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a web, and left her in perpetua to web, or as we now say, to weave. 

 Dante describing his visit to Inferno met her in the lowest woe, 

 and writes : — 



" fond Arachne ! thee I only saw- 

 Half spider now in anguish crawling up 

 The unfinished web thou weaved'st to thy bane." 



From whatever causes our beautiful silk industry has met with 

 Arachne's fate, I feel sure that our new awakening to the necessity 

 of technical instruction and greater efficiency shall one day restore 

 our Arachne to her loom and real shape, and begin again to twist and 

 weave that charming thread of which some one has aptly said 

 that silk is to the fibres what gold is amongst metals, and the 

 diamond amongst jewels, and that we shall hope to see our country 

 by art creative power and thoughtful skill as lastingly famous as 

 were Moir and JNIohair from the Moors, Cambric from Cambay, 

 Bokhara for its buckram, Kenne for its cloth of Rayne, Cyprus for 

 its cypresse. Tucker-street, Bristol, for its tuck, the JSaracens for 

 sarsenets, Calicut for its calicoes, Tartarium cloths from Tartary^ 

 so skilfully woven that 



'• No painter's brush could match them hanging in 

 Broad bands of fine Tartarians." 



so Chaucer wrote Fostat for its fustians, Arras for its arras, 

 Nankin lor its nankeen, Gaza for its gauze, Cordova for its cord- 

 wain, Baiae for its baize, Friesland for its frieze, Jean for its jean, 

 Daraietta for its dimity, Tarsus for its tabriz, Drogheda for its 

 druggets. Old Worsted (in Norfolk) for its worsted, Kersey for its 

 kerseymere, Liiissy for its linsey-wolsley, Guninghamp for its ging- 

 ham, Avignon for its papal cloth or poplin, five hundred years ago, 

 Masul for its nmslin, Damascus for its damask. Of ancient places, 

 many still famous, as Cashmere for its shawls, and formerly for its 

 kerseymere, Coptic Akhmim for its tunics and cloths, Dacca for its 

 floss and finest of muslins. 



Let us augur that this beautiful but almost lost industry may be 

 soon regained, and that the £11,000,000 sterling we have been for 

 the last 25 years paying the foreigner for our manufactured silks, 

 shall be paid to a future and successful British industry, and that 

 if the ladies will only come to our aid and prefer British art in 

 silk, we shall be able to say that " they shall walk in silk attire 

 and siller hae to spare." 



