344 HISTORY OF LACE. received examples from various localities in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and as there is much similarity in the products of the three counties, we shall, perhaps, better desciibe them by treating of them all collectively. The earliest English lace was naturally the old Flemish, the pattern wavy and graceful, the ground well executed. Fig. 122, Fig. 122. Old Flemish. Newport Pagnel. which we select as an example, is a specimen we received, with many others, of old Newport Pagnel lace, given by Mrs. Bell, of that town, where her family has been established from time immemorial. Mrs. Bell herself can carry these laces back to the Fig. 123. iinwiin"' Old Brussels. Northampton. year 1780, when they were bequeathed to her father by an aged lelative who had long been in the lace trade. The packets remain for the most part entire. The custom of “storing” lace was common among the country-people. Next in antiquity is Fig. 12:1, a lace of Flemish design, with the fine Brussels ground. This is among the Northamptonshire laces already alluded to.