[885] [It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader that the _warp_
consists of the _longitudinal_ threads of a woven fabric, which are
crossed by the _transverse_ threads or woof.]
[886] Ovidii Metamorph. vi. 5-145. Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 56.
[887] An Englishman, named J. W. Boswel, invented a machine on which
sixty-eight meshes, with perfect knots, could be knit at the same time:
it could be adapted also to fine works, and to lace. A description of
it may be seen in the Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement
of the Arts, vol. xiv.
[888] Many commentators on the Greek and Roman writers have fallen
into mistakes respecting these noose-ropes, because they were not
acquainted with the nature of them. Their use among the Parthians is
confirmed by Suidas, under the word σειραὶ, p. 303; where he says that
on that account they were called σειροφόροι. Josephus asserts that
they were employed by the Alani, and relates that Tiridates would have
been caught in this manner, had he not quickly cut to pieces the rope.
Under the same head may be comprehended the _retiarii_ and _laquearii_,
in the bloody spectacles of the Romans, whose method of fighting is
said to have been found out by Pittacus. See Diogen. Laert. i. 74. To
this subject belong the snares of the devil, pestilence, and death, in
the Scriptures, and particularly in Psalm xviii. ver. 5. The _laquei
mortis_ of Horace, Carm. iii. 24, 8, were hence to be explained, and
not by a Hebraism, as some of the old commentators have imagined. In
the ordeals of the ancient Germans, when a man was obliged to combat
with a woman, the latter had a rope with a noose, which she threw over
her antagonist, who stood in a pit, in order that she might more easily
overcome him. That such ropes are still employed among various nations
is proved by Vancouver. In Hungary the wild horses at present are said
to be caught by ropes of this kind.
[889] Wafer’s Voyage. Anderson’s Iceland. The author says that the
beards are cut into slips; but these slips were fish-bone, which could
be made into baskets but not into nets. He certainly meant the hair on
the beard, which in Holland is used for wigs.
[890] De Vest. Sac. Hebr. p. 100.
[891] Hist. Nat. lib. xxxvii. cap. 3.
[892] Rete, id est ornamentum sericum ad instar retis contextum.--Acta
S. Deodati, tom. iii. Junii, p. 871.
[893] In the Limpurg Chronicle, which may be found in Von Hontheim,
Hist. Trevirensis, vol. ii. p. 1084, is the following passage: “The
ladies wore new _weite hauptfinstern_, so that the men almost saw
their breasts;” and Moser, who quotes this passage in his Phantasien,
conjectures that the _hauptfinstern_ might approach near to lace. I
never met with the word anywhere else; but Frisch, in his Dictionary,
says, “_Vinster_ in a Vocabularium of the year 1492 is explained by the
words _drat_, _schudrat_, thread, coarse thread.” May it not be the
word _fenster_, a window? And in that case may it not allude to the
wide meshes? _Fenestratum_ meant formerly, perforated or reticulated;
and this signification seems applicable to those shoes mentioned by Du
Cange under the name of _calcei fenestrati_. At any rate it is certain
that the article denoted by _hauptfinstern_ belonged to those dresses
mentioned by Seneca in his treatise De Beneficiis, 59. Pliny says that
such dresses were worn, “ut in publico matrona transluceat.”
[894] Dict. de Commerce. Copenh. 1759, fol. i. pp. 388, 576.
[895] Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. liii. 1783, p. 38. In the Heiligen
Lexicon St. Fiacre is improperly called the son of an Irishman of
distinction.
[896] Howell, in speaking of the trade in the oldest times, says,
p. 222, “Silk is now grown nigh as common as wool, and become the
cloathing of those in the kitchin as well as the court; we wear it
not onely on our backs, but of late years on our legs and feet, and
tread on that which formerly was of the same value with gold itself.
