TEE SILKVORU. 



Aoman emperor Aurelian refiising Ms empress a silk robe, on 

 the ground of expense ; and of Tiberlns decreeing that none 

 should wear vestments made from so costly a material. As to the 

 origin of the precious threads, the ancient classic authors were 

 quite in the dark ; indeed it was among them the prevailing 

 opinion that the silk grew on trees — an error that probably 

 arose from finding the cocoons suspended from the branches 

 of the mulberry -tree. 



Ii the middle of the sirfh century, under the reign of Justi- 

 nian, two monks brought to Constantinople the eggs of the 

 wonderfiil insect, together with the tree on which it was nou- 

 rished. Previously to this, Persia had been the great silk mart ; 

 but now Constantinople, under its wise ruler, became its rival, 

 and in a few centuries the silkworm and the mulberry -tree were 

 common throughout Greece. 



In the wars of Charles the Eighth, in 1499, in Italy, some 

 gentlemen, seeing the advantages of the commerce of silk, 

 introduced the mulberry into Prance. The progress of silk- 

 culture in that country, however, must have been very slow, 

 for Henry the Second, who reigned about forty years after- 

 wards, is said to be the first IVench king who wore silk 

 stockings. Nor was England much more advanced in this 

 branch of commerce than her neighbour ; for in the year 1564, 

 in the reign of Mary, an act of parliament was made to restrain 

 the growing vanity of the lower classes of the people. " That 

 whoever shall wear silk in or upon his or her hat, bonnet, or 

 girdle, scabbard, hose, or open-leather, shall be imprisoned 

 during three months, and forfeit ten pounds." James I., while 

 king of Scotland, being anxious to impress the ambassadors 

 sent from England with due reverence, he wrote to his iriend 

 the Earl of Mar to borrow a pair of silk stockings, concluding 

 his epistle with the following appeal to the earl: — "For ye 

 would not, sure, that your king should appear like a scrub 

 before strangers.'' The pompous Henry the Eighth was com- 

 pelled to wear worsted stockings or none, and his daughter 

 Elizabeth was in so nearly the same predicament, that when 

 her silk -woman brought her a pair of silk stockings, " she was 

 much delighted, and declared she would wear no other sort as 

 long as she lived." 



Contrast those " good old times " with the present ! Not 

 that they were the worse times for being innocent of silk, or 

 that the present age is particularly benefited in the matter of 

 that which goes; to make time gentility, by the universal adop- 



