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Translator’S Preface

That the arts had their rise in the East, and that they were conveyed thence to the Greeks, and from them to the Romans, is universally admitted. Respecting the inventions and discoveries however of the earliest ages, nothing certain is known. Many of those most useful in common life must have been the production of periods when men were little acquainted with letters, or any sure mode of transmitting an account of their improvements to succeeding generations. The taste which then prevailed of giving to every thing a divine origin, rendered traditional accounts fabulous; and the exaggeration of poets tended more and more to make such authorities less worthy of credit. A variety of works also, which might have supplied us with information on this subject, have been lost; and the relations of some of those preserved are so corrupted and obscure, that the best commentators have not been able to illustrate them. This in particular is the case with many passages in Pliny, an author who appears to have collected with the utmost diligence whatever he thought useful or curious, and whose desire of communicating knowledge seems to have been equal to his thirst for acquiring it.

Of all those nations whose history has been preserved, the most distinguished are certainly the Greeks and the Romans; but, as far as can be judged at this remote period, the former were superior to the latter in point of invention. The Romans indeed seem to have known little, except what they borrowed from the Grecians; and it is evident, by their sending their young men of rank to finish their education in Greece, that they considered that country as the seat of the arts and the sciences, and as a school where genius would be excited by the finest models, while the taste was corrected and formed. From some hints given however by Pliny and other writers, we have reason to conclude that the Romans possessed more knowledge of the arts than the moderns perhaps are willing to allow, and that some inventions, considered as new, may be only old ones revived and again rendered useful.

When Rome, abandoned to luxury and vice, became an easy prey to those hordes of barbarians who overran the empire, her arts shared in the general wreck, and were either entirely lost, or for a time forgotten. The deplorable state of ignorance in which Europe was afterwards plunged during several centuries, retarded their revival; and it was not till a late period, when favoured and protected by a few men of superior genius, that they began to be again cultivated. It cannot however be denied, that several important discoveries, altogether unknown to the ancients, which must have had considerable influence on the general state of society, were made in ages that can hardly be exempted from the appellation of barbarous. As a proof of this may be mentioned the invention of paper[1], painting in oil[2], the mariner’s compass[3], gunpowder[4], printing[5], and engraving on copper[6]. After the invention of the compass and printing, two grand sources were opened for the improvement of science. In proportion as navigation was extended, new objects were discovered to awaken the curiosity and excite the attention of the learned; and the ready means of diffusing knowledge, afforded by the press, enabled the ingenious to make them publicly known. Ignorance and superstition, the formidable enemies of philosophy in every age, began soon to lose some of that power which they had usurped; and states, forgetting their former blind policy, adopted improvements which their prejudice had before condemned.

Though it might be expected that the great share which new inventions and discoveries have at all times had in effecting such happy changes among mankind would have secured them a distinguished place in the annals of nations, we find with regret, that the pen of history has been more employed in recording the crimes of ambition and the ravage of conquerors, than in preserving the remembrance of those who, by improving science and the arts, contributed to increase the conveniences of life, and to heighten its enjoyments. So little indeed has hitherto been done towards a history of inventions and discoveries, that the rise and progress of part of those even of modern times is involved in considerable darkness and obscurity: of some the names of the inventors are not so much as known, and the honour of others is disputed by different nations; while the evidences on both sides are so imperfect, that it is almost impossible to determine to which the palm is due. To Professor Beckmann, therefore, those fond of such researches are much indebted for the pains he has been at to collect information on this subject; and though he has perhaps not been able to clear up every doubt respecting the objects on which he treats, he has certainly thrown much light on many curious circumstances hitherto buried in oblivion.

The author, with much modesty, gives to this work in the original the title of only Collections towards a History of Inventions: but as he has carefully traced out the rise and progress of all those objects which form the subject of his inquiry, from the earliest periods of their being known, as far as books supplied information, and arranged his matter in chronological order, the original title may admit, without being liable to much criticism, of the small variation adopted in the translation. The author, indeed, has not in these volumes comprehended every invention and discovery, but he has given an account of a great many, most of them very important.

Should any one be disposed to find fault with the author for introducing into his work some articles which on the first view may appear trifling, his own words, taken from the short preface prefixed to the first volume of the original, will perhaps be considered as a better exculpation than anything the translator might advance in his favour. “I am sensible,” says he, “that many here will find circumstances which they may think unworthy of the labour I have bestowed upon them; but those who know how different our judgements are respecting utility, will not make theirs a rule for mine. Those whose self-conceit would never allow them to be sensible of this truth, and who reject as useless all ore in which they do not observe pure gold, as they display very little acuteness, must be often duped by the tinsel glare of false metal; and they give me as little uneasiness as those who have no desire to know the origin of inventions, or how they were brought to their present utility. If my extending the term Invention farther than is perhaps usual, by comprehending under it several police-establishments, be a fault, it is at any rate harmless, and on that account may be pardoned without much apology.”

FOOTNOTES

[1] Montfaucon, notwithstanding all his researches in France and Italy, was not able to discover any charter or diploma written on common paper, older than the year 1270. Paper, however, made of cotton, is said to be much older, and to have been introduced into Europe by the Arabs. If we can believe an Arabian author, who wrote in the thirteenth century, quoted by Casiri, in Biblioth. Arabico-Hispana, vol. ii. p. 9, paper (doubtless of cotton) was invented at Mecca by one Joseph Amru, about the year of the Hegira 88, or of the Christian æra 706. According to other Arabian authors, quoted by Casiri and Abulfeda, the Arabs found a manufactory of paper at Samarcand in Bucharia, when they conquered that country in the year of the Hegira 85, or of our æra 704. The art of making paper from silk was, as some pretend, known to the Chinese 180 years before Jesus Christ. See a letter from Father de Mailla to Father Etienne Souciet, in Mémoires des Inscript. et des Belles Lettres, vol. xv. 520.Return to passage

[2] The oldest picture, known at present, painted in oil-colours on wood is preserved in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. It was painted in the year 1297, by a painter named Thomas de Mutina, or de Muttersdorf, in Bohemia. Two other paintings in the same gallery are of the year 1357; one of them is by Nicholas Wurmser of Strasburg, and the other by Thierry of Prague. It appears therefore that painting in oil was known long before the epoch at which that invention is generally fixed; and that it is erroneously ascribed to Hubert van Eyck and his brother and pupil, John van Eyck, otherwise called John of Bruges, who lived about the end of the fourteenth century, and not the beginning of the fifteenth, as is commonly supposed. [There is evidence in the books of the Painters’ Company, under the date of the 11th of Edward I. (1283), that oil painting was in use at that time. See a communication from Sir Francis Palgrave given in the new edition of Carter’s Ancient Sculpture and Paintings in England, page 80.]Return to passage

[3] The person who first speaks of the magnetic needle and its use in navigation, is a Provençal poet, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and who wrote a poem entitled Bible Guyot. This work is a satire, in which the author lashes with great freedom the vices of that age. Comparing the Pope to the polar star, he introduces a description of the compass, such as it appears to have been in its infancy. This invention however is claimed by the Italians, who maintain that we are indebted for it to a citizen of Amalphi, named Flavius Gioja, and in support of this assertion quote commonly the following line of Panormitanus:Return to passage

Prima dedit nautis usum magnetis Amalfis.

[4] Of the use of gunpowder in Europe no certain traces occur till towards the middle of the fourteenth century. It seems pretty well proved, that artillery was known in France after the year 1345. In 1356, the city of Nuremberg purchased the first gunpowder and cannon. The same year the city of Louvain employed thirty cannon at the battle of Santfliet against the Flemings. In 1361, a fire broke out at Lubec, occasioned by the negligence of those employed in making gunpowder. In 1363, the Hans-towns used cannon for the first time, in a naval combat which they fought against the Danes. After 1367, the use of fire-arms became general throughout Italy, into which they had been introduced from Germany.Return to passage

[5] The invention of printing has given rise to many researches. Meermann in his Origines Typographicæ, published in 1768, endeavours to prove that Laurence Coster of Haarlem was the inventor, about the year 1430. Most authors however agree that John Gutenberg was the inventor of moveable types, but they differ respecting the place of the invention. Some make it to be Strasburg, others Mentz, and some fix the epoch of the invention at 1440, and others at 1450.Return to passage

[6] Vasari, in Vite de’ Pittori, vol. iv. p. 264, ascribes the invention of engraving on copper to a goldsmith of Florence, named Maso Finiguerra, about 1460. The oldest engravers whose names and marks are known, were Israel de Mecheln, of Bokholt, in the bishopric of Munster; Martin Schœn, who worked at Colmar in Alsace, where he died in 1486; and Michael Wolgemuth of Nuremberg, who was preceptor to the famous Albert Durer, and engraved the plates in the well-known Nuremberg Chronicle. It may be proper here to observe, that the art of engraving on wood seems to be older than the invention of printing, to which perhaps it gave rise. The names of the first engravers on wood are however not known. [In the Athenæum Journal for 1845, page 965, is given a fac-simile of a large wood-engraving, bearing the date of 1418, which was discovered at Malines in 1844, and is now preserved in the public library at Brussels.]Return to passage

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.

