24 INTRODUCTION. 



laminated, spinning and weaving are the ordinary and chosen 

 employments. " She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; 

 her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands 

 to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff." 



" Night was now sliding in her middle course : 

 The first repose was finished ; when the dame 

 Who, by her distaff's" slender art subsists, 

 Wakes the spread embers and the sleeping fire. 

 Night adding to her work, and calls her maids 

 To their long tasks by lighted tapers urged."* 



A writer on ancient manufactures says — " Modern his- 

 torians have united in tracing the invention of weaving to 

 the Egyptians, — the weaving not of wool, however, but of 

 flax ; and the fabric of the linen cloths in which some of 

 the Egyptian mummies were wrapped has scarcely been 

 excelled at the present day. Yet it may be questioned 

 whether the claims of the nomadic shepherds have been 

 fairly considered. The cultivation of the sheep was coeval 

 with the expulsion from Paradise ; the cultivation of flax 

 must have , been an improvement in husbandry of far later 

 date. When the descendants of Noah were scattered, they 

 pursued their old avocation ; their flocks and their herds 

 accompanied them until they chanced to find some pecu- 

 liarly fertile and convenient tract, which they gradually made 

 their permanent abode ; and then, building cities for them- 

 selves, they by degrees changed their way of life, and ap- 

 plied the arts, which they already possessed, to other and 

 more extensive purposes. 



The children of Mizraim, the oflfspring of Ham, found in 

 Egypt a soil not well fitted for the prosperous management- 

 of the sheep. The Nile overflowed its banks twice in the 

 year ; and when its waters receded, a surface was left that 

 was soon covered with luxuriant vegetation, but which in- 

 fected and destroyed the sheep that fed upon it. Accident 

 or experiment, however, soon proved that it was favorable 

 to the cultivation of flax, and that from the fibres of the flax 

 fine linen might be woven. Did the discovery of the flax 

 lead to the invention of weaving, or was an art, known and 

 practised for many a century before, directed to the man- 

 ufacture of this new material ? The latter is the more prob- 

 able supposition, especially if it is recollected, that durins 



• Virgil. 



