who could teach the technique of the work, but who seemed to me to possess vague ideas of design, and practically no power of accurate draughtsmanship. A good deal of their inspiration for design was derived from the wallpapers in their cottages.

The design side of the industry, however, is being looked after by the county council: for the committee have recently invited art schools and students in the county to submit designs suitable for Honiton lace sprigs, and for a collar into which the sprigs may be introduced; and are offering prizes. These designs were not due to be sent into the county council until 31st January last, and how far they may prove to be suitable has not, I believe, been yet ascertained. But this branch of the general movement, undertaken by the Devonshire County Council, should certainly lead to satisfactory results in course of time. So far however as the present is concerned with the supply of educationally sound patterns for use in the classes aided by the county council, I cannot help thinking that the best that can be obtained should be obtained. The source of supply should not be limited to the Devonshire Art Schools which, up to the present, have not done much in the way of designing for lace.

:

A few years ago the late Sir Cuthbert Peek, in his interest for the industry, asked me to help him in getting new styles of design, especially with the object of trying new experiments. A Devonshire designer could not be found readily, so we brought in the services of some Irish designers. The patterns they sent over seemed well suited for the experiment. Sir Cuthbert placed them in the hands, I think, of Mrs. Fowler, of Honiton and in course of time a handkerchief border or two were made with success, both as regards dainty texture and pleasing effect. One or two other trial bits were also produced, and these I will now throw on to the screen as evidences that, however much Honiton lace-makers may be said to be wedded to their traditional patterns, they are well able to make good lace from others. I do not suggest that these bits are of a style that everyone will admire, or that need be adopted. They are nothing more than suggestive, that traditional forms and traditional fillings and enrichments, all of which are singularly limited, may be dispensed with, and need not continue to stand in the way of development and progress. Other well-known dealers in lace have, from time to time, made use of designs which are not of Devonshire

origin or tradition. The late Mrs. Treadwin, of Exeter, who has been succeeded so worthily by Miss Herbert, frequently caused some very remarkable laces to be made. Of such I have a slide to show. Upon it are three examples. The upper one is from a design which was especially prepared for Mrs. Treadwin. It is admirable both in texture and in the rendering of the forms employed in it. I think that without imterfering with the necessary scheme of the composition, there might have been more variety in the subservient details. It seems to me that it is indispensable for ultimate success that judicious variation should enter into all designs for hand-made lace. It is thereby lifted away from that class of lace which machinery can imitate, with commercial profit.

The centre piece of the three on the screen is an extraordinary careful reproduction of a late 17th century needle-point lace. Indeed it is so good, that by the great number of lace amateurs it would be indistinguishable from the original French or Venetian lace. Such reproductions are justified by the occasional demand which occurs for them. For ordinary trade purposes, however, the practice in making them is probably a mistake since the copy is almost certain to be inferior to the original. As a discipline in careful workmanship, making precise copies of parts of old laces of high standard is valuable. But this of course is very different from encouraging high-class experienced workers to produce slavish copies of old laces.

The third and lowest of the three pieces is one of such slavish copies. It is from a Brussels lace of the late 17th century which was cut into, unfortunately, and the conscquent mutilations of forms along the upper part of the border have been imitated. There does not seem to me to be much virtue in such imitation It encourages an impression that mutilations in old specimens are venerable characteristics of departed styles.

The Royal Commission for the St. Louis Exhibition, which is to open on 30th April next, decided to form a small representative collection of British laces, and a section of it consists of a selection of the latest specimens of Devonshire lace. These specimens have been contributed by Miss Trevelyan, Mrs. Bernard, and other ladies, as well as by some of the well-known lace dealers at Exeter, Sidbury, Beer, and Honiton. All have been made from fresh and carefully prepared designs.

as to style but varied in form-applied to net, and the broad insertions and edging to the skirt are of Devonshire guipure.

The next of the St. Louis exhibits is part of an altar border designed by Mr. Walter Cave for the church at the village of Sidbury. (Fig. 5.) I have to show this in two slides. The lace was made by Mrs. Pearson, of Sidbury. It is of beautiful workmanship.

This large collar of guipure (Fig. 6) comes

of Wales, from a design, I think, by Mrs. Fowler's niece. She is a skilful draughtswoman, and has charge of the drawings and prickings issued for use by Mrs. Fowler to her workers.

The next piece is a collar in which naturalistic sprays of convolvulus are the chief features.

The last example (Fig. 7) is similar in style of design, with branches of blackberries and sprays of honeysuckle.

Now these St. Louis specimens are practically the latest exponents of the new developments which are taking place in Devonshire. They are peculiarly encouraging, in the fact that they anticipate anything of the kind that will result from the operations of the county council, and may, therefore, act as a tonic to such future operations.