John Beckmann, Professor of Œconomy at Göttingen during a period of forty-five years, was born at Hoye, a small town in the kingdom of Hanover, in 1739. His father held the appointment of postmaster and receiver of taxes in that place, and at the same time cultivated a small farm, which appears to have inspired his son with a taste for agricultural pursuits. The superintendence of his education devolved principally on his mother, a woman of great prudence and strength of mind, who was left a widow when young Beckmann was scarcely seven years old. In a lonely house, amid examples of industry and daily labour, he passed his youth in the perusal of works, which, although of a common-place description, were not without their use, as they led him to contract a methodical habit of mind, and afforded considerable information on various subjects, which in the sequel greatly assisted him in the pursuits to which he owed his celebrity. He himself relates that, when quite a boy, he was in the habit of making extracts of all the striking passages he met with in the course of his reading, by which means he acquired a ready use of the pen. The insufficient circumstances of his family prevented his education being cultivated in the schools till nearly fifteen; at which age he was sent to the Gymnasium of Stade, then under the direction of Gehlen, where in a short time he highly distinguished himself in classical literature. Intended for the clerical profession, he entered the university of Göttingen in 1759, for the purpose of completing his theological studies; but whether the advice of Hollmann (afterwards his father-in-law), with whom he had formed a close intimacy, produced a change in his plans, or that the mathematical instructions of Professors Kaestner and Mayer were more congenial to his mind than divinity, he abandoned the career marked out for him, and devoted himself to the natural sciences and their application, as well as to mathematics; whilst he cultivated philology with such zeal, that he ultimately made himself master of ten different languages. In order to gain greater proficiency in these pursuits, he made a journey in 1762 to the Netherlands, but returned to Hoye in the following year, in consequence of the serious indisposition of his mother, who dying shortly afterwards, left him destitute of guidance, and in the greatest anxiety respecting his future prospects. At this juncture Büsching advised him to travel to St. Petersburg, where, upon the strong recommendations with which he was provided, he was speedily appointed to the chair of Natural Philosophy. Shortly after, Büsching, quitting the institution, returned to Germany, and dissensions having arisen among the directors, Beckmann likewise resigned his office. He then proceeded to Sweden, with the view of acquiring a detailed knowledge of the working of the mines in that country; making his principal sojourn at Upsal, where he became acquainted with Linnæus, and enjoyed the friendship and hospitality, as well as the instructions, of that eminent naturalist[7]. Leaving Sweden, he directed his course to Denmark, visiting Copenhagen and other towns, where he examined the various museums, libraries and manufacturing establishments. On arriving at Altona, he found there his friend Büsching, who recommended him to Münchhausen, curator of the Academy of Göttingen. After paying a visit to his brother at Marburgh, he proceeded to Hanover; and being approved of by Struve, then president of Göttingen under Münchhausen, he was appointed, in 1766, Professor Extraordinary of Philosophy to that university, of which he eventually became one of the brightest ornaments.

His lectures upon œconomy had the recommendation of novelty, and produced so much applause, that in 1770 he was made ordinary professor of that science. They were attended by the flower of the studious youth of all countries, Göttingen being at that period one of the most popular universities in Europe; and many even of the distinguished statesmen and public functionaries of Germany did not disdain to be ranked among his auditors. He was in the habit of accompanying them himself into the workshops, to give them a practical knowledge of the different processes and handicrafts of which he had explained the theory. Once a week, also, he held a Practicum Camerale, a scientific meeting, at which he explained subjects of œconomy, administration, and finance, illustrating them by readings from a great variety of sources. He composed, to serve as a guide in this course of instruction, treatises on rural œconomy, policy, finance, commerce, and other departments of knowledge; which, though since carried to a higher degree of perfection, owed to Beckmann their first systematic form. He never entirely relinquished these public lectures, but insensibly his private studies took a direction altogether historical, the motives for which it may not be uninteresting to point out.

It is indispensably requisite at Göttingen that every professor should be able to give account of the progress and existing state of the science to which he is appointed. Any one, who two years after the publication of a work of importance in his department should not have read and analysed it, with a view of enriching his own observations, would not be regarded as a worthy successor to the chair of Haller, of Mosheim, of Gessner and Michaelis. Beckmann, who had studied at Göttingen at a time when the example of these great men dictated the law and gave the tone to the University, and perhaps to the literature of Europe, was determined to keep pace with the spirit of the age, and not to remain ignorant of the great advances then making throughout Europe, in the numerous sciences which furnished the subjects of his practical investigations. But this was a task of no slight magnitude: and indeed when the immense additions to so many different sciences are considered, can it be wondered at, that, notwithstanding his utmost zeal and application, he found it impossible to read up all the important works which had appeared since 1770, in chemistry, physics, natural history and mathematics? Despairing of success in so Herculean an undertaking, he began to entertain feelings of aversion towards what he deemed the innovations, which were then changing the face and enlarging the scope of science. But his course of lectures, turning principally on practical matters, was not materially affected; he was, however, so fearful of falling under the imputation of being behind the progress of the age, that he devoted his mind, peculiarly fitted for this kind of study, almost exclusively to the history of arts and trades; employing in the illustration of his subjects, the materials to which he had access in the very extensive library belonging to the university; and it is to his consequent labours and researches that we owe the “History of Inventions and Discoveries.” In this work, Beckmann traces their first germs from the remotest periods of antiquity, and following their gradual development, exhibits the latest improvements among civilized nations with almost unequalled acumen and ability. It abounds with invaluable materials respecting the general history of the origin and progress of the mechanic arts, which are so important a branch in civilization; and what must give it an additional value in the eyes of all who are unwilling to place reliance on assertions unsupported by authority, or may be anxious to investigate the subject more deeply, the most scrupulous references to original authorities accompany each article. Among the numerous other works of merit for which we are indebted to the literary industry of Beckmann, are, “A History and Analysis of early Voyages and Travels,” a highly interesting collection, which occupied the last years of his life, and was left unfinished at the eighth number; elaborate editions of “De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus,” attributed to Aristotle, 1786; “Antigoni Carystii Historiæ Mirabiles,” 1791; and “Marbodi Liber de Gemmis,” 1799; publications which required the rare combination of physical knowledge with philological learning.

The Royal Society of Göttingen had, in the year 1772, admitted him one of its members, and from that period to 1783 he continued to supply their proceedings with interesting memoirs (all written in Latin), among which are the following: “On the Reduction of Fossils to their original substances;” “On the History of Alum;” “On the Sap of Madder;” “On Meerschaum, from which are formed the heads for tobacco pipes;” “On the History of Sugar,” &c. After this period, however, he declined participating any longer in the labours of this learned body; owing, probably, to a change in the objects of his own particular studies. In 1784 he was created an aulic councillor of Hanover; in addition to which he was elected member of the Imperial Academy of Naturalists, of the Swedish Society of Science, of the Academies of Norway and Mayence, of the Physiographical Society of Lund, and of almost all the learned societies in Germany and the North of Europe.

With a copious knowledge of the principal sciences, Beckmann united extensive reading in the works of ancient and modern writers, not only in reference to their immediate connection with his main studies, but in respect also to their application generally to every other branch. Convinced that every professor ought, as much as possible, to have thoroughly searched into all matters relating to the subject on which he treats, he spared no expense in forming a most extensive, as well as choice library; at the same time he did not fail to avail himself of the rich intellectual stores contained in that belonging to the university. His mind being wholly directed to all that is practical in human knowledge, it was his especial endeavour to bring it into systematic rules, based upon fundamental principles. To him particularly is to be ascribed the merit of having been the first to give to agriculture its scientific form, and to have separated it more distinctly than heretofore from the administrative and financial departments. The number of pupils indebted to him for their education, and who, eventually,--whether filling offices of state or following his footsteps as professors,--brought into effect the principles he had taught them, formed a very numerous body; and whilst he was thus the means of considerably enlarging the circle of academic subjects for the instruction of the student, he contributed not a little towards the prosperity of the university itself. His activity likewise as a writer was as persevering as it was meritorious; he united an extensive knowledge of nature, with a decided turn for applying it to practical purposes; and he published several works in German, which show this tendency of mind; among others, “Principles of German Agriculture,” “Introduction to Technology,” “Introduction to the Science of Commerce,” &c.