Yet that magnificent and expensive prince, Henry VIII., wore ordinarly
cloth-hose, except there came from Spain, by great chance, a pair of
silk stockins. K. Edward, his son, was presented with a pair of long
Spanish silk stockins by Thomas Gresham, his merchant, and the present
was taken much notice of. Queen Elizabeth in the third year of her
reign was presented by Mrs. Montague, her silk-woman, with a pair of
black knit silk stockins, and thenceforth she never wore cloth any
more.”
[897] The lines which allude to this subject are in the tragedy of
Ella:--
“She sayde, as herr whytte hondes whyte hosen were knyttinge,
Whatte pleasure ytt ys to be married!”
[898] In his Description of Scotland, according to the old translation,
in Hollingshed, “Their hosen were shapen also of linnen or woolen,
which never came higher than their knees; their breeches were for the
most part of hempe.”
[899] “The king and some of the gentlemen had the upper parts of
their hosen, which was of blue and crimson, powdered with castels and
sheafes of arrows of fine ducket gold, and the nether parts of scarlet,
powdered with timbrels of fine,” &c.... There is reason however to
suppose that the upper and nether parts of the hose were separate
pieces, as they were of different colours. This description stands
in the third volume of Hollingshed’s Chronicles, p. 807, where it is
said, speaking of another festival, “The garments of six of them were
of strange fashion, with also strange cuts, everie cut _knit_ with
points of fine gold, and tassels of the same, their hosen cut in and
tied likewise.” What the word _knit_ here signifies might perhaps be
discovered if we had an English Journal of Luxury and Fashions for the
sixteenth century.
[900] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1782, vol. lii. p. 229. From an authentic
and curious household book kept during the life of Sir Tho. L’Estrange,
Knt. of Hunstanton in Norfolk, by his lady Ann, daughter of the lord
Vaux, are the following entries:--
1533. 25 H. 8. 7 Sept. Peyd for 4 peyr of knytt hose VIII s.
1538. 30 H. 8. 3 Oct. ........ two peyr of knytt hose I s.
It is to be observed, that the first-mentioned were for Sir Thomas and
the latter for his children.
[901] The act made on this occasion is not to be found in any of the
old or new editions of the Statutes at Large. It is omitted in that
published at London, 1735, fol. ii. p. 63, because it was afterwards
annulled. Smith, in Memoirs of Wool, Lond. 1747, 8vo, i. p. 89, says
it was never printed; but it is to be found in a collection of the
acts of king Edward VI., printed by Richard Grafton, 1552, fol. The
following passage from this collection, which is so scarce even in
England that it is not named in Ames’s Typographical Antiquities, is
given in the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. liii. part 1, p. 127:--“In this
acte limitinge the tymes for buieing and sellyng of wolles, mention is
made of chamblettes, wolstende, saies, stamine, _knitte hose_, _knitte
peticotes_, _knitte gloves_, _knitte slieves_, hattes, coives, cappes,
arrasse, tapissery, coverlettes, girdles, or any other thing used to be
made of woolle.”
[902] This account is to be found in Hollingshed’s Chronicles. “Dr.
Sands at his going to bed in Hurleston’s house, had a paire of hose
newlie made, that were too long for him. For while he was in the Tower,
a tailor was admitted to make him a pair of hose. One came in to him
whose name was Beniamin, dwelling in Birchin-lane; he might not speak
to him or come to him to take measure of him, but onelie to look upon
his leg; he made the hose, and they were two inches too long. These
hose he praied the good wife of the house to send to some tailor to cut
two inches shorter. The wife required the boy of the house to carrie
them to the next tailor, which was Beniamin that made them. The boy
required him to cut the hose. He said I am not the maister’s tailor.
Saith the boy, because ye are our next neighbour, and my maister’s
tailor dwelleth far off, j come to you. Beniamin took the hose and
looked upon them, he took his handle work in hand, and said, these are
not thy maister’s hose, but Dr. Sands, them j made in the Tower.”
[903] “Item, his best coat, jerkin, doublet and breeches. Item, his
hose or nether stockings, shoes and garters.”--Survey of the Cathedral
of St. Asaph, by Browne Willis, 1720, 8vo.
