II. ITALIAN ROSE POINT. Part of Ecclesiastical Vest ment in the South Kensington Museum. 12. Pattern for working the same with needle and thread only. 13. NARROW Lace in the BOCK COLLECTION." South Kensington Museum. 14. Pattern for copying the same with braid, wide and narrow, and brides. 15. Original design for working lace d'oyley with braid, brides, and stitches. 16. ITALIAN LACE. 17th Century. No. 582 in the South Kensington Museum. This is a curious kind of lace, in which pieces of tape are introduced. 17. PORTUGUESE LACE. 17th Century. No. 584 in the South Kensington Museum. In this piece of lace two distinct patterns are to be seen. OLD POINT LACE. HE object of the present work is to assist in remedying a great defect of most modern amateur lace, viz., a mistaken style of pattern. The aim of making lace by hand is to revive the ancient art, of which such beautiful specimens have survived the decay of centuries. So far as the materials employed, and the delicacy and variety of stitches, the same degree of perfection has been already attained by many of our modern workers as by their ancient predecessors. But in spite of the care and industry bestowed, and the great strain on patience and eyesight involved, there is still one most important portion of the work which continues to be comparatively neglected, and that is, the design, in consequence of which neglect, modern point lace is, when compared with old lace, like a body without a soul. This want of variety and beauty in design is the more remarkable, since the work is chiefly undertaken by the most refined enjoyers of " elegant leisure," who are supposed to possess an amount of delicate fancy and taste, scarcely to be expected from those who "stitch, stitch, stitch," merely to keep themselves alive on bread and tea. The difference between the patterns now used for point lace and the old specimens is this, the modern lace consists of an exact and continuous repetition of a design, which is contained in four or five inches of space, whereas the old lace displays a constant variety and change in the pattern throughout the entire length of the piece; there is also a freedom and originality in the design which constitutes its chief beauty. In this consists the superiority of hand over machine made lace. The iron machinery can repeat network stitches by the million, with greater precision and rapidity than any fair fingers can attain, but at best such repetition is tedious to the eye. The charm of variety and the beauty of novelty can only be found in the work of skilled hands, guided by fanciful minds, and not in the productions of iron wheels set a-going by steam. In order to a complete restoration of the art of point lace making, each worker should design and amplify the pattern as the work progresses; but this would require an amount of invention not possessed by many, and to those who have it not, the following pages will be useful. In them are shown exact mirable pieces of old lace pre served in the South Kensington Museum ; each one is of a different style or period, and is a good specimen of its class. To facilitate the reproduction of this old lace, a diagram for working accompanies each specimen, and in this diagram the design is so modified as to render it easy by the present abbreviated method of working. In the old lace may be remarked an absence of geometrical precision, and in the most ancient, a certain uncouthness which has a charm of its own, and which contrasts very favourably with many of the patterns of the present day, in which geometrical stiffness and monotonous similarity are the most remarkable features. It is hoped that this book, by aiding some fair votaries of point lace to really copy the beautiful old relics of antique art-work (wo)manship, may induce them to aim still higher, so that by exerting the fanciful and imaginative faculties so largely possessed by the |