To assist his literary researches, he issued a periodical work called “Physico-Œconomical Library,” in which quarterly information was communicated respecting the newest works connected with the arts, manufactures, and agriculture, giving short extracts of whatever was valuable, instead of severe criticisms, of which he did not approve. It was commenced in 1770, and continued, with some little interruption, until 1807, forming 23 volumes.

Having said thus much respecting his abilities and genius, we will in conclusion take a brief glance at his private character, which, amiable and virtuous as it was, cannot fail to command the world’s estimation. Honest and unpretending, a lover of peace and justice, he lived quite retired, devoted to the conscientious performance of his duties; his candour, his sincerity in friendship, his affability to the students, have been celebrated with one accord by his coadjutors and auditors. In the domestic relations of life, he presented an example of the most exact system of order and œconomy, and enjoyed the reputation of being one of the richest professors of the university; which enabled him to exercise his ready benevolence during a period of severe dearth and suffering. Among his colleagues, Schlœtzer, the distinguished historian, with whom in his youth he had become acquainted in Russia, was the one with whom he maintained the most uninterrupted intimacy, arising, no doubt, from the congeniality of their pursuits. Few were better qualified than Schlœtzer to appreciate the researches of Beckmann, as he had himself insisted with so much force on the necessity of introducing into history a simultaneous view of the influence exercised on social institutions by the efforts of industry, and the rise and maturity of domestic arts. Beckmann married the daughter of Hollmann, his tutor and friend, with whom he enjoyed a long and uninterrupted course of happiness; she survived him only a few weeks, leaving a son and daughter who had arrived at years of maturity. His decease took place on the 3rd of February, 1811, in the 72nd year of his age. His illustrious colleague, Heyne, pronounced an eloquent eulogium on him before the Academy, which was published in the Göttingen Transactions, from which we subjoin a few extracts.

“O colleagues, if we indulge in deep sorrow at this new diminution of our fraternity by the death of one of its seniors, it must be forgiven, as consonant to our duty and piety, as well as to the affections of human nature. Indeed, when his death was announced, and when I afterwards beheld the mournful pomp of his funeral, I was afflicted with the utmost grief. Nor can this be wondered at, when it is borne in mind that he was nearly of my own age, and next to me the eldest of our Society; the habit, too, of friendly intercourse enjoyed for many years, has great influence in riveting the affections of the mind.

“There is a narrative in Herodotus, concerning Psammenitus king of Egypt, who was conquered by Cambyses king of Persia. The city of Memphis being taken by storm, he had fallen into the hands of Cambyses; who, enraged at the vigorous defence he had encountered, commanded the royal family to be brought forth and put to death. In the first place, his daughter was paraded before him, with many maidens of noble birth, clothed as slaves; and though the other parents uttered piteous lamentations, yet Psammenitus kept his eyes fixed on the ground: in like manner, when his sons, together with two thousand of the principal youths, their necks bound with ropes, with bridles in their mouths, were ignominiously led to death, the king did not even utter a groan; but on seeing an aged man approach, one of his old friends, who had formerly partaken of the royal table, walking in the dress of a mendicant, and imploring mercy through the different ranks of the army, then indeed the king could restrain his emotions no longer, but broke forth into the most bitter wailings. The cause of this strange grief it would be foreign to our present purpose to discuss; I only wish to draw this conclusion--that the death of an old friend and companion was alone able to subdue his mind, even after it had supported him against the severest calamities. For the force of habit and friendly intercourse is most powerful: we bring to recollection many things which prey upon our feelings; they rush upon our memory with one impetus, and swell the rising grief; we dwell on early struggles, on proofs of mental power, and instances of benevolence, which formerly we had passed unheeded.

“What is known favourably of the character of him who is taken away from us, it is our pleasing duty to bring before you; what is otherwise, if anything exist, it is not our province to remember.

“The studies of Beckmann were applied to other branches of learning, quite distinct from those in which I am occupied: but it was this very circumstance which cemented our acquaintance. His conversations on scientific subjects could not but prove profitable; especially as he blended them with a feeling for ancient literature. I was accustomed to consult him concerning subjects of nature and art, which I did not sufficiently understand; and he sometimes referred to me respecting philological matters, of which he wished to gain further information. But the varied talents of this illustrious man were wonderful: an unceasing desire to search into the origin of arts and sciences, and the history and success of inventors, was united with an insatiable thirst for general knowledge and classical learning. He was incessantly in our public library, eagerly investigating and comparing rare books in pursuit of his object; seizing their hidden treasures, and then contributing his booty to the mental improvement of the million.”

The remainder of this elegant oration concerns the details of his career, which are already embodied in the preceding sketch.

H. G. B.

FOOTNOTES

[7] Heyne, in his funeral oration, says Beckmann was so struck with admiration at the vast knowledge of Linnæus, that he became ensnared, like the companions of Ulysses in the island of Circe, and was disheartened from proceeding any further in his own botanical studies. To this circumstance is attributed the coolness with which he afterwards cultivated this department of science.Return to passage

HISTORY OF INVENTIONS

AND

DISCOVERIES.

ITALIAN BOOK-KEEPING

Those who are acquainted with the Italian method of book-keeping must allow that it is an ingenious invention, of great utility to men in business, and that it has contributed to extend commerce and to facilitate its operations. It requires no less attention, care, and accuracy, than many works which are styled learned: but it is undoubtedly true, that most mercantile people, without knowing the foundation of the rules on which they proceed, conduct their books in as mechanical a manner as many of the literati do their writings.

The name, Italian book-keeping, Doppia scrittura, with several words employed in this branch of science and still retained in all languages, make it probable that it was invented by the Italians; and that other nations borrowed it, as well as various short methods of reckoning, from their mercantile houses, at the time when all the East-India trade passed through Italy.

De la Porte says[8], “About the year 1495, brother Luke, an Italian, published a treatise of it in his own language. He is the oldest author I have seen upon the subject.” Anderson, in his Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce[9], gives the following account: “In all probability, this art of double-entry accounts had its rise, or at least its revival, amongst the mercantile cities of Italy: possibly it might be first known at Venice, about the time that numeral algebra was taught there; from the principles of which science double-entry, or what we call merchants’ accounts, seems to have been deduced. It is said that Lucas de Burgo, a friar, was the first European author who published his algebraic work at Venice, anno 1494.”

This author, who was one of the greatest mathematicians of the fifteenth century, and who is supposed to be the first person who acquired a knowledge of algebra from the writings of the Arabians, was called Lucas Paciolus, e Burgo S. Sepulchri. He was a Franciscan, and so surnamed from a town in the duchy of Urbino, on the Florentine confines, called Burgo S. Sepulchro[10].

Anderson tells us[11], that he had in his possession the oldest book published in England in which any account is given of the method of book-keeping by double-entry. It was printed at London, in 1569, in folio. The author, whose name is James Peele, says, in his preface, that he had instructed many mercantile people in this art, which had been long practised in other countries, though in England it was then undoubtedly new. One may readily believe that Mr. Anderson was not ignorant of the difference between the method of book-keeping by single and that by double-entry; but he produces nothing to induce us to believe that Peele taught the latter and not the former; for what he says of debit and credit is of no importance, as it may be applied also to the method by single-entry.

Of this Peele no mention is made in Ames’s Typographical Antiquities; but in that work (p. 410) there is an account of a still older treatise of book-keeping, entitled A briefe instruction and manner how to keepe bookes of accompts, after the order of debitor and creditor, and as well for proper accompts, partible, &c. by three bookes, named the memoriall, journall, and leager. Newly augmented and set forth by John Mellis schole maister. London 1588, 12mo. Mellis, in his preface, says that he is only the re-publisher of this treatise, which was before published at London in 1543 by a schoolmaster named Hugh Oldcastle. From the above title, and particularly from the three account books mentioned in it, I am inclined to believe that this work contained the true principles of book-keeping by double-entry.

The oldest German work on book-keeping by double-entry with which I am at present acquainted, is one written by John Gotlieb, and printed at Nuremberg, by Frederick Peypus, in 1531[12]. The author in his preface calls himself a citizen of Nuremberg, and says that he means to give to the public a clear and intelligible method of book-keeping, such as was never before printed. It appears, therefore, that he considered his book as the first of the kind ever published in Germany.

