importance in this island, and was the object of royal proclamations and legislative enactments for its encouragement. Foreign silk goods, however, continued long to be preferred; and, so late as the year 1668, French fabrics were so much in fashion, that it was a matter of complaint, that "women's hats were turned into hoods made of French silk, whereby every maid-servant became a standing revenue to the French king of one-half of her wages.

Notwithstanding this predilection for foreign goods, the English manufacture has gone on steadily advancing in quality and amount; so as to afford, as a recent author observes, one of the most striking instances on record, in which an art, borrowed from other nations, and employed on a material of entirely foreign growth, has been made at least to equal, if it does not surpass, the productions of those countries from which it was derived.

It seems as if the history of this manufacture was intended to afford constant illustrations of that remarkable feature in the character of the Divine government, by which the bad passions of men are caused to promote the accomplishment of some important purpose in the advancement of society. A century after the destruction of Antwerp had transferred the silk trade, along with many industrious artisans, to England, the treacherous revocation of the edict of Nantes, by Louis XIV., compelled at least half a million of merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen, to fly from France. About seventy thousand of these made their way to England and Ireland, with such property as the emergency of the case allowed them to carry away. A large number of them, who had been engaged in the fabrication of silks, resorted to Spitalfields, contributing much, by their knowledge and skill, to the improvement of the manufacture in England. Descendants of many of the refugees are still found in the same spot, engaged in the same occupation. The cruel decree in question was attended with effects which those who perpetrated that act of oppression, did not foresee. A large population, possessing knowledge and dexterity in the arts of life, were thus scattered over Europe, and, intermingling with the less instructed of other nations, accelerated the general civili

zation.

At the close of the sixteenth century, the English, who had previously been content to adopt the inventions and the plans of others, entered upon that course of mechanical improvement, which has since been prosecuted to such important results. An engine for knitting or weaving stockings, was at that time invented by the Řev. William Lea, of St. John's College, Cambridge, which was important, not only as it enabled our ancestors to discard their former inelegant hose, but still more as it caused the English manufactures to excel all of foreign production. The invention of the stocking-frame led to the exportation of vast quantities of silk hose to Italy. These maintained their superiority for so long a period, that Keyslar, in his travels through Europe, as late as the year 1730, remarks that, "at Naples, when a tradesman would highly recommend his silk stockings, he protests they are right English."

The success which attended Mr. Lea's invention was not, however, immediately consequent upon its introduction. On the contrary, the small use made of woven stockings in England at that time, caused the machine to be long neglected; and so little was the encouragement which he met with at home, that Mr. Lea was induced to comply with the invitation of Henry IV.,of France, and, accompanied by several journeymen, established his looms for a time at Rouen in Normandy. The subsequent assassination of his royal patron, and the internal troubles of France which followed that event, compelled him, however, to abandon the establishment; and, falling into a state of destitution, he soon after died in Paris.*

SEVENTH WEEK-THURSDAY.

CLOTHING.-THE SILK MANUFACTURE-HISTORY OF MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCES CONNECTED WITH IT.

I HAVE already noticed the first invention of the weaving machine for stockings, by an English ecclesiastic;

*Lardner's Cyclopedia-Silk Manufacture.

but it may be interesting briefly to trace the progress of machinery as connected with this art, from the earliest times which history makes known to us.

The native place of the silk manufacture was, doubtless, the same as that of the raw material; but we have no authentic account of the origin of this manufacture, and are only aware of its existence in China, in the earliest times to which our acquaintance with that country reaches. The celebrated traveller, Marco Polo, at the close of the thirteenth century, gave to the world a narrative of his wanderings, wherein is contained an interesting account of China. At that time, the silk manufacture was carried on to a vast extent in that empire. He describes the whole country to be filled with great, rich, and crowded towns, thronged with manufacturers of silk, and of other valuable merchandise; and, speaking of Cambalu, the royal city, he informs us, that "no fewer than a thousand carriages and pack-horses, loaded with raw silk, make their daily entry into the city; and silks of various textures are manufactured to an immense extent.

