Here is another quotation: "Cloth of byssus symbolizes firm faith. Its threads surpass even ropes of broom in firmness and strength."[175] Pliny says the flax grown in Egypt was superior to any other, and it was exported to Arabia and India.[176] The first known existing fragment of flax linen in Europe was taken from the tomb of the Seven Brothers in the Crimea. Its date is 300 B.C.

In Solomon's time the Jews evidently depended upon Egypt for their fine linen. Herodotus describes the corselet of Amasis, the fineness of the linen, and the embroidered decorations of men and animals, partly gold and partly tree wool (i.e. cotton).[177]

All the finest linen certainly came then from Egypt, and was much finer than any that is now made. That we call cambric, was woven there many centuries before it was made in Cambray.[178]

Through the Phoenicians the fine linen came to Rome, as appears from the following notice of embroidery on linen by Flavius Vopiscus, in his "Life of the Emperor Carinus:" "Why should I mention the linen cloths brought from Tyre and Sidon, which are so thin as to be transparent, which glow with purple, or are prized on account of their laborious embroideries?"[179]

The history of a fine embroidered linen curtain for a Roman house might have been this:—Grown in Egypt; carried to Nomenticum (Artois), and there woven; taken to India to be embroidered, and thence as merchandise to Rome.

While flax was making its way northward, the Celts must also have taken it across Europe from their resting-place, after emigrating from the East. The word linen—lin-white—is a Celtic epithet, whereas flax is an Anglo-Saxon word.[180]

The Atrebates wove linen in Artois, 1800 years ago. Jerome speaks of their "indumenta," or shirts of fine linen; and the great weavers of to-day are still the Flemish descendants of the Atrebates. Their Celtic descent is witnessed in the Irish by their superiority in the crafts of the loom.

The fine laces of Venice, France, and Belgium are all of linen, i.e. flaxen thread. Clearness and strength in these delicate fabrics cannot be obtained with cotton, which, especially when it is washed, swells and fluffs, and never has the radiant appearance and purity of flax.

Embroidery is always a natural accompaniment of fine linen. Those that are still preserved to us from early and Middle-Age times are nearly all on linen, if not on silk. The woollen fragments are very few and imperfect. They have been invariably "fretted" by the moth.

White needle embroidery is mostly worked in linen-thread, though cotton-thread has been used a great deal, and is very fit for the purpose.

4. COTTON.

Cotton was native to India,[181] as flax was to Egypt. It not only was grown, woven, and printed there from the remotest antiquity, but was cultivated nowhere else. The Egyptians do not appear to have grown it till the fourteenth century A.D., though they had long imported it as raw material, and as plain and printed webs.[182] It was called tree-wool.

It was first woven in Italy in the thirteenth century, and used for making paper; and in the sixteenth, the plant was grown in the south of Europe. From Italy it was carried into the Low Countries, and only reached England in the seventeenth century,[183] so lately has the great staple of our manufactures first belonged to us.

The fibre of cotton has neither the strength nor the durability of flax or silk, but it is the third in the group of the most universally qualified materials for all purposes of domestic textile art, ranging from carpets and sails, to fine chintzes for dress, and filmy muslins. The cloudy effect of these delicate fabrics is their own peculiar beauty. Muslins for hangings, printed or embroidered, have always been a luxury from India; they were called "carbasa," and were much esteemed in Rome as a protection against the sun.[184]

But we have much earlier notice of them, as being the curtains described in the Book of Esther, hung with silver rings to the pillars of marble in the banqueting hall at Susa or Shushan: "blue and white muslin" (i.e. carpas,[185] mistranslated "green" in the Authorized Version), "fastened with cords of fine linen and purple."

The word "carbasina" occurs in a play by Statius, evidently translated from a writer of the new Greek comedy period. It may be inferred, therefore, that the Greeks used cotton 200 B.C.[186] A century before, Nearchus (one of Alexander's admirals) speaks of the cotton-trees in India as if they were a new discovery. Yates gives us many quotations from Latin classical authors, proving the common use of cotton. Its Latin name was bambacinum, from bombax, hence the Italian bambagio, bambagino, bambasino.

The variety of cotton fabrics in India is very numerous, each having its distinctive beauties and qualities inherited by tradition from early times. They are enumerated and described in Sir G. Birdwood's "Arts of India." Almost all of them have been made to carry embroideries—the transparent muslins,[187] as well as the fine cloths, and the stronger and thicker fabrics.[188]

Most old English houses contain some hangings of thickly woven cotton, probably Indian, worked in crewel or worsted, of the time of James I., or a little earlier; and beautiful patterns wrought in silk or thread, on fine cotton linen, reminding one of the arabesques of the Taj Mahal, succeeded those of the Jacobean style.

Transparent muslins were often embroidered in gold and silver, or spangled and embossed with beetles' wings; and gold, silver, and silk were lavished on Indian cotton grounds, as well as on silken stuffs. Linen was not much embroidered in India, but often printed like chintz.

Buckram, or plush of cotton, was certainly imported from the East to England, from the thirteenth century to the time of Elizabeth. There is at Ashridge, in Hertfordshire, a small jacket of very fine cotton-plush amongst the baby linen prepared by Elizabeth for the expected heir of Philip and Mary, and there are other small dresses of this material of the date of James I. A similar material called fustian is also named by Marco Polo as a cotton fabric; it is supposed to have been made in Egypt by the Arabs. This sort of cotton-plush, variously manipulated, is repeatedly mentioned by Herr Graf'schen in his "Catalogue of Egyptian Textiles from the Fayoum."

Plano Carpini says the tunics of the Tartars were "bacramo," or else of baudichin (cloth of gold). Falstaff's "men in buckram" may be thus explained.[189]

I have already said that cotton is inferior in its qualities to silk and flax, except in the production of transparent muslins. Its peculiarity is its tendency to "crinkle" or crumple in wearing, therefore it does not present a smooth flat surface, except by means of dressing, which unfits it for clinging effects but suits printed patterns. Such stuffs as workhouse sheeting, imitating certain fabrics of the sixteenth century, and which it has been the fashion of late to cover with embroidery, do not repay, by effective beauty, the trouble bestowed upon them.

5. GOLD.

A somewhat profane French writer, giving his ideas on the Creation, says that gold, the latest metal, was expressly created for the demoralization of mankind. This is an ugly version of the fact that it is found on the surface of the earth's crust, and that its beauty and worth makes it a desirable possession for which men will ever contend.

Gold adorns every work of the artistic animal—man. It is the most becoming setting to all other beautiful things, the most gorgeous reflection of light and colour, the richest and softest background, the most harmonious medium for high lights. In all works of decoration it represents sunshine where it is not, and doubles it where it is. The word "illumination" in books belongs to the gilded illustrations of immortal thoughts.

In embroideries, as grounding or as pattern, gold gives the glory: "Her clothing is of wrought gold." The raiment of needlework is comparatively ineffective without golden lights or background. As colour, it never can offend the eye, except when used to accentuate aggressively a vulgar pattern, or when it flashes and dazzles from over-polish and too lavish expenditure.

Silver follows gold as a splendid element in decoration,[190] but it is not of such universal application and use; and when employed together, the proportion of gold should preponderate. Golden tissues belong to the earliest civilizations.

Sir G. Birdwood says that "The art of gold brocades is older than the Code of Manu.... The excellence of the art passed in the long course of ages, from one place to another; and Babylon, Tarsus, Alexandria, Baghdad, Damascus, Antioch, Tabriz, Sicily, and Tripoli successively became celebrated for their gold and silver-wrought tissues, silks, and brocades.... Through every disguise (and mingling of style) it is not impossible to infer the essential identity of the brocades with the fabrics of blue, purple, and scarlet, worked in gold, of ancient Babylonian art."[191]

The Israelites wove gold with their coloured woollens for the use of the sanctuary, and probably brought the art from Egypt; though I am not aware of any gold-woven stuffs from Egyptian tombs.[192]

Indian and Chinese stuffs were from time immemorial woven with gold.

The historians of Alexander the Great continually name gold as a material in dress.[193] Arrian, Justin, and Quintus Curtius, all speak of golden tissues as part of the luxury of the East.

We hear of Darius' dress woven with golden hawks; and of the golden spoils of Persepolis; the dresses worn by Alexander's generals, and all his attendants clothed in purple and gold. Then, perhaps, the Babylonian tradition was brought to Europe; and ever after, purple and gold became the state apparel for courtiers as well as kings.[194]

The hangings of scarlet, purple, and gold used at the nuptials of Alexander, and at his funeral, and his pall of the same material, point to the fact that gold was a recognized element in splendid textile weaving, as well as in the earliest ornamental embroideries.[195]

Attalus II., king of Pergamus, was credited with being the inventor of gold weaving, but this must have been a mistake, as it was practised long before his time; but he may have devised some splendid golden tissues, which were called "Attalic," in honour of the king's patronage.[196] As, however, the gold flat plate or wire was probably that woven before his time,[197] it is possible that he may have invented or patronized the making of thread of gold, by twining it round flax or cotton.[198]

Pliny says gold may be woven or spun like wool without any admixture of wool or flax,[199] and he quotes as examples the golden garment of Agrippina, and that worn by Tarquinius Priscus, mentioned by Verrius.

It appears that the Egyptians knew the art of drawing gold wire, as some pieces have been found in their jewellery;[200] but we know not by what process it was worked, either then, or in the dark ages.