The prizes which I hope the county council of Devonshire will continue to offer for lace designs, cannot fail to stimulate art students at Teignmouth, Plymouth, and Exeter. I am glad of this opportunity to mention the earnest manner in which Mr. Finch, the head master of the Teignmouth School of Art, is giving attention to this matter.

I have purposely avoided making any particular comments concerning the influence of trade in developing the lace industry. Trade conditions are of a very spccial nature, and considerations in forcing or supplying a demand may not always harmonise with either artistic result or improved rate of wages to workers. Still, without trade the industry would not live. Philanthropy sometimes seems to think otherwise and that she can rectify the back-slidings attributed to trade-and, at any rate, insure better payment for labour. But this usually proves to be an assumption of a hopelessly misleading character. It is on a par with the vague notion of starting a class without knowing what the class is intended to do.

Philanthropy might, perhaps, find an outlet for her endeavours if she concentrated them upon the cultivation of taste and refinement, and their infusion into general demand this might assist an output of better work and, no doubt, with better work would come better returns. The hand lace industry is scarcely of such a nature as to become strong enough to give its followers what can be rightly called a living wage; but I believe that it has permanent value in country districts as a means of auxiliary wageearning. In all circumstances, however, its educational and artistic environment must be well looked after, whether by trade, philanthropy, or local authorities, in order that it shall maintain its proper position well in front of machinery, and be enabled to compete successfully with sister industries abroad where the educational and artistic necessities were perceived two hundred and fifty years ago, and have ever since been cared for in a manner which, it seems, is only beginning to be realised in this country.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. HUGH STANNUS said he felt that, after so interesting and valuable a paper as the one to which they had listened, he ought to say what occurred to him as tending to help forward the end which Mr. Cole and all well wishing persons had at heart. He had been very much interested in Mr. Cole's running comments on the typical patterns of lace that he showed the meeting on the screen; and hoped that some of them would appear in the Journal, so that lace makers in the West might have an opportunity of knowing what a great authority on lace, in Great Britain, and probably one of the greatest authorities in Europe, thought on the subject of lace design. He liked Mr. Cole's ingenious idea of showing the portraits of persons with lace as a portion of the dress. He believed that many beautiful old textile patterns would have been lost had it not been that they had been preserved in the pictures which we had in the National Gallery and in other galleries. He remembered, with reference to that point, that there was a very beautiful effigy of a cardinal-he believed that it was Zeno-in St. Marco in Venice, and with the help of rubbing he had been able to obtain the whole of the pattern on the robes. This pattern was modelled in relief, in imitation of figured velvet, and it was quite possible to obtain a pattern in the manner he had described, and also from many other patterns which existed in modelled effigies. Mr. Cole's remarks about the technique were of the highest value. With regard to the distribution, Mr. Cole pointed out very admirably the want of variety. Not very many years ago, having to cover a wall with a stencilled pattern, he (Mr. Stannus) made, first of all, a frame-pattern, and then six or eight different varieties of fillings, and played them about. He supposed that, if the patterns for the lace workers were arranged in that manner, so that there should be a general framing form like some of the forms that had been shown on the screen, they might ask the workers or the designers in Devonshire to fill the framings with varied patterns; and in that way, while there would be a similarity in the general framing of the lace, there would be the invaluable quality of human variety and the evidence of the human mind working in the fillings of the frames, which no machine, however skilfully contrived, could produce. He noticed how pathetically Mr. Cole spoke about the workers not being able to make a living wage. Mr. Cole seemed to think that lace-making must always be looked upon as an accessory of the employment of the home dwellers. He (Mr. Stannus) had seen the same circumstances in Venice and elsewhere on the Continent, where the home dwellers were working at weaving, spinning, or lace-making. One grieved to think that the makers of that beautiful lace, which was so much an evidence of the luxury and the refinement of the present day, could not receive a living wage from the people for whom they worked. He trusted that,

through Mr. Cole's influence, there might be obtained such a number of new designs, and not only new ones, but racy and original ones, that lace might be brought more into vogue, and that the money of the purchasers of lace, instead of going out of the country for foreign workers, should be spent on our own countrywomen. He had often noticed in looking at lace designs that the designers seemed to consider that a piece of lace existed for itself only; but he ventured to think that they should look upon the lace as only an accessory to the dress, and that they should consider how the lace was going to lie and to fit against the velvet or silk or satin, or other fabric with which it was worn. He believed that if they did that, they would see that patterns might be very much more simple, and also more effective decoratively, than they were at present, and, consequently, less costly and therefore universally used.

