In the reign of the Emperor Justinian, a couple of Persian monks, on a religious mission to China, brought away with them a quantity of silkworms' eggs concealed in a piece of hollow cane, which they carried to Constantinople. There they hatched the eggs, reared the worms, and spun the silk,--for the first time introducing that manufacture into Europe, and destroying the close monopoly which China had hitherto enjoyed. From Constantinople the knowledge and the practice of the art gradually extended to Greece, thence to Italy, and next to Spain. Each country, as in turn it gained possession of the secret, strove to preserve it with jealous care; but to little purpose. A secret that so many thousands already shared in common, could not long remain so, although its passage to other countries might be for a time deferred. France and England were behind most of the other states of Europe in obtaining a knowledge of the "craft and mystery." The manufacture of silk did not take root in France till the reign of Francis I.; and was hardly known in England till the persecutions of the Duke of Parma in 1585 drove a great number of the manufacturers of Antwerp to seek refuge in our land. James I. was very anxious to promote the breed of silkworms, and the production of silken fabrics. During his reign a great many mulberry-trees were planted in various parts of the country--among others, that celebrated one in Shakspeare's garden at Stratford-on-Avon--and an attempt was made to rear the worm in our country, which, however, the ungenial climate frustrated. Silk-throwsters, dyers, and weavers were brought over from the Continent; and the manufacture made such progress that, by 1629, the silk-throwsters of London were incorporated, and thirty years after employed no fewer than 40,000 hands. The emigration from France consequent on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) added not only to the numbers engaged in the trade, but to the taste, skill, and enterprise with which it was conducted. It is not easy to estimate how deeply France wounded herself by the iniquitous persecution of the Protestants, or how largely the emigrants repaid by their industry the shelter which Britain afforded them.