A mechanic of Nuremberg, in the fourteenth century, invented a machine for the purpose; and this art of drawing wire was introduced into England 200 years later, in 1560.

The pure cut gold was in use in Rome to a late date.[201] St. Cecilia, martyred 230 A.D., was buried with her golden mantle lying at her feet; and in 821, when Pope Pascal opened her grave, he found the evidence of her martyrdom in that splendid garment, showing that it had been soaked in blood.[202]

There were found under the foundations of the new Basilica of St. Peter's, the bodies of Probus Anicius and his wife, Proba Faltonia, in a wrapping of gold.

Dr. Rock gives us more examples,[203] but we will only add that of the wife of the Emperor Honorius, who in the year 400 A.D. was buried in a golden dress, which in 1544 was removed from her grave, and being melted, weighed 36 lbs.[204]

The Anglo-Saxon tomb opened at Chessell Down, in the Isle of Wight, contained fragments of a garment or wrapping woven with flat gold "plate." These remains are now in the British Museum.

Childeric was buried at Tournai, 485 A.D., and his dress of strips of pure gold was discovered and melted in 1653. But gold thread also was then very generally used in weaving gold tissues.

Claudian describes a Christian lady, Proba, in the fourth century, preparing the consular robes for her two sons on their being raised to the consulate:[205]—

"The joyful mother plies her knowing hands, And works on all the trabea golden bands; Draws the thin strips to all the length of gold, To make the metal meaner threads enfold."

Pure gold was woven in the dark ages in England. St. Cuthbert's maniple at Durham is of pure gold thread. John Garland says the ladies wove golden cingulae in the thirteenth century; and Henry I., according to Hoveden, was clothed in a robe of state of woven gold and gems of almost "divine splendour."[206]

A wrapping of beautiful gold brocade covered the coffin of Henry III. when his tomb was opened in 1871.[207]

The cope of St. Andrew at Aix, in Switzerland, is embroidered in a very simple pattern, with large circles containing St. Andrew's crosses.[208] This is worked in silver wire gilt, and is Byzantine of the twelfth century.

In the writings of the Middle Ages we find constant reference to different golden fabrics. Among them are "samit" or "examitur" (a six-thread silk stuff, preciously inwoven with gold threads);[209] and "ciclatoun,"[210] which was remarkable for the lightness of its texture, and was woven with shining gold threads—but though light, it was stiff enough to carry heavy embroidery. We hear also of "baudekin," "nak," and cloth of pall. "Camoca" is "kincob."

There appears to be a link between embroidery in gold and the jewellers' work which in the Dark and Middle Ages was so often applied to ecclesiastical and royal dress and hangings. This link was beaten gold work, "aurobacutos," "beaten work," or "batony."[211] Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in the time of Henry VI., went over to France, having a "coat for my lord's body, beat with fine gold (probably heraldic designs). For his ship, a streamer forty yards long and eight broad, with a great bear and griffin, and 400 'pencils' with the 'ragged staff' in silver." This mode lasted some time; for in 1538, Barbara Mason bequeathed to a church a "vestment of green silk beaten with gold." Probably this beaten gold was really very thick gold-leaf laid on the silk or linen ground, as we see still in some Sicilian and Arab tissues. The embroidered banners taken from Charles le Temeraire, at Grandson, are finished with broad borders of gilded inscriptions, such as might be called beaten gold work.[212]

But besides this thick gold-leaf, there was another mode of enriching embroideries. Laminae of gold were cut into shapes, and finished the work by accentuating the design in Eastern embroideries; They are found also in Greek tombs, and in the Middle Ages they varied from the little golden spangle to many other forms—circular rings, stars, crescents, moons, leaves, and solid pendant wedges of gold, all which approached the art of the goldsmith.



Enamel was soon added to the enrichment of these golden spangles, plates, or discs, which were enlarged to receive a design.[213] Of this style of embellishment we know none so striking as the saddle in the Museum at Munich, said to have been taken from a Turkish general in the fifteenth century. This is Italian of the finest cinque-cento style: blue velvet, covered with beautiful gold embroidery, and every vacant space filled with spangles of endless forms, and of precious goldsmiths' and enamellers' work. The Persian stirrups attached to it are of a totally different style of enamelling and jewellery, and speak for themselves, and for the school they came from.[214]



Dr. Rock describes part of a chasuble wrought by Isabella of Spain and her maids of honour, in which the flowing design is worked out in small moulded spangles of gold and silver, set so as to overlap each other and give the effect of scales.

To a late period, gold and silver embroideries, enriched with spangles, have been lavished on the head-dresses and stomachers of the peasantry throughout the north of Europe and Switzerland.[215]

Pearls and gems, either threaded like beads, or in golden settings, are to be studied in the early pictures of the German and French schools; and the Anglo-Saxons excelled in such enrichments.

Sir Henry Layard has a portrait of the fifteenth century, of the Sultan Mahomet II., by Gentil Bellini, from which has been copied the accompanying beautiful embroidered design of a window-hanging.[216] The grace of the lines, and the delicate taste with which the gems are set in the work, are a lesson in art (pl. 33).

India sent to Europe more art in gold thread than has ever been produced amongst us from our own workshops.[217]

The people of Goa, mostly Arabs, embroidered for the Portuguese those wonderful fabrics, glittering with gold and radiant with colours, which cover the beds and hang the rooms throughout Portugal and Spain.[218] The precious metals (often forming the whole grounding) were employed without stint; the patterns being either embroidered in coloured silks and gold; or on velvets or satins, with gold alone or mixed with silver.

The fine gold threads for embroidery, which have preserved their brilliancy for so many centuries, such as we find worked in Charlemagne's dalmatic, in Aelfled's maniple, and in the mitres of Thomas a Becket, are certainly Oriental. To England they came in the bales of the merchants who brought us our silk, and even our needles, from India. Later we imported and copied the different ways of giving effect to inferior metals, and the Spaniard's gilt parchment thread reached us from their Moorish manufactories.[219]

Designs were sometimes, in the sixteenth century, worked in gold twisted with coloured silks, sometimes only stitched down with them. The badges of the Order of the Dragon, instituted by the Emperor Sigismund, were thus embroidered, and placed on the cloaks of the knights. The work was so perfect that it resembled jewels of enamelled gold. Two ancient ones are in the Museum at Munich.

Gold or silver or base metal wire was, in the later Middle Ages and down to our own times, much employed in the form of what is called "purl," i.e. coiled wire cut into short lengths, threaded on silk, and sewn down. German, Italian, and English embroideries were often enriched with this fabric. Sometimes the wire was twisted with coloured silks before it was coiled. There are beautiful specimens of this work of the days of Queen Elizabeth.

Still, throughout Europe the best works were carried out with the best materials, and these always came from the East. But we sometimes find that the pressure of circumstances has for a time caused the employment of adulterated metals that have perished; and thus many fine works of art have been spoiled.[220]

The use of bad materials has therefore been as unfortunate for art as that of pure gold, which has tempted so many ignorant persons to burn golden embroideries and tapestries, and melt down the ore they contain. How little of all that human skill and invention have carefully elaborated is now preserved to us! To gold and silver textiles their materials have been often a fatal dower.

It has sometimes puzzled any but the most experienced embroiderers to distinguish between the stuffs woven with the golden threads on the surface, and finely brocaded or patterned in the loom; and those other cloths, embroidered by hand, which have been so manipulated that hardly an atom of the gold can be detected at the back. This is done by a technical mode of treating the surface, which is more easily shown than described. The gold is really drawn into the spaces between the threads of the canvas or linen grounding, but never pulled through. For many reasons this is an advantage, and when executed cunningly, as it was in England in the twelfth century, it is rich, beautiful, lasting, and economical. It is a peculiar mark of the "opus Anglicanum," and it is to be seen in the mitre at Munich, where this stitch is employed on a white satin ground;[221] also in the working of the two pluvials at San Giovanni Laterano at Rome, and at the Museum at Bologna, as well as that at Madrid, which are all three English of the thirteenth century, by design as well as by stitches.

I cannot close this chapter without naming the many schools of gold embroidery in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The King of Bavaria has an establishment for gold work, and this is very finely carried out, highly raised, and richly designed.[222] In Spain there is also a Royal School, where stately works are executed.

It is to be regretted that the modern designs are motiveless, and not so beautiful as the old ones, and it is very difficult to have any ancient piece of work copied exactly. Little modernisms creep in wherever the pattern has to be fitted into a new shape; for the accomplished needlewoman is seldom an artist.

All honour is due to certain manufacturers at Lyons who are working in the spirit of the old masters, and have been seriously considering how best to reproduce the beautiful soft surface of the gold thread of which the secret was lost in the fifteenth century.[223]

The old Chinese flat gold was, about the sixteenth century, superseded by what was manufactured in Spain, and is no longer imported or, perhaps, even made.

6. SILK.

The origin and history of silk is learnedly and elaborately discussed in Yates' "Textrinum Antiquorum." He gives us his authorities, and literal translations for the benefit of the unlearned, who cannot read the original texts. I have availed myself without hesitation of his quotations, and of the carefully considered opinions he has drawn from them.

It has been already said that wool and flax preceded silk in Egyptian, Greek, and Roman manufactures. There is no certain mention of silk in the Books of the Old Testament.[224] Silk is, however, named in the Code of Manu.[225]

No shred of silk has been found in any Egyptian tomb, nor till lately, and with one exception only, in those of the Greeks.

