there. The hangings of the fourteenth century often represented hunts, fantastical animals, or the occupations peculiar to the different seasons of the year; and romantic and chivalric poems afforded a rich store of subjects for illustration. Jubinal quotes inventories of tapestries, receipts, &c., of the fourteenth century, in which tapestries of the above and of several other varieties are mentioned. The account given of those belonging to Charles V. of France is particularly curious. It is taken from an inventory preserved in the Bibliothèque du Roi, which, besides tapestries ornamented with figures, mentions healdic tapestries (tapisseries d'armoirie), and tappiz velus, or hairy or shaggy tapestry. The fifteenth century affords many similar documents, though Jubinal does not give them so fully. He gives however very long extracts from a MS. in the Bibliothèque du Roi respecting some old tapestries, from which it is evident that the names tapis Sarrazinois and tapis de Turquie* were often applied to | hangings fabricated in the West, they being probably made in imitation of Oriental work. In this epoch tapestry was often alluded to by poets, and to it is attributed the fabrication of most of the tapestries to which the term tapisseries historiées' has been applied.

named Gobelin [GOBELIN, vol. xi., p. 286], but which were purchased by Louis XIV. in or about the year 1666, and adapted to the tapestry-manufacture, under the name of Hôtel Royal des Gobelins. Foreign artists and workmen were engaged, laws were drawn up for the protection and government of the manufactory, and everything was done to render it, what it has ever since remained, the finest establishment of the kind in the world. The quantity of the finest and noblest works that have been produced by it,' observes the work above referred to, and the number of the best workmen bred up therein, are incredible; and the present flourishing condition of the arts and manufactures of France is, in great measure, owing thereto.' The production of tapestry at the Gobelins is said to have attained the highest perfection in the time of the minister Colbert and his successor M. de Louvois. Le Brun, when chief director of the establishment, made many designs for working after; and M. de Louvois caused tapestry to be made from some of the finest designs of Raphael, Julio Romano, and other Italian painters. A further account of this celebrated manufacture is given in the elegant volume which has just appeared under the title of The Hand-book of The sixteenth century, which was an age of general im- Needlework,' the authoress of which writes under her provement in France, gave a new impulse to the produc- maiden name, Miss Lambert. She states that the manution of tapestry. Francis I. founded the manufactures facture declined greatly at the Revolution, but was revived of Fontainebleau, in which threads of gold and silver were under the government of Napoleon, and has ever since skilfully introduced into the work. It was, we are in- been carried on successfully, though by no means to the formed, with this new impulse that the practice was same extent as formerly. About 1802 ninety persons commenced of weaving tapestry in a single piece, instead were employed in it, chiefly in preparing tapestry for the of composing it, as before, of several smaller pieces palace of St. Cloud. The pieces executed,' according to joined together. This prince brought Primaticcio from the work last named, are generally historical subjects, Italy [PRIMATICCIO, FRANCESCO, vol. xix., p. 1], and, and it occasionally requires the labour of from two to six among other works of art, commissioned him to make years to finish a single piece of tapestry. The producdesigns for several tapestries, which were woven at Fon- tions of this manufactory,' says the same authority, which tainebleau. Francis spared no pains in the encourage- is entirely supported by the government, are chiefly desment of this department of the fine arts. He engaged tined for the royal palaces, or for presents made by the Flemish workmen, whom he supplied with silk, wool, king; but some few pieces, not designed as such, are and other materials, and paid liberally for their labour; allowed to be sold.' Wool is the only material now used, and documents exist to prove that he also patronized it being found to retain its colours better than any other; the tapestry-makers of Paris. Henry II., the son and and in connection with the weaving establishment is one successor of Francis, continued to encourage the manu- for dyeing wools, under the direction of able chemists, in factory at Fontainebleau, and established a manufacture which many colours are dyed for this purpose exclusively. of tapestry on the premises of the Hôpital de la Trinité, From a passage in Evelyn's Diary' (Oct. 4, 1683), in which which attained its highest celebrity in the reign of Henry he speaks with admiration of some new French tapestry IV., and produced many fine tapestries. In 1594 Du he had seen in the apartments of the duchess of PortsBourg, the most eminent artist connected with this esta-mouth, it appears that the productions of this manufactory blishment, made there the celebrated tapestries of St. were known in England at that time. Meri, which were in existence until a recent period; and these pleased Henry IV. so much, that he determined to re-establish the manufacture of tapestry at Paris, where it had been interrupted by the disorders of the preceding reigns. This he did in 1597, bringing Italian workers in gold and silk to assist in the work.

