Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/414

fChaprXI. O? ^A'NCHElS flTE R. . ^9 bably a looetf W thd offices of his houfe, hoiked . by fomt <£ his own retainers, aad furnifliing himfelf and his own famiiy with this agreeable clothing. But the .mannfa&ory of the Brfaotts muft have beeiat greatly improved by the Roman*. ? And the woolen 111411 tit4^to^yi of JLancafhtre in particsdar' wa^vprobitdy carried by thfe Rofaians nearly to all that ftanddtd *f • tfftiKt Iper- .Jfe&ion at which it was profecuted about two ar tbrqe <*SJfcri4s ago among us.- * i f * - •" '- •" The woolen manufa&ory muft neceflartfy have bceri pr Idr in - its origin .to the liaim. The fibrous plant from -which the Ikion J threads are produced feems to have been .firfr ti&&& by^the ey*, and firft w6rfcedup into cloth by 'die hand, df tfcte idhttbitarits M Egypt* That at ledft is: the firft kingdom: which **e fiikl pdf- fefled of the drapery. And there the origin- of the manufactory . muft have bsen renmckalUy early, as evehtat the ira of the ltyifltttfy 9? Jofeph it had rifen to a very considerable; dfcgree : 4>f tefitoii- m€nt ". For many centuries, afterwards** thelEgygtians Kj^' large plantations of flax among them, add Egypt remained the~ gfceAt -ftaple of the linen manufa&ory l From this kingdom it was probably carried With every other art into Greece, and plainly appears from the ufe of its Greek appellation among tha Komails to have btfen brought by the Greeks into' Italy* And Italy muft have carried her military Settlements and her linen mantxia&oty together into Spain, Gaul, Germany x and Britain. ' That this iras really the cafe, is fufficiently (hewn by the German the French the Spanifh and the Britifli appellations for flax Or lineii* 41II -thtfe nations having originally adopted thd fleman Litiulh for it,, and all of them retaining italmoft withdut any variation at* pneferit. Flax muft have been originally a native of the caft, the weftern tflax being evidently a degenerate fpecies of the eaftern, and the eaftero being ftill conftantly imported among us* It muft: have been -firft planted in the foil of Britain by the Romans, and the prcfent manner of working it into cloth is evidently iRomart. Being plucked up by the roots and formed into bundles for the thand among the Romans, it was hung up to dry in the fan ami C c c 2 was