productions,* and the present paper shall be occupied with a slight sketch of their commercial history. Flax and wool were, doubtless, the two first of these materials used in Europe for manufactured clothing; but which of them had the precedency, it may be difficult to determine. From the earliest period of European history, they were both very generally employed, though the linen made of the former was at first more usually applied to the sails of ships than to the purposes of dress.

It has already been mentioned, that the art of preparing flax, and weaving it into fine linen, was very early known in Egypt. Solomon imported from this country flaxen yarn, which was woven by his subjects into cloth; and it is supposed that the Grecians, who were early familiar with the use of this material, derived also their knowledge of it from the Egyptians. They were still noted for their manufacture of linen, and their export of flax, under the Roman emperors. The great proficiency of that ancient people in the manufacture is not only proved by the linen found enwrapping their mummies, which has elsewhere been noticed, but also by the existence of a curiously wrought linen corslet, in the time of Herodotus, in the temple of Minerva, in Rhodes, part of which was preserved so late as the age of Pliny. It belonged to Amasis, king of Egypt, who lived about 600 years before Christ. Each thread of this remarkable relict was composed of 360 filaments, and it was ornamented with cotton and gold.

Woollen manufacture is mentioned in Scripture along with that of linen; and in Greece they both existed in the time of Homer. Cloth of the former material was indeed more usually employed in Europe, as I have already stated, than of the latter, on account of the coolness of the climate; while, in the warmer countries of Egypt and Southern Asia, the case was reversed.

* "Spring," the flax-plant; the cotton-plant. "Summer," the silkworm; sheep-shearing

↑ Herodotus mentions that linen was originally imported from Egypt into Greece.

66

Down to this period, and for a considerable time afterwards, neither cotton nor silk were known in Europe, or even in any of those nations which were open to Europeans. Herodotus, who wrote about four centuries and a half before the Christian era, is the first Greek historian who mentions the cotton plant, unless indeed it be the same as byssus; and he speaks of it as entirely confined to India. It is interesting to observe the terms in which this useful substance, afterwards to be so much prized, and so universally used, is first noticed by a historian of Europe. "They (the inhabitants of India) possess likewise,” says he, a kind of plant, which, instead of fruit, produces wool of a fine and better quality than that of sheep; of this the Indians make their clothes." ." The next mention of the cotton plant occurs more than a hundred years afterwards, connected with the history of Alexander the Great. Nearchus, the intelligent and observant admiral of this conqueror, at his command descended the Indus, and navigated the coast of Persia; and, in his narrative, preserved in Arrian, he says, that "the Indians wore linen garments of a substance growing on trees; and this," adds he, "is indeed flax, or rather something much whiter and finer than flax."t

It appears that, in the time of Pliny, who lived about the end of the first century, the cotton plant had found its way into Egypt, and was cultivated for manufacture near the Arabian boundary of that kingdom. "There is nothing," he says, "to be preferred to these stuffs for whiteness or softness. Beautiful garments are made from them for the priests of Egypt." Arrian, who wrote soon after, was the first to mention cotton as an article of commerce; and he gives some curious details, which shows that the manufacture of calicoes and muslins, was then nearly in the same state, in India, as it is in the present day.§ It is a remarkable and almost un

* Herodotus, book iii. c. 106. Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. xix. c. 1.

† Arrian's Indian History, chap. xvi. § Periplus.

accountable fact, that, although cotton goods had, at this period, become an article of commerce, and even of manufacture, in Egypt, they were scarcely known, or at least little used, on the European side of the Mediterranean for nearly thirteen centuries later.

Of silk, although from time immemorial an article of exclusive manufacture among the Chinese, the most confused notions were long entertained in Europe. It was, however, very early imported and re-spun and woven in the Island of Cos, situated in the Archipelago. This is mentioned by Aristotle, who gives the first distinct account of the nature of the produce, having received accurate information by means of the conquests of his enterprising pupil Alexander. Silk, however, was little known in Europe before the reign of Augustus; and, during a long succeeding period, it remained very costly, though much esteemed. Only a small quantity reached the imperial city, by a circuitous route. During the reign of Tiberias, the use of the Oriental manufacture was confined to women of rank. Men were restrained, by a law of the senate, from clothing themselves with such effeminate apparel, although the slighter and inferior fabrics of Cos were used, in the heat of summer, by the more luxurious of both sexes. The high price of silk, in the end of the third century, may be judged of from the recorded fact, that the Emperor Aurelian refused the entreaties of his Empress to clothe himself in this article, alleging that such a luxury could only be obtained “ in exchange for its weight in gold."

It was not till the time of Justinian that, by the transportation of the eggs of the silk-worm to Constantinople, and the Island of Cos, the enormous price of this beautiful fabric was materially reduced. This was effected by means of two Persian monks, who, having been employed as missionaries in India, had penetrated into China. "There, amidst their pious occupations," says Robertson," they viewed, with a curious eye, the common dress of the Chinese, the manufactures of silk, and

the myriads of silk-worms, whose education, either on trees or in houses, had once been considered the labour of queens. They soon discovered that it was impracticable to transplant the short-lived insect; but that, in the eggs, a numerous progeny might be preserved and multiplied in a distant climate." Having secretly obtained a quantity of eggs, they succeeded in concealing them, and in conveying them safely to Justinian. This happened in the year 552. The eggs were hatched, in the proper season, by the warmth of manure, and thus a foundation was laid for a European manufacture which has added so materially to the beauty and elegance of the dress of the inhabitants. For 600 years after this period, the productions of the silk-worm, in Europe, were confined to the Roman empire; and, in the middle of the twelfth century, this once powerful people, although degenerated in their spirit, and circumscribed in their boundaries, continued to excel other nations of this quarter of the globe, in the quality and variety of their manufactures, and in the ingenuity of their artizans. By them alone, up to this period, were the silk-worms raised, and the produce of these insects converted into webs for human clothing.

Such is a short outline of the progressive steps by which European nations came into possession of the great staple materials of our present manufactures; and so slow, and full of difficulties, were the first beginnings of those arts, from which were to flow, in after times, the conveniences and elegances, if not, strictly speaking, the necessaries of human life. The modern history of these manufactures requires a more extended consideration.

194

SEVENTH WEEK-SUNDAY.

THE EMPTINESS OF HUMAN ATTAINMENTS.

THE wonderful discoveries which human ingenuity has made, and the astonishing results of human industry, have a tendency to make us lose sight of our defects and weaknesses. Every one who knows any thing of his own heart must be sensible of this. We are apt to cherish sentiments of self-dependance and self-sufficiency, totally at variance with our real situation. We forget that we are the weak and perishing creatures of a day; that we have nothing which we can call our own, nothing on which we can rely; that there is a resistless current constantly passing over us, and sweeping away every earthly prop on which we rest for support. Above all, in the bustle of an inventive and toiling world, we too often cherish the insane and ungrateful propensity of attributing to ourselves all the powers, and talents, and acquirements bestowed upon us by Providence, and reject those religious sentiments of dependance and filial submission, which are so delightful in themselves, and so suited to our fallen condition. It is of importance, therefore, that we should be frequently brought back to a sober view of human life, as it ought to appear in the sight of a being destined for immortality.

It is not to be denied that human attainments are desirable; but then, to be so, they must be properly applied. They can only be called useful acquirements, when directed to pursuits ennobling in their nature, and permanent in their duration. The philosopher may make wonderful discoveries; but they are wonderful only to such ignorant and short-sighted creatures as himself. How ridiculous his pride and parade must appear in the sight of superior beings, who perceive that he has been all the while merely skimming the surface of nature,