From Greece the culture of silk was gradually carried into Italy and Spain, and English abbots and bishops often returned from Rome with vestments of silk and gold.  Silken threads are attached to the covers of ancient English manuscripts.  Silk in the form of velvet may be seen on some of the ancient armor in the Tower of London; and portions of silk garments were found in 1827 in the Cathedral of Durham, on opening the tomb of St. Cuthbert.  The use of silk, however, was so rare in England down to the time of the Tudors, that a pair of silk hose formed an acceptable present to Queen Elizabeth.

The principal supply of raw silk is now derived from China, where silks are much worn, and there Marco Polo several centuries since found silk robes in very general use.  Japan also abounds in silk, and the late Japanese embassy and suite were arrayed in garments of that material.

The annual consumption of raw silk in Great Britain now averages seven millions of pounds, and the value of the annual export of silk fabrics is not far from ten millions of dollars.

The manufacture of silk was introduced into England by the French Protestants who were driven into exile on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.  Their descendants are still found in London and Coventry, where the silk-trade has been long established, and is now going through the ordeal to which it has been exposed by the new treaty with France.

The French undoubtedly take the lead in silk fabrics, for which they are admirably qualified by exquisite taste and great artistic skill; but the silk manufacture in England is now so interwoven, in many of its branches, with the manufacture of wool and cotton, and aided by improved machinery, that it may be considered as firmly established.

Our own climate is well adapted to the silk-worm, and we have had our Morus-multicaulis fever; but so light is the freight on silk compared with its value, that we must defer our hope of any extended growth until the price of labor in Europe approaches nearer to our own, or until the excess of production in other branches shall divert genius into this channel, in which it will eventually cheapen production by machinery as it has done in other enterprises.

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We read in the classics of the Colchian and Milesian fleeces, of the soft wools of Italy, and of the transfer of sheep from Italy to Bastica, in Spain.  Italy and Spain were both adapted to sheep husbandry.  Virgil writes,—­

  “Hic gelidi fontes, hie mollia prata, Lycori”;

while Spain, with her alternations of hill and dale and her varying climate, was eminently fitted for the pasturage of sheep.  Even in ancient times Spain furnished wool of great fineness and of various colors, and cloths like the modern plaids were woven there from wool of different shades.  Sometimes the Spanish sheep was immersed alive in the Tyrian purple.