[406] Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, ed. Madden, p. 144.
[407] Ib. p. 164.
[408] “A Winter’s Tale,” act iv. scene iii.
Manufacturers and master-weavers of every kind of textile, as well as their workmen, may gather some useful hints for their trade, by a look at the various specimens set out here before them.
They will, no doubt, congratulate themselves, as they fairly may, that their better knowledge of chemistry enables them to give to silk, wool, and cotton, tints and tones of tints, and shades, nay, entire colours quite unknown to the olden times, even to their elders of a few years ago: our new-found chemicals are carrying the dyeing art to a high point of beauty and perfection.
Among the several boasts of the present age one is, that of making machinery, as a working power in delicate operations, so true, as if it had been quickened with a life and will and power all its own: mechanism applied to weaving is, at least for the speed of plain work, most marvellous; and the improvements of the morrow over those of yesterday make the wonder grow. But, though having such appliances at hand, let an able well-taught designer for silken stuffs come hither, along with a skilled weaver, from Coventry, Glasgow, or Manchester, and the two will say, that for truthfulness and beauty in the drawing of the patterns, and their good renderings in the weaving, nothing of the present day is better, while much is often not so good. Yet these old stuffs before our eyes were wrought in looms so clumsy, and awkward, and helpless, that a weaver of the present day laughs at them in scorn. The man, however, who should happen to be asked to make the working drawings for several of such textiles, would fain acknowledge that he had been taught much by their study, and must strive hard before he might surpass many of them in the often crowded, yet generally clear combination of parts borrowed from beasts, birds, and flowers, all rendered with beauty and fittingness.
What has been, may be done again. We know better how to dye; we have more handy mechanism. Let, then, all those who belong any-wise to the weaving trade and come hither, go home resolved to stand for the future behind no nation, either of past or present time, in the ability of weaving not only useful, but beautiful and artistic textiles.
Before leaving the South Kensington Museum the master weaver may, if he wishes, convince himself that the so-called tricks of the trade are not evils of this age’s growth, but, it is likely, older than history herself. For mediæval instances of fraud in his own line of business, he will find not a few among the silks from Syria, Palermo, and the South of Spain.
What we said just now about Lettered Silks, p. [lix]. should be borne here in mind. With the Saracens, wherever they spread themselves, the usage was to weave upon their textiles, very often, either the title of the prince who was to wear them or give them away, or some short form of prayer or benediction. By Christian eyes, such Arabic words were looked upon as the true unerring sign that the stuffs that showed them came from Saracenic looms—the best of those times—or, in other terms, were the trade-mark of the Moslem. The Christian and Jewish weavers in many parts of the East, to make their own webs pass as Saracenic goods, wrought the Paynim trade-mark, as then understood, upon them. The forgery is clumsy: the letters are poor imitations of the Arabic character, and the pretended word runs, as it should, first correctly, or from right to left, then wrong or backward from left to right, just as if this part of the pattern—and it is nothing more—had been intended, like every other element in it, to confront itself by immediate repetition on the self-same line. Our young folks who sometimes amuse themselves by writing a name on paper, and while the ink is wet fold the sheet so that the word is shown again as if written backwards, get such a kind of scroll.
In many Oriental silk textiles the warp is either of hemp, flax, or cotton; but this is so easily discoverable that it could hardly have been done for fraud’ sake. There is however a Saracenic trick, learned from that people, and afterwards practised by the Spaniards of the South, for imitating a woof of gold. It is rather ingenious, and we presume unknown among collectors and writers until now.