VOL. XXXVII.] I'llILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 47g 



tapestry after the common manner : one they call the flat way, and the other 

 the upright. In the flat way they have the warp stretched in a frame length- 

 wise of the piece : it is made of white worsted, and the pattern lies close under 

 it ; so that the workman can see the figures through the warp : he is provided 

 with bobbins of various colours of silk or worsted, as the piece requires: then 

 he takes up with his fingers one thread after another, as they answer to any 

 colour in the printing beneath; and with the other hand passes the bobbin with 

 the same colour, and strikes the threads close with an ivory comb. Some of 

 these frames are made like a loom, with a warp passed through the leishes, and 

 tredles for the feet, with which they open the threads of the warp, to pass 

 a common shuttle through them, when it is necessary to make a long throw, as 

 is required in grounds, pillars, and tall uprights. 



In the upright way, the warp runs from top to bottom of the piece ; the 

 pattern is placed upright, and close behind it, and the out-lines are drawn in 

 charcoal upon the foreside of the warp. The workman is placed with his back 

 to the light, by which means he can see the pattern better ; then he takes up 

 the threads one by one, and passes the bobbin, as in the other, and strikes it 

 close with the comb: all which is near as tedious as needlework itself; which is 

 the reason why fine tapestry comes to such high prices ; and what can be had 

 at a moderate price is always coarse, and of a low taste : for workmen who have 

 any good notion of painting, and are capable of adjusting the colours, are not 

 to be had, but for excessive wages ; which much enhances the price likewise : 

 but in Mr. Le Blon's new way of weaving tapestry in the loom with a draw- 

 boy, tapestry may be performed almost as expeditious as fine brocades : for 

 when the loom is once set and mounted, any common draft-weaver, though 

 not acquainted with drawing nor painting, nay hardly knowing what figure he 

 is about, exactly produces what the painter has represented in the original 

 pattern : and thus a piece of tapestry may be woven in a month or two, which, 

 in the common way of working, would take up several years : and what in the 

 common way costs 1000 pounds, may, by this means, be aflx)rded finer and 

 better for 100 pounds. Therefore it is likely this woven tapestry may become 

 a currant merchandise ; and that many thousand industrious families may be 

 well employed about it. 



The main secret of this art consists in drawing the patterns, from which any 

 common draft-weaver can mount the loom ; and when that is done, the piece 

 may be mnde of any size, by only widening the reeds and the warp ; and a re- 

 verse may be made with the same ease ; which is done by the boy's pulling the 

 leishes up again in the same order in which he pulled them down before ; by 



