400th ANNIVERSARY PUZZLE
This Needlework Sampler from 1804 is very unusual as it is both nonreligious and is also a Riddle. Can you solve it? The solution is right at the bottom of this page.
The name and date suggest that Caroline Mary Peachey was the only daughter of the Earl of Selsey. She Married Rev. Leveson Vernon Harcourt son of Archbishop of York on 19 Aug. 1815. There is a pencil portrait of her in The National Portrait Gallery. She died in 1871 but her date of birth is uncertain.
spoiler - solution below
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"My first to music gives expression, yet often is produced by fright"
= SHAKE
"My second I must make confession will send you to the shades of night"
= SPEAR
"My first and second rightly placed - Behold at once this nation's pride whose memory has long been graced by honors that have never died"
= SHAKESPEAR.
This month is the 400th anniversary of his birth.