1831.] Monthly Eevinv of Literature. 453 



branch of human industry — in the history', culture, and manufacture of silk. 

 The more recent portion of its histor)' is, of course, if not the most attractive, 

 the most important ; and the details will prove amply sufficient as to the actual 

 state of the trade in every part of the globe. The author has evidently gone to 

 the best sources of information, and has taken a practical and an enlightened 

 view of the changes brought about by Mr. Huskisson. He has shewn beyond 

 all cavil or contradiction, the eihcacy of that statesman's measures, and the cor- 

 rectness of his views — his correctness with regard to the silk-trade at least. Of 

 all the numerous attempts to naturalise the silk-worm in the British dominions, 

 the one of 1825 promised the best results. But it has, it seems, been wholly 

 abandoned, and the efforts of the projectors transferred to Malta, in spite of all 

 the patronage it received on the part of those who anticipated from it a profit- 

 able source of employment for the Irish peasantry. A spot of ground of about 

 eighty acres was chosen on the estate of Lord Kingston near Michaelston, in the 

 county of Cork, and 400,000 white mulberr^'-trees were successfully trans- 

 planted. A small but complete building for rearing silk-worms was adapted on 

 the plan of Count Dandolo, and every thing seemed to promise that success 

 which usually attends judicious plans and w^ell-directed energy. The experi- 

 ment was also repeated in the neighbourhood of Slough, on a piece of nineteen 

 acres. But Malta has proved more attractive, and the proprietors of the com- 

 pany have reason to anticipate a successful result. 



Among the more curious portions of the volume are the attempts to substitute 

 other food for mulberry-leaves, in rearing the silk-worm ; and again, to obtain 

 silk from spiders and pinnae. But the portion most acceptable to such as have 

 few or no opportunities of examining mills, and looms, and machinery — of seeing 

 things with their own eyes, will be the description of the mechanical processes, 

 in all the varieties of the silk manufacture — plain and figure weaving — velvet, 

 gauze, sarsnet, satin, gros-de-naples, crapes, &c. &c. Not that the mere de- 

 scription of the more complicated machinery will supersede the necessity of 

 actual inspection ; — distinct ideas of tangible and visible matters are seldom ob- 

 tainable by pen and ink sketches, with whatever skill and accuracy they are 

 drawn. These, before us, are unexceptionable, and the whole concern is a 

 verj' respectable performance, and does infinite credit, as we said, to Dr. Lard- 

 ner's manufactory. 



Dibdin's Sunday Library. Vol. V. 



This is by far the best volume of Dr. Dibdin's selections — but only because 

 the best of the sermons are not by divines of the church of England, but by 

 Blair and Chalmers of the Scotch church, and others. Allison, though strictly 

 of the Scotch Episcopalians, has also preferment in the English church ; but 

 Robert Hall, at all events, was of neither establishment ; and though his sermon 

 on Modern Infidelity be the best of the bunch, there is no reconciling its intro- 

 duction with the terms of Dr. Dibdin's title-page. The " Church of England" 

 has no claim to it, whatever be its merits ; and, whether prompted by a " liberal" 

 spirit, or an usurping one. Dr. Dibdin should know he can with no piopriety 

 do what he will with anything but his own. 



FINE ARTS' PUBLICATIONS. 



The plates of the "Winter's Wreath" have afforded us the first glimpse of the 

 dawning beauty of the Annuals. If we are to judge by these specimens, and 

 take the embellishments of the Winter's W^reath as a criterion of what its con- 

 temporaries will exhibit, we may say, without hesitation, that there will be no 

 falling off, as far as engravings go, in the Annuals of 1832. lliis publication has 

 always ranked among the most favoured ; and its present list of embellishments 

 will 'sustain its reputation to the very letter. We can give little more than a bare 

 list of the beauties, particularly as they will so soon come before us in another 



