a gift. It being efteemed by the Ancients^ though then 
more common, and perhaps better known, then 'tis yet 
amongft us, equally pretious with the beft of Pearls *. 
Nor is it now of mean value even in the Country wli^t^ 
m2idcy2i China Covet, (^i. e. apiece 23 inches and|long,) 
being worth 80 Tale i. e. 36'^ li*. 4"*. But that which 
muchenhanfed its worth with me, was, that hereby you 
put me in a capacity of giving full fatisfadiion to this fa- 
mous Z;/2iW/^y of the reality of the thing; whereof, I 
cannot blame them, if fome did doubt j fince we find 
very good Authors to have done the fame : who though 
they owned fuch a mineral as Amiantus, out of the woolly 
part whereof this fort oiLinnen was always anciently iaia 
to be made, yet queftioned the poffibility of its having 
been adually done : Dalecampius holding it very incre- 
dible, that it fliould be W4)ven into cloth, by reafon of its 
brevity ^ ; and Sehildius in his Commentary upon Suetonius 
abfolutely denying it, Multi falfo (ibi Linteum quoddam 
^a-Ci^v ex ingenio fuo comminifcuntur ^ being his very words*^. 
Xuerius Boxhornius &ots not indeed deny but that there 
might be fuch Linnen amongfl: the Indians, where the ma^ 
terials of it grow ; of which they might make them fune* 
ral y^ri?^/^/ wherein to enwrap thebodys of their Princes 
(as they fay the ancient manner was^ and fo preferve 
their .^^^/diftindt from thofe of the Pyra in which they 
were burnt : but he is peremptory that the Romans never 
ufed any fuch** 5 and fo is Ifaac Cajauhon''. The truth 
whereof I fliall not difpute : but whether they did or no, 
I am fure they might, had they pleafed; for Pliny fays 
exprefsly (and I dare believe him in any thing he Ipeaks 
of his own knowledge that he himfelf had feen Napkins ' 
thereof, which being taken foul from the board at a 
great feaft, were caft into the /r^, by which means they 
were better yi:(?«r^^, and looked fairer and cleaner, then 
a C Plinii %\\ Nar. Hift. Lib. 19. c. i. b Jic. Dalecampfi not« in locum fupra citat. 
c. Joh Schildii notse inc. Suet. Tranq. Lib. a. d M. Xuerii Baxhornii Queft. Rom. Qa«ft. 
^S- e ir. Cafaub noc« in Succ, Lib. %. p. 
if 
