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A CHAPTER ON ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS AND FEATHERS,

BY MRS. WHITE.

The crafts of "Plumassier and Fleuriste" | are so generally combined, that it seems only natural, when on the subject of artificial flowers, to introduce that of feathers also; our researches for the one bring us into frequent contact with the other, and though the manufacturing of them are things apart, yet in a finished state, fashion and commerce have created an affinity between them.

The priority, however, in treating of them belongs of course to Flowers, those ornaments so natural to woman, that we could fancy the wearing of them a primeval vanity, and Eve herself the foundress of the fashion.

Milton bears us out in this idea, and with an exquisite refinement suggests them to have been the adornments of her innocent days, and (like Ophelia's flowers when her father died) makes them wither instinctively upon her fall :"From his slack hand the garland wreathed for

Eve*

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Down dropp'd, and all the faded roses shed." And though we have found no mention of it elsewhere, it is certain from Solomon's Anacreontic ejaculation

through each shade of colour that suited his complexion; the wit (for each wreath was supposed to impregnate the wearer's brain with the qualities of the plant that composed it) might quicken his with bays; the scholarly gentleman be content, like the bachelor Horace, with myrtle; and the gay bind rosy fillets on his brow. Some, of a melancholy cast (so Pliny tells us), affected wormwood, which, though it would not suffer a man to be merry, was a great hinderer of witchcraft and other evils; while those individuals who feared the juice of the grape stronger than their own resolutions to resist it, strengthened their heads after the fashion of other ruined structures with wreaths of ivy, which in those days was supposed to exercise such an antipathy to the vine as to counteract the effects of its spirit. The bride had her crown, and the corpse its garland; neither tricts of those classic regions. In Italy we read of which customs are yet extinct in all the disthat mothers still twine chaplets of the blue flowering periwinkle (Vinca) on the foreheads of their dead infants; and at the wedding ceremony of modern Greeks the priest is supplied with a garland of lilies, and another of ears of corn, which he places on the heads of the bride and

"Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before bridegroom, as emblems of purity and abunthey be withered, t

that the ancient Hebrews, like the Persians and other Eastern nations, from whom in later days the Greeks and Romans borrowed the sweet usage, were even at this period in the habit of binding their brows with flowers on festive occasions; for the preceding verse, with its talk of costly wine and precious ointment, has evidently reference to the accessories of a feast.

In the palmy days of Athenian refinement and Roman luxury, flowers were used not only as personal adornments, and necessary signs and accompaniments of festivity and merry making; but they were essential to religion, and decked the altars, crowned her priests, and filleted the heads of the victims to be sacrificed, from the Bacchanalian goat to the milk-white bull, that bled in honour of Jupiter.

dance. Tavernier and other oriental travellers used as natural ornaments in the dark tresses of inform us that flowers have been and are still Indian maids; and Moore tells us that the appearance of the blossoms of the gold-coloured campac on their black hair has supplied the Sanscrit poets with many elegant allusions.

Even the forest children of America are not without an instinct of their beauty, and considerable skill in imitating them; some of the most perfect feather-flowers are made by the savages of South America from the brilliant plumage of their birds, the colours of which have all the vivacity of floral dyes; and, as they never fade, they in this particular excel those tugal, who tint the feathers artificially. manufactured by the nuns in Spain and Por

The Italians are said to have been the first

people in Europe who excelled in this imitation the Continent, and eventually found its way to of nature, and from them the craft overspread

ourselves.

They dedicated them to their Gods, and crowned their statues with them. Hence Venus is sometimes represented wearing roses, while Juno holds a lily in her hand; and the antique Nothing could be more natural, in the proCeres, in the gallery of the Louvre, has her hair braided with corn-poppies and bearded wheat.gress of imitative art, than the desire to perpeWith the people themselves wreaths were in daily requisition, and persons made a livelihood by manufacturing them; every occasion had its characteristic chaplet, and every diner-out one of a different design. The exquisite could run

*Book ix. Paradise Lost.
† Wisdom of Solomon.

tuate those charming productions of the field and expense which the quickly perishing nature and garden, and to save the continuous trouble of real blossoms entailed on the wearers, except peared in that land where the use of flowers in that the copies of them should have first apantique times had been carried to such excess.

We find the use of artificial flowers introduced into this country during the reign of

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Edward III., whose beautiful wife, Philippa of Hainault, with the ladies of her court, courageously threw off the hideous head-gear of the period, and with no other addition than a chaplet of flowers, allowed their hair to ornament their faces.

This fashion of wearing flowers in the hair does not appear to have become general in France till 1367, and then Queen Philippa was in her grave.

About the same period we first find a feather gracing the caps of the gallants, if we may be allowed so to misapply the term, for anything farther from grace than the way in which this appendage was worn, can scarcely be imagined; it is usually seen set up in front of the cap without the slightest deviation from the perpendicular; elegance in its disposal seems to have been a work of time, for two hundred years elapsed before the feather of the fourteenth century, which had gradually glided to the side of the cap as we see it represented in the portraits of our eighth Harry, lost its formality in the graceful plume which afterwards became so famous as the panache à la Henri Quatre.

