Volltext Seite (XML)
260 HISTORY OF LACE. to have been made, as they are in the present day, of hone cut into the prescribed form. Shakespeare, in “ Twelfth Night,” speaks of “ The spinsters and the knitters in the snn, And the free maids that weave their threads with 1)0116.” The Devonshire lace-makers, on the other hand, deriving their knowledge from tradition, consider the term as applying not to bone bobbins, but the bone pins used in pricking out the lace. When lace-making was first introduced into their county, pins, 41 so indispensable to their art, being then sold at a price far beyond their means, the lace-makers, mostly the wives of fishermen living along the coast, adopted the bones of fish, which, paied and cut into regular lengths, fully ansivered as a substitute. Even at the present day pins made from chicken bones continue to be employed in Spain; and bone pins axe still used in Portugal. 42 “ Pone ” lace 43 constantly appears in the wardrobe accounts; while bobbin lace 44 is of less frequent occurrence. 41 It is not known when brass wire pins were first made in England, but it must have been before 1513, in wliieh year a statute was passed (35 Hen. VlII.), entitled, “ An Act for the True Making of Pynnes,” in which the price is fixed not to exceed 6s. 8d. per 1000. By an act of Itich. III., the importation of pins was prohibited. Tiie early pins were of boxwood, bone, bronze, or silver. In 1347 (“ Liber Garderobte,” 12-16 Ed w. III. P. li. O.), we have a charge for 12,000 pins for the trousseau of Joanna, daughter of Edward III., betrothed to Peter the Cruel. The young princess probably escaped a miserable married life by her decease of the black death at Bordeaux, when on her way to Custille. The annual import of pins, in the time of Elizabeth, amounted to 32971. “ State Papers, Dom.” Eliz. vol. viii. P. B. O. In Eliz. Q. of Bohemia's Expenses, we find: “Dix mille espingles dans un papier, 4 florins.”—for. Gorr. No 41. P. B. O. “ In Holland, pillow-lace is called Pin- work lace — Gespelde-werkte kant.”— SernlVs Eng. and Dutch Diet. 42 Bone pins were in use until a re cent period, and renounced only on ac count of their costliness. Tlio author purchased of a Devonshire lace-maker one, bearing date 1829, with the name tattooed into the bone, the gift of some long-forgotten youth to her grand mother. These bone or wood bobbins, some ornamented with glass beads—the more ancient with silver let in—are the calendar of a lace-worker’s life. One records her first appearance at a neigh bouring fair, or May meeting; a second was the first gift of her good man, long cold in his grave ; a third, the first prize brought home by her child from the dame school, and proudly added to her mother’s cushion : one and all, as she sits weaving her threads, are memories of bygone days of hopes and fears, of joys and sorrows; and though many a sigh it calls forth, she cherishes her well-worn cushion as an old friend, and works away, her present labour lightened by the memory of the past. 43 “ Surtees Wills and Inv.” “ Hearing bone lace value 5s. id.” is mentioned ‘‘in y" shoppe of John John ston, of Darlington, merchant.” 44 “ 1578. James Backhouse, of Kirby in I.onsdalc. Bobbin lace, 6s. per ounce.” “ 1597. JolmFarbeck, of Durham. In y° Shoppe, 4 oz. & J of Bobbin lace, 6,«. id.”—[hid.