Auberville says, "La soie ne fit son apparition en Europe que 300 ans avant notre ere."[226]

Pamphile, daughter of Plates, of Cos, is said by Aristotle to have there first woven silk (300 B.C.). Probably raw silk was brought to Cos from the interior of Asia, and Pamphile is by some supposed to have "effiled" the solid manufactured silks, and woven them again into gauzy webs. Yates suggests that it is possible that Pamphile obtained cocoons and unwound them, as the passage in Aristotle may be so interpreted.

The specimen of early silk-weaving which we have above alluded to, was taken out of the "Tomb of the Seven Brothers" at Kertch, in the Crimea, and is of the third century B.C. It consists of several bits of very transparent painted silk. These fragments are an actual and yet a contemporary witness to the truth of the tradition of Pamphile's Coan webs, which are of the same date: possibly they were her handiwork.



Whether Pamphile's silk gauzes were the only fine webs of Cos,[227] is a disputed question. She has the credit of being the first to clothe victorious generals in triumphal garments, and she has been immortalized by her cleverness and industry. Both Aristotle and Pliny assert that she first invented the Coan webs, and that some of them were of silk is undoubted. The question is, How came it there? whence and by what route? and what country was its original home and birthplace?

After stating the pros and cons of the question, how and where did silk first make its appearance, Sir G. Birdwood concludes that both the worm and the cocoon were known to the Greeks and Romans, by report and rare specimens, from the time of Alexander's return from his Indian campaign.[228]

Of course the remains of these fabrics are extremely scarce; and, in fact, only two are at present known to me besides the Kertch specimen. The first is given in Semper's "Der Stil," and is evidently classical Greek or Roman; but the silk material might have been effiled from an Oriental stuff (pl. 34, No. 1). The second must have been originally a Roman pattern, modified by the Persian loom in which it was woven. This may have been a Roman triumphal robe of the date of Julius Caesar (pl. 34, No. 2).

It is clear that Chinese silken stuffs were not generally known in Southern Europe till the time of Julius Caesar, who displayed a profusion of silks in some of his splendid theatrical representations.

How silk first arrived from the East is disputed; some say it came by the Red Sea, and other authorities believe it was brought from China, via Persia, by land.

But it is not necessary that it should have entered our civilization by only one gate. The Periplus Maris Erythraei makes frequent mention of the trade in silks, through India, by the Indus to the coasts of the Erythrean Sea. They were also brought through Bactria to Barygaza, near Surat, from a city called Thina (China?). The author of the Periplus, of course, refers to some place in the country vaguely called Serica.[229]

That the trade which brought it into Europe was difficult and limited, is proved by the fact that silk continued, even as late as the third century of our era, to be an article of luxury, of which the manufacture and use continued to be the subject of legal enactments and restrictions, for 600 years after Pamphile's first essay in silk-weaving in Cos.

"The Seres" was the name given by the ancients to the nation which produced silk; and it was undoubtedly that accepted for the distant region now called China, including Corea, and later, the kingdom of Khotan. The first mention of these people as a distinct nation is by Mela (iii. 7), who speaks of them as an "honest people, who bring what they have to sell, and return for their payments."[230]

The prevailing idea amongst the Greeks was that silk was combed from the trees. Seneca says:—

"Nor with Maeonian needle mark the web, Gathered by Eastern Seres from the trees."

Seneca the Tragedian, "Herc. AEtaeus," 644.[231]

This was, till lately, believed to be only a fiction, intended to hide the truth and enhance the value of the new Coan material. But it is now ascertained that some of the wild silk in China is carried by the silkworm round the trees, wrapping them up, as it were, in large, untidy cocoons; so that, as usual, tradition had truth for its foundation.

There was always much mysterious report about the new material. Dionysius Periegetes tells of a barbarous people called the Seres, who "renounce the care of sheep and oxen, but who comb the coloured flowers of the desert, and with them produce woven precious stuffs, of which they make figured garments, resembling the flowers of the field in beauty, and in texture the web of the spider."[232]

There is no doubt that as Egypt was the first to weave linen, and India to produce cotton textiles, so in China originated the material of silk and its manufacture.

M. Terrien de la Couperie, who has deciphered the Archaic books of the Chinese Records, sees there excellent linguistic proofs that the Chinese nation was originally a fragment of the first Babylonian civilization. He there finds that when these Accadians arrived on the furthest eastern coast of Asia, they met with and enslaved an aboriginal race, who already cultivated the silkworm, and wove and worked its produce, and were called by them "the Embroiderers."[233]

This is supposed to have been an historical event contemporary with the life of Abraham, and, therefore, 5000 years old.

The Chinese say that Tekin or Sin, the son of Japhet, instructed his children in painting, sculpture, and embroidery, and in the art of preparing silk for different woven fabrics.[234]

Whether we are justified or not in believing in so very early a date, at any rate we must remember that it is now ascertained that silk was used in China 2600 years before our era.

Auberville says there is a legend that the Empress Si-ling-chi[235] (2600 B.C.) had the happy inspiration to invent the unwinding of the cocoon before the insect cut the threads; and for this discovery she was placed among the divinities.

Before her time, they had certainly for more than 300 years used the precious material in its mutilated condition.[236]

Some centuries later the Emperor Chan received tribute in linens and silken stuffs. Tissues of many colours were painted or richly embroidered.[237]

In the second century A.D., a prince of Khotan,[238] Kiu-sa-tan-na, was desirous of obtaining from China the eggs of the silkworm, but his request was refused; and it was prohibited that either eggs of the silkworm or seed of mulberry-trees should cross the border.

Then the King of Khotan asked for a Chinese princess in marriage, and this favour being granted, he found means to inform the lady privately that in her future kingdom she would find no silk to weave or work. The dread of such an aimless life roused all her womanly instincts. Defiance of the law, love of smuggling, and the wish to please her husband and benefit her future people, gave her courage to conceal the eggs and seeds in the folds of her dress and the meshes of her beautiful hair, and so she carried a most precious dower into her adopted country.[239] Thus was broken the spell which for more than 3000 years had confined the secret of China within the fence of its wonderful wall; and later on, A.D. 530, the eggs were brought to Byzantium.[240]

From China, therefore, comes our silk.[241] We may say it is traced to the beginning; but how far back had the archaeologist to grope before he could find it!

I transcribe a few more quotations from Yates' translations and authorities.[242]

In the Hippolytus of Euripides, 383, Phaedra loquitur:—

"Remove, ye maids, the vests whose tissue glares With purple and with gold; far be the red Of Syrian murex; this the shining thread Which furthest Seres gathers from the boughs."

Lucan describes the transparent material which veiled Cleopatra's form:—

"Her snowy breast shines through Sidonian threads, First by the comb of distant Seres struck; Divided then by Egypt's skilful hand, And with embroidery transparent made."

Pliny's account of silk and its manufacture is mostly fanciful, though founded on half-known facts.

The Latin poets of the Augustan age speak of silk attire with other luxurious customs from the East.[243] The Roman senate, in the reign of Tiberius, decreed that only women should wear silk, on account of its effeminacy.

Silk was accumulated for the wardrobes of the empresses till A.D. 176, when Marcus Aurelius, "the Philosopher," sold all the imperial ornaments and the silken robes of his empress by auction in the Forum of Trajan.[244]

We learn that silk was precious and fabulously esteemed to the end of the second century A.D.; but it is seldom mentioned in the third century.

AElius Lampridius speaks of a silken cord with which to hang himself, as an imperial extravagance on the part of Heliogabalus (and of this only one strand was silk); and he mentions that Alexander Severus rarely allowed himself a dress of silk (holosericum), and only gave away robes of partly silken substance.

Flavius Vopiscus says that Aurelian had no dress wholly of silk (holosericum).[245] His wife begged him to allow her a shawl of purple silk, and he replied, "Far be it from me to permit thread to be reckoned worth its weight in gold!"—for a pound of gold was then worth a pound of silk.

Flavius Vopiscus further states that the Emperor Carinus, however, gave away silken garments, as well as dresses of gold and silver, to Greek artificers, players, wrestlers, and musicians.[246]

Yates gives us a translation of an edict of Diocletian, giving a maximum of prices for articles in common use in the Roman empire. It reads like a tailor's or a dress-maker's bill of to-day:—

DENARII. To the tailor, for lining a fine vest 6 To the same, for an opening of an edging of silk 50 To the same, for an opening and an edging of a mixed tissue of silk and flax 30 For an edging of a coarser vest 4[247]

A monument at Tivoli is erected to the memory of his estimable wife, Valeria Chrysis, by "M. N. Poculus, silk manufacturer." This was probably an imperial office in the fourth century.[248]

From the first to the sixth centuries, poets and historians continually speak of silk,[249] praising its beauty or blaming it as extravagance or luxury; but according to Yates, all the information we collect from these sources requires to be tested as to accuracy, and is often erroneous.

I have spoken of the first silk-weaving in Cos, 300 B.C. The first arrival of the silkworm in Europe was in the sixth century, 900 years later. Cosmas Indicopleustes and another monk brought eggs from China in the hollow staves they carried in their hands. This was a great event in European commerce. The eggs were solemnly presented to the Emperor Justinian, and the monopoly of their cultivation is to be found in his law-ordaining codex.[250]

The monopoly of the silk manufactures was confined to the area of the imperial palace of Constantinople, but the cultivation of the worm gradually spread over Greece, Asia Minor, and India.