The wearing plumes in the helmets of warriors appears to have been of very antique origin. The Romans and Greeks both used them, as we may gather from the writings of their poets.

Who forgets the waving plume cresting the helmet of the fleet Camilla, or the changeful one in that of Turnus, which, like the famed panache of the French monarch, became a rallying point wherever it appeared?

By the way, might not this last have been a bird of Paradise, which in the ancient times was prized not only for its rareness and its beauty, but because the supposed mystery of its existence made it regarded as a sacred talisman; and it was believed that he who wore it bore a charmed life, and would prove invulnerable even where the battle raged most fiercely? Methinks the description of its varying colours and dazzling brilliancy, coupled with the reckless ardour of the fighting king, almost bears out our fanciful hypothesis. Certain it is that amongst the orientals these plumes were thought to exercise a preserving power; and in this faith they were sought for, to deck the turbans of their chiefs.

Talking of warrior plumes reminds us that it is not unlikely that the fashion of wearing feathers, which (as we before said) was introduced into this country by the courtiers and gallants of the court of Edward III., might possibly have originated from the ostrich crest in the casque of John of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, who perished on the field of Cressy, and which with its motto has ever since made the cognizance of the Princes of Wales, while the number worn might have been limited in compliment to Edward the Black Prince, who adopted it.

their caps, either standing upright from the head, or falling negligently on one side. Henry the Eighth wore a hat of black velvet, with a white ostrich feather turning over the brim. Edward, his son and successor, retained the feather, but wore it differently, as one may observe when passing the statue of this youthful monarch at St. Thomas's Hospital, Southwark-the pose of which, by the way, is so very elegant, as to deserve more attention than it usually meets with. In a picture of Elizabeth, by Zucchero, in the collection of the Marquis of Salisbury, we find this royal lady's head-dress (a strange pile of false hair, pearls, and jewellery) surmounted by an immense feather, innocent of the flexibility given to it by the present mode of preparation, or of the curl so justly admired: it looks rather like a branch of broom, the badge of the Plantagenets, than a crest for the gracing of a Tudor.

This was the period when the knightly plumes of the old nobles became converted, according to the complaint of more than one satirist of the time, into fans for their degenerate sons; these elegant trifles being as necessary to the finished appearance of an Elizabethan beau, as a clouded cane to the gallants of St. James's in Charles the First's time: and this brings us to the black beaver and white ostrich feathers of this mo narch, and the great one stuck all over with diamonds, which Oldys tells us the favourite Buckingham always wore in his hat. Subsequently the plume became the badge of the Cavaliers, in contradistinction to the plain beavers of the Roundheads; yet such a charm was found in this graceful adjunct, that even in Cromwell's time many of his followers continued to wear the high hat and drooping feather.

The reign of the Merry Monarch appears to have been, of all others, that in which these downy aids to dress became most popular : from the King to the smallest faded dandy, the feather was an absolute necessity, and ladies also wore them in their riding-hats. Indeed, we do not find them wholly laid aside in gentlemanly costume till the close of the reign of George the Second, when they fell into the hands of ladies and military men, who have since retained them in possession.

At present plumes are rarely worn but on state occasions and at court; but in Queen Anne's time, Addison, writing of the feather head-dresses then in vogue, says he does not pretend to draw a "single quill against the immense crop of plumes which is already risen to an amazing height, and unless timely singed by the bright eyes that glitter beneath, will shortly be able to overshadow them." This is in 1715, and as we find two years afterwards that French or Italian flowers for the hair were then as essential to a lady's dress, in the ball or drawingroom, as a beaver and feather for the forest, we presume these redundant plumes were for the Strutt tells us, that towards the close of the time displaced, especially as the following morfifteenth century, a crowd of the male sex ap-|ceau, published in 1775, speaks of the fashion as peared at a little distance like a forest of pine- just imported from France; so true is it that trees, waving with the summer breeze, from the there is nothing so new as that which is fortowering plumes of different colours worn in gotten:

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nations, have been more or less popular as the capricious waves of fashion ebbed or flowed.

The hunting of the ostrich forms the most serious business of an Arab's life; while chasing the birds of paradise, and preparing the skin, affords employment to the inhabitants of many of the villages of New Guinea. Mappica and Emberbakine are famous for the numbers they export. Formerly the Chinese dealt in this plumage, and actually imposed fictitious birds of paradise on their customers, made of parrot, parakeet, and other feathers. Some of the Papuans, more adroit than others, dry these skins with the feet on; but they are usually prepared without them-a circumstance that for a long time contributed to support the fable that these meteor-like skimmers of the air were feetless. Ostrich feathers are received in this

country in an impure state, and are prepared by many washings and rinsings, after which the backs circularly, in order to render them pliant; and of the ribs are scraped with a bit of glass, cut the filaments are then curled by having the edge

of a blunt knife drawn over them. The finest and whitest feathers (which are taken from the

