72 THE TYRIAN PURPLE. 



from its scarcity the dye was always very costly, and in con- 

 sequence reserved for dyeing tlie hangings of temples, or the 

 robes of priests and kings. The hue of the best resembled 

 that of coagulated blood,* but means were resorted to by 

 which various tints were obtained, and the cloth was often 

 stained first of one shade, and then dipped into a deeper 

 coloured liquid to give it a fuller and richer gloss. " Wool 

 which had received this double Tyrian dye {dia bapha), was 

 so very costly that, in the reign of Augustus,, it sold for 

 about 361. the pound. But lest this should not be sufficient 

 to exclude all from the use of it but those invested with tlie 

 very highest dignities of the State, laws were made inflicting 

 severe penalties, and even death, upon all who should pre- 

 sume to wear it under the dignity of an emperor. The art 

 of dyeing this colour came at length to be practised by a 

 few individuals only, appointed by the emperors, and having 

 been interrupted about the beginning of the twelfth cen- 

 tury all knowledge of it died away, and during several ages 

 this celebrated dye was considered and lamented as an irre- 

 coverable loss." 



But though the art was lost to the places which gave it 

 birth, and which it had enriched, in our own island it was 

 practised at the very time when the learned lamented it as 

 extinct, and where it seems to have been known from time 

 immemorial, being probably rather an art of native growth 

 than the importation of a foreign commerce ; and, perhaps, 

 it were no errant conjecture to suppose that it might be the 

 coloiu" 



" By which our naked ancestors obscured 



Their hardy limbs, inwrought with mystic forms, 



Like Egypt's obelisks." 



The Venerable Bede, who wi'ote in the eighth century, men- 

 tions the art as a known thing in his days, and he was fami- 

 liar with the beauty and permanency of the colour, j- The 



* " In the Greek language, purple and porphyry are the same word ; and 

 as the colours of nature are invariable, we may learn that a dark deep red was 

 the Tyrian dye which stained the purple of the ancients." — Gibbon, Dec. 

 and Fall, ix. 67. 



t The passage is quoted by Dr. Lister in a paper on the subject in the 

 Phil. Trans, for 1693, p. 645, and is as follows : — " Variis conchyliorum 

 generibus exceptis : in quibus sunt et musculse, quibus inclusam ssepe mar- 

 garitam omnis quidem coloris optimam inveniunt ; id est, et rubicundi et 

 purpurei, et hyacinthi et prasini, sed maxime candidi. Sunt et cochleae satis 

 superque abundantes, quibus tinctura coccinei coloris conficitur. Cujus rubor 

 pulcherrimus nullo unquam solis ardore, nulla valet pluviarum injuria pal- 

 lescere ; sed quo vetustior, eo solet esse venustior." — Hist. Eccles. Gent. 

 Ang. lib. i. c. 1. 



