I would also ask, “should not the chimney pots upon the palaces in Regent Street, &c. be of a slate colour?—­Should not all tiles be painted of the same colour? (slate.)—­Should not the names of streets be more particularly attended to?”

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INTRODUCTION OF SILK INTO EUROPE.

(For the Mirror.)

The frequency of open hostilities between the Emperor of Constantinople and the monarchs of Persia, together with the increasing rivalry of their subjects in the trade with India, gave rise to an event which produced a considerable change in the silk trade.  As the use of that article, both in dress and furniture, became more general in the court of the Greek emperors, who imitated and surpassed the sovereigns of Asia in splendour and magnificence; and as China, in which, according to the concurring testimony of oriental writers, the culture of silk was originally known, (Herlelot.  Biblioth.  Orient.), still continued to be the only country which produced that valuable commodity; the Persians improving the advantages which their situation gave them over the merchants from the Arabian Gulf, supplanted them in all the marts of India, to which silk was brought by sea from the east.  Having it likewise in their power to molest or to cut off the caravans, which, in order to procure a supply for the Greek empire, travelled by land to China through the northern provinces of their kingdom, they entirely engrossed that branch of commerce.  Constantinople was obliged to depend on the rival power for an article which luxury reserved and desired as essential to elegance.  The Persians, with the usual rapacity of monopolists, raised the price of silk to such an exorbitant height, that the Emperor Justinian eager, not only to obtain a full and certain supply of a commodity which was become of indispensible use, but solicitous to deliver the commerce of his subjects from the exactions of his enemies, endeavoured, by means of his ally, the christian monarch of Abyssinia, to wrest some portion of the silk trade from the Persians.  In this attempt he failed; but when he least expected it, he, by an unforeseen event, attained in some measure (A.D. 55.) the object which he had in view.  Two Persian monks having been employed as missionaries to some christian churches which were established (as we are informed by Cosmas) in different parts of India, had penetrated into the country of the Seres, or China.  There they observed the labours of the silk-worm, and became acquainted with all the arts of men in working up its productions into such a variety of elegant fabrics.  The prospect of gain, or perhaps an indignant zeal excited by seeing this lucrative branch of commerce engrossed by unbelieving nations, prompted them to repair to Constantinople.  There they explained to the emperor the origin of silk, as well as the various modes of preparing and manufacturing