The longer hairs of animals are employed in making woven stuffs of various kinds; but I shall reserve what I have to say of these till I have given you some account of the important article of wool, and its use in the manufacture of clothing.

Meantime, farewell.

153

LETTER XIV.

ANIMAL CLOTHING CONTINUED.

WOOL.

Of all the materials for clothing afforded by animals, the wool of the sheep has been preferred by the greatest number of people in all ages, whether still adhering to the skin, clotted into felt, or spun and woven into cloth. This useful and innocent creature, originally, it is probable, a native of the north-western portion of Asia, has been domesticated in all the climates of the globe between the extremes of heat and cold; and in all it has not only bestowed upon man its flesh, and often its milk, for his nourishment, but its fleece for his clothing. The skin with the wool growing to it, has been the dress only of savages, or of tribes little advanced beyond them. A sheep-skin cloak is however still the usual garb of the peasants who carry

their commodities for sale to the markets of Petersburg and Moscow.

Wherever civilisation has prevailed, the wool plucked off, or sheared from the skin, has been employed as a material for the fabrication of cloths of different kinds. This wool, you know, may be taken from the living animal at the approach of summer without hurting it, and is annually renewed. Sheep-shearing is one of the most interesting of the rural festivals, and has afforded a subject of pleasing description to several poets. Indeed pastoral poetry, celebrating the innocent and simple life of shepherds, while, surrounded by their fleecy charge, they lie stretched under the shade of a tree, playing on the pipe or singing the charms of their shepherdesses, was long the especial delight of courts and cities, where the contrast gave it a heightened zest. But this is a digression from the sober business of my letters.

England was far from being the earliest of the European nations in setting itself to manufacture of any kind; and wool, by far the most valuable and abundant product of the island, was long exported in a raw state

only, to feed the looms of France or Flanders. A part indeed was spun at home by the women, and woven into a coarse kind of cloth for domestic use; but all the finer fabrics, whether of silk, flax, or wool, required to add grace and dignity to the public appearances of the nobles of the land, were to be brought at great expense from the continent. Edward III. endeavoured to correct this practice in part by giving encouragement to foreign weavers to settle in England, and prohibiting the wearing of any woollen cloth not of home manufacture. By degrees English cloth found a foreign demand, but only in its native colour; it was not till the reign of James II. that the art of dyeing was introduced from Flanders, and our staple manufacture begun to enter into competition with the fabrics of our industrious neighbours, in the brilliancy and variety of its colours no less than in the evenness and firmness of its fabric.

Wool differs from common hair in being more soft and supple, and more disposed to curl. These properties it owes to a degree of unctuosity or greasiness, which is with difficulty separated from it. Its qualities in respect to fineness, length of staple, and

colour, differ greatly in different breeds of sheep, and even in different parts of the same fleece. Peculiar attention has been paid to the selecting of such breeds as yield the best wool for different purposes, and treating the animal so as to improve it to the highest possible degree. The Spanish wool was long allowed to be the finest that Europe afforded, but it is that of Saxony which now bears the highest price in our market. The famous Merino flocks, anciently the property of the kings of Spain, the periodical migrations of which from province to province for the benefit of pasture were a royal privilege and state concern, are no more. They were destroyed in the French invasion, and have never been renewed. But a flock of this noble breed presented by the Spanish sovereign to George III., was transferred about thirty years ago to our colony of New South Wales, in which genial soil and climate, its progeny speedily increased and multiplied beyond all former example. The Australian wool is next in fineness to the Saxon, and now affords a large supply to our manufacturers. Some of our native kinds pro