Fleecy is another description of wool, principally grown and manufactured in Leicestershire, for which this county has long been celebrated.

"Rich Leicestria's marly plains, for length Of whitest locks and magnitude of fleece Peculiar."

It is made of two qualities, superfine and common; they both vary in size from an eighth to a quarter of an inch in diameter, according to the number of threads they contain; thus, there are two, three, four, six, up to twelve threads, fleecy. Those in common use are from three to six threads. They are all equally good and useful for crochet, knitting, netting, &c. according to the purposes for which the work is designed.

HAMBURGH WOOL.

Hamburgh wool so called, or German worsted, is a common kind of wool, usually containing four threads, but is made as thick as to contain twelve threads: it is very brilliant in colour, and glossy, and for working on coarse canvas is extremely good. It is, however, difficult to be procured in all shades; and, hitherto, has not been much imported into this country. An imitation of this wool has been made, and much sold in England, under the name of Hamburgh worsted, but it does not possess any of the merits of the real Hamburgh wool, except its size.

GERMAN FLEECY.

German, or merino fleecy, is but little used or known in England. It possesses a decided superiority over the English, both in appearance, and pleasantness for use: the colours like the

German wool, are exceedingly brilliant.

It is usually made in sizes of eight or ten threads; and, for the purposes of crochet or tricot, cannot be surpassed. must, however, be borne in mind, that it is a more costly material than the English fleecy.*

* The art of dyeing was practised in the most remote ages. Savage and barbarous tribes even possessed colours which have been highly esteemed among civilised nations. From the writings of Moses, it is obvious that it had, in his time, made great progress. He mentions (Exodus xxv. 4-5) blue, purple, and scarlet, and rams' skins dyed red. The Egyptians, according to Pliny (lib. xxv. c. 2,) had discovered a mode of dyeing somewhat resembling that now employed for tinting printed cottons-the stuffs, after having been impregnated with mordants, were immersed in vats, where they received the different colours.

At a very early period, the art of dyeing had been brought to a considerable degree of perfection in Phoenicia. The method of dyeing woollen cloths purple was first discovered at Tyre. This colour,-the most celebrated among the ancients,—appears to have been brought to a degree of excellence, of which we can form but a very faint idea. It is related, that a shepherd's dog, instigated by hunger, having broken a shell on the sea shore, his mouth became stained with a colour, which excited the admiration of all who saw it, and that the same colour was afterwards applied to the dyeing of wool with great success. According to some of the ancient writers, this discovery is placed in the reign of Phoenix, second king of Tyre, five hundred years before Christ. Others fix it in that of Minos, who reigned in Crete about 1439 years before the Christian era. The honour of the invention of dyeing purple, however, is generally awarded to the Tyrian Hercules, who presented his discovery to the king of Phoenicia; and the latter was so jealous of the beauties of this new colour, that he forbade the use of it to all his subjects, reserving it for the garments of royalty alone. Some authors relate the story differently: Hercules' dog having stained his mouth with a shell, which he had broken on the sea shore, Tysas, a nymph of whom Hercules was enamoured, was so charmed with the beauty of the colour, that she declared she would see her lover no more until he had brought her garments dyed of the same. Hercules, in order to gratify his mistress, collected a great number of the shells, and succeeded in staining a robe of the colour the nymph had demanded.

The Tyrian purple was communicated by means of several species of univalve shell-fish. Pliny gives us an account (lib. vi. c. 36.) of two kinds of shell-fish from which the purple was obtained. The first species was called buccinum, the other purpura. A single drop of the liquid dye was obtained

from each fish, by opening a vessel situated in its throat.

This liquid, when

extracted, was mixed with a sufficient quantity of salt to prevent putrefaction. It was then diluted with five or six times as much water, and kept moderately hot in leaden or tin vessels for the space of ten days, during which time it was frequently skimmed, in order to separate all impurities. In dyeing, the wool was washed, immersed and kept in the liquid for five hours. It was then taken out, carded, and again immersed for a sufficient length of time for all the colouring matter to be extracted from the liquid. For the production of particular shades of colour, various salts were added. The colour of the Tyrian purple itself appears to have been similar to that of blood. This author also says, that the Tyrians first dyed their wool in the liquor of the purpura, and afterwards in that of the buccinum. We find allusions to this practice in several passages of the sacred writings. Horace also says:

And again:

"Muricibus Tyriis iteratæ vellera lanæ."

"Te bis Afro Murice tinctæ

Vestiunt lanæ."

The purple mentioned in Exodus was probably that dyed by the Tyrians. Ezekiel, in his prophecy against Tyre, says: "Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt, was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee." It is generally supposed, that by Elishah, Elis, on the western coast of the Greek Peloponnesus, was referred to: hence it would appear that the Tyrians, in the time of Ezekiel, obtained their supply of shell-fish for dyeing purple from the coast of Greece. This celebrated colour was restricted by the ancients to the sacred person and palace of the emperor; and the penalties of treason were denounced against the ambitious subject who dared to usurp the prerogative of the throne.

CHAPTER V.

Silk.

"She sets to work millions of spinning worms,

That in their green shops weave the smooth-haired silk,
To deck her sons."

"Let Asia's woods

Untended, yield the vegetable fleece,
And let the little insect-artist form,
On higher life intent, its silken tomb."

MILTON.

THOMSON.

ILK-WORMS,-the most precious of insects,whose produce holds so important a place amongst the luxuries of modern life, were first rendered serviceable to man by the Chinese, about two thousand seven hundred years before the Christian era. Their most ancient authorities represent the Empresses of China, as surrounded by their women, engaged in the occupation of hatching and rearing silk-worms, and in weaving tissues from their produce. To the empress Seeling-shee, the consort of Hoang-tee, is ascribed the honour of having first observed the silk produced by the worms, of unravel

ling their cocoons, and working the fine filament into a web of cloth.*

From China, the art of rearing silk-worms passed into India and Persia. The production of silk was unknown in Europe, however, until the middle of the sixth century, when two monks, who had long resided in China, succeeded in carrying some of the eggs of the insect, concealed in a hollow cane, to Constantinople; where, under their directions, the eggs were hatched by artificial heat the worms were fed by leaves of the mulberry tree; they lived and laboured, and, by the use of proper means, the race was propagated and multiplied. This knowledge, under the emperor Justinian, became productive of a new and important branch of industry to the European nations. Manufactories were established in Athens, Thebes, and Corinth, but, until the twelfth century, Greece appears to have been the only country in Europe in which the art was practised.†

About 1130, Roger II, king of Sicily, established a silk manufactory at Palermo, and another in Calabria, managed by workmen taken as slaves from Athens and Corinth, of which cities he had made a conquest in his expedition to the Holy Land. By degrees the rest of Italy and Spain learned from the Sicilians and

* For an account of the invention, manufacture, and general use of silk in China, vide Du Halde's Description Geographique, Historique, et Physique de l'Empier de la Chine.

+ A species of silk-worm, common in the forests both of Asia and Europe, was cultivated in the little island of Ceos, near the coast of Attica. A thin gauze was procured from their webs; and this Cean manufacture, the invention of a woman, for female use, was long admired both in the east and at Rome.— The silks, which had been closely woven in China, were sometimes unravelled by the Phoenician women, and the precious materials were multiplied by a looser texture, and the intermixture of linen threads.-On the texture, colours, names, and use of the silk, half silk, and linen garments of the ancients, see the researches of the learned Salmasius.