CHAPTER IV.

The extraordinary qualities of the silk worm are said to have been discovered nearly three thousand years before the Christian era, by an Empress of China. From the celestial Empire the precious secret was conveyed in process of time into Persia; the proud city of Tyre and the island of Cos, in the Archipelago, were the next recipients of the manufacture; and in the ordinary course of traffic it found its way to Greece and Rome. In the earlier days of the republic, however, such apparel was prohibited by the censors in the eternal city, as too effeminate a species of clothing for her warlike children, although the fabric then in use was only of mixed cotton and silk, the pure manufacture being almost too expensive even for the imperial shoulders. Upon its subsequent introduction at Constantinople, the Emperor Justinian fixed the price of it at £4 15s. 9d. the pound avoirdupois: his subjects continued in profound ignorance of the mode of obtaining the raw article or of manufacturing it into clothing, until the secret was conveyed to Justinian by some missionaries, who were sent back to China, and A.D. 552 contrived to smuggle some silk worms from the sacred empire. For the time the introduction of the manufacture at Constantinople had the effect of greatly augmenting its price, and although it spread to the Peloponnesus, and thence over to Greece, it was still regarded as so costly a commodity, that in 790 Charlemagne is recorded to have sent two silk vests as a regal gift to Offa, King of the Mercians. For some centuries a knowledge of the manufacture was very slowly diffused, until Roger, King of Sicily, having

invaded the Greek empire, carried back with him, and settled in the city of Palermo, a number of silk weavers. Here it quickly attained to considerable excellence; in the thirteenth century it employed many thousand Italians, and it was a traffic in which the nobles were not ashamed to engage. From Italy it passed to Spain, thence to France, and eventually to this Country. In France it received a favorable impulse from the Italian wars of Francis the First, that Monarch having conveyed to his own realms some weavers of Milan, who were the principal means of establishing the superiority of the city of Lyons. An extensive traffic was carried on between this Country and France at an early period, but the price of silk goods must then have been enormously high, Queen Elizabeth having worn silk stockings as a great and almost exclusive luxury, which her father, Henry the Eighth, could rarely enjoy. The introduction of the stocking-frame in England, and its general, though very slow, application, established for our manufacturers a decided superiority in this production, until its inventor, the Rev. W. Lea, being neglected at home, accepted an invitation from Henry the Fourth, of France, and settled at Rouen. After the death of his patron, Lea did not escape the common lot of inventorshe was neglected and died in penury at Paris. Henry the Fourth may be almost considered as the father of the French manufacture, to encourage which, he held out the lure of patents of nobility. He attempted, but with no permanent success, to carry the rearing of silk worms into the northern provinces; and the celebrated minister, Colbert, distinguished himself at a later period by his efforts, which ultimetely were successful, to extend the culture of the mulberry tree.

James the First, incited by the proceedings in France, issued a circular letter, in which he urged their cultivation, believing from partial experiments that the silk worm might

flourish in England: the suggestion was acted upon with some vigour, but unsuccessfully. The attempt was afterwards renewed in 1718, by a Joint Stock Company, who selected Chelsea Park as the site of their operations; two thousand mulberry trees were planted, and for a time glowing hopes were held out, but eventually the experiment failed. It may be mentioned that so recently as the year 1825, a Company styling itself" The British, Irish, and Colonial Silk Company" once more made experiments on English and Irish soil. A royal charter was obtained, no less than four hundred thousand white mulberry trees were planted on an estate in the county of Cork, in Ireland, and seventy or eighty thousand on lands in England. They flourished for the time, but were abandoned by the Company, who fixed an establishment in the island of Malta. There are exhibited in the National Repository, as great curiosities, some stockings manufactured from native silk. In addition to his attempts at home, James the First strove to substitute the culture of silk instead of tobacco in the American colony of Virginia, but the attempt failed, as did also subsequent experiments in Georgia and Carolina. There is, however, some reason to hope that in the southern States of America a judicious effort might prosper, and in Pensylvania so much success has attended a recent trial as to attract the favorable notice of Congress.

Various experiments have been made to obtain a substitute for the silk worm. In France an adventurous gentleman formed an establishment of spiders, but it was found that when fifty or a hundred of these insects were placed in cells together, the larger swallowed the smaller ones, until only one or two remained! An insect called the Pinna has also been discovered, which elaborates very delicate material used for stockings; but the extreme heat of the fabric would prevent its coming into very general use, even if it were less rare. Italy and France, India and China,

are now the chief producers of raw silk. In Prussia, the growth of the mulberry tree has been exclusively pursued since the days of Peter the Great; in Bavaria and other parts of Germany, as well as in Sweden, partial success has attended its culture. The magnitude of the establishments for the production of raw silk may be estimated from the fact that, calculating the consumption of raw material in England alone at four millions of pounds, no less than "fourteen millions of animated creatures annually live and die to supply this little corner of the world with an article of luxury."

The revocation of the edict of Nantes was the means of giving a permanently beneficial impulse to the silk manufacture of England, at the expense of the French nation. In Lyons alone the number of silk looms was reduced from 18,000 to 4,000. No less than 70,000 of the French people emigrated to England and Ireland, many settling at Spitalfields, and establishing a knowledge of various fabrics (lutestring especially) heretofore almost exclusively possessed by France. In 1629 the Company of "Masters, wardens, assistants and commonality of silk throwsters" was formed, and an Act passed in 1661 speaks of them as employing 40,000 men, women and children. In 1691 the chartered "Royal Lutestring Company" was erected, with exclusive privileges and a prohibition of the import of foreign silks. An article in the treaty of Utrecht, which established our trade with France on low ad valorem duties, was fiercely and successfully opposed by the manufacturers, who, in their representations to Government, set forth that between that year (1731) and 1664 the trade had increased twenty-fold under the protective system-that our "black and coloured silks, gold and silver stuffs and ribands" were equal to those of France that black silk, for scarfs, &c. was now made annually to the value of £300,000, whereas it used all to

be imported-and that, by the exchange of our commodities for their raw silk, the trade with the Turks and Italians had greatly augmented. At this time, then, the silk trade was of considerable importance; but a few years subsequently, in 1718, its growth would be materially quickened by the adventure of a person named Lombe, who, having contrived to carry from Piedmont designs of the silk-throwing machinery used in Italy, erected a throwing mill at Derby. He obtained a patent for fourteen years, and in 1731 applied for a renewal of it, but his application was refused, Parliament granting him in lieu £14,000. "This grand machine was constructed with 26,586 wheels and 97,746 movements, which worked 73,726 yards of organzine silkthread with every revolution of the water-wheel whereby the machinery was actuated; and as this revolved three times in each minute, the almost inconceivable quantity of 318,504,960 yards of organzine could be produced daily. Only one water-wheel was employed to give motion to the whole of this machinery, the contrivance of which, considering the then state of mechanical science in England, speaks highly for that of the constructor, who possessed the means of controlling and stopping any one or more of the movements at pleasure, without obstructing the continued action of the rest." Great difficulty was still experienced in obtaining the raw material, the export being prohibited in foreign countries. To mitigate the various disadvantages under which the English manufacturer laboured, and to encourage "so novel a manufacture," George the First granted a bounty on the export of British silk goods; the duties on the import of drugs used in dyeing were repealed; and whilst additional facilities were afforded for the importation of raw silk, the manufactured article was almost wholly prohibited. In consequence of frequent disputes between the workmen and their employers, an Act was passed in 1773 (which, being re-enacted, con