suggest such imitation as do the lighter forms. To make my meaning clear I will just indicate the distinct schools of handmade lace properly so-called, referring earnest students to the more profound and exact treatises of Mrs. Bury Palliser and Mr. Alan Cole. It is with some regret that I find myself compelled to use a few foreign technical expressions simply because there is no proper English equivalent for them. In English, and sometimes also in French, the terms distinguishing various kinds of lace are hopelessly confused and blundering. To illustrate the difficulty which such loose nomenclature throws in the way of any writer who strives after some kind of accuracy I may mention that a large proportion of the so-called Irish lace exhibited at the Mansion House the other day was not lace at all, being made with the crochet-needle, and no more entitled to rank as lace than any other kind of knitting, netting, tatting, knotting, or other coarse imitations of true lace. Another absurdity is the frequent employment by the French of the term point d'Angleterre. Hardly any point-lace, properly so-calledthat is needle point-lace-has ever been made in England, and very little in Ireland until recently in the district of Youghal. Why, then, do French writers talk ecstatically of point d'Angleterre? The answer is simple. While the point-lace proper was being made in its highest perfection at Venice and in

France, it was skilfully imitated in the pillow or bobbin-lace of Flanders, and this beautiful fabric was called in France point d'Angleterre out of sheer ignorance. The term involves a twofold blunder, for the fabric was not point-lace at all, and if it had been could not have been made in England. It was, as a matter of fact, the beautiful pillow-lace of Flanders imported or smuggled into France while the deadly struggle between Louis XIV. and William of Orange was going on, in English ships. As it came through the hands of English merchants it was called point d'Angleterre, just as the turkey was socalled because it was brought to England by the Turkey merchants who touched at Cadiz or Lisbon, and the rich Italian laces were called point d'Espagne because they were stolen from Spanish churches, or again as Turkey rhubarb, which comes from China, obtained its name by being brought by caravan overland to Turkey, and thence imported into this country. It will get rid of much difficulty if at the beginning of a discourse on lace it is understood that the hand-made article is of three kinds--real point-lace made with a needle, bobbin-lace, made on a pillow, and a third kind of which part is made with a needle and part on a pillow. It will be also convenient to remember that "bride" signi

fies the small strip or connection of threads overcast with stitches which lashes together the heavy flowers in "rose," or more accurately "raised" point. When this connecting membrane becomes closer and finer as in the later Venice point, point d'Alençon, point d'Argentan, and in the contemporary Brussels point gaze it is called the "réseau," and is the general ground or body as distinguished from the flowers or pattern. The "brides" then gradually grew into the "réseau," and in the latter form became the base from which in point d'Alençon the flowered design was separated by a "cordonnet" or raised outline originally made of horsehair and stitched over. True point-lace is made with a needle on a piece of parchment on which

early "rose point, the laces of Alençon, Argentan and modern Brussels. The finest pillow-lace is the old Brussels, the various old Flanders laces known as point d'Angleterre, the laces of Valenciennes and the "right Mechlin." There are plenty of other laces, but these are the most distinct and noblest types. It is of little more use to discuss the various forms of guipure than to stray into the region of "Swiss embroidery," tambour embroidery, or other needlework.

One of the most modern of art products, lace, has yet had its schools, its history, its periods of perfection and of decadence. In pursuit of my plan of showing how a most difficult work was first brought within the range of machinery, it may be laid down

the pattern has been traced, the "réseau " or ground and flowers both being due to the same process. Pillow-lace is made by bobbins crossing and interlacing threads on a pattern made by pins stuck into a pillow, and various forms of so-called point appliqué by a combination of the two systems.

However dry this introduction to the terminology of lace-making may appear, it will, I trust, save my readers an infinity of trouble in the long run. To illustrate my meaning more perfectly, I will cite as examples of true point-lace the Italian punto tagliato à fogliami, whereof numerous fine specimens exist and patterns for which fill the old Italian lace-books in the Art Library at South Kensington; the Venetian

with general accuracy that the grand period of handmade lace did not extend over at most a century and a half. In the portraits of Francis the First, Henri II., Charles IX. and their contemporaries, there is visible only the frilled collar which under Henri III. expanded into the ruff. It is not till we pass from Titian and Janet Clouet to Rubens, Rembrandt, and Van Dyck, that we find lace properly so called. The fine Italian lace, with heavy flowers connected with "brides," was first fully displayed in the falling collars of the Louis XIII. period. At that time the massive flowers were the lace itself, and these were simply bound together with "brides," which were sometimes ornamented

in various ways. The next step was the

who wore the curious canons, or lace works spreading below the knee, asked for thinner and thinner lace. Hence the more modern point de Venise, the parent of recent pointlace. This delicate fabric was so largely imported into France that Colbert established the royal works at Alençon to prevent money from going out of the country. The Alençon work spread to Argentan, where the delightful ground called the réseau rosacé was largely produced. When point-lace making died out in France it was transferred to Brussels, where it is still carried to high perfection. I may note, as I pass on, that this fact helps to confuse the nomenclature of lace, for while modern Brussels point gaze is by far the finest lace now made by hand, old Brussels is distinctly a pillow lace.

When point-lace proper began to be

point d'Alençon itself became degraded into a narrow lace made in obvious imitation of Valenciennes and Mechlin, which at their best were very inferior to the matchless point. Marie Antoinette, who is made responsible for a great quantity of lace, degraded taste in this direction by introducing to fashion the lighter laces which served to decorate such airy fabrics as Indian muslin. At last, Alençon came to making a lace, semé de petits pois, only fit for frillings, quillings, ruchings, or whatever else they may be called. The fineness of the réseau had become of more importance than elegance of design. The "brides," gradually developed into a fine ground or body, had devoured the pattern, which was reduced from the design of a lappet to the edging of a frill.

It was this preponderance of groundwork and simplicity of pattern which evidently

set the bemused brains of Hammond at work. So far as the mesh or simple réseau is concerned, almost every known kind has since his time been produced by machinery. Between 1760 and 1770 Crane, Else and Harvey, in London, Hammond, Lindley, and Holmes, in Nottingham, were striving to make lace net upon the stocking frame. Their efforts were not very successful until Hammond came to the front. But some advances had been made. According to Mr. Felkin the machine called a "spoon tickler," covering two needles and delivering the stitch on both, was probably invented by John Lindley and introduced by Thomas Taylor, a framesmith of Nottingham. But very little had been done before the day on which Hammond and his wife sat drinking in a public-house at Nottingham-then reputed a notorious town for ale-bibbing. Hammond had improved the machine above referred to, and, so far as can be learned, was a clever workman, thoroughly conversant with the meshing art, but endowed with so little application and self-government as to

broad lace border on his wife's cap, and a lace caul, and thought he could imitate the fabric. Having borrowed some silk he went to work upon his frame, at his home in the Rookery, and produced a net which, with the assistance of his wife, was made into caps, having somewhat the appearance of lace and which met with a ready sale. He called the article Valenciennes lace, although it had no precise resemblance to that fabric. The title of Hammond to the rank of inventor of the Nottingham bobbinnet has been disputed strenuously, but the fact remains that he produced very saleable articles, and by making them obtained a precarious income, only labouring at irregular intervals to supply the most pressing necessities, "working by day and drinking by night; thus passed several years of the life of this original machine wrought lace manufacturer." After this many improvements were made, the point net, as it was called, being at last improved into the fast net, of which an immense quantity was made. Tens of thousands of people in Nottingham and