The narrative of M. Jubinal, from which most of the preceding facts are taken, does not extend later than the close of the sixteenth century; but, to continue the history of the tapestry manufacture in France without interruption, we may turn to the volume recently published by the Countess of Wilton. A few years after the events last mentioned, as appears from his Memoirs,' the Duc de Sully, Henry's minister, was actively engaged in promoting this branch of industry. In 1605 were laid the foundations of new edifices for the tapestry-weavers, in the horsemarket at Paris; and at that time, or a little later, Flemish workmen were engaged to superintend the manufacture. The establishment languished, if it did not become quite extinct, after the death of Henry IV.; but when the royal palaces, especially the Louvre and the Tuileries, were receiving their rich decorations, in the reign of Louis XIV., his minister Colbert revived it, and from that time the celebrated royal tapestry-manufactory of the Gobelins dates its origin. This was established in premises which had been erected by celebrated dyers

* In describing, in a subsequent page, a remarkable Persian tapestry of the sixteenth century, embellished with emblematical devices, which is now in the possession of the Marquise de Lagoy, at Aix, Jubinal observes that the finest Persian tapestries are the produce of Khorassan, especially of the town of Yezd. These, he adds, are what we commonly call Turkish tapestries, not because they come from the Ottoman empire, but because, before the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope. Turkey formed the only way of communication with Persia. The establishment of the royal tapestry manufac tories in France put an end to the importation of foreign tapestry; but the art of working it is stated to be continued successfully in the East, even to our own day.

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The preceding historical notices respecting tapestry refer almost exclusively to France, but we must retrace our steps to take a brief review of the use and manufacture of this kind of fabric in England. Respecting the AngloSaxon period, it is observed in the Pictorial History of England' (vol i., p. 323) :— The dwellings of the higher classes appear to have been completely and sometimes splendidly furnished: their walls were hung with silk richly embroidered with gold or colours. The needle-work for which the English ladies were so famous was herein displayed to great advantage. Ingulphus mentions some hangings ornamented with golden birds in needle-work, and a veil or curtain on which was represented in embroidery the destruction of Troy. In the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf we read that, in the great wine-chamberThere shone variegated with gold

The web on the walls,
Many wonders to the sight
Of each of the warriors

That would gaze on it became visible.'

"The Saxon term for a curtain or hanging was wanrift; and, in the will of Wynfloeda, we find the bequest of a long heall wahrift and a short one. The same lady also bequeaths three coverings for benches or settles (setlhr@gl). The BAYEUX TAPESTRY (vol. iv., p. 68) is perhaps the most antient piece of needlework in existence. It was probably owing to the expense of such hangings, when of large size, and the very long time required for their production, that the less comfortable device of painting the walls of chambers was extensively adopted in the early Norman period. Of this time the work before quoted observes (vol. i., p. 635):-The hangings of needle-work and embroidery which adorned the walls of the Anglo-Saxon palaces, seem to have been partially superseded in the course of this period by the fashion of

