have outstripped the Indian manufactures in elegance of pattern: though, there are still certain peculiarities in the fabric, which cause the shawls of India to be held in high estimation. The shawls of Cashmere, made from the wool of the Thibet goat, are of later celebrity, and bring high prices; but, the domestication of this goat in England and France will, it is expected, soon render a Cashmere shawl no greater rarity than a silk shawl of our own manufacture. The hair of this goat is long, straight, and silky; and is combed off the goat at intervals for making into shawls. In 1828, the first was manufactured in England from the hair of Cashmere goats bred on a farm in Essex. This shawl was superior in texture and beauty to any previously produced in Europe; it was presented to the late king, who took great interest in the success of the manufacture.

The introduction of silks from France, and above all, the adoption of French fashions in female dress, since the peace of 1815, must not be forgotten. In the manufacture of silk, the weavers of Spitalfields can compete with the fabrics of Lyons, where the finest silks of France are made; and the ribands of Coventry will bear comparison with the most beautiful productions of the Lyonese looms. The fashions of France have been engrafted, as it were, upon the plain English stock, or style, of dress; and the result is a taste, to our minds, of greater elegance than the style of either country presented alone. One

has improved the other, and shown, in this comparatively unimportant matter, how much nations, by peaceful intercourse, may be benefited in all the arts and elegancies of civilized life.

The bonnet has been already mentioned. In early times, it was of velvet, cloth, and silk. The period when it was first made of straw is not precisely known; but the poet Gay, writing about 1720, speaks of a

new straw hat, so trimly lined with green;

whence the straw hat or bonnet is inferred to be upwards of a century old. It was, however, then comparatively rare; for the simple art of platting straws together to make bonnets was only practised, to any considerable extent, about half a century since. It now gives employment to upwards of two hundred thousand females in England. Children are taught to plat in schools, in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Essex, and in some other counties of England; but Dunstable, in Bedfordshire, produces the best plat, and gives its name to English straw hats of superior quality. This advantage is attributed to the straw at Dunstable growing on a chalky soil: this makes it of a superior colour and greater pliancy than the straw grown upon clayey or sandy soils, which is apt to be discoloured with rust, or too brittle for platting. All British plat is, however, inferior to that brought from Italy, and

called Leghorn, from its being exported from that town. The platting is manufactured throughout Tuscany, but is chiefly carried on in Florence, Pisa, the district of Sienna, and the upper part of the vale of Arno, where the best plats are made for straw hats.

Here, at every cottage door, women and children may be seen picking and platting straws; and even in their rural walks they generally continue the easy work of platting. It has been well observed of this employment that "it produces at every step the pleasing appearance of labour united to amusement-of a toil, in which childish play and childish games form children to habits of industry without exhausting their strength or gaiety." It resembles needlework, which has been not inaptly compared with angling-half labour-half pastime; but here the comparison must end, since needlework and platting are useful and profitable pursuits, whilst angling has a very questionable claim for its utility.

This superiority of the Leghorn straw has stimulated our British manufacturers, (as in the case of silk and ribands just mentioned,) not only to import the straw and plat it in this country, but to make numerous experiments on our English grasses, and thus to produce Leghorn plat of a most excellent quality. The high price of labour in this country, compared with that on the Continent, will not, however, enable the British dealer to compete with the

foreign market*. The number of Leghorn hats imported into England increased from 230,000 in the year 1825, to 384,000 in 1828. Fashion then lowered the number one half in the following year; and in 1832, only 60,830 of these hats were brought for use from abroad. Our own straw, silk, and velvet have been substituted as materials for bonnets; and our native manufactures must have been extensively benefited by this change.

We may not improperly notice here three articles, which were formerly, or are now, considered, almost indispensable appurtenances for every well-dressed person; viz. the fan of the ladies; the walking cane; and the umbrella; the latter carried by both sexes.

Fans, in the Middle Ages, were made of peacock's feathers, a stick with branches, and gilt handles, with silk stripes. Sometimes they were made of ostrich feathers, set in gold, silver, or ivory handles, curiously wrought: one of the age of Elizabeth cost forty pounds. The fashion is said to have been introduced from Italy †, in

* Such is the cheapness of labour upon the Continent, in comparison with its rate in England, that the best Hertfordshire straw has actually been sent to Switzerland, platted in that country, and returned to England, where, notwithstanding the import duty of seventeen shillings per pound, it can be sold at one quarter less price than plat made at home.-Transactions of the Society of Arts.

+ Shakspeare has not forgotten the fan in Romeo and Juliet, the scenes of which are laid in Verona and Man

the time of Henry VIII. if not earlier; and young gentlemen used them, some accounts say on horseback, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Servants carried fans, when ladies walked out the ostrich feathers were often dyed sky-blue, and looking-glasses were set in the broad part, above the handle. Besides these feathered fans, there were some flatter, like screens, or modern fans; and others resembled powder puffs, and were made of straw or silk, for fire-screens. Coryate, who travelled in 1611, says that fans in Italy were carried both by men and women, and that they were made of a painted piece of paper, and a little wooden handle. The paper, which was fastened to the top, he tells us, in this quaint style, was adorned on both sides with a picture of love affairs, or a view of a city, with a description: the best of them were bought for a groat. We gather from Evelyn that our modern paper fans were introduced by the Jesuits from Japan and China, where they are ensigns of rank. About a century since, the fan was in high fashion, as appears from the following lines by the polished Gay:

The fan shall flutter in all female hands,
And various fashions learn from various lands.
For this shall elephants their ivory shed,
And polished sticks the waving engines spread :

tua. Thus," Nurse. My fan, Peter. Mercutio. Pr'ythee, do, good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer of the two." Again, the custom of carrying the fan before a female: "Nurse. Peter, take my fan, and go before."