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found from Italy to Tyre, A Nicaraguan species, named Purpura 

 patula, and our own common whelk, also yield the dye. In the 

 days of Marcus Aurelius Antonius, shawls and robes, and scarves 

 had so accumulated in the silk presses of the various empresses, 

 that he, being a philosopher and economic ruler, sold them all by 

 public auction in the Forum of Trojan, to help the exhausted 

 treasuries. The early Christians protested against the luxury of 

 silk. Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, said, " Those who put on 

 silk and purple cannot put on Christ." 



There is preserved in the Edict of Diocletian in A.D. 303, the 

 maximum prices allowed by him for tailoring in silk, as follows : — 



To the tailor for silk lining a fine vest 6 denarii. 



To the same for an opening and edging of silk 50 denarii. 



To the same for an opening and edging with 

 stuff made of a mixed tissue of silk and 

 flax 30 denarii. 



Mrs. Lynn Linton, the accomplished novelist and authoress, who 

 has written three charming and learned papers on silk in the 

 " Queen " for the month of January, which I cordially recommend 

 you all to read, and from which I have gathered the above historical 

 particulars, thus winds up her first paper : — " Silk, then, was both 

 known and used in the later days of Rome. It was the sign of 

 corruption and effeminacy. It had to fight its way into general 

 acceptance against all the forces of simplicity and virtue which were 

 associated with wool and linen arrayed against silk. But the wheel 

 rolled on, and the prohibitions and prejudices were finally removed, 

 till now the very beggar-woman at your door has something of silk 

 about her, and the material which an emperor refused to his 

 empress, the vagrant and the pauper toss on to the dust-heap when 

 they have done with it." 



Coming down to mediaeval times, we find Constantinople the 

 chief seat of the European silk trade. In Justinian's time it had got 

 no further westward. He limited the price of silk to £4 15s. 9d. 

 per lb., and when dyed imperial purple its price was quadrupled. 

 The Christian clergy gradually became captivated by its beauty, 

 and blessing superseded anathema. Abbot Benedict, in 685, went 

 to Rome to buy silks. St. Cuthbert, we know^, was buried in the 

 7th century at Landisfarne Island, and was in the 13th century 

 disinterred and re-buried at Durham Cathedral, first being re-robed 

 in silks which may be seen now in that Cathedral, and reproduc- 

 tions of which, by the kindness of Canon Green well, I have been 



