An early 19th century English sampler

The linen ground worked in silk thread in various stitches by Mary Howitt in 1804, with motifs of trees, rabbits, birds and a house below several inscriptions and further motifs of crowns and a heart.

The inscriptions, below an upper case alphabet, the numbers 1 to 15, and a lower case alphabet, read as follows…

‘Remember now thy creator in the days / of thy youth while the evil days come / not nor the years draw nigh when thou / shalt say I have no pleasure in them’

‘Modest Virtue it is said * / To be the Glory of a Maid*’…‘Prepare to / meet thy / God’

‘During the time of Life alloted me / Grant me good God my Health and Liberty / I beg no more if more thou it pleasd to give / I’ll thankfully the Overplus receive’

‘Devotion is the Souls securest Guard / And conscious Virtue is it’s own Reward’

‘Mary Howitt Aged 8 March ye 7 1804’

The sampler may have been made by a member of the Quaker Howitts of Heanor in Derbyshire and of Nottingham, of which William Howitt (1792-1879), who was educated at Ackworth School in Yorkshire, and his wife Mary, née Botham, were members. Both were writers, he prolific in many genres, and she the first to translate the tales of Hans Christian Andersen into English, and the author of the poem ‘The Spider and the Fly’. Mary Howitt, one of two daughters to John Howitt and cousin to the writer William, would have been born circa the date implied here.

The textile 53.4cm (21”) high and 21.6cm (8½”) wide.

Framed size 56.5cm (22¼”) high and 24.6cm (9⅝”) wide.