It is worthy of remark, that even at the end of the sixteenth century, the Italian method of book-keeping began to be applied to finances and public accounts. In the works of the celebrated Simon Stevin, published at Leyden in Dutch, and the same year in Latin, we find a system of book-keeping, as applied to finances, drawn up it appears for the use of Maurice prince of Orange. To this treatise is prefixed, in Dutch and Latin, a dedication to the duke of Sully, in which the author says, that his reason for dedicating the work to Sully was because the French had paid the greatest attention to improve the method of keeping public accounts. The work begins with a conversation, which took place between Stevin and prince Maurice, respecting the application of book-keeping to public accounts, and in which he explains to the prince the principles of mercantile book-keeping. This conversation commences with explaining the nature of debit and credit, and the principal accounts. Then follow a short journal and ledger, in which occur only the most common transactions; and the whole concludes with an account of the other books necessary for regular book-keeping, and of the manner of balancing. Stevin expressly says, that prince Maurice, in the year 1604, caused the treasury accounts to be made out after the Italian method, by an experienced book-keeper, with the best success; but how long this regulation continued I have not been able to learn. Stevin supposes, in this system, three ministers, and three different accounts: a quæstor, who receives the revenues of the domains; an acceptor, who receives all the other revenues of the prince; and a thesaurarius (treasurer), who has the care of the expenditure. All inferior offices for receiving or disbursing are to send from their books monthly extracts, which are to be doubly-entered in a principal ledger; so that it may be seen at all times how much remains in the hands of each receiver, and how much each has to collect from the debtors. One cannot help admiring the ingenuity of the Latin translator[13], who has found out, or at least invented, words to express so many new terms unknown to the ancient Romans. The learned reader may, perhaps, not be displeased with the following specimen. Book-keeping is called apologistica or apologismus; a book-keeper apologista; the ledger codex accepti expensique; the cash-book arcarii liber; the expense-book impensarum liber; the waste-book liber deletitius; accounts are called nomina; stock account sors; profit and loss account lucri damnique ratiocinium, contentio or sortium comparatio; the final balance epilogismus; the chamber of accounts, or counting-house, logisterium, &c.

In the end of this work Stevin endeavours to show that the Romans, or rather the Grecians (for the former knew scarcely anything but what the latter had discovered), were in some measure acquainted with book-keeping, and supports his conjecture by quoting Cicero’s oration for Roscius. I confess that the following passage in Pliny, Fortunæ omnia expensa, huic omnia feruntur accepta, et in tota ratione mortalium sola utramque paginam facit[14], as well as the terms tabulæ accepti et expensi; nomina translata in tabulas, seem to indicate that the Romans entered debit and credit in their books on two different pages; but it appears to me not yet proved, and improbable, that they were acquainted with our scientific method of book-keeping; with the mode of opening various accounts; of comparing them together, and of bringing them to a final balance. As bills of exchange and insurance were not known in the commerce of the ancients, the business of merchants was not so intricate and complex as to require such a variety of books and accounts as is necessary in that of the moderns.

Klipstein is of opinion that attempts were made in France to apply book-keeping, by double-entry, to the public accounts, under Henry IV., afterwards under Colbert, and again in the year 1716. That attempts were made, for this purpose, under Henry IV., he concludes from a work entitled An Inquiry into the Finances of France; but I do not know whether what the author says be sufficient to support this opinion.

[The system of double-entry began from the commencement of the present century to be adopted by several governments in the management of the public accounts, among others by those of Austria, France and Holland, with highly beneficial effects. Some attempts have been more recently made in this country to introduce it into the government offices, and from the great success which has attended them, this system will probably soon be generally used.]

FOOTNOTES

[8] La science des négocians et teneurs de livres. Paris 1754.Return to passage

[9] Vol. i. p. 408.Return to passage

[10] Those who are desirous of further information respecting Lucas de Borgo, may consult Scriptores ordinis Minorum, recensuit Fr. Lucas Waddingus, Romæ 1650;--Heilbronneri Historia Matheseos universæ, Lipsiæ 1742;--Histoire des Mathématiques, par Montucla, Paris 1758.Return to passage

[11] Vol. i. p. 409.Return to passage

[12] The title runs thus: Ein Teutsch verstendig Buchhalten für Herren oder Gesellschafter inhalt wellischem Process.Return to passage

[13] Bayle says, that the Latin translation of Stevin’s works was executed principally by Willebrord Snellius.Return to passage

[14] Lib. ii. cap. 7.Return to passage

ODOMETER

An Odometer, Pedometer, Perambulator, or Way-measurer, is an instrument or machine by which the steps of a person who walks, or the revolutions made by the wheel of a carriage, can be counted, and by which the distance that one has travelled can be ascertained. Vitruvius, in his tenth book[15], describes a machine of this kind for a carriage, and which, in his opinion, would answer for a ship. We are told by Capitolinus, in the life of the emperor Pertinax, that among the effects of the emperor Commodus exposed to sale, there were carriages of various kinds, some of which “measured the road, and pointed out the hours;” but whether by these words we are to understand an odometer, cannot with certainty be determined.

That this instrument was known even in the fifteenth century, can be proved from the carving on the ducal palace at Urbino--an edifice erected in an uncommon style of magnificence, by duke Frederic, who died in 1482. The ornaments here employed form, almost, a complete representation of all the warlike apparatus used at that period, both by sea and land; and among these is the figure of a ship, which seems to be furnished with an odometer; but whether the wheels and springs, carved out apart, be intended to show the construction of it, I will not venture to decide[16].

The celebrated John Fernel, physician to Catherine of Medici, queen of France, measured with an instrument of this kind, in 1550, a degree of the meridian between Paris and Amiens, and found it to be 68,096 geometrical paces, or about 56,747 toises (364,960 English feet); that is, 303 toises less than Picard found it to be; or about 300 toises less than later measurements have made it. Picard himself, in his mathematical measurement, assisted by the newest improvements, erred 123 toises. It is therefore very surprising that Fernel should approach so near the truth with such an instrument. The manner of constructing it however, as far as I know, appears to be lost[17].

Levin Hulsius, in his Treatise of mechanical instruments, published at Frankfort in 1604, describes an odometer, but without naming the inventor. It appears, however, that it was the production of Paul Pfinzing, born at Nuremberg in 1554[18]; and who, besides other works, published, in 1598, Methodus Geometrica, or a Treatise on measuring land, and how to use proper instruments for that purpose, on foot, on horseback, or in a carriage. This treatise, which was never sold, but given away by the author, contains a description of the same instrument described by Hulsius, and which, as Nicolai says, is still preserved in the collection of curiosities at Dresden.

In the same collection is an odometer which Augustus, elector of Saxony, who reigned between the years 1553 and 1586, employed in measuring his territories. This instrument is mentioned by Beutel[19], without naming the inventor; but I think it very probable that it was made by Martin Feyhel, who was born at Naumburg, and resided at Augsburg; as Von Stetten[20] relates, in his History of the Arts at Augsburg, that Feyhel made a way-measurer (probably odometer) for the elector of Saxony, and that he himself called it a new instrument never before heard of. This artist was an intimate friend of the celebrated Christopher Schissler, also of Augsburg, who in 1579 constructed a quadrant, still to be found at Oxford; and in 1606 an armillary sphere, still preserved at Augsburg.

The emperor Rudolphus II., who reigned from 1576 to 1612, and who was fond of, and acquainted with, the mechanical arts, possessed two very curious odometers, which not only pointed out distances, but also marked them down on paper by the way. The description and use of one of these is given by De Boot[21], who was that prince’s librarian; and what he says has been copied by Kircher[22], and illustrated with a coarse figure. It is not improbable that the before-mentioned Schissler was the maker of this instrument, as we are informed by Stetten that he constructed a great many machines and automata for the emperor Rudolphus II. The other odometer, which was much more curious, appears to have been constructed by that emperor himself[23].

About the end of the 17th century, an artist in England, named Butterfield, invented an odometer which met with great approbation. In the first volume of the Philosophical Transactions there are two papers written by this ingenious man; but of his odometer I have not yet been able to find a description.

In the beginning of the last century, Adam Frederick Zurner, to whom we are indebted for good maps of the electorate of Saxony, invented also an odometer, or geometrical carriage, a description and figure of which, taken from Schramm’s Saxonia Monumentis Viarum illustrata, is given by Nicolai. This instrument is not now to be found in the Dresden collection.

In Bion’s Treatise on the construction of mathematical instruments, improved by Doppelmayer, there is a description of a pedometer, and the author praises a new invention by one Sauveur.

In the year 1724 Meynier laid before the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris an odometer, a short account of which, without a figure, is given in the history of the Academy for that year. This machine was afterwards improved by Outhier; and a description of the improvements, but without any figure, is to be found in the history of the Academy for 1742. A full description, together with a figure, may however be seen in a work, entitled Machines et Inventions approuvées par l’Académie, t. vii.