The first allusion to the use of silk in the Christian Church is by Gregory Nazianzen (A.D. 370), "Ad Hellenium pro Monarchis Carmen:" "Silver and gold some bring to God, or the fine thread by Seres spun."[251] Basil illustrates the idea of the resurrection by the birth of the butterfly from the cocoon.[252]

Paul the Silentiary (A.D. 562) alludes to the frequent use of silk in the priests' vestments at the Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople.

Bede relates that the first Abbot of Wearmouth went to Rome for the fifth time in A.D. 685, and brought back with him two scarves or palls of incomparable workmanship, and entirely of silk, with which he purchased land of three families at the mouth of the Wear. Bede's own remains were wrapped in silk.

Auberville gives us, in his "Tissus," specimens of Roman silks between the first and seventh centuries, but he cannot fix their exact date.[253]

The finest webs of Holosericum from the imperial looms were generally bestowed upon the Church, and thus consecrated, the earliest ascertained specimens that have survived have been preserved; and of these, most have been found in the tombs of saints, bishops, and kings who were buried in priestly as well as in royal garments.[254]

Among the silk and satin fabrics, the tissue called "Imperial" is mentioned by several early English authors. Roger de Wendover and Matthew Paris describe the apparition of King John as clad in "royal robes of Imperial."[255] William de Magna Villa brought from Greece, in 1170, a stuff called Imperial, "marbled" or variegated, and covered with lions woven in gold.

In the Eastern Empire, this industry after a time fell into the hands of the Jews; and in 1161, Benjamin of Tudela says the city of Thebes contained about 2000 Jewish silk-weavers.

The breeding of the worm in Europe seems to have been confined to Greece from the time of Justinian to the twelfth century; but in 1148, Roger, King of Sicily, brought as prisoners of war, from Corinth, Thebes, and Athens, many silk-weavers, and settled them at Palermo. "Then might be seen Corinthians and Thebans of both sexes, employed in weaving velvet stoles interwoven with gold, and serving like the Eretrians of old among the Persians."[256]

Hugh Falcandus[257] has left a description of the Royal manufactory at Palermo, and the Hotel de Tiraz which absorbed all the smaller Saracenic factories already started. The Hotel de Tiraz had four great workshops, in which were separately carried on the weaving of plain tissues, velvets, examits and satins, and flowered stuffs (damasks), and lastly, gold brocades and embroideries. It was from the last that proceeded the real works of art, and the embroideries with pearls and precious stones.[258] The highest efforts of the loom were apparently finished with the needle,[259] as in the figured textiles of Egypt.

The continuity of Sicilian textile designs from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries (a thousand years) is very remarkable. Owing to its originally strongly stamped Oriental character, great knowledge of the arts of weaving, spinning, and dyeing silk is required to enable any one to assign an exact date to materials which only remodelled their style three times.

Dr. Rock's rules for deciphering these three dates may, however, be easily learned, as they are broad and simple. In his comprehensive "Introduction to the Textiles in the Kensington Museum" (p. lxvii) he says that the three defined periods of silk-weaving in Sicily are: First, from the time of Justinian to the Hohenstaufen (from the sixth to the twelfth century); secondly, from the accession of Frederick I. (Barbarossa), 1152, to Charles IV., 1347 (twelfth to fourteenth centuries); the third period is of one century only, from 1347 to 1456.

The first period especially shows African animals, such as the giraffe and the different kinds of antelopes, mixed with Arabian mottoes; and the patterns are generally woven with gold. This is merely gilt parchment, the silk being mingled with cotton.



The second period, beginning in the twelfth century, shows the arrival of Count Roger's Persian and Greek workmen, captives from Thebes, Corinth, and Athens. The fresh designs show fragments of Greek taste, such as masks and foliage, and give one a slight foretaste of the Renaissance.[260]

These semi-classical echoes are contemporary in the Sicilian looms with such Norman motives as a crowned sovereign riding with a hawk upon his wrist.

This description singularly applies to the relics removed from the tomb of St. Cuthbert, at Durham, in 1827; among which are fragments of three wrappings, or garments of silk, so suggestive of the artistic traditions of many nationalities, and the long descent of patterns, recognizable after the lapse of centuries, that a description of them, accompanied by illustrations, can hardly fail to be interesting. They are all now reduced by time to a rich golden brown, though there are indications that blue, green, and red have been woven into their fabric, and there are also on one of them traces of gilding. The first (plate 35) shows Oriental conventional peacocks, double-headed and collared, framed within circles which slightly intersect each other, thus giving the opportunity for varying the original motive by breaking up the rolling arabesqued pattern, and uniting the stems and flowers contained in the border. The spaces between the circles are filled in with gryphons in pairs, of the Babylonian stamp, thick limbed with strongly-marked muscles. There is a border or guimp, Persian in character, in which are small crosses surmounting repetitions of the crenelated pattern found in Assyrian ornament.

The second piece of silk contains a large rosace. Scattered about it are repetitions of the Persian leaf or tree of life, and the border consists of kneeling hares or fawns between a Persian arabesque and a corded line. The mixture of Egyptian and Assyrian styles is remarkable throughout, till we come to the centre of the rosace, where we find a most incongruous man in armour on horseback with a hawk on his wrist, giving the Norman stamp of the reigning house and influence in Sicily. The central subject is exactly repeated on an embroidered twelfth century chasuble in the treasury of the Cathedral of Bamberg, only that a royal crown and robes are worn by the horseman (pl. 36).[261]

The third specimen is the most noteworthy (plate 37). There is nothing of Assyrian here, but it reminds one of Egyptian and Greek art, and at once suggests Count Roger's Greek slaves at the Sicilian looms, but the design is probably of a much earlier date, and the subject is puzzling. A piece of drapery resembling an Egyptian sail with its fringes[262] (pl. 38) is looped up on each side to the head of a thyrsus, and above it hangs a large cluster of fruits. The lower part of the drapery rests upon water, and is somewhat like a boat, with ducks swimming towards it, and fish disporting themselves in the rippling waves. Between the circles the ducks are repeated, facing a shield enriched with rows of the crenelated pattern surmounted by a vine.

These fragments have belonged each to a very large and freely woven silk shawl or mantle. The circles are about two feet across. There is a different arrangement of the threads in each web, giving different fine diapers, and the last described has a raised pattern which might have been intended to represent water.







It is most likely that in the twelfth century, or even a little later, the body of St. Cuthbert was wrapped in these shawls, and so left when at the Reformation, his shrine was destroyed, and the coffer containing his remains buried in the same place, and piously concealed till our own day. I shall describe the beautiful embroideries in which the body had been clothed in the tenth century when I come to the subject of English work.

The third period of silk-weaving art is unmistakably Sicilian. At the end of the thirteenth century and beginning of the fourteenth, Palermo struck out her own line. The Greek cross appears in various forms. The designs are of a wonderful richness and capricious ingenuity. They show alike Asiatic, African, and European animals, and every kind of mythological creature—griffins, dragons, dogs, and harts, with large wings; swans, pheasants, and eagles, single or double-headed, often pecking at the sun's rays; beautifully drawn foliage and flowers, and heraldic emblems and coats-of-arms. One peculiarity of the third period is the frequent use of green patterns on "murrey"-coloured grounds.

All this splendour of design was commonly lavished on poor material. The silks continued to be mixed with cotton, and the gold, or rather the gilding, was so base that it has almost always become black on the foundation strips of parchment or paper.[263]

The heraldic silks are mostly of the time of the Crusades, when the distinguished pilgrims and warriors, especially the English, made Sicily their half-way house to the Holy Land, and brought from thence fabrics woven to suit their tastes. In Auberville's book we find, under the dates of many centuries, the most remarkable fragments now known. On portrait-tombs and in some very ancient pictures are figured beautiful silks woven in gold, which are recognizable at once by their Arab-Sicilian style. Of this type, the remarkable fragment of the dress of Richard II., in the Kensington Museum, dates itself, by carrying the cognizances of his grandfather and his mother, and the portrait of his dog Math.[264]

The last period of the Sicilian silks is especially marked by the inscriptions being mostly nonsense, and only woven in as ornament, with the forms of Arab lettering.[265]

Sir G. Birdwood says that whether the Saracens found the manufacture of silk already established in India or not, they certainly influenced the decorative designs. He adds that kincobs are now woven at Ahmedabad and Benares, identical in design with the old Sicilian brocades; while the Saracenic Sicilian silks abound in patterns which prove their origin in Assyrian, Sassanian, or Indian art.

We know that the Saracens introduced colonies of Persian, and probably Indian workmen into Spain, after the beginning of the ninth century, to assist them in their architecture and textile manufactures, and in return the Mogul emperors of Delhi invited many Italian and French designers into India.

The Taj and other buildings in Rajpootana are decorated with exquisite mosaics coeval with those of Austin of Bordeaux. Their styles of art in textiles, and in other materials, have acted and reacted upon each other; and nothing throws more light on the affinities and the development of the modern decorative arts of Europe than the history of the introduction, under Justinian, of the silk manufactures from the East into the West.[266]

From Palermo, all the stages of the manufacture of silk spread themselves over Italy and into Spain. According to Nicolo Tegrini, the flourishing silk-weavers of Lucca having been ejected from the city in the early part of the fourteenth century, carried their art elsewhere, and even to Germany, France, and Britain.[267]

Italian weavers went to Lyons in 1450, and so started the silk industry that it has steadily increased till now. It gives employment to about 31,000 looms and 240,000 workpeople of both sexes.

The Moors, when they overflowed into Iberia, carried with them all their Orientalisms, traditions, manufactures, and designs; thus disobeying their prophet, who forbade the use of silk except to women.

