Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/84

54 from the waistcoat of the John or the Nicholas who had given the bobbin as a keepsake. What life-stories some of these old bobbins could tell!

Children began to make lace as early as four years old; indeed, unless early trained to the work their hands never acquire deftness. Board schools and compulsory education are destroying the ability to work as of old, as well as too often killing the desire for work in the hearts of the children.

Boys and girls were formerly taught alike, and in some of the seaside villages fishermen took up their pillows for lace-making when ashore.

Guipure à bride and scalloped-border laces in the Louis XIV. style were followed by laces grounded with Brussels vraie réseau. In the working of the latter, Devonshire hands were decidedly superior to their Continental rivals. This beautiful ground, which sold at the rate of a shilling the square inch, was either worked in on the pillow after the pattern had been finished, or used as a sub-stratum for lace strips to be sewn on. The detached bouquets of the Rococo period, and the Mechlin style of design towards the end of last century, eminently suited the Devon lace-workers, as dividing the labour. Each individual hand could be entrusted with the execution of a floral design, which was repeated mechanically. The superior finish of the Honiton sprigs between 1790 and 1815 was mainly due to this, but it was fatal to all development of the artistic faculty and to general deftness. During this period Honiton produced the finest laces in Europe.