"Feather their nests well, and make their heads back and above the wings of the male bird) are

They

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"Of taller race, the chiefs they own

Were by the eagle's plumage known." + In Turkey the janizary, who, by some military exploit has deserved well of the state, is allowed to deck his turban with an ostrich plume: while, as we before said, the sacred bird of paradise surmounted that of the princely oriental. The beauty of this plumage, and man's love of ornament, early made it sought as an article of commerce. Gerrard, speaking of feather-grass, which in his days was brought from Baden, and sometimes used to decorate beds in lieu of the heavy Ostrich plumes, with which we see them ornamented at Hampton Court, and other antique houses, compares it with the light plumes of this Phoenix-this "Passaros de sol," and God's bird, as this charming creature has been variously called. But not only were state beds crowned with feathers, but, as in our day, they waved above the mournful trappings of the grave. Like flowers, they have borne part of the pageant at births, bridals, and burials, and at all periods of the world, and amongst all

Sir Ashton Lever, collector of the Museum.
† Marmion.

bleached by a similar process to that which straw hats are subject to; the slightly imperfect ones are dyed of various colours, and the really dingy black. Mounting them is the next undertaking, and this entirely depends on fashion But besides the ostrich, and bird of paradise, and the purposes for which they are required. used in dress; the swan also contributes her marabou and cock's feathers are frequently plumage, and in the Great Exhibition we have and beauty of effect are infinitely preferable to seen some charming bonnets, which for lightness felt or beaver, and which are simply made of the short plumage of the goose and turkey. Talking of marabou plumes reminds us that perhaps some of our younger readers may not recollect that for these delicate feathers, so exquisite in their texture and airy lightness, we are indebted to the scavenger-bird of India, the gigantic adjutant crane-one of the most disgusting of the feathered tribe in appearance and habits.

The manufacture of feathers becomes a very simple one compared with that of artificial flowers, in which every leaf and stem, petal and anther, passes through a different hand. Nay, in large manufactories, hundreds of men, women, and children are employed in their preparation. Some stamp the leaves and cut them out, others adjust the wire that fastens them to the stem. Some cover these stems with silk; one makes the disks, or, as they are technically called by the French, the boutons, or centre of the flowers; another puts the petals together; while others adjust the flowers to each other, and the leaves to them. The French, of late years, have brought the manufacture of artificial flowers to an extraordinary degree of perfection, so that the blossoms in Constantine's glass-case in the Industrial Palace, almost rival those in the conservatories of Kew and Chiswick. Who would

think that human fingers, with gum and colouring and silk and cambric, could form roses and lilies glowing with such an assumption of vitality, that one almost doubts the reality of the imitation, and steps back to be assured they are not real! Ferns, with their delicate fronds; camellias, with waxen petals; and cactuses, of splendid hue, are neighboured by the simple and most diminutive Flora of the fields. As a rule, the more minute the flowers are, the more difficult they are to make, and the more expensive they become; but such is the nicety of the simulation, that the French artiste most frequently finishes her beautiful copy, by dropping into its mimic blossoms a drop of essence distilled from the perfume that belongs to it.

Besides the finest cambric and Florence taffeta, which are chiefly used by the French in their fabrication of artificial flowers, velvet is occasionally employed for the petals, which are coloured merely by the application of the finger dipped in the necessary dye. Indeed some very exquisite imitations of nature have been effected in very thin leaves of whalebone, bleached and dyed for the purpose.

The Italians, we find, use the cocoons of the silk worm in the making of artificials. These take a brilliant dye, and preserve the colour, while at the same time they possess a transparent velvety appearance admirably suitable for petals. Hitherto England has remained far behind her neighbours on the continent in this elegant

branch of manufacture. There the frequent féte-days, the ceremonials of the church, the very cimetières, afford occasions for the daily use of wreaths and bouquets. The French do not confine their offerings to the dead-to garlands of immortelles; we have seen chaplets of artificial roses mouldering on a grave, or waving from a headstone; while the tomb of the fiancée, or young wife, is never seen without its crown of orange-blossom.

At Baden, one may see artificial wreaths of roses and wall-flowers mingled with the crosses and crowns of white satin that adorn the graves ; while in winter, artificial blossoms are as commonly used to deck the altars of the churches and the statues of the Virgin, as real ones in summer time. With us there are no such helps to their consumption, and as it seemed a necessity of fashion for the flowers worn by English ladies to be fabricated in France, few opportunities occurred till lately for the encouragement or improvement of the art amongst us. An impulse has, however, of late years been given to this manufacture by the increased demand for artificial flowers as a common article of dress; and we may hope, as our materials improve, and our dyes become more delicate, to be able to compete hereafter with our elegant neighbours, who have gone to nature for their models, and copied her so faithfully that were the bees beguiled to haunt their tinted nectaries, it would be a far less fanciful mistake than his who lighted on the painted flowers of Zeuxis.

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