, in the whorls of their spindles, from
prehistoric times.

Wool has always appeared to be a natural material for dress. It is
warm in winter, light in summer, and is always beautiful as it hangs
in lovely soft draperies, heavy enough to draw the fabric into
graceful curved lines, and yet capable of yielding to each movement
in little rippling folds, covering, but not concealing the forms to
which they cling. Classical draperies are explained by it. What the
Italians call the "eyes of the folds," are particularly beautiful in
woollens, and lend themselves to sculpturesque art.

The other natural use of wool is for carpets. We have the evidence of
the imitations, in mosaic, of carpets from the stone floors in Nineveh
(now in the British Museum), that the art of weaving large and small
rugs, and the principles of composition for such purposes was at that
date well understood. The carpet-weaving traditions of Babylon appear
to have been inherited by the occupiers of the soil, as it is supposed
that the Saracens learned from Persia the art of weaving pile carpets,
and imported thence craftsmen into Spain. We can trace Persian carpet
patterns in Indian floor coverings. The Greeks called them _tapetes_;
and the Latins adopted the name; and hence the Italian _tapeti_,
French _tapis_, and our word tapestry.

As artistic material, to which the world owes much beauty and comfort,
woollens have always played a great part in the decorations of our
houses, as of our garments. Fabrics have been made of them of every
description, from the cheapest and commonest to the most refined; but
if woollen stuffs are to be beautiful, they must be _fine_, and worked
or embroidered by hand.

Woollens brocaded or figured are not so effective as silken hangings.
Woollen velvets are without light, dull and heavy. Still, even amongst
our English fabrics, there have always been varieties of texture[167]
and adaptations to different effects, and some are beautiful.

Worsted thread, so called from Worsted, in Norfolk, where the
materials for weaving and embroidering are manufactured, has always
been very important in embroidery. Worsteds after a time gave way to a
very beautiful material, called "German wool," which again has yielded
the supremacy to "crewels"[168] (resembling the old worsteds). These
crewels are nearly the same in substance and in their loose texture as
the threads prepared from wool for tapestry weaving.

We may claim, in Engla