MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 197 



toms, which has attended the increase of luxuries in 

 society, will be careful how he speaks against the use 

 of an article, which gives employment to many thou- 

 sands of people in its first production, and furnishes 

 many hundreds of thousands with food and raiment, 

 by its final manufacture, and has already become one 

 of the most important sources of national wealth. Be- 

 sides, were it not for the use of silk and its costliness, 

 it is probable that our woollen, cotton and linen stuffs, 

 would be much dearer than they are, and much hard- 

 er for poor people to obtain. Silk stuifs, are more- 

 over, an appendage of rank and office, without which, 

 insignificant courts, ignorant ambassadors, and many 

 other brainless people, would lose their whole splen- 

 dor and influence. 



Silk has always been an expensive article, and has 

 a curious history. It was once valued at its weight 

 in gold, at Rome. The extravagant Julius Csesar cov- 

 ered the stage of the theatre with a silken carpet, but 

 the emperor Tiberius prohibited gentlemen from wear- 

 ing silk dresses, because he considered it effeminate. 

 The emperors Caligula and Heliogabalus dressed them- 

 selves throughout in silk ; but Aurelian was so impo- 

 lite and so penurious, that he refused even his empress 

 a robe of silk on account of its costliness. 



Kirby and Spence, in their " Introduction to Ento- 

 mology," mention, that " James the First, king of Scot- 

 land, was forced to beg of the Earl of Mar, the loan of 



