Page:Textile fabrics; a descriptive catalogue of the collection of church-vestments, dresses, silk stuffs, needle-work and tapestries, forming that section of the Museum (IA textilefabricsde00soutrich).pdf/160

 from the East a small shred of crimson silk, which shows on it a flat-shaped fish. If to some minds it be a subject of wonderment that, amid flowers and fruits, not only birds and beasts—elephants included—but such odd things as fish, even the porpoise, are to be found represented upon textiles chosen for the service of the altar, they should learn that all such stuffs were gladly put to this very use for the symbolism they carried, by accident, about them. Then, as now, the clergy had to say, and the people to listen daily to that canticle: "O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; O ye angels of the Lord, O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, O ye fowls of the air, O all ye beasts and cattle, bless ye the Lord and magnify Him for ever!" Not merely churchmen, but the lay folks, deemed it but fitting that while the prayer above was being offered up, an emphasis should be given to its words by the very garment worn by the celebrant as he uttered them.

—LITERATURE AND LANGUAGES.

For those who bestow their attention upon Literature and Languages, this collection must have, at times, an especial value, whichever way their choice may lead them, whether towards subjects of biblical, classic or mediæval study: proofs of this, we think, may be gathered, up and down the whole of this "Introduction." With regard to our own country, we deem it quite impossible for any one among us to properly know the doings, in private and in public, throughout this land in by-gone days, or to take in all the beauty of many a passage in our prose writers, much less understand several particulars in the poetry of the middle ages, without an acquaintance, such as may be made here, with the textiles and needle-*work of that period.

To the student of languages, it may seem, at first sight, that he will have nothing to learn by coming hither. When he looks at those two very curious and interesting pieces, Nos. 1297, p. 296; 1465, p. 298, and has read the scrolls traced upon them, he may perhaps, if he be in search of the older forms of German speech, have to change his mind: of the words, so often to be met with here, in real or pretended Arabic, we say nothing. To almost every one among our English students of languages there is one inscription done in needlework quite unreadable. At No. 8278, p. 170, going round the four sides of this liturgical appliance, are sentences in Greek, borrowed from the ritual, but hidden to the Greek scholar's eye, under the so-called Cyrillian character.