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painting on the walls themselves, or the wainscot of the Mortlake, about 1619, under the management of Sir chamber, the same historical or fabulous subjects which | Francis Crane. James I. gave 2000l. towards the formahad hitherto been displayed in threads of colours and tion of this establishment, which appears to have been gold.' Many instances might be enumerated of this kind originally supplied with designs from abroad, but subseof decoration, but it is sufficient to refer to the directions quently by an artist named Francis Cleyne, or Klein, a given by Henry III. early in his reign, for the painting of native of Rostock, in the duchy of Mecklenburg, who was his wainscoted chamber in Winchester castle with the engaged for the purpose. This undertaking was a favorite same pictures with which it had been previously adorned; hobby both with James and his successor, who regarded a circumstance presumed by Walpole to indicate the very Cleyne so favourably that he bestowed upon him, in 1625, early existence of historical painting in England. The an annuity of 1007. (Rymer's Foedera, vol. xviii., p. 112), practice alluded to appears to have extended considerably which he enjoyed until the civil war. In the same year during the reigns of Henry III. and his immediate succes- Charles I. granted 20007. a year for ten years to Sir Francis sors; and, according to the same authority (vol. i., p. Crane, in lieu of an annual payment of 1000l. which he 864), the paintings were, in several instances, directed to had previously covenanted to pay for that term, as the be made in imitation of needle-work tapestries. Lady Wil- grant recites, towards the furtherance, upholding, and ton states that tapestry of needle-work, like the Bayeux maintenance of the worke of tapestries, latelie brought tapestry of Matilda, which had been used solely for the into this our kingdome by the said Sir Francis Crane, and decoration of altars, or the embellishment of other portions now by him and his workmen practised and put in use at of sacred edifices, on occasions of festival or the per- Mortlake, in our countie of Surrey;' and of a further sum formance of solemn rites, had been of much more general of 60007. due to the establishment for three suits of gold application amongst the luxurious inhabitants of the tapestries. (Fœdera, vol. xviii., p. 60.) After the death South, and was introduced into England as furniture hang- of Sir Francis Crane, his brother, Sir Richard, sold the ing by Eleanor of Castile.' That tapestry was not origi- premises to the king, and during the civil war they were nally introduced by that queen will be seen by the facts seized as royal property. After the Restoration, Charles II. stated above; and we know not whether there is any endeavoured to revive the manufacture, and employed further authority for the statement than the mention, by Verrio to make designs for it, but the attempt was unsucMatthew Paris, of her having used tapestry for covering cessful. Lady Wilton however conceives that, although floors, the word being apparently used in the sense of carpet. languishing, the work was not altogether extinct, for,' (Pict. Hist. of England, vol. i., p. 865, note.) Chaucer she observes, in Mr. Evelyn's very scarce tract entitled mentions a tapiser,' in company with a webbe' and a "Mundus Muliebris," printed in 1690, some of this manu'dyer,' among his Canterbury pilgrims; from which cir- facture is amongst the articles to be furnished by a gallant cumstance it may be presumed that the business was not to his mistress. During its period of prosperity, this a very uncommon one towards the close of the fourteenth manufacture produced the most superb hangings, after century. In the fifteenth century the use of tapestry the designs of celebrated painters, with which the palaces greatly extended in England; but then, and for long after, of Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, Whitehall, St. James's, the principal supply appears to have been from the Con- Nonsuch, Greenwich, &c., and many of the mansions of tinent. In the sixteenth century a kind of hanging was the nobility, were adorned. Five, at least, of the cartoons introduced which holds a place intermediate between of Raphael, which appear to have been bought by painted walls and woven or embroidered tapestry. Shak- Charles I. for that purpose, were worked in tapestry at spere alludes to these hangings under the name of Mortlake. These celebrated works were designed for the painted cloths.** purpose of being copied in tapestry, and were originally worked in Flanders. [CARTOON, vol. vi., p. 330.] An act of parliament was passed in 1663 to encourage the linen and tapestry manufactures of England, and to restrain the great importation of foreign linen and tapestry.

The appearance of the rich tapestry common in the Elizabethan period is admirably described by Spenser, in his Faerie Queene,' book iii., canto ix., in the account of the tapestry seen by Britomart in the apartments of the house of Busirane, in the following lines:

For round about the walls yclothed were

With goodly arras of great majesty,

Woven with gold and silke so close and nere,

That the rich metall lurked privily,

As faining to be hid from envious eye;

Yet here, and there, and everywhere, unwares

It shewd itselfe, and shone unwillingly;

Like a discolourd snake, whose hidden snares

Through the greene gras his long bright-burnisht back declares. The poet described what he was in the habit of seeing, and sufficient remains yet exist to attest the accuracy of his description; although in most cases the brilliancy of the metallic threads and the beauty of the colours are greatly impaired, and in some instances the gold and silver threads have been artfully withdrawn, their intrinsic value proving too strong a temptation for cupidity to resist.

The introduction of tapestry-weaving into England is usually attributed to a gentleman named Sheldon, late in the reign of Henry VIII. Lady Wilton mentions indeed an intimation by Walpole of its origin as early as the time of Edward III.; but if any attempt was made to introduce the art at that time, it does not appear to have produced any important result. According to her Art of Needlework,' Sheldon allowed an artist, named Robert Hicks, to use his manor-house at Burcheston, in Warwickshire, for the practice of the art; and mentioned him in his will, which was dated 1570, as the only auter and beginner of tapistry and arras within this realme.' At Burcheston were worked in tapestry, on a large scale, maps of Oxfordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, and Gloucestershire, some fragments of which were, it is stated, in Walpole's collection at Strawberry Hill. Little more is known of this establishment. James I. endea voured to revive the manufacture of tapestry by encouraging and assisting in the formation of an establishment at In Malone's edition (1821) many references to this kind of substitute for woven or embroidered tapestry, by various authors, are given. See notes on 'As you like it,' act iii., s. 2 (vol. vi., pp. 434-6), and Henry IV..' Part 2, act ii., s. 1 (vol. xvii., p. 54). From the latter passage it would appear that the hangings alluded to were sometimes painted in water-colours.