Senhor F. de Riano tells us that from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, Spain was producing fine silk tissues. The Moorish Cordovese writer, Ash-Shakandi, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth century, says, "Malaga is famous for its manufactures of silks of all colours and patterns, some of which are so rich that a suit made of them will cost many thousands. Such are the brocades with beautiful designs and the names of the Caliphs, Ameers, and other wealthy people woven into them."[268]

The same author, speaking of the manufactures of silk at Almeria, says that thence came the brightest colours; and Al-Makhari adds a list of precious silk tissues, naming the "Tiraz," the "Iscalaton," and the robes called each by its own special name.[269] Ash-Shakandi also mentions the looms of Murcia, and its carpets.[270]

When the Moors were driven from Spain, the silk works of Malaga and Almeria were ruined. But those of Valencia became famous, and flourish to this day. Talavera della Reina also produces fine ecclesiastical fabrics, and at Toledo the ancient traditions are preserved, and they still weave sixteenth-century designs.

In Italy, Genoa, Florence, and Milan followed the Sicilian silk manufactures, and each has left specimens of the craft, of which Rock has pointed out the marked individualities.

The rich stuffs with inscriptions inwoven in gold, in the Middle Ages, were called "literatis."

The designs of Lucca at first imitated the Moorish Sicilian type; and introduced as their speciality, white figures, such as angels in white garments, and exchanged the Oriental intricate patterns for a bolder and simpler style.

Venice, of course, also showed at first the Oriental impress; but she soon struck out a line of her own; and her especial invention was shown in weaving, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, square pieces of silken tissue, representing sacred subjects.

Florentine tissues, especially their velvet and gold brocades, were particularly splendid, and can be recognized by the loops of gold thread drawn to the surface and left there. Of these early Florentine gold brocades we have still beautiful examples in the palls of our City companies and in ancient ecclesiastical vestments. The loops of gold have been the custom since the thirteenth century, and still prevail in certain traditional fabrics, for instance, in the banners woven annually for the prizes at the horse races in Florence. The Corsini family, who have for many generations and for hundreds of years competed in these races, had, in their princely palace at Rome, a room entirely hung with the silk of these gorgeous banners.

In Hungary, Queen Gisela, in the eleventh century, established looms for weaving silk; and many convents throughout Europe and in England wove silken tissues for the service of the Church, till the great manufactures absorbed these partially private enterprises.[271]

Individual exertion produced copies, or motives that are taken from Eastern, Southern, or Northern inspirations; but it is only in large national schools of arts or crafts that an absolutely recognizable style becomes apparent. For example, the early French silks from monastic establishments are not remarkable for either style or texture till the sixteenth century, when they came to the front as a national manufacture, and have held the highest place in silk-weaving ever since.

The Flemish towns of Ypres, Ghent, and Mechlin were known for their silken webs in the thirteenth century, and at that time innumerable small schools of the craft seem to have covered Europe. They are constantly named in the lists of fine furnishings in Germany. In England, France, and Germany, as well as in the Low Countries, each convent had, besides its silk-weaving looms, its workshops for embroideries on silk, woollens, and linens, borrowing from the Byzantine Empire, Sicily, and Spain, their designs and patterns.

About this time (the thirteenth century), Marco Polo resided and travelled in Asia. He visited the principal cities of Syria, Persia, Khotan, and Cathay, and from him we have information of the different Asiatic textiles, generally bearing the name of the city where they were woven. He names, for instance, the mediaeval "baudas" and "baudakin" (with endless modifications in the spelling), from Baghdad. This afterwards gave the word baldachino to the awning or canopy over the altar, which it retained even when textiles had given place to marbles and mosaics.[272]

Satin is only found named in catalogues about the fourteenth century. But the dalmatic of Charlemagne, at Rome, is embroidered on a stout blue satin, and has never been transferred; and at Constantinople, Baldwin II., at his coronation in 1204, was shod and clothed in vermilion satin embroidered with jewels; while all the Venetian and French barons present were clad in satin.[273] Semper and Bock believe that it had been a Chinese material long before it reached Europe.

Satin was often called "blattin," in connection with the colour of the cochineal insect (blatta), whose dye was invariably used for satin. We cannot tell, however, which was certainly named from the other.[274]

In the poem of "The Lady of the Fountain," translated by Lady Charlotte Guest from the Welsh ballads of the thirteenth century, silk and satin are often named. At the opening of the poem, King Arthur is described seated on a throne of rushes, covered with a flame-coloured satin cloth, and with a red satin cushion under his elbow.

Fiery red was the orthodox colour for satin. In old German poems we find it described as "pfellat," always as being fiery. One kind of pfellat was called salamander.[275] Bruges satins were the most esteemed in the Middle Ages. Chaucer speaks of "satin riche and newe."[276]

Satin and velvet are the contrasting silken materials. In satin the threads are laid along so that the shining surface ripples with every ray of sunshine, and the shadows are melted into half-lights by the reflections from every fold. It makes a dazzling garment, splendid in its radiant sheen; whereas in velvet, where each thread is placed upright and shorn smoothly, all light is absorbed and there are no reflections, and the whole effects are solemn, rich, and deep.[277] Some of the oldest velvets resemble plush in the length of their pile, and have not the dignity of velvet.

Semper, from the different derivations that have been suggested, selects the connection of the word "velvet" (German, Felbert) with "welf," the skin or fur of an animal.[278]

Among the gifts to Charlemagne (ninth century) from Haroun el Raschid were velvets; and the earliest existing specimen we know of is named by Bock as being in the Pergament Codex at Le Puy, in Vendome, where, amongst other curious interleaved specimens of weaving, is a fine piece of shorn silk velvet.[279]

Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, frequently speaks of velvet as an Asiatic fabric. It is first known as a European textile in Lucca, about 1295, and we may therefore say that it was imported from the East.[280]

In the next chapter on colour I have noticed the curious fact that the word purple was sometimes used to mean colour, and sometimes to express the texture of velvet, thus confounding the two; but I have also pointed out that it had other meanings, and had become a very comprehensive word for everything that expressed richness and warmth.

While examining and judging embroideries, we must be careful not to be deceived by the different dates often occurring in the grounding and the applied materials. Much embroidery was worked on fabrics that were already old and even worn out; and others have been transferred centuries ago, and perhaps more than once, to fresh grounds.[281]

This sometimes causes a good deal of difficulty in dating specimens. One should begin by ascertaining whether the needlework was originally intended to be cut out (opus consutum), and so laid on a ground of another material, and worked down and finished there.

Of course it is always evident and easily ascertained, whether the work has been transferred at all. If so—and from each succeeding transference—small fragments may be found showing on the cut edges. You will often see remains of two or more of these layers, reminding you of the three Trojan cities dug up at different depths under each other at Hissarlik.

In judging each specimen the acumen of the expert is needed to obtain a correct opinion, and he should not only be an archaeologist, but a botanist and a herald besides;[282] and, in fact, no kind of knowledge is useless in deciphering the secrets of human art. But even when so armed, he is often checked and puzzled by some accidental caprice of design or mode of weaving, and after wasting trouble and time, has to cast it aside as defying classification.

It is, however, as well to note these exceptions, as, when compared, they sometimes explain each other.

What I have said regards, of course, the historical and archaeological side of the study of textiles, and I have treated of them as being either the origin or the imitations of different styles of embroidery, and so inseparably connected with the art which is the subject and motive of this book; and not only in this does the connection between them exist, but in the fact that as embroideries always need a ground, silken and other textiles are an absolute necessity to their existence.

For these reasons alone I have given this chapter on materials, short and imperfect, but suggesting further research into the writings of the authors I have quoted, and, I hope, exciting the interest of the reader.

FOOTNOTES:

[130] Periplus of the Erythrean Sea.

[131] It is described by Yates as having the appearance of a flat ribbon, with the edges thickened like a hem.

[132] This rough bark is probably the reason that it absorbs colour into its substance (perhaps under the scales); and it may also account for its being capable of felting.

[133] It may be laid down as a fundamental rule in technical style, that the product shall preserve the peculiar characteristics of the raw material. Unfortunately, the artist is often ignorant of the qualities of the fabric for which he is designing, and the workman who has to carry it out is a mechanic, in these days, instead of a craftsman.

[134] Molochinus, or malva silvestris (wild hemp), Yates, pp. 292-317, is sometimes spoken of as a mallow, sometimes as a nettle. In the Vocabulary of Papias (A.D. 1050) it is said that the cloth called molocina is made from thread of mallow, and used for dress in Egypt. Garments of molochinus were brought from India, according to the Periplus (see Pliny, 146, 166, 170, 171). It was seldom used by the ancients, but both Greeks and Romans made it serve for mats and ropes. The Thracians wove of it garments and sheets. It is not named in the Scriptures.

[135] See Gibbs' "British Honduras."

[136] Spartum was a rush. Pliny says it was used for the rigging of ships.

[137] The bark of trees such as the Hybiscus Tiliaceus, and that of the Birch (see Yates, p. 305-6). Birch bark was embroidered, till latterly, by the Indian women in North America with porcupines' quills. Pigafetta says (writing in the sixteenth century) that in the kingdom of Congo many different kinds of stuff were manufactured from the palm-tree fibre. He instances cloths on which patterns were wrought, and likewise a material resembling "velvet on both sides."

