monopoly from the hands of the Perfians, and terminated in making his own capital the principal mart to Europe of that envied manufacture. Dr. Campbell having entered pretty much at large into this fubject, and traced the progress of this traffic to the British ifles, as the fubject alfo defcends to ages below the period of Indian Antiquities, and as I have many other interefting matters ftill to inveftigate relative to the arts and sciences of the Indians, the reader will excufe my inferting the account of that well-informed writer.

Two Perfian monks, that had travelled to the Indies, went to the emperor, and told him, that they could very eafily fettle that manufacture amongst his subjects, so as that they might never be under the neceffity of dealing with any ftrangers, much lefs with the Perfians, for that commodity. This filk, faid they, which is fo precious here, is, in SERINDA, (the most populous and most civilized country in the Indies, where we have spent many years,) spun by certain little worms, which inftinct they receive from na ture. As for these worms, it is impoffible to tranfport them; but their eggs may be brought thence without any difficulty, and

hatched

hatched here by giving them a certain degree of heat.

Such were the proposals made by the monks to Juftinian, who readily clofed with them, making them great promises, in case they were able to bring this matter to bear, which, without much difficulty, they did; for, returning to the Indies, they brought thence a confiderable quantity of the eggs, nourishing the worms, when they came out, with the leaves of mulberries; and thus, according to Procopius, was the art of making filk introduced into the Greek empire.*

This tranfaction fell out A. D. 550, but it was a long time before it spread itself much beyond the bounds of the Greek empire; for, we find, that, A. D. 1130, Roger, King of Sicily, having conquered a part of Greece, brought over into his own country the art of managing filk-worms, which was quickly transferred thence to Calabria, and other parts of Italy, where it flourished for fome ages, before it was transferred to the fouthern parts of France, which, the great historian

• Procopius de Bello Gothic. lib. iv. cap. 17. VOL. VII.

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Mezeray

Mezeray tells us, happened under the reign of Francis the First, in which, however, he is deceived; for, Lewis XI. A. D. 1470, introduced it into his dominions, and fent for perfons, fkilful in the art of managing filk, not only from Genoa, Venice, and Florence, but alfo from Greece; and, by his letters patent, dated in the year 1480, granted them confiderable privileges. But the price of this commodity was ftill kept up at a great height.

That magnificent prince, Henry VIII. wore commonly woollen hofe, unless by chance he had a pair of filk from Spain. His fon, Edward VI. had a pair of filk ftockings prefented him by Sir Thomas, Gresham, which prefent of his was much taken notice of. Queen Elizabeth, in the third year of her reign, had a pair of black knit filk stockings given her by Mrs. Montague, and he never wore worsted afterwards. In the year 1600, Mr. William Lee, a native of Nottingham, invented the art of frame-work knitting, which has been fince carried, with the manufacture itfelf, "in all its various branches, to fuch a high

point of excellence and national impor

tance.*

PORCELAIN, GLASS, and COLOURED STONES.

The great number and variety of the fpecies of argillaceous earth, which abound in this region of Afia, together with the plastic property of clay, when merely moistened with water, would naturally lead the Indians to engage in works of pottery, which afford fo excellent an opportunity of indulging a fancy peculiarly lively as theirs, in the fabrication of ornamental vafes and other elegant articles adapted either to domestic use or foreign traffic. Devotion operated as powerfully towards advancing this kind of manufacture as the former; it taught them, as yet ftrangers to fculptured images, to mould the figures of their avatars, and all the symbols of their complicated mythology, of the purest kind of this brilliant clay; to harden them in the fire; to cover them with gold and azure, the colour of the fun and fkies from which they

1

* Campbell's edition of Harris's Voyages, vol.i. p.506.

emaned; and to exalt them on high in their abodes, as a kind of guardian penates, the confpicuous objects of their reverential respect.

Though their first efforts in clay and plaster must of neceffity have been very rude; yet time, practice, and increasing idolatry, could not fail to improve the Indian artist in this as well as other branches of mechanics; and they would make gradual advances in it till they were able to complete those more elegant fpecimens of skill, in porcelain, which were fo highly valued by the old Romans; for, the vasa murrbina, though by fome confidered as fabricated of chrystal, and by others of agate, were, doubtlefs, only a finer fpecies of Oriental porcelain. Thefe, we are told by Pliny, were in fuch high request in the capital of the world as to be estimated, fome that held three fextaries only, at seventy, and others of still larger dimenfions, at three bundred, talents.*

.

Martial calls these vafes pocula maculofa murrha, i. e. cups formed of the earth murrba with variegated spots, blue and red,

* Plinii Nat. Hift. lib. xxxvii. cap. 2.

on