The use of the word 'hangings,' as applied to tapestry, as well as to other kinds of lining for rooms, perhaps sufficiently indicates the manner in which such decorations were formerly put up. The tapestries,' observes the Countess of Wilton, whether wrought or woven, did not remain on the walls as do the hangings of modern days: it was the primitive office of grooms of the chamber to hang up the tapestry, which, in a royal progress, was sent forward with the purveyor and grooms of the chamber,' She relates a curious anecdote in illustration of this practice. Henry IV. of France, wishing to do honour to the. pope's legate, the cardinal of Florence, when visiting St. Germain-en-Laye, sent orders to hang up the finest tapestry; but, by an awkward blunder, the suit selected for the cardinal's chamber was embellished with satirical emblems of the pope and the Roman court. The mistake was discovered by the Duc de Sully, on whose authority the anecdote is given, and another suit was substituted for that with the offensive devices. In a subsequent chapter, on 'The days of good Queen Bess,' after showing the universality of tapestry and similar decorations in the houses of the nobility and gentry of England, it is stated that tapestry was at that time suspended upon frames, which were probably, in many cases, at a considerable distance from the walls, as we frequently read of persons concealing themselves, like Falstaff (Merry Wives of Windsor, act iii., scene 3), 'behind the arras.'

The interest attached to antient tapestries as historical monuments, as well as in the character of works of art, is of no mean order. The most important work on this department of archæology is that of M. Jubinal, the author of the historical treatise quoted in the former part of this article, entitled Les Anciennes Tapisseries Historiées,' in which are given minute descriptions, illustrated by many large folio plates, of the most remarkable tapestries made from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, and preserved to the present time. Such monuments, as he observes in his preface, sometimes represent to us, with a charming and

faithful naïveté, grave historical events, and sometimes the warp, so as to allow the flute, or broach, which carries scenes of gaiety. There they show us a siege or a tourna- the woof, to pass between them. Like the weaver with ment; here, a feast; a little farther, a chace; and always, the basse lisse,' the operator works, as it were, blindwhether chace, banquet, tournament, or siege, all is, as fold; but by walking round to the front of the loom he Montaigne would have said, pourtrayed to the life; they may see the progress of his work, and may adjust any all retrace to us most literally the mode of life of our threads, which have not been forced into their right posifathers, showing us their residences, their churches, their tion by the reed or comb, with a large needle, called an dresses, their arms, and even (thanks to their explanatory aiguille à presser. The process of working with the legends) their language at different epochs. Further than haute lisse is much slower than the other, and is indeed, this, if we refer to the inventory of Charles V., made in says Jubinal, almost as slow as that of working with the 1379, we find that all the French literature of the fruitful needle. Lady Wilton, in describing the productions of the ages preceding the era of that wise monarch had been by Hôtel Royal des Gobelins, observes that Not the least his orders translated into wool. At a later period, al- interesting part of the process was that performed by the though the beauty of tapestry was increased by improve- rentrayeurs, or fine-drawers, who so unite the breadths of ments in the arts of weaving and dyeing, and by the adop- the tapestry into one picture, that no seam is discernible, tion of superior designs, much of its peculiarly interesting but the whole appears like one design. Now, however, character was lost. Jubinal, in the smaller work frequently the pieces are woven so wide that joining is very seldom quoted in the earlier part of this article, regrets the dis- resorted to, even for the largest pieces. appearance of the Gothic labels, which contained quaint descriptions of the subjects represented; of the peculiar architecture of the middle ages (architecture à ogives), and of the furniture and dresses of our forefathers; and he conceives that their place is but ill supplied by the imitation, clever in the great masters, but detestable in their disciples, of Greek and Roman forms, of which he refers to celebrated and grievous examples in the compositions of Rubens reproduced by the manufactory of the Gobelins; in the tapestries of Beauvais, and in those

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of Aubusson.'

(Jubinal, Recherches sur l'Usage et l'Origine des Tapisseries à Personnages, dites Historices; The Art of Needlework, edited by the Right Honourable the Countess of Wilton; The Handbook of Needlework, by Miss Lambert; &c.)

TAPHOZO'US. [CHEIROPTERA, vol. vii., p. 24.]