[138] "Camoca" or caman in the Middle Ages is supposed to have been of camels' hair, mixed with silk. Edward the Black Prince left to his confessor his bed of red caman, with his arms embroidered on each corner. Rock (p. xliv) gives us information about the tents and garments of camels' hair found throughout the East, wherever the camel flourishes and has a fine hairy winter coat, which it sheds in the heat. The coarser parts are used for common purposes, and the finest serve for beautiful fabrics, especially shawls. Marco Polo tells of beautiful camelots manufactured from the hair of camels; and of the Egyptian coarse and very fine fabrics woven of the same materials.

[139] "Le Chevalier a Deux Epees" (quoted by Dr. Rock), and Lady Wilton, "Art of Needlework," p. 128.

[140] See p. 359, post, for Boadicea's dress.

[141] See Mr. Villiers Stuart's "Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen."

[142] The Moors in Spain excelled in leather-work and embroidery upon it; and Marco Polo describes the beautiful productions of the province of Guzerat, of leather inlaid and embroidered with gold and silver wire. Yule's "Marco Polo," p. 383.

[143] See chapter on Stitches.

[144] See Chardin, vol. i. p. 31.

[145] Tin, called "laton," was used to debase the metal threads in the Middle Ages. It is also named as a legitimate material for metal embroideries.

[146] For all information about asbestos, see Yates, pp. 356, 565.

[147] There is one at the Barberini Palace at Rome. A sheet, woven of asbestos, found in a tomb outside the Porta Maggiore, is described by Sir J. E. Smith in his "Tour on the Continent" (vol. ii. p. 201) as being coarsely spun, but as soft and pliant as silk. "We set fire to it, and the same part being repeatedly burnt, was not at all injured."

[148] See Yule's "Marco Polo," vol. i. pp. 215, 218, and Yates, p. 361.

[149] There are specimens of bead-work pictures at St. Stephen's at Coire, in the Marien-Kirche at Dantzic, and elsewhere. See Rock, p. cv. This is, in fact, mosaic in textiles, without cement.

[150] Witness the stone whorls for the spindles in our prehistoric barrows, and the "heaps" of the lake cities.

[151] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 129.

[152] An Egyptian Dynasty called themselves the Shepherd Kings.

[153] Yates gives endless quotations to show how ancient and how honourable an occupation was that of tending sheep.

[154] Semper, i. p. 139. The cover of the bed on which was laid the golden coffin in the tomb of Cyrus was of Babylonian tapestry of wool; the carpet beneath it was woven of the finest wrought purple. Plautus mentions Babylonian hangings and embroidered tapestries. See Birdwood's "Indian Arts," i. p. 286.

[155] Joshua vii.

[156] Ezekiel xxvii. 22.

[157] Semper, "Der Stil," i. p. 138.

[158] Yates, pp. 79, 91, 93, 99, 102, 445. Lanae Albae.

"The first, Apulia's; next is Parma's boast; And the third fleece Altinum has engrossed."

Martial, xiv. Ep. 155.

Martial also speaks of the matchless Tarentine togae, a present from Parthenius:—

"With thee the lily and the privet pale Compared, and Tibur's whitest ivory fail; The Spartan swan, the Paphian doves deplore Their hue, and pearls on the Erythrean shore."

Martial, viii. Ep. 28.

[159] The sheep of Tarentum, from the days of the Greek colonists, were famed, as they are still, for the warm brown tints on their black wool. Pliny says that this is caused by the weed fumio, on which they browsed. Swinburne says, in his "Travels in the Two Sicilies," that there the wool is so tinged by the plant now called fumolo, which grows on the coast.

[160] See Bluemner's "Technologie," p. 92; also "Comptes Rendus de la Commission Imperiale Archeologique" of St. Petersburg, 1881; also the Catalogue Raisonnee of Herr Graf'schen's Egyptian Collection of Textiles at Vienna.

[161] See Pliny's "Natural History," viii. 74, Sec. 191. Tanaquil is credited with the first invention of the seamless coat or cassock.

[162] The Gauls in Britain wove plaids or tartans. See Rock, p. xii; Bluemner, pp. 152-54; Birdwood, p. 286.

[163] Pliny, "Natural History," book viii., 73, 74.

[164] "Georgics," iv. 334; Yates, p. 35.

[165] "Comptes Rendus de la Commission Imperiale Archeologique," St. Petersburg, 1881. Much of this Gobelin weaving has lately been found in Egypt. See "Katalog der Teodor Graf'schen Fuende in AEgypten," von Dr. J. Karabacek.

[166] Semper considers that the famous Babylonian and Phrygian stuffs were all woollen, and that gold was woven or embroidered on them. See "Der Stil," i. p. 138.

[167] Worcester cloth was forbidden to the Benedictines by a Chapter of that Order at Westminster Abbey in 1422, as being fine enough for soldiers, and therefore too good for monks. See Rock's Introduction, p. lxxviii.

[168] Both these fabrics are represented in Egyptian and Greek fragments, and are equally well preserved.

[169] Boyd Dawkins, "Early Man in Britain," pp. 268, 275.

[170] See Wilkinson, "Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii. p. 116; Yates, p. 23.

[171] It appears that the art of printing textiles was known in Egypt in the time of Pliny. See Yates, p. 272, quoting Apuleius, Met. l. xi.; also see Wilkinson, "Ancient Egyptians," vol. ii. p. 196, pl. xii.

[172] See Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," pp. 268, 335; Herodotus, ii. 86. Herodotus and Strabo speak of Babylonian linen, cited by Yates, p. 281.

[173] "Textrinum Antiquorum," pp. 267-80. A peculiarity of Egyptian linen is that it was often woven with more threads in the warp than in the woof. A specimen in the Indian Museum, South Kensington, shows in its delicate texture 140 threads in the inch to the warp, and 64 to the woof. Another piece of fine linen has 270 to the warp, and 110 to the woof. Generally there are twice or three times as many threads, but sometimes even four times the number. Wilkinson gives a probable reason for this peculiarity. See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," vol. i. chap. ix. pp. 121-226. See Rock's Introduction, p. xiv.

[174] De Somniis, vol. i. p. 653. Yates, p. 271.

[175] Philo, cited by Yates, p. 271.

[176] Paulinus ad Cytherium, cited by Yates, p. 273.

[177] Herodotus, l. ii. c. 182, l. iii. c. 47. Rawlinson's Trans.

[178] Proverbs vii. 16.

[179] Yates, p. 291. Denon describes a tunic found in a sarcophagus, which he examined, and says: "The weaving was extremely loose, of thread as fine as a hair, of two strands of twisted flax fibre."—Auberville's "Ornement des Tissus," p. 4. Some marvellously fine specimens of such cambric may be seen at the South Kensington Museum and the British Museum.

[180] Not that we have any remains of flax linen from their tombs.

[181] It was carried thence, at a prehistoric date, to Assyria and Egypt.

[182] There is no proof that it was grown in Egypt till the fourteenth century A.D., when it is mentioned for the first time in a MS. of that date of the "Codex Antwerpianus." See Yates, Appendix E, p. 470.

[183] Birdwood, p. 241.

[184] Puggaree. Yates says that cotton has always been supposed to be the best preserver against sunstroke, p. 341.

[185] Carpas, the proper Oriental name for cotton, is found in the same sense in the Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian languages. Yates, p. 341.

[186] In the AEneid, the garment of Chloreus the Phrygian is thus described:—

"His saffron chlamys, and each rustling fold Of muslin (carpas), was confined with glittering gold."

AEneid, xi. 775.

[187] Dakka muslins are the most esteemed. Their poetic names, "running water," "woven air," "evening dew," are more descriptive than pages of prose. See Birdwood, ii. p. 259.

[188] Chintzes, calicoes, fine cloths, and strong tent-cloths, cotton carpets, &c., &c. Forbes Watson classifies the calicoes as being white, bleached and unbleached, striped, &c., printed chintzes, or pintadoes. See Birdwood, p. 260.

[189] For Buckram and Fustian, see Rock, pp. lxxxv, lxxxvi. In Lady Burgeweny's (Abergavenny) will, 1434, she leaves as part of the furnishings of her bed "of gold of swan," two pairs of sheets of Raine (Rennes), and a pair of fustian. Anne Boleyn's list of clothes contains "Bokerams, for lining and taynting," gowns, sleeves, cloaks, and beds. Rock, lxxxvi. Renouard, in his "Romaunce Dictionary," quotes the following: "Vestae de Polpia e de Bisso qui est bacaram." For the antiquity of this fabric, see Herr Graf'schen's Catalogue of Textiles from the Fayoum.

[190] See Yates, p. 300, citing "Herod's silver apparel."

[191] "Indian Arts," ii. p. 237.

[192] Rock, p. xxv. Yates (p. 3) says they cut their gold for wearing apparel into thin plates, and did not draw it into wire, as it is translated in the Vulgate (Exodus xxxix.). The ephod made by Bezaleel was of fine linen, gold, violet, purple, and scarlet, twice dyed, with embroidered work. This tradition must have guided the artist who designed the ephod in the National Museum at Munich, in the seventeenth century, for a prince boy-bishop.

[193] Quintus Curtius says that many thousands, clothed in these costly materials, crowded out of Damascus to meet Alexander.

[194] There is a very ancient local tradition at Shush, that A.D. 640, in the reign of the Kaliph Omar, the body of the prophet Daniel was found, wrapped in cloth of gold, in a stone coffin; and, by order of the victorious general, it was placed in one of glass, and moored to the bridge which spanned the branch of the Euphrates flowing between the two halves of the city, so that the waters flowed over it. See "Chaldea and Susiana," by Loftus, and Sir G. W. Gore Ouseley's translation of a Persian version of "The Book of Victories." Alexander is said to have been buried in a glass coffin. (See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," ii. p. 102, note +.)