Perhaps the most perfect machine of this kind was that made at Berlin by an artist named Hohlfeld, a short account of which may be found in the ninth volume of the Hamburg Magazine. A complete description I have not seen; but I learn from Professor Bernoulli’s Tour through Brandenburg, Pomerania, &c., that a model of it is preserved in the excellent collection of Count de Podewils at Gusow[24]. The inventor of it was a man of such rare talents, and rendered such benefit to the public, that the following anecdotes of his life may prove not unacceptable to many readers. It was written by Professor Muller at Berlin, and transmitted to me by Dr. Bloch.

Hohlfeld was born of poor parents at Hennerndorf in the mountains of Saxony, in 1711. He learned the trade of lace-making at Dresden, and early discovered a turn for mechanics by constructing various kinds of clocks. From Dresden he removed to Berlin to follow his occupation. As he was an excellent workman, and invented several machines for shortening his labour, he found sufficient time to indulge his inclination for mechanics; and he made there, at the same time that he pursued his usual business, air-guns and clocks.

In the year 1748 he became acquainted with the celebrated Sulzer, at whose desire he undertook the construction of a machine for noting down any piece of music when played on a harpsichord. A machine of this kind had been before invented by Von Unger; but Hohlfeld, from a very imperfect description, completed one without any other assistance than that of his own genius. Of this machine, now in the possession of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, Sulzer gave a figure, from which it was afterwards constructed in England. This ingenious piece of mechanism was universally approved, though several things may be wanting to render it complete; but no one was so generous as to indemnify the artist for his expenses, or to reward him for his labour.

About the year 1756, the Prussian minister, Count de Podewils, took him into his service, chiefly for the purpose of constructing water-works in his magnificent gardens at Gusow. There he invented his well-known thrashing machine, and another for chopping straw more expeditiously. He also displayed his talent for invention by constructing an apparatus, which, being fastened to a carriage, indicates the revolutions made by the wheels. Such machines had been made before, but his far exceeded every thing of the kind. Having lost this machine by a fire, he invented another still simpler, which was so contrived as to be buckled between the spokes of the wheel. This piece of mechanism was in the possession of Sulzer, who used it on his tour, and found that it answered the intended purpose.

In the year 1765, when the duke of Courland, then hereditary prince, resided at Berlin, he paid a visit to Hohlfeld, and endeavoured to prevail on him to go to Courland, by offering him a pension of 800 rix-dollars; but this ingenious man was so contented with his condition, and so attached to his friends, that he would not, merely for self-interest, quit Berlin. His refusal, however, obtained for him a pension of 150 dollars from the king.

Besides the before-mentioned machines, he constructed, occasionally, several useful models. Among these were a loom for weaving figured stuffs, so contrived that the weaver had no need of anything to shoot through the woof[25]; a pedometer for putting in the pocket; a convenient and simple bed for a sick person, which was of such a nature, that the patient, with the least effort, could at any time raise or lower the breast, and when necessary convert the bed into a stool; and a carriage so formed, that if the horses took fright or ran away, the person in it could, by a single push, loosen the pole and set them at liberty. The two last models have been lost.

Every machine that this singular man saw, he altered and improved in the simplest manner. All his own instruments he made himself, and repaired them when damaged. But as he was fonder of inventing than of following the plans of others, he made them in such a manner that no one except himself could use them. Several of his improvements were, however, imitated by common workmen, though in a very clumsy manner. It is worthy of remark, that he never bestowed study upon anything; but when he had once conceived an idea, he immediately executed it. He comprehended in a moment whatever was proposed, and at the same time saw how it was to be accomplished. He could therefore tell in an instant whether a thing was practicable; if he thought it was not, no persuasion or offer of money could induce him to attempt it. He never pursued chimæras like those mechanics who have not had the benefit of education or instruction; and though this may be ascribed to the intercourse he had with great mathematicians and philosophers, there is every reason to believe that he would have equally guarded against them, even if he had not enjoyed that advantage. The same quickness of apprehension which he manifested in mechanics he showed also in other things. His observations on most subjects were judicious, and peculiar to himself; so that it may be said, without exaggeration, that he was born with a philosophical mind.

A little before his death he had the pleasure of seeing a curious harpsichord he had made, which was purchased by his Prussian Majesty, and placed in an elegant apartment in the new palace at Potsdam. As he had for some time neglected this instrument, the too great attention which he bestowed on putting it in order contributed not a little to bring on that disease which at last proved fatal to him. His clock having become deranged during his illness, he could not be prevented, notwithstanding the admonition of his friend and physician Dr. Stahls, from repairing it. Close application occasioned some obstructions which were not observed till too late; and an inflammation taking place, he died in 1771, at the house of Count de Podewils, in the 60th year of his age.

[The instrument now generally used in this country for measuring the distance gone over, is that invented by Mr. Payne, watchmaker, of Bond-street. In this ingenious contrivance motion is communicated from the traveller to the machinery of the pedometer, by means of a horizontal lever, which is furnished with a weight at one end and a pivot or axis at the other; under the lever is a spring, which keeps the lever when at rest close up to a regulating screw; the spring is so arranged as to be only just sufficiently strong to overcome the weight of the lever and to prevent its falling downwards.

When the body of the traveller is raised in progression, the lever is impelled downwards by the jerk, and immediately returned to its place by the spring, and so long as the motion is continued the lever is constantly in a state of vibration. A small ratchet-wheel is fixed to the axis of the lever, and beneath it is another and larger ratchet-wheel which fits on the same axis, but is not attached to it. These two wheels are connected by a ratchet or pale in such a manner, that when the lever falls, both wheels are moved forward one or more teeth, but when the lever rises again from the force of the spring, the larger ratchet-wheel is held stationary by a ratchet. The larger wheel is connected with a series of toothed wheels and pinions, by means of a pinion fixed on its under-surface. The centre wheel carries an index or hand, which points to figures on the dial-plate. The whole apparatus packs into the case of a watch[26].]

FOOTNOTES

[15] C. 14. Nicolai, in the first part of his Travels, has translated this description of an odometer, and illustrated it with a figure by H. Catel.Return to passage

[16] This palace, with its ornaments, is described in the Memorie concernenti la citta di Urbino. Roma, 1724. fol. The figure to which I allude is in plate 53. Bernardino Baldi, the author of the descriptive part, considers it as an odometer.Return to passage

[17] In Joannis Fernelii Ambianatis Cosmotheoria, Parisiis 1528, we find only the following passage respecting this invention:--“Nec vulgi supputatione satiatus, vehiculum, quod Parisios recta via petebat, conscendi, in eoque residens tota via 17024 fere rotæ circumvolutiones collegi, vallibus et montibus ad equalitatem, quoad facultas nostra ferebat, redactis. Erat autem rotæ diameter.” In Almagesti novi parte posteriori, tomi primi, Bononiæ 1651. fol. the author, Riccioli, says that Fernel contrived his carriage in such a manner, that the revolutions of the wheels were shown by a hammer striking on a bell. Where that jesuit discovered this I cannot learn.Return to passage

[18] Doppelmayer, Nachricht von Nurnberg Künstlern, p. 82. Will, Nurnbergisches Gelehrten-Lexicon, iii. p. 156.Return to passage

[19] Cimelium Geographicum Tripartitum. Dresden, 1680.Return to passage

[20] Kunstgeschichte von Augsburg, p. 167.Return to passage

[21] Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia. Lugd. Bat. 1647, 8vo, p. 468.Return to passage

[22] Magnes, sive De arte magnetica. Coloniæ, 1643, 4to, p. 221.Return to passage

[23] Boot. Hist. Gemmarum, p. 473.Return to passage

[24] This machine was used by Sulzer during his tour. See his Journal, published at Leipsic, 1780, 8vo, p. 3. It has been since improved by Schumacher, a clergyman at Elbing, by Klindworth, Catel at Berlin, and by an anonymous clergyman in the Schwabisches Magazin, 1777, p. 306.Return to passage

[25] This model is preserved in the collection of the Academy.Return to passage

[26] There is a figure of it in the Penny Cyclopædia, vol. xvii. p. 367.Return to passage

MACHINE FOR NOTING DOWN MUSIC

As I have occasionally mentioned in the preceding article, a machine for noting down any piece of music played on a harpsichord or other musical instrument, I shall here add a short history of the invention of it, as far as I know; and with the greater pleasure, as another nation has laid claim to it, though it belongs to my countrymen.

It appears incontestable, that a proposal for inventing such a machine was first made known by an Englishman. In the month of March 1747, John Freke transmitted to the Royal Society a paper written by a clergyman of the name of Creed, which was printed in the Philosophical Transactions under the following title:--A Demonstration of the possibility of making a machine that shall write extempore voluntaries, or other pieces of music, as fast as any master shall be able to play them upon an organ, harpsichord, &c.; and that in a character more natural and more intelligible, and more expressive of all the varieties those instruments are capable of exhibiting, than the character now in use[27]. The author of this paper however points out the possibility only of making such a machine, without giving directions how to construct it.

