woven stuff, or even a piece of true embroidery cut from a larger piece, is not, from my point of view, properly to be considered an ‘embroidered book,’ it being essential that the design as well as the workmanship should have been specially made for the book on which they are found; and this, in the large majority of instances, is certainly the case.

With regard to the transference of bindings to books other than those for which they were originally made, such a transference has often taken place in the case of mediaeval books bound in ornamental metal, but even in these instances it must be recognised that such a change can seldom be made without serious detriment.  It is chiefly indeed from some incongruity of style or technical mistake in the re-putting together that we are led to guess that the covers have been thus tampered with.  Now and then such a transference occurs in the case of leather-bound books, and in such instances is usually easy for a trained binder to detect.  Embroidered covers, on the other hand, have rarely been changed, the motive for such a proceeding never having been strong, and the risk attending it being obvious enough.  We may, in fact, feel tolerably sure that the large majority of embroidered covers still remain on the boards of the books they were originally made for.