[195] Yates, pp. 367-70; Rock, p. xxvi.

[196] "Aura intexere eadem Asia invenit Attalus Rex unde nomen Attalicis."—Pliny, viii. c. 48, and Yates, p. 371. The reign of Attalus II. was B.C. 159-188.

[197] "And they did beat the gold into plates, and cut it into wires, and work it into the blue, and the purple, and the fine linen."—Exod. xxxix.

[198] See Yates, p. 371; and Bock, xxxiii.

[199] Pliny, xxxiii. In the Museum at Leyden there is a shred of gold cloth found in a tomb at Tarquinia, in Etruria. This is a compactly woven covering over bright yellow silk.

[200] Gold wire is still worked through leather at Guzerat. See Birdwood, p. 284, Ed. 1880. Marco Polo mentions this embroidery 600 years ago. Bk. iii. chap. xxvi. (Yule). The hunting cuirass of Assurbanipal (pl. 1) appears to be so worked, and of such materials. Also see Wilkinson, "Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii. p. 130. This gold for weaving was beaten into shape with hammers.

[201] Pope Eutichinus, in the third century, buried many martyrs in golden robes.

[202] "Liber Pontificalis," t. ii. p. 332.

[203] See Rock, pp. xxvii, xxxv; and Parker's "Use of the Levitical Colours," p. 49.

[204] See Yates, p. 376.

[205] Rock, p. xxxv. The toga picta, or trabea, part of the official dress of her sons.

[206] Hoveden's "Annal." p. 481, Ed. Savile; Rock, p. xxx.

[207] See "Archaeologia," 1880, pp. 317, 322; also Pl. 74, No. 20 (post).

[208] Bock, "L. Gewaender," taf. ix. vol. i.

[209] Rock, p. xxxvii.

[210] Ciclatoun, according to Rock, p. xxxix, is a common Persian name for such tissues in the East. This, in common with nasick, nak, and many other beautiful tissues, was wrought in gold with figures of birds and beasts.—Yule's "Marco Polo," ed. 1875, i. p. 65.

Dr. Rock quotes the old ballad,—

"In a robe right royall bowne, Of a red ciclatoune, Be her fader's syde; A coronall on her hede sett, Her clothes with byrdes of gold were bette All about for pryde."

[211] In St. Paul's in London there was formerly an amice adorned with the figures of two bishops and a king, hammered out of silver, and gilt. Dugdale, ed. 1818, p. 318. See also Rock, pp. xxix-xxxii.

[212] Museum at Berne.

[213] A piece of Venetian work to be seen at the South Kensington Museum is an altar frontal, worked in coral, gold beads, seed pearls, and spangles. All jewellers' work, including enamel, was much admired and introduced into their embroideries. (See Rock's Introduction to Catalogue of the Kensington Museum, pp. civ-cviii, ed. 1870.)

[214] On this gorgeous piece of Italian art there are added a number of buttons (for we can give them no other name), with crosses and hearts under crystal, which seem to have belonged to another period and workmanship, or else are to be attributed to a superstitious feeling on the part of the maker, who placed these Christian signs, perhaps, surreptitiously, and for the good of his own soul.

[215] The Museum of National Art at Munich has a fine collection of gold and silver, spangled, and black bead head-dresses, now mostly antiquated, though in peasant dress it yet survives.

[216] It is embroidered in gold, with red silk and gems; and I have elsewhere said that it probably issued from the Hotel de Tiraz at Messina.

[217] Terry, in his "Voyage to the East Indies," speaks of the rich carpets (p. 128): "The ground of some of these is silver or gold, about which such arabesques in flowers and figures as I have before named are most excellently disposed."

[218] These of late years have been the most gorgeous objects at exhibitions of old needlework, and the ambition and despair of collectors.

[219] Gold thread was also made of gilt paper, equally by the Moors and the Japanese.

[220] In Aikin's "Life of James I.," p. 205, we have a curious account of the monopoly of gold thread, that had been granted, with others, to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. The thread was so scandalously debased with copper as to corrode the hands of the artificers, and even the flesh of those who wore it. This adulterated article they sold at an exorbitant price, and if they detected any one making a cheaper or better article, they were empowered to fine or imprison them, while a clause in their patent protected themselves. The manufacturers of this base metal thread were two Frenchmen, Mompesson and Michel, and Edward Villiers, the Marquis' brother, was one of the firm. Doubtless they drove for a time a roaring trade, as gold embroideries were then universally worn, both by men and women; but the House of Commons interfered, and the monopoly was abolished.

[221] Mitre of white satin, with two figure subjects in flat gold—the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and that of St. Thomas of Canterbury.

[222] The School of Gold Embroidery at Munich produces work of a richness and precision which has, perhaps, never been excelled. The raised parts of the design are first cast in soft hollow "carton," and the gold is worked on it and into the recesses with the help of a fine stiletto, which pioneers the needle for each stitch. This is embroidery "on the stamp," but without padding.

[223] Bock, "L. Gewaender," vol. i. p. 48. Prizes are offered at Lyons for the best mode of manufacturing gold and silver thread that will not tarnish.

[224] Yates says, pp. 160-162: "Whether silk was mentioned in the Old Testament cannot, perhaps, be determined. After fully considering the subject, Braunius decides against silk being known to the Hebrews in ancient times ('De Vestitu Heb. Sacerdotum,' i. c. viii.)." The contrary opinion is founded on the passage, "I clothed thee with broidered work, and shod thee with badger-skins. I girded thee about with fine linen, and covered thee with silk" (meshi).—Ezekiel xvi. But the translation is disputed.

[225] "Code of Manu," xi. 168; xii. 64. Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 204.

[226] Auberville, "Ornement des Tissus," p. ii.

[227] Yates (pp. 173, 174) believes that "Cos" should always be read for Cios, about which there seems to be some confusion. Chios has also been substituted for the name of "Cos," the island.

There is no doubt that the Roman ladies obtained their most splendid garments from Cos—perhaps of wool as well as of silk.

[228] Birdwood, "Textile Arts of India," ii. p. 269.

[229] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 204.

[230] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," note (*), p. 184. Aristotle (fourth century B.C.), however, had already given evidence respecting the use of silk, which was adopted and repeated by Pliny, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Basil. Aristotle tells the story of Pamphile. One thousand years later Procopius (sixth century A.D.) says the raw material was then brought from the East, and woven in the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Berytus. See Yates, pp. 163, 164.

[231] Ibid., note (*), p. 184.

[232] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 181.

[233] I have mentioned this already, to prove the antiquity of the art of embroidery. Here I repeat it in reference to the first mention of silk. (See p. 38 ante.)

[234] "Bibliotheque Orientale de M. Herbelot," ed. 1778, vol. iii. p. 19.

[235] Auberville, p. 2; Yates (pp. 172, 173) calls her Si-ling, wife of Hoang-ti, and quotes the "Resume des Principaux Tractes Chinois," traduits par Stanislas Julien, 1837, pp. 67, 68.

[236] Auberville, "Histoire des Tissus," pp. 2-4; "Du Halde," vol. ii. pp. 355, 356 (8vo edition, London, 1736).

[237] Related by Klaproth, the Russian Orientalist.

[238] Yates, p. 238. "History of Khotan," translated by M. Abel Remusat, pp. 55, 56.

[239] Khotan or Little Bucharia would, in common parlance, be included in Serica; and therefore silk exported thence to Europe would have been perfectly described as coming from the Seres. Yates, p. 231, 232.

[240] Yates, p. 231.

[241] While in Europe the arts of daily use and decoration were struggling for life after many interruptions and revolutions, the civilization of Japan, which is nearly contemporary with Christianity, spent itself in perfecting to the most exquisite finish the arts which had been imported from China and Corea. Japan also inherited the power and the tradition of concealment, and so Europe remained unconscious, until the last century, of the miraculous arts which a semi-barbarous people were cultivating—not for commercial purposes. Auberville, "Tissus," pp. 2-4.

[242] Yates, pp. 175-184.

[243] Yates, p. 176. The silken flags attached to the gilt standards of the Parthians inflamed the cupidity of the army of Crassus. The conflict between them took place 54 B.C. About thirty years after this date, Roman luxury had reached its zenith—

"The insatiate Roman spreads his conquering arm O'er land and sea, where'er heaven's light extends."

"Petronius Arbiter," c. cxix.

After these words he says that among the richest productions of distant climes, the Seres sent their "new fleeces."

[244] Yates, p. 183.

[245] "Holosericum," whole silk; "subsericum," partly cotton, hemp, or flax. The longitudinal threads or warp, cotton; the cross threads, silk. Rock, "Textile Fabrics," p. xxxvii (ed. 1870).

[246] Yates, p. 195.

[247] Yates, p. 198. For the value of the denarius, see Waddington, "Edit. de Diocletien," p. 3.

[248] Gruter, tom. iii. p. 645; Yates, p. 205.

[249] Yates, p. 246. The words "silk" and "satin" are spoken of by Yates as having two derivations—the one imported to us through Greece and Italy, the other from Eastern Asia, through Slavonia, by the north of Europe.

[250] Yates, p. 231; who remarks, p. 203, that the laws of Justinian are not directed against the use of silk as a luxury, but rather as appropriating it as an imperial monopoly and source of revenue.

