. 266.]

[_Linum._ l. 67. Flax Five males and five females. It was first found on
the banks of the Nile. The Linum Lusitanicum, or portigal flax, has ten
males: see the note on Curcuma. Isis was said to invent spinning and
weaving: mankind before that time were clothed with the skins of animals.
The fable of Arachne was to compliment this new art of spinning and
weaving, supposed to surpass in fineness the web of the Spider.]

Inlays the broider'd weft with flowery dyes,
70 Quick beat the reeds, the pedals fall and rise;
Slow from the beam the lengths of warp unwind,
And dance and nod the massy weights behind.--
Taught by her labours, from the fertile soil
Immortal Isis clothed the banks of Nile;
75 And fair ARACHNE with her rival loom
Found undeserved a melancholy doom.--
_Five_ Sister-nymphs with dewy fingers twine
The beamy flax, and stretch the fibre-line;
Quick eddying threads from rapid spindles reel,
80 Or whirl with beaten foot the dizzy wheel.
--Charm'd round the busy Fair _five_ shepherds press,
Praise the nice texture of their snowy dress,
Admire the Artists, and the art approve,
And tell with honey'd words the tale of love.

85 So now, where Derwent rolls his dusky floods
Through vaulted mountains, and a night of woods,
The Nymph, GOSSYPIA, treads the velvet sod,
And warms with rosy smiles the watery God;
His ponderous oars to slender spindles turns,
90 And pours o'er massy wheels his foamy urns;
With playful charms her hoary lover wins,
And wields his trident,--while the Monarch spins.
--First with nice eye emerging Naiads cull
From leathery pods the vegetable wool;

[_Gossypia_. l. 87. Gossypium. The cotton plant. On the river Derwent near
Matlock in Derbyshire, Sir RICHARD ARKWRIGHT has created his curious
and magnificent machinery for spinning cotton; which had been in vain
attempted by many ingenious artists before him. The cotton-wool is first
picked from the pods and seeds by women. It is then carded by _cylindrical
cards_, which move against each other, with different velocities. It is
taken from these by an _iron-hand_ or comb, which has a motion similar to
that of scratching, and takes the wool off the cards longitudinally in
respect to the fibres or staple, producing a continued line loosely
cohering, ca