The mode in which this manufacture is performed in China, is stated to be, even at the present day, extremely rude, notwithstanding the excellence of the fabrics produced. In that extraordinary country, as well as in India, the human mind is subjected to trammels, which have kept it stationary for many ages, and afford us good ground for believing, that the present machinery and mode of manufacture is nearly the same as that which prevailed many centuries ago.

The following is a description, given in Lardner's Cyclopedia, of the mode in which the operation of weaving is conducted in India, which may serve to afford a pretty correct idea of the manner in which the art is practised in the kindred country of China. "The wretched weaver performs his labors in the open air, choosing his station under trees, whose shade may protect him from the scorching rays of the sun. Here, extending the threads which compose the warp of his intended cloth, lengthwise between two bamboo rollers, which are fast

ened to the turf by wooden pins, he digs a hole in the earth large enough to contain his legs, when in a sitting posture; then, suspending to a branch of a tree the cords. which are intended to cause the reciprocal raising and depressing of the alternate threads of his warp, he fixes underneath, and connected with the cords, two loops, into which inserting the great toe of either foot, he is ready to commence his operations. The shuttle, wherewith he causes the cross threads, or woof, to interlace the warp, is in form like a netting-needle, and, being somewhat longer than the breadth of the warp, is made to perform the office of a batten, by striking the threads of the woof close up to each other.

"With this rude apparatus," the author adds, "the patient Indian succeeds in weaving fabrics, which, for delicacy of texture, cannot be surpassed, and can hardly be rivalled, by the European weaver, even when his labors are aided by the most elaborate machinery. But it is only in climates where the absolute natural wants of man are few, and under systems of government where the oppressions of the dominant caste deprive the unhappy bulk of the people of all means of attaining more than suffices for the barest supply of those wants, that such labors can be performed."*

The machine employed in Europe, for enabling the weaver to perform his labors, differs from that of the tradesman of China and of India, not in principle, but in some very obvious mechanical improvements, which are too well known to require description. Up to very recent times, it has undergone few changes. It is remarkable, that, in England, where the practical application of mechanical science to the arts, has been long an object of study, they are indebted for many of the late improvements to foreign, rather than native, ingenuity. Looms exactly similar, both in form and arrangements, to those which have been used, time out of mind, by the weaving craft, are still to be seen in daily occupation, and are even preferred for every purpose to which they can be made available, by the laboring artisan.

* Lardner's Cyclopedia-Silk Manufacture.

For figure-weaving, a more complicated apparatus is required; it is the art of producing various patterns in the cloth, either by the introduction of threads of various colors, or by a different arrangement of the threads, or by using, in the same fabric, threads of different substances. This interesting art is of very ancient invention; but till lately, the machinery by which it was effected, was comparatively imperfect. Into the nature of that machinery, and the contrivances by which it has been improved, it would be foreign to my purpose minutely to inquire. I shall merely state, that a recent invention seems to have formed what may almost be considered a new era in this interesting art. It is called a Jacquard, from the name of its ingenious inventor, who was a practical weaver of Lyons, and fell an early victim to the intensity of his mental application.

In the course of the very few years which have elapsed since its introduction into this country, the Jacquardloom has entirely taken the place of every other method of figured silk-weaving, and has been, in no small degree, instrumental in bringing that curious and beautiful art to its present state of advancement. The elaborate

specimens of brocade, which used to be brought forward as evidence of skilfulness on the part of the Spitalfield weavers of former days, were produced only by the most practised among the craft, who bestowed upon their performances a very painful amount of labor. The most beautiful products of the loom, in the present day, are, however, accomplished by men possessing only the ordinary rate of skill; while the labor attending on the actual weaving, is but little more than that demanded for making the plainest goods.

As a further improvement in the art of silk-weaving, I might mention the application of the power-loom to this species of manufacture; but, although the experiment has been tried, it is considered doubtful if the use of this principle, as applicable to silk-weaving, can be productive of any material advantage, except in the most common branches of the work; and I shall, therefore, reserve any observations on this branch, till I come to speak of the cotton manufacture.