[251] Tom. ii. p. 106 (ed. 1630). See Yates, p. 213.

[252] Yates, p. 214.

[253] Auberville, Plate 4. Amongst these are what he calls "Consular silks." These are, or may be, included in the palmated class, as they are evidently woven for triumphal occasions. One of the most remarkable has every mark of Oriental design. It represents a picture in a circle, repeated over and over again, of a warrior in his quadriga. Black or coloured slaves drive the horses, either running beside them or standing upon them; and other slaves carry beasts on their shoulders, and are stooping to give them drink at a trough. The space between the circles is filled in with the tree of life, growing out of its two horns. The colours are purple and gold. He places this between the first and seventh centuries (see pl. 34).

[254] There are, however, a few that have not had the security of the tomb, and yet have survived, such as the chasuble and maniple at Bayeux, of the seventh century, and Charlemagne's dalmatic.

[255] Roger de Wendover, "Chronica," t. iv. p. 127, ed. Coxe. Quoted by Rock from Ralph, Dean of St. Paul's. See Rock, Introduction, p. lv.

[256] Roger de Wendover, "Chronica," t. iv., ed. Coxe; also Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," pp. 243, 244.

[257] In the twelfth century. Semper, i. p. 38.

[258] See illustration from the portrait of Sultan Mahomet II., by Gentil Bellini. Ante, p. 146, Plate 33.

[259] See Semper, p. 157.

[260] The Sicilian type of design in silk-weaving was carried into Germany about the end of the second period. We are informed by Auberville that there existed at that time a manufacture of ecclesiastical stuffs at Leipzig, from which he gives us fine examples.

[261] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," vol. ii. Taf. xxxiii. The pattern is twelfth century "metal work," embroidered in gold.

[262] See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," iii., pl. xvi.; v., pl. xxxiv. In general, a scarf floats from the prow or from the oars.

[263] The Crusaders carried away splendid booty from the towns they took and ransacked. As it was the great gathering-place of all Eastern and Western nations, Jerusalem was a mart for rich merchandise from Persia, Arabia, Syria, and Phoenicia, till the times of the Latin kings. Antioch, as well as Jerusalem, yielded the richest plunder. Matthew Paris (a contemporary historian), speaking of what was taken at Antioch, 1098, says, "At the division of costly vessels, crosses, weavings, and silken stuffs, every beggar in the crusading army was enriched." Alexandria, as early as the middle of the sixth century, A.D., had been the depot for the silken stuffs of Libya and Morocco. Here is a wide area opened to us for suggestions as to the origin and traditions of patterns in silk textile art. See Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," vol. i. pp. 29, 30.

[264] Rock, Introduction, p. ccxlviii, and p. 268, No. 8710.

[265] The weaving of inscriptions in textiles is not a Saracenic invention. Pliny says it was a custom among the Parthians. See Rock's "Textile Fabrics," p. lxi.

"In allusion to lettered garments, Ausonius thus celebrates Sabina, of whom we otherwise know nothing:—

"'They who both webs and verses weave, The first to thee, oh chaste Minerva, leave; The latter to the Muses they devote. To me, Sabina, it appears a sin To separate two things so near akin; So I have writ these verses on my coat.'"

See Lady Wilton on "Needlework," p. 53.

[266] Birdwood, "Indian Arts," p. 274.

[267] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 244; Tegrini, "Vita Castruccii," in Muratore, "Ital. Script.," t. xi. p. 1320.

[268] Riano, "Cat. of Loan Exhibition of Spanish Art in South Kensington Museum," 1882, p. 46.

[269] In Hoveden's account of the fleet of Richard I. coasting the shores of Spain, he speaks of the delicate and valuable textures of the silks of Almeria. Rog. Hoveden, Ann., ed. Savile, p. 382. Rock, p. xx.

[270] Bock, pp. 39, 40, quotes from Anastasius and the Abbot of Fontenelle, proving that silken rugs were manufactured in Spain by the Moors.

[271] Auberville, "Histoire des Tissus," p. 14.

[272] Yule's "Marco Polo," p. 224. "Baudakin" from Baghdad, "damask" from Damascus. "Baudakin" was woven with beasts, birds, and flowers in gold.

[273] "Recit de Robert Clari." He was one of the companions of Ville d'Hardouin, and a witness to the coronation of Baldwin II. See Auberville's "Histoire des Tissus," p. 21.

[274] Satin is called by Marco Polo "zettani," and he says it came from Syria. The French called it "zatony;" the Spaniards named it "aceytuni," which is probably derived from "zaituniah," the product of Zaiton. Yates (p. 246) gives the derivations of the words satin and silk; the one imported to us through Greece and Italy, the other from Eastern Asia, through Slavonia and Northern Europe.

[275] Ibid. In the Wigalois, a story is told of a cavern in Asia full of everlasting flames, where costly fellat was made by the Salamanders, which was fireproof and indestructible.

[276] "Man of Lawe's Tale: Canterbury Pilgrims."

[277] "Ohitos terciopelos" (three-piled-velvet eyes) is a pretty Spanish phrase, describing the soft, dark, shadowy eyes of the Spanish girls.

[278] The Italian word velluto means "shaggy."

[279] Bock, i. pp. 99-101.

[280] Buckram was sometimes a silken plush, but generally was woven with cotton. This was also Asiatic, and named by travellers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. I have already mentioned it as a textile in the chapter on cotton. When woven of silk it belongs to the class of velvets.

[281] Elsewhere I have spoken of the embroideries of the early Christian times found in the Fayoum, in Egypt. These afford notable examples of the ancient method in putting in patches on a worn or frayed garment. They invariably embroidered them, and so added a grace to the old and honoured vestment, and justified the classical appellation, "Healer of clothes" for a darner. The comparatively modern additions of the restorer, are in ancient as in later specimens, often a puzzle to the archaeologist.

[282] The specimens in the South Kensington Museum, where Dr. Rock gives their approximate dates, are most useful to the student of this subject.



CHAPTER V.

COLOUR.

"My soul, what gracious glorious powers To hue and radiance God has given!"

Cautley, "Emblems," p. 21.

It is my intention to confine myself to the discussion of colour, in as far as it belongs to the dyes of textiles and the materials for embroidery. I will adhere as closely as I can to this part of what is a great and most interesting subject—one which the science of to-day has opened out, and by the test of experiment, cleared of erroneous theories; revealing to us all its beauty and fitness for the use and delight of man.

As through all ages the eye has been gradually educated to appreciate harmony in colour, so dissonance—that is, what errs against harmony—hurts us, without apparently a sufficient reason; and we have to seek the causes of our sensations in the scientific works and lectures of Professor Tyndall and others.

There is no doubt that the appreciation of colour has belonged in different degrees to the eye of every animal, but especially to that of man, ever since light first painted the flowers of the field. The eye is created to see colour, as well as form. But we know that men, being accustomed to acquiesce in the powers with which they find themselves gifted by nature, enjoy and use them, long before they begin to study, classify, and name them.

When we recollect that the circulation of the blood was not known within the last three hundred years, and that Albert Duerer painted the skeleton Death on the bridge of Lucerne, with one bone in the upper and one in the lower arm, we shall be surprised to find that the ancients had named the colours they saw, with some degree of descriptive and scientific precision. The word "purple," for instance, covered a multitude of tints, which had not as yet been differentiated, either in common parlance or in poetry,[283] though as articles of commerce the purple tints had been early distinguished.

What names have we now, in this present advanced day, for defining tastes or smells? We say that something smells like a violet, or a rose, or a sea breeze, or a frosted cabbage. We say a smell is nice or nasty, that a taste is delicious or nauseous; but beyond calling it sweet or sour, we have no descriptive words for either smells or tastes, whereas the nations who traded in the materials for dyes exchanged their nomenclatures, which we can recognize from the descriptive remarks of different authors.

Colour, as an art, was born in those lands which cluster round the eastern shores of the Mediterranean—the northern coasts of Syria and Arabia, and the isles of Greece. All art grew in that area, and all its adjuncts and materials there came to perfection, though often imported from more southern and eastern sources.[284]

E. Curtius says that the science of colour came into Europe with the Phoenicians and accompanied the worship of Astarte. This, of course, applies to artistic textiles, as the Greeks had already acquired the art of dyeing for plain weaving. Numa, in his regulations for necessary weaving, refers also to colour. The Italians therefore must at that time have made some advance in the art, especially the Etruscans.[285]

The infinity of variation in colour is difficult to imagine. The chemists of the Gobelins have fixed and catalogued 4480 tones. Besides, we must not forget that it is now all but ascertained that the same colour is probably appreciated differently by nearly every eye.[286]

How the eye accepts colours and conveys them to the mind is still a question in dispute, though the theories of Tyndall, Helmholz, Hering, Charpentier, and others, aided by experiments, are drawing ascertained facts into a circle, which will ere long be complete, and the mysteries of colour may be ascertained.

Probably the effects of colour on educated minds are as various as the tints and shades of tones of the many substances which receive them,—reflected from all surrounding objects, blazing in light, or softened by shadow,—fresh and glowing, or permanently faded—shining with modern varnish, or sobered by the dust of ages.

It is the art of the colourist, whether he paints pictures, or dyes textiles, or embroiders them, to reduce the tints of the prism to an endurable and delightful lowness of tone, while preserving as far as possible all their light and purity.

Prismatic colours are so radiantly glorious, that when we see the rainbow in the sky it is each time a joyful surprise. The most stolid natures are moved by it; we have even seen our dog staring at it.