ESSAY XII. ON BLEACHING. FLAX and hemp were employed in the fabrication of cloth many ages ago1, and in those early times such cloth was highly esteemed; it must therefore long before that period have been discovered that these fabrics were improved in colour by exposure to the action of the atmosphere. The effect of hot water in whitening brown linen would also soon arrest the attention of mankind; and when it became a practice with the early inhabitants of Asia to employ certain earths and alkaline plants in the operations of washing and scouring their garments 2, the whitening, as well as the detersive properties of these vegetables, could not fail to be observed, and, by degrees, would naturally occasion the introduction of regular processes for bleaching; and that this art was practised very early, is, I think, 'See Essay IV. vol. i. p. 242. * See Goguet's Origin of Laws, &c., vol. i. p. 132. evident from the great progress which it had made in the beginning of the Christian era3. That the ancients had learnt some method of rendering their linen extremely white, may be supposed from many remarks which are interspersed among their writings. Homer speaks of the garments of his countrywomen in a way that leaves no doubt of their being clothed, occasionally at least, in white vestments. "Each gushing fount a marble cistern fills, Whose polish'd bed receives the falling rills, There is however a passage of Pliny, an author whom I have often quoted, and who published his Natural History in the first century, which to me appears perfectly conclusive. "Of late days," says he, "there were seen in the amphitheatres of the Emperor Nero, fine curtains of blue azure colour like the sky, and the very floor of the ground under men's feet, was coloured red. But for all these paintings and rich dyes, yet when all is done, the white linen held the pre-eminence still, and was highly esteemed above all colours 5." Pliny has likewise informed us, that the Gauls A writer of the first century, speaking of linen garments, says, "The fine lawn made from the flax called Byssus, whereof our wives and dames at home set so much store by, for to trim and deck themselves, groweth in Acaia, and I find that in old times it was sold as dear as gold." Holland's Pliny, vol. ii. p. 5. + Pope's Iliad, book xxii. line 201. › Holland's Pliny, vol. ii. p. 5. and Britons of his time were acquainted with a method of bleaching linen cloth, and he thus describes their process. "After the flax is spun into yarn, it must," says he, "be bleached and whitened by being pounded several times in a stone mortar with water: and lastly, when it is woven into cloth, it must be beaten again upon a smooth stone with broad-headed cudgels, and the more frequently it is beaten it will be the whiter and softer 6." The same author tells us that they sometimes put the roots of wild poppies into the water, to make it more efficacious in bleaching linen 7. "There is a kind of poppy (says he) much sought after for bleaching linen cloth; for, being scoured therewith, it is wonderful how white and pure they will look. And yet people are grown to this disorder and vain enormity, that they have essayed to stain and dye their linen into other colours, as well as their woollen cloths 8." We learn from Theophrastus, who was the son of a fuller in the Isle of Lesbos, and who wrote 300 years before Christ, that lime was then employed in bleaching. He relates, that a ship partly loaded with linen, and partly with lime for bleaching it, was destroyed by the accidental access of water to the lime. Although it should be proved that the bleaching of linen is a process of very great antiquity, it must not, however, be supposed that any people Pliny's Hist. Nat. lib. xix. cap. 1. § 9. 7 Ibid, lib. xx. cap. 19. f 2. Holland's Pliny, vol. ii. P. 5. were acquainted with it in the earliest stages of their society, or before they had acquired some degree of civilization. The vestments of the early inhabitants of the world discovered neither art nor industry. They made use of such as nature presented, and needed the least preparation. Some nations covered themselves with the bark of trees, others with leaves, or bulrushes, rudely interwoven 8. The skins of animals were also universally used as garments, worn without preparation, and in the same state as they came from the bodies of the animals 9. In process of time recourse was had to the wool of animals 10, and this led to the further discovery of the art of uniting the separate parts into one continued thread, by means of the spindle; and this would consequently lead to the next step, the invention of weaving, which, according to Democritus, who flourished four hundred years before Christ, arose from the art of the spider, who guides and manages the threads by the weight of her own body 11. That the invention of weaving was long prior to the time of Democritus, appears from the sacred writings 12. Strabo, lib. xi. p. 781. Senec. Epist. xc. p. 406. 9 Lucretius, lib. vi. ver. 1011. Pausanias, lib. xx. c. 38. 10 Fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, the people of Palestine knew the value of the fleece of their sheep, and had regular seasons for collecting it. See Genesis, xxxi. 19, and xxxviii. 12-14. 11 Goguet, vol. i. p. 125. 19 See Genesis xiv. 23. The original is, "a thread of the woof." Also see Genesis xxiv. 65. After the art of weaving had been invented, it was probably not long before flax, hemp, and cotton, were employed in the fabrication of garments, especially as the President Goguet has abundantly proved that vestments of cotton were in use in the Patriarchal ages 13; and there can be no doubt that in the time of Christ several nations had acquired. great proficiency in the manufacture of linen cloth. Pliny describes, as growing in the higher parts of Egypt, the cotton shrub of which cloth was made, and "of which," he says, "the Egyptian priests were wont to have surplesses, in which they took a singular delight 14." He also tells us 15 that vestments of cotton were worn by the ancient Egyptians; and more than a thousand years before the commencement of the Christian era, Moses speaks of robes of linen, and commands his people "not to wear a garinent of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together 16." The dress of the ancient Babylonians consisted of a tunic of lawn, which they wore next to their skin. It descended, in the eastern mode, to their feet 17. The Athenians wore long robes of fine linen dyed purple 18. It is not likely that the materials of which we have been speaking were long employed in the manufacture of garments, before some method was adopted of improving their colour by artificial 13 Goguet, book ii. p. 127. 14 Holland's Pliny, vol. ii. p. 3. 16 Deuteronomy xxii. 11. Herodot. lib. i. n. 195. |