TAPIO'CA, a farinaceous substance, prepared in South America from two species of Janipha, or the bitter and sweet Cassada or Manioc plants, which two were long regarded as one species, and comprehended under the name of Jatropha Manihot, till Pohl distinguished them, calling the bitter Manihot utilissimo, and the sweet Manihot Aipi (Pohl, Pl. Brasil., ic. i. 32 t. 24). The chief distinction between them is that a tough ligneous fibre or cord runs through the heart of the sweet Cassava root, of which the latter is destitute.' Though the bitter contains a highly acrid and poisonous juice, from which the sweet is exempt, yet the bitter is cultivated almost to the entire exclusion of the other, which is probably owing to the greater facility with which it can be ground or rasped into flour, owing to the absence of the ligneous centre. The poisonous principle of the bitter manioc is thought to be of the nature of hydrocyanic acid. (Guibourt, Hist. des Drogues, tom. ii., p. 455, 3ième ed.) It is easily dissipated or decomposed by heat or fermentation; hence the flour becomes perfectly wholesome in the process of baking the cassava bread. [CASSAVA, vol. vi., p. 344.] The juice, after expression, may be inspissated by long boiling, or formed into a soup, with flesh and spices, called cassarepo. By means of molasses it can be fermented and converted into intoxicating drink. The fecula, or flour, after the juice has been carefully expressed, having been washed, and dried in the air without heat, is termed mouchaco in Brazil, moussache in the Antilles, and cypipa in Cayenne. This constituted the Brazilian arrow-root of English commerce. When this fecula is prepared by drying on hot plates, it becomes granular, and is called tapioca. It occurs in irregular lumps or grains, and is partially soluble in cold water. The granules, diffused through water, and examined by the microscope, are of great uniformity of size, and smaller than those of arrow-root from the Marantas. Tapioca is very nutritious and easy of digestion, being free from all stimulating qualities. It is therefore very necessary to distinguish it from an artificial tapioca made with gum and potato starch, which is in larger granules, whiter, more easily broken, and more soluble in cold water than the genuine.

In the primitive method of working tapestry with the needle, the wool was usually applied to a kind of canvas, and the effect produced was coarse and very defective; but some finer kinds of tapestry were embroidered upon a silken fabric. The process of weaving by the loom, after the manner known as the haute lisse, or high warp, was practised in the tapestries of Flanders (and, according to Jubinal, in those of England also), as early as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the only essential difference between these and the productions of modern times being that previously noticed, the comparative size of the pieces woven in the loom. The weaving of tapestry, both by the haute lisse' and the 'basse lisse,' appears to be of Oriental invention; and the difference between the two methods may be briefly described. In the haute lisse' the loom, or rather, the frame with the warp-threads, is placed in a perpendicular position, and the weaver works standing; while in the basse lisse' the frame with the warp is laid horizontally, and the weaver works in a sitting position. In weaving with the basse lisse, which, Miss Lambert observes, is now relinquished, the painting to be copied is laid beneath the threads of the warp, which are stretched in a manner resembling that of common weaving, the pattern being supported by a number of transverse threads stretched beneath it. The weaver, sitting before the loom, and leaning over the beam, carefully separates the threads of the warp with his fingers, so that he may see his pattern between them. He then takes in his other hand a kind of shuttle, called a flute, charged with silk or wool of the colour required, and passes it between the threads, after separating them in the usual way by means of treddles worked by the feet. [WEAVING.] The thread of woof or shoot thus inserted is finally driven close up to the finished portion of the work by means of a reed or comb formed of box-wood or ivory, the teeth of which are inserted between the threads of the warp. In this process the face of the tapestry is downwards, so that the weaver cannot examine his work until the piece is completed and removed from the loom. The frame of the haute lisse loom consists of two upright side-pieces, with large rollers placed horizontally between them. The threads of the warp, which usually consist of twisted wool, are wound round the upper roller, and the finished web is coiled round the lower one. The cartoon, or design to be copied, is placed perpendicularly behind the back or wrong side of the warp, and then the principal outlines of the pattern are drawn upon the front of the warp, the threads of which are sufficiently open to allow the artist to see the design between them. The cartoon is then removed so far back from the warp that the weaver may place himself between them with his back towards the former, so that he must turn round whenever he wishes to look at it. Attached to the upright side-pieces Skeleton. When viewed in profile, the pyramidal eleof the frame are contrivances for separating the threads of vation of the skull of the Tapir, calling to mind what is to

TAPIR, Tapirus, the name of a genus of pachydermatous quadrupeds.

Linnæ us does not notice the Tapir in the 12th (his last) edition of the Systema Natura: but Gmelin quotes it as the Hippopotamus (terrestris) pedibus posticis trisulcis. (Syst. Nat. x. i., p. 74. n. 2.)

Gmelin introduces it under the title Tapir, between HIPPOPOTAMUS and SUS.

Cuvier arranges the genus as the last of his Pachydermes Ordinaires, making it immediately succeed the extinct Palæotheria and Lophiodons. The genus was well known to the older zoologists who wrote on the natural products of America, as we shall hereafter see. ORGANIZATION.