In the year 1745, John Frederic Unger, then land-bailiff and burgomaster of Einbec, and who is known by several learned works, fell upon the same invention without the smallest knowledge of the idea published in England. This invention however, owing to the variety of his occupations, he did not make known till the year 1752, when he transmitted a short account of it, accompanied with figures, to the Academy of Sciences at Berlin. The Academy highly approved of it, and it was soon celebrated in several gazettes, but a description of it was never printed.

A few days after Euler had read this paper of Unger’s before the Academy, M. Sulzer informed Hohlfeld of the invention, and advised him to exert his ingenuity in constructing such a machine. In two weeks this untaught mechanic, without having read Unger’s paper, and even without inspecting the figures, completed the machine, which Unger himself had not been able to execute through want of an artist capable of following his ideas.

Unger’s own description of his invention was printed, with copper-plates, at Brunswick, in the year 1774, together with the correspondence between him and Euler, and other documents. A description of Hohlfeld’s machine, illustrated with figures, was published after his death by Sulzer, in the new memoirs of the Academy of Berlin, 1771, under the title of ‘Description of a machine for noting down pieces of music as fast as they are played upon the harpsichord.’ Sulzer there remarks, that Hohlfeld had not followed the plan sketched out by Unger, and that the two machines differed in this--that Unger’s formed one piece with the harpsichord, while that of Hohlfeld could be applied to any harpsichord whatever.

When Dr. Burney visited Berlin, he was made acquainted with Hohlfeld’s machine by M. Marpurg; and has been so ungenerous, or rather unjust, as to say in his Musical Travels, that it is an English invention, and that it had been before fully described in the Philosophical Transactions. This falsehood M. Unger has sufficiently refuted. Without repeating his proofs, I shall here content myself with quoting his own words, in the following passage:--“How can Burney wish to deprive our ingenious Hohlfeld of the honour of being the sole author of that invention, and to make an Englishman share it with him, because our German happened to execute successfully what his countryman Creed only suggested? Such an attempt is as unjust in its consequences as it is dishonourable to the English nation and the English artists. When we reflect on the high estimation in which music is held in England, the liberality of the English nobility, and their readiness to spare no expenses in bringing forward any useful invention, a property peculiar to the English, it affords just matter of surprise that the English artists should have suffered themselves to be anticipated by a German journeyman lace-maker. To our Hohlfeld, therefore, will incontestably remain the lasting honour of having executed a German invention; and the Germans may contentedly wait to see whether Burney will find an English mechanic capable of constructing this machine, from the information given by his countryman Creed.”

FOOTNOTES

[27] Phil. Trans. vol. xliv. p. ii. No. 483, p. 446.Return to passage

REFINING GOLD AND SILVER ORE BY QUICKSILVER

AMALGAMATION.

It is well known that quicksilver unites very readily with almost all metals, and when added in a considerable quantity forms with them a paste which can be kneaded, and which is called amalgam. On the other hand, as it does not unite with the earths, being a metallic substance, it furnishes an excellent medium for separating gold and silver from the substances with which they are found. The amalgam is squeezed through a piece of leather, in which these precious metals remain with a certain portion of the quicksilver; and the former are freed from the latter by means of fire, which volatilizes the mercury. This amalgam made with gold serves also for gilding metals (water-gilding)[28], if it be rubbed over them, and afterwards heated till the quicksilver be driven off.

The first use of quicksilver is commonly reckoned a Spanish invention, discovered about the middle of the sixteenth century; but it appears from Pliny, that the ancients were acquainted with amalgam and its use, not only for separating gold and silver from earthy particles, but also for gilding[29]. Vitruvius describes the manner of recovering gold from cloth in which it has been interwoven. The cloth, he says, is to be put into an earthen vessel, and placed over the fire, in order that it may be burnt. The ashes are to be thrown into water, and quicksilver added to them. The latter attracts the particles of the gold, and unites with them. The water is then to be poured off, and the residue put into a piece of cloth; which being squeezed with the hands, the quicksilver, on account of its fluidity, oozes through the pores, and the gold is left pure in a compressed mass[30]. Isidore of Seville says also, that quicksilver is best preserved in vessels of glass, as it penetrates all other substances; and that without it neither silver nor brass can be gilded[31]. Modern mineralogists however have this advantage over the ancient, that they know how to separate the quicksilver from gold and silver without losing it. Instead of exposing the amalgam to an open fire, as formerly, and driving off the volatile metal, it is now put into a retort, and the quicksilver is collected in a receiver for further use.

Those also who wash gold from the sand found near rivers, use quicksilver before their work is completed; and I am strongly inclined to believe that this method prevailed in Germany long before the discovery of the mines in America. In the year 1582, John Michael Heberer described the washing of gold as he saw it practised at Selz, not far from Strasburg; and at that time quicksilver had been long employed for that purpose. In Treitlinger’s Dissertation, also, concerning the collecting of gold, and particularly in the Rhine, there is a description of the manner in which gold sand is washed by means of quicksilver, but no date is mentioned[32].

The history of employing mercury in procuring the American silver is, as far as I know, most fully given by the Jesuit Acosta[33], whose relation of the Indies abounds with curious and useful information. The quicksilver mines of Peru are situated in an extensive ridge of mountains near Guamanga, on the south side of Lima, and at no great distance from it. They are called Guancabelica, or Guancavilia. The mines were discovered about the year 1566 or 1567, when Castro was viceroy of Peru, by Henry Garces, or Graces, as he is called by the Portuguese. This man was a native of Porto, went to Peru in the Spanish service, and after the death of his wife became canon of the cathedral of Mexico. He translated the Lusiad of Camoens from the Portuguese into Spanish, and this has procured him a place in Professor Dieze’s translation of Velasquez’s History of Spanish Poetry. He caused a law to be enacted that no silver bullion should be suffered to circulate in Peru; but his greatest service was the discovery of the quicksilver mines. As he was one day examining the red earth, which the Indians use for paint, and call limpi, he observed that it was native cinnabar; and as he knew that quicksilver was extracted from it in Europe, he went to the place where it was dug up, made some experiments, and thus laid a foundation for the most important works. No one however thought of employing this metal in the silver mines till the year 1571, when Francis de Toledo being viceroy, one Pero Fernandes de Velasco came to Peru, and offered to refine the silver by mercury, as he had learnt at the smelting-houses in Mexico. His proposal being accepted, and his attempts proving successful, the old methods were abandoned, and that of amalgamation was adopted in its stead[34]. From this account it appears that Garces was not the inventor of amalgamation, that it was introduced into Peru in the year 1571, and that it had been long before practised in Mexico; but at what period it was first used there I have not been able to learn. The abbé Raynal says, that quicksilver was a free article of trade till the year 1571, when it was declared to belong exclusively to the crown; and this regulation was made in consequence of its being employed in refining. Robertson, in his History of America, tells us that the mines of Guanacabelica were discovered in 1563, and that amalgamation was introduced in 1574.

Anderson says, in his History of Commerce[35], that in the second volume of Hakluyt there is a letter which shows the use of quicksilver to have been a new invention in the year 1572. This letter I found, not in the second, but in the third and last volume of the Voyages collected by Hakluyt[36]. It was written in the above year by a merchant named Henry Hawks, and contains only the following information: “A good owner of mines must have much quicksilver; and as for this charge of quicksilver, it is a new invention, which they find more profitable than to fine their ore with lead.”

Gobet, in a work entitled The Ancient Mineralogists of France, accuses Alphonso Barba of asserting that he found out amalgamation in the year 1609. To examine this charge, it will be necessary to give some account of the metallurgic works of that Spaniard, which, perhaps, may not prove unacceptable to those who are fond of metallurgy and mineralogy. Alvaro Alphonso Barba was born at Lepe, a small town in Andalusia, and officiated many years as clergyman of the church of St. Bernard, at Potosi. The first edition of this work was printed in quarto, at Madrid, in 1640, in the Spanish language, and illustrated with cuts. This book the Spaniards for a long time concealed, because they considered it as containing all their metallurgic secrets; though at that time there were much better works of the kind in Germany, and though amalgamation had been long known and practised. Edward earl of Sandwich, being ambassador to Spain, found however an opportunity of procuring a copy of it, as a great rarity; and he began a translation of it into English, but translated only the first two books. This translation was published at London in octavo, in 1674, after the earl’s death, and entitled The First Book of the Art of Metals, in which is declared the manner of their generation, and the concomitants of them. Written in Spanish by Albaro Alonso Barba, translated by the earl of Sandwich. From this English edition several German translations have been made, of which I am acquainted with the following: two at Hamburg, one printed in 1676, and the other in 1696; and two at Frankfort, one in 1726, and another in 1739. In the year 1749 a new edition appeared at Vienna. This edition, which is very different from any of the former, was translated from the French by one Godar, who was not a German, and who on that account apologises in the preface for the badness of his style. All these editions however are imperfect; for the original contains five books, as we learn from Leibnitz, who caused them to be transcribed. In the year 1751 a new translation came out at Paris, entitled Metallurgy, or the art of extracting and purifying metals, translated from the Spanish of Alphonso Barba, by M. Gosfort, with the most curious dissertations on mines and metallic operations; of this translation the celebrated abbé Lenglet de Fresnoy is said to have been the editor[37].

