EMBROI'DERY, the name given to the art of working figures on stuffs or muslins with a needle and thread. All embroidery may be divided into two sorts, embroidery on stairs and on mus lin : the former is used chiefly in church vestments, housings, standards, articles of furniture, &e., and is executed with silk, cotton, wool, gold and silver threads, and sometimes ornamented with span gles, real or mock pearls, precious or im itation stones, &e.; the latter is employed mostly in articles of female apparel, as caps, collars, &e.; and is performed only with cotton. The art of embroidery was well known to the ancients. As early so the time of Moses we find it practised successfully by the Hebrews; and long before the Trojan war the women of Si don had acquired celebrity for their skill in embroidery. At a later period, this art was introduced into Greece, probably by the Phrygians, (by some considered as the inventors ;) and to such a degree of skill did the Grecian women attain in it, that their performances were said to ri val the finest paintings. In our own
times the art of embroidery has been cultivated with great success, more cope eially in Germany and France ; and though for a long period it was practised only by the ladies of these countries ar agi elegant accomplishment, it is now re garded as a staple of traffic, and fur nishes employment for a large portion of the population. In England also it appears to have taken deep root, as it now forms an accomplishment of which almost every lady is in possession. A great impetus has been given to the cul tivation of this art, both on the Conti nest and in England, by the invention of a machine which enables a female to ex ecute the most complex patterns with 130 needles, all in motion at once, as ac curately as she could formerly do with one.
an alteration made in the text of any book by verbal criti cism.—In law, the correction of abuses.