[904] Hollingshed’s Chronicle, 1577, p. 213.
[905] In his satyre called The Steel of Glass:--“In silk knitt hose,
and Spanish leather shoes.”
[906] In Hollingshed, third part, p. 1290:--“Upon the stage there stood
at the one end eight small women children, spinning worsted yarne, and
at the other as manie knitting of worsted yarn hose.”
[907] Buch des Alten Pommerlandes, 1639, 4to, p. 388:--“Duke Bogislaus
VIII. suffered himself at length to be overcome by love, and married
Sophia, daughter of Procopius margrave of Moravia, who was a very
prudent and moderate lady. In her old age, when her sight became bad,
so that she was incapable of sewing or embroidering, she never put the
knitting-needle out of her hands, as is written in our chronicles. The
rhymes which she always had in her mouth are remarkable:--
Nicht beten, gern spatzieren gehn,
Oft im Fenster und vorm Spiegel stehn,
Viel geredet, und wenig gethan,
Mein Kind, da ist nichts Fettes an.
‘Never to pray; to be fond of walking; to stand often at the window and
before the looking-glass; to talk much and do little; is not, my child,
the way to be rich.’”
[908] Mezeray, where he speaks of the silk manufactories under Henry IV.
[909] The first description of the stocking-loom illustrated by
figures, with which I am acquainted, is in Deering’s Nottingham, 1751,
4to, but it is very imperfect. A much better is to be found in the
second volume of the Encyclopédie, printed at Paris, 1751, fol. p.
94-113. The figures are in the first volume of the second part of the
Planches, and make eleven plates, eight of which are full sheets. [The
reader will also find a very good description of the stocking-loom
illustrated with woodcuts in Ure’s Dictionary, art. HOSIERY.]
[910] The following passage occurs in the petition, p. 302: “Which
trade is properly stiled framework-knitting, because it is direct and
absolute knit-work in the stitches thereof, nothing different therein
from the common way of knitting (not much more antiently for publick
use practised in this nation than this), but only in the numbers
of needles, at an instant working in this, more than in the other
by an hundred for one, set in an engine or frame composed of above
2000 pieces of smith, joiners, and turners work, after so artificial
and exact a manner, that, by the judgement of all beholders, it far
excels in the ingenuity, curiosity, and subtility of the invention and
contexture, all other frames or instruments of manufacture in use in
any known part of the world.”
[911] This account is given by Aaron Hill in his Rise and Progress of
the Beech-oil Invention, 1715, 8vo.
[912] The inscription may be found in Seymour’s Survey of London,
1733, fol. vol. i. p. 603: “In the year 1589 the ingenious William
Lee, Master of Arts of St. John’s College, Cambridge, devised this
profitable art for stockings (but being despised went to France) yet of
iron to himself, but to us and others of gold; in memory of whom this
is here painted.”
[913] In his History of the World, already quoted, p. 171: “Nine
and thirty years after was invented the weaving of silk stockings,
westcoats, and divers other things, by engines, or steel looms, by
William Lee, Master of Arts of St. John’s College in Cambridge, a
native of Nottingham, who taught the art in England and France, as his
servants in Spain, Venice, and Ireland; and his device so well took,
that now in London his artificers are become a company, having an hall
and a master, like as other societies.”
[914] Of this Aston the following account is to be found in Thoroton’s
Nottinghamshire, 1677, fol. p. 297: “At Calverton was born William
Lee, Master of Arts in Cambridge, and heir to a pretty freehold here;
who seeing a woman knit, invented a loom to knit, in which he or his
brother James performed and exercised before Queen Elizabeth, and
leaving it to ... Aston his apprentice, went beyond the seas, and was
thereby esteemed the author of that ingenious engine, wherewith they
now weave silk and other stockings. This ... Aston added something to
his master’s invention; he was some time a miller at Thoroton, nigh
which place he was born.”
[915] Dell’ Agricoltura, dell’ Arti, e del Commercio. Ven. 1763, 8vo.
[916] Le Siècle de Louis XIV.