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338 HISTORY OF LACE. arrival of the French settlers after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. At the same period, the author of the “Magna Bri tannia ” 7 states that, at'Woburn, “ lace of a high price is made in considerable quantities.” Savary and Peuchet both declare the town of Bedford alone to have contained 500 lace-workers. The lace schools of Bedfordshire are far more considerable than those in Devonshire. Four or five may frequently be found in the same village, numbering from twenty to thirty children each, and they are considered sufficiently important to be visited by government inspectors. Their work is mostly purchased by large dealers, who make their arrangements with the instructress : the children are not bound for a term, as in the southern counties. Boys formerly attended the lace schools, but now they go at an early age to the fields. The wages of a lace-worker average a shilling a day; under press of business, caused by the demand for some fashionable article, they sometimes rise to one shilling and sixpence. BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. Though the first establishment of the manufacture may have been in the sister county, the workers of Buckingham appear early to have gained the lion’s share of public estimation for the produce of their pillows, and the manufacture flourished, till, suffering from the monopolies of James I., we read how in the year 1623, April 8th, a petition was addressed from Great Marlow to the high sheriff of Bucks, representing the distress of the people from “ the bone-lace making being much decayed.” 8 Three years later, 1626, Sir Henry Borlase founds and endows the free school of Great Marlow, for twenty-four boys, to read, write, and cast accounts; and for twenty-four girls, “ to knit, spin, and make bone lace;” and here at Great Marlow the trade Defoe were published, with additions, by Richardson the novelist, in 1732, ’42, ’02, ’69, and ’78 : The last is “ brought down to the present time by a gentloman of eminence in the literary world.” 1 “ Magna Britannia et Hibernia, or a New Survey of Great Britain, collected and composed by an impartial hand, by the Rev. Thos. Owen.” Lond. 1720-31. 8 “State Papers,Dom.” Jas. I. vol. cxlii. P. R. O.