To judge by two of the German editions, Gobet has done Barba an injustice. In that of 1676, I find Barba expressly says he does not believe the ancients were acquainted with the art of extracting silver from pounded ore by the means of quicksilver. This certainly does not indicate that he laid claim to the invention; besides, he everywhere speaks of amalgamation as an art long used in America, but complains of the negligence with which it was practised. In a passage however in the Vienna edition, and which has probably been added by Gobet, we are told that in the year 1609, Barba attempted to fix quicksilver, and with that view bethought himself of mixing it with finely pounded silver ore; that he at first imagined, with surprise, that he had obtained a mass of silver, but that he soon perceived that the mercury was not changed into silver, but had only attracted the particles of that metal. “I was,” adds Barba, “highly pleased with my new discovery of managing ore, of extracting its contents, and of refining it; and this method I continued to practise.” I imagine that Barba was still in Europe in 1609, and made that experiment before he was acquainted with the smelting-works in America. I am however of opinion, that one will see by the original that Barba did not wish to claim the invention of amalgamation as practised in the mines of America.

FOOTNOTES

[28] [Among the improvements of recent date there are perhaps none of greater importance than those of electro-gilding and gilding by immersion, which have almost entirely superseded the process of gilding by an amalgam of mercury and gold, so fatal to the workmen exposed to the deleterious effects of the mercurial vapours. It is not our intention to enter at present into a history of the invention of these processes; they will more properly be reserved for a future volume, in which the discoveries of the present century will be treated of. The following short outline may however not prove uninteresting to the reader:--It had long been known to experimentalists on the chemical action of voltaic electricity, that solutions of several metallic salts were decomposed by its agency, and the metal produced in its free state. The precipitation of copper by the voltaic current was noticed by Mr. Nicholson[a] in a paper entitled ‘Account of the new Electrical Apparatus of Sig. Alex. Volta, and experiments performed with the same;’ but the earliest recorded process in electro-gilding is probably that contained in a letter from Brugnatelli to Van Mons[b], in which he states that he had deposited a film of gold on ten silver medals by bringing them into communication by means of a steel wire with the negative pole of a voltaic pile, and keeping them one after the other immersed in ammoniuret of gold newly made and well-saturated. This announcement of a process identical with those now extensively used, attracted no attention at the time it was made, and no further experiments on the application of electricity to the deposition of metals for the purposes of the arts were published until the year 1830, when Mr. E. Davy read a paper before the Royal Society, in which he distinctly states that he had gilded, silvered, coppered and tinned various metals by the voltaic battery[c]. The experiments of Brugnatelli and Davy were however completely lost sight of, and the art may be said to date its origin from the period when the late Professor Daniell described his constant battery. Since that time the art has continued to advance most rapidly, either in the perfecting of the apparatus or in the pointing out of more suitable salts of gold and silver, from which the metals might be precipitated. Among those who have contributed to its advancement we may particularly instance the names of our countrymen, Woolrich, Spencer, Jordan, Mason, Murray, Smee, Elkington, Fox Talbot, and Tuck. Nearly all the gilt articles manufactured at Birmingham are now gilded by the process patented by Mr. Elkington, in which, after the articles have been cleansed by a weak acid, they are placed in a hot solution of nitro-muriate of gold, to which a considerable excess of bicarbonate of potash has been added; in the course of a few seconds they thus receive a beautiful and permanent coating of gold.]Return to passage

[a] Nicholson’s Journal, July 1800, p. 179.

[b] Philosophical Magazine, 1805.

[c] Phil. Trans. 1831, p. 147.

[29] Lib. xxxiii. cap. 6.Return to passage

[30] Vit. lib. vii. c. 8.Return to passage

[31] In Origin. lib. xvi. c. 18.Return to passage

[32] De Aurilegio, præcipue in Rheno. Argent. 1776.Return to passage

[33] Historia naturale e morale delle Indie. Venetia, 1596.Return to passage

[34] The same account as that given by Acosta may be seen in Garcilasso de la Vega, Commentarios reales; Lisboa 1609, p. 225; in Rycaut’s English translation, London 1688, fol. i. p. 347; and in De Laet, Novus Orbis, Lugd. Bat. 1633, fol. p. 447.Return to passage

[35] Vol. i. p. 414.Return to passage

[36] Hakluyt’s Collection of Voyages. London, 1600, fol. vol. iii. p. 466.Return to passage

[37] See La France littéraire. Paris, 1769, 2 vols. 8vo, vol. ii. p. 410.Return to passage

COLD OR DRY GILDING

Dry gilding, as it is called by some workmen, is a light method of gilding, by steeping linen rags in a solution of gold, then burning them; and with a piece of cloth dipped in salt water, rubbing the ashes over silver intended to be gilt. This method requires neither much labour nor much gold, and may be employed with advantage for carved work and ornaments. It is however not durable.

I am of opinion that this manner of gilding is a German invention, and that foreigners, at least the English, were first made acquainted with it about the end of the last century; for Robert Southwell describes it in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1698, and says that it was known to very few goldsmiths in Germany.

GOLD VARNISH

As mankind could not have everything that they wished for of gold, they were contented with incrusting many articles with this precious metal. For that purpose the gold was beat into plates, with which the walls of apartments, dishes, and other vessels were covered. In early ages these plates were thick, so that gilding in this manner was very expensive[38]; but in process of time the expense was much lessened, because the art was discovered of making these gold plates thinner, and of laying them on with a size. Articles however ornamented in this manner were still costly, and the valuable metal was always lost. Yellow golden colours of all kinds were then tried; but these did not fully produce the required effect, as they wanted that splendour peculiar to metals, and appeared always languid and dull. It was not till modern times that artists conceived the idea of overlaying with silver, or some cheaper white metal, such things as they wished to have the appearance of gold, and then daubing them over with a yellow transparent varnish, in order to give to the white metal the colour of gold, and to the colour the splendour of metal. “When we cover our houses with gold,” says Seneca, “do we not show that we delight in deception? for we know that coarse wood is concealed under that gold[39].”

This ingenious process, which at present is employed all over Europe in gilding wooden frames, coaches, and various articles, and which was formerly used in the preparation of the now old-fashioned leather tapestry, was invented towards the end of the 17th century. Anderson, in his Historical and chronological deduction of the Origin of Commerce, says that it was introduced into England by one Evelyn in the year 1633; and quotes, in support of this assertion, The Present State of England, printed in 1683.

This invention, however, does not belong to the English, but to the Italians, and properly to the Sicilians. Antonino Cento, an artist of Palermo, found out the gold varnish, and in the year 1680 published there an account of the method of preparing it. That work I have never seen; but I found this information in a book printed at Palermo in 1704, and entitled The Inventions of the Sicilians[40]. Among the few important things contained in this book, the greater part of which is compiled from old Latin writers, there is, in the additions, a receipt how to prepare the gold varnish (vernice d’oro). The whole account I shall transcribe, as the authors of the French Journal of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Arts, thought it worth their trouble to make it known in that work in 1778.

“Take shell-lac, and having freed it from the filth and bits of wood with which it is mixed, put it into a small linen bag, and wash it in pure water, till the water no longer becomes red; then take it from the bag and suffer it to dry. When it is perfectly dry, pound it very fine; because the finer it is pounded the more readily will it dissolve. Then take four parts of spirit of wine, and one of the lac, reduced, as before directed, to an impalpable powder, so that for every four pounds of spirit you may have one of lac: mix these together, and, having put them into an alembic, graduate the fire so that the lac may dissolve in the spirit. When dissolved, strain the whole through a strong piece of linen cloth; throw away what remains in the cloth, as of no use, and preserve the liquor in a glass bottle closely corked. This is the gold varnish which may be employed for gilding any kind of wood.

“When you wish to use it, you must, in order that the work may be done with more smoothness, employ a brush made of the tail of a certain quadruped called the vari, well-known to those who sell colours for painting; and with this instrument dipped in the liquor wash gently over, three times, the wood which has been silvered. You must, however, remember every time you pass the brush over the wood to let it dry; and thus your work will be extremely beautiful, and have a resemblance to the finest gold.”

