HAMPDEN SOCIETY. 85 



draw lessons of wisdom, science, philosophy, and religion itself, 

 from the humblest creature that creeps upon the earth. 



The arts of spinning and weaving rank next in importance 

 to agriculture, and probably have a more remote origin. Sev- 

 enteen hundred years before Christ, Pharaoh arrayed himself in 

 vestures of fine linen. In the earliest ages of the world, these 

 employments were confined exclusively to the female portion of 

 community ; and, in the latter periods, they have been taken from 

 their lawful hands only by the usurpations of mechanical force. 

 They were regarded no less a useful, than an honorable em- 

 ployment for women ; and our more immediate ancestors, 

 whose hands did not disdain to twirl the spindle, or throw the 

 shuttle, could have consoled themselves in the reflection, that 

 theirs was a domestic occupation, in which women of rank in 

 Egypt, in Tyre, and in Greece, did not hesitate to engage. 



The distaft', and the needle, were the badges of her industry, 

 and her honor. So sacred was this former implement of fe- 

 male industry held, that it is represented by the writers of 

 antiquity as a gift of the gods. Minerva, in the mytholog- 

 ical narrative, was regarded as the goddess of all the lib- 

 eral arts : and she was invoked by every artist, and, particu- 

 larly, such as worked in wood, embroidery, painting, and sculp- 

 ture. In most of her statues, she is represented as arrayed in a 

 variegated veil, and holding in her right hand a distaff". In those 

 inimitable pictures of domestic life, drawn by the immortal Ho- 

 mer, we find the lady of the mansion superintending the labors 

 of the servants, and using the distaff" herself. Her spindle was 

 made of the most precious material, richly ornamented ; her 

 beautiful work-basket was of the most exquisite workmanship, 

 and her wool was dyed in some rich, bright hue, which made it 

 the pride and glory of the highest dames of rank and fortune to 

 work it into useful or ornamental textures. The most beautiful 

 woman of her age, the Spartan Helen, was not more famed for 

 beauty, than for her skill in embroidery, and every species of 

 ornamental work. In honor to her industrial skill, the Queen 

 of Egypt presented her with a golden distaff". 



With the ancients, labor, manufacture, the work of the living 

 hand, for this is what the word means, was made no less a duty, 