Mr. CYRIL DAVENPORT said that a great deal of Devonshire lace was made by sailors after their day's work. He wished to ask Mr. Cole a question as to one of the collars which he had shown on the screen. It was whether the first one which was represented was pillow lace or point lace. He thought that there were one or two bits of the collar which were certainly needle point lace, and he should like to know whether the whole of it was of the same sort, or whether there was a mixture in the collar of needle point lace and pillow lace. With regard to the specimens which were going to the St. Louis Exhibition, as representing modern designs and modern workmanship, he was afraid that he did not think very much of them; but he hoped that the encouragement which had evidently been given for the making of designs of lace would have a good effect. He was afraid that some of the modern designs were not what they might be.

Mr. THOMAS, of the Battersea Polytechnic, said that at that institution they had no proper lace school and did not teach lace-making, but they had made lace designs for Buckinghamshire, and Suffolk, and Northampton, and also for Irish lace.

The CHAIRMAN said: He need not expatiate on the merits of the paper they had been discussing with so much cordiality of unanimous appreciation. Mr. Alan Cole was a past master of the subject on which for nearly thirty years he had especially concentrated his studies and researches in connection with the history and present condition of the artistic industries of this country. They would all remember the publication by the Arundel Society in 1874 of Mr. Alan Cole's folio volume on "Ancient Point and Pillow Lace." That was followed by his Cantor Lectures and papers on the art of lace-making in 1881; on the arts of tapestry making and embroidery in 1886; on Irish lace in 1889; on Egyptian textiles in 1889; and on means for verifying ancient embroideries and laces in 1894; and in 1888 by his "Report on the

Honiton Lace Industry to the House of Commons." Excepting the late Mrs. Palliser, whose delightful- the tautology must be excused-" History of Lace" first appeared in 1867, no one can speak with such authority as Mr. Alan Cole on lace, and alike in its practical, artistic, and historical aspects. He had unfortunately not seen the paper before it was read, and what he had to say on it was said on the spur of the moment, and suggested by observations made by others in the course of the discussion. As to the origin of lace designs,-it should be remembered that while lace as "needle point," and "pillow" work dates from the 16th century, the word "lace," is the Old French lags and las, which is an attrition of the Latin "laqueus "a noose [Compare lasso, also to de-light, i.e., allure, and, delicate] and in its earliest English use meant a snare; and then a line, string, cord, or thread used as an edging for clothes, curtains, &c.; or a plaited string for fastening stays [virgines "vincto pectore, ut gracile fient" Terence Eunuchus II., 3, 22] or shoes ["pedibus telaria nectit aurea Virgil Eneid IV. 239]; or again a binding of gold [“ Venys gold”] or silver tissue. Now lace in this last sense, i.e., of cords and tapes of gold and silver applied decoratively in "loops," and scrolls, and bands, and in every form

"Point" in the nomenclature of needlework means "stitched"; but "counterpoint" does not, etymologically, mean counter stitched," although quilting [from the Latin "culcita" or "culcitra," "a quilt," through the Italian coltre, coltrice (Spanish colcha), and French coulte, cuite, coutre, cuitre] is worked by "back-stitching"; and, moreöver, works out in its initial, simpler, forms in a criss-cross patterning like that arising from the " "leading of Gothic window panes. The genealogy of the word counterpane makes this etymology of "point" very clear:- Low Latin "culcita puncta," an embroided coverlet," Old French coutre- and coultre-pointe, Middle French contrepointe [modern French courte-pointe, and English

counterpo'nt" [Drayton, Barrons Wars (1603), vi., 43, Shakespeare "Taming of the Shrew" ii., 35], and counterpane. The word "cushion," sometimes derived from "coxa," the hips (f: cubital), and sometimes connected with "cinctum" and its cognates, is undoubtedly nothing other than the Latin [diminuitive of " culcita "] "culcitinum," through the [Italian culsino], Spanish coxin, and French coussin. The embroided and painted counterpanes of Chalons were called ras de Chalons: and here Chalons is the origin of such terms as shaloon and saloo [compare Hindu salu "Turkey-red (cloth)'] to be found in the Old Records of the India Office as denominations of oriental fabrics. Ras," in English "Rash," can be no other than the Hindi reshm" silk."

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+ Delicate, with the cognate lacuna, lacerate, lacustrine, lupine, lupin, &c., is direct from the Latin; while de-light is from the Latin through Romance and Old German. Some of the cognates of lace through Greek, Latin, Romance, and Germanic are lake [not the pigment], lagoon, lizard [? from the lace-like wrinkings on its skin,? or because it appears out of cracks in the walls], ulcer, wolf with such proper names as Adolphus, St. Bartolph, Bidulph, Ralph, Rudolph. The Greek roots of these words are lakes or rakos" a rag,' lakis "a reut," lakız, "Itear," lakkizo " Idig," lakos ** wolf," aulax "a furrow": these words all going back to the Old Persian vrach" to wound," and vehrka a wolf," and the Sanskrit vark" to wound," and erkasa wolf."

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