pieces for such purposes as ladies' cuffs or collars, decorative work
produced by the aid of the needle is generally large. Certainly this is
so in its finest forms, which are probably to be found in the
ecclesiastical vestments and in the altar frontals of the Renaissance
period, or even earlier. On the other hand, such work as exists on books
is always of small size, and, unlike the point-lace, it almost
invariably has more than one kind of 'stitchery' upon it--chain, split,
tapestry, satin, or what not.

Thus it can be claimed as a distinction for embroidered book-covers that
as a class they are the smallest complete embroideries existing, ranging
upwards from about 6 inches by 3-1/2 inches--the size of the smallest
specimen known to me, when opened out to its fullest extent, sides and
back in one. This covers a copy of the Psalms, printed in London in
1635, and is of white satin, with a small tulip worked in coloured silk
on each side.

An 'Embroidered Book,' it should be said, means for my purpose a book
which is covered, sides and back, by a piece of material ornamented with
needlework, following a design made for the purpose of adorning that
particular book. A cover consisting of merely a piece of woven stuff, or
even a piece of true embroidery cut from a larger piece, is not, from my
point of view, properly to be considered an 'embroidered book,' it being
essential that the design as well as the workmanship should have been
specially made for the book on which they are found; and this, in the
large majority of instances, is certainly the case.

With regard to the transference of bindings to books other than those
for which they were originally made, such a transference has often taken
place in the case of mediæval books bound in ornamental metal, but even