After this invention was made known, it was not difficult to vary, by several methods, the manner of preparing it. Different receipts, therefore, have for that purpose been given in a number of books, such as Croker’s Painter, and others: and, on this account, young artists are frequently at a loss which to choose; and when a receipt is found better than another, experienced artists keep it always secret.

With the preparation of that varnish used for gilding leather tapestry Reaumur was acquainted, and from his papers it was made known by Fougeroux de Bondaroy. The method of making the English varnish was communicated by Scarlet to Hellot, in the year 1720; and by Graham to Du Fay, in 1738. In the year 1761, Hellot gave the receipt to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, who published it in their memoirs for that year.

If it be true, as Fougeroux says, that gilded tapestry was made above two hundred years ago, it might be worth the little trouble that such an examination would require to investigate the method used to gild it.

FOOTNOTES

[38] One may see in Homer’s Odyssey, book iii. v. 432, the process employed for gilding in this manner, the horns of the cow brought by Nestor as an offering to Minerva.Return to passage

[39] Epist. 115.Return to passage

[40] La Sicilia inventrice. Palermo, 1704, 4to.Return to passage

TULIPS

The greater part of the flowers which adorn our gardens have been brought to us from the Levant. A few have been procured from other parts of the world; and some of our own indigenous plants, that grow wild, have, by care and cultivation, been so much improved as to merit a place in our parterres. Our ancestors, perhaps, some centuries ago paid attention to flowers; but it appears that the Orientals, and particularly the Turks, who in other respects are not very susceptible of the inanimate beauties of nature, were the first people who cultivated a variety of them in their gardens for ornament and pleasure. From their gardens, therefore, have been procured the most of those which decorate ours; and amongst these is the tulip.

Few plants acquire through accident, weakness, or disease, so many tints, variegations, and figures, as the tulip. When uncultivated, and in its natural state, it is almost of one colour, has large leaves, and an extraordinary long stem. When it has been weakened by culture, it becomes more agreeable in the eyes of the florist. The petals are then paler, more variegated, and smaller; the leaves assume a fainter or softer green colour: and this masterpiece of culture, the more beautiful it turns, grows so much the weaker; so that, with the most careful skill and attention, it can with difficulty be transplanted, and even scarcely kept alive.

That the tulip grows wild in the Levant, and was thence brought to us, may be proved by the testimony of many writers. Busbequius found it on the road between Adrianople and Constantinople[41]; Shaw found it in Syria, in the plains between Jaffa and Rama; and Chardin on the northern confines of Arabia. The early-blowing kinds, it appears, were brought to Constantinople from Cavala, and the late-blowing from Caffa; and on this account the former are called by the Turks Cavalá lalé, and the latter Café lalé. Caval is a town on the eastern coast of Macedonia, of which Paul Lucas gives some account; and Caffa is a town in the Crimea, or peninsula of Gazaria, as it was called, in the middle ages, from the Gazares, a people very little known[42].

Though florists have published numerous catalogues of the species of the tulip, botanists are acquainted only with two, or at most three, of which scarcely one is indigenous in Europe[43]. All those found in our gardens have been propagated from the species named after that learned man, to whom natural history is so much indebted, the Linnæus of the sixteenth century, Conrad Gesner, who first made the tulip known by a botanical description and a figure. In his additions to the works of Valerius Cordus, he tells us that he saw the first in the beginning of April 1559, at Augsburg, in the garden of the learned and ingenious counsellor John Henry Herwart. The seeds had been brought from Constantinople, or, according to others, from Cappadocia. This flower was then known in Italy under the name of tulipa, or tulip, which is said to be of Turkish extraction, and given to it on account of its resembling a turban[44].

Balbinus asserts that Busbequius brought the first tulip-roots to Prague, from which they were afterwards spread all over Germany[45]. This is not improbable; for Busbequius says, in a letter written in 1554, that this flower was then new to him; and it is known that besides coins and manuscripts he collected also natural curiosities, and brought them with him from the Levant. Nay, he tells us that he paid very dear to the Turks for these tulips; but I do not find he anywhere says that he was the first who brought them from the East.

In the year 1565 there were tulips in the garden of M. Fugger, from whom Gesner wished to procure some[46]. They first appeared in Provence, in France, in the garden of the celebrated Peyresc, in the year 1611[47].

After the tulip was known, Dutch merchants, and rich people at Vienna, who were fond of flowers, sent at different times to Constantinople for various kinds. The first roots planted in England were sent thither from Vienna, about the end of the sixteenth century, according to Hakluyt[48]; who is, however, wrong in ascribing to Clusius the honour of having first introduced them into Europe; for that naturalist only collected and described all the then known species.

These flowers, which are of no further use than to ornament gardens, which are exceeded in beauty by many other plants, and whose duration is short and very precarious, became, in the middle of the 17th century, the object of a trade such as is not to be met with in the history of commerce, and by which their price rose above that of the most precious metals. An account of this trade has been given by many authors; but by all late ones it has been misrepresented. People laugh at the Tulipomania[49], because they believe that the beauty and rarity of the flowers induced florists to give such extravagant prices: they imagine that the tulips were purchased so excessively dear in order to ornament gardens; but this supposition is false, as I shall show hereafter.

This trade was not carried on throughout all Europe, but in some cities of the Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam, Haarlem, Utrecht, Alkmaar, Leyden, Rotterdam, Hoorn, Enkhuysen, and Meedenblick; and rose to the greatest height in the years 1634-37[50]. Munting has given, from some of the books kept during that trade, a few of the prices then paid, of which I shall present the reader with the following. For a root of that species called the Viceroy the after-mentioned articles, valued as below expressed, were agreed to be delivered:--

Florins. 2 lasts of wheat 448 4 ditto rye 558 4 fat oxen 480 3 fat swine 240 12 fat sheep 120 2 hogsheads of wine 70 4 tons of beer 32 2 ditto butter 192 1000 pounds of cheese 120 a complete bed 100 a suit of clothes 80 a silver beaker 60 ---- Sum 2500

These tulips afterwards were sold according to the weight of the roots. Four hundred perits[51] of Admiral Leifken cost 4400 florins; 446 ditto of Admiral Von der Eyk, 1620 florins; 106 perits Schilder cost 1615 florins; 200 ditto Semper Augustus, 5500 florins; 410 ditto Viceroy, 3000 florins, &c. The species Semper Augustus has been often sold for 2000 florins; and it once happened that there were only two roots of it to be had, the one at Amsterdam and the other at Haarlem. For a root of this species, one agreed to give 4600 florins, together with a new carriage, two gray horses, and a complete harness. Another agreed to give for a root twelve acres of land; for those who had not ready money, promised their moveable and immoveable goods, houses and lands, cattle and clothes. A man whose name Munting once knew, but could not recollect, won by this trade more than 60,000 florins in the course of four months. It was followed not only by mercantile people, but also by the first noblemen, citizens of every description, mechanics, seamen, farmers, turf-diggers, chimney-sweeps, footmen, maid-servants and old clothes-women, &c. At first, every one won and no one lost. Some of the poorest people gained in a few months houses, coaches and horses, and figured away like the first characters in the land. In every town some tavern was selected which served as a ’Change, where high and low traded in flowers, and confirmed their bargains with the most sumptuous entertainments. They formed laws for themselves, and had their notaries and clerks.

When the nature of this trade is considered, it will readily be perceived, that to get possession of these flowers was not the real object of it, though many have represented it in that light. The price of tulips rose always higher from the year 1634 to the year 1637; but had the object of the purchaser been to get possession of the flowers, the price in such a length of time must have fallen instead of risen. “Raise the prices of the productions of agriculture, when you wish to reduce them,” says Young; and in this he is undoubtedly right, for a great consumption causes a greater reproduction. This has been sufficiently proved by the price of asparagus at Göttingen. As it was much sought after, and large prices paid for it, more of it was planted, and the price has fallen. In like manner plantations of tulips would have in a short time been formed in Holland, and florists would have been able to purchase flowers at a much lower price. But this was not done; and the chimney-sweeper, who threw aside his besom, did not become a gardener, though he was a dealer in flowers. Roots would have been imported from distant countries, as asparagus was from Hanover and Brunswick to Göttingen; the high price would have induced people to go to Constantinople to purchase roots, as the Europeans travel to Golconda and Visapour to procure precious stones; but the dealers in tulips confined themselves to their own country, without thinking of long journeys. I will allow that a flower might have become scarce, and consequently dearer; but it would have been impossible for the price to rise to a great height, and continue so for a year. How ridiculous would it have been to purchase useless roots with their weight of gold, if the possession of the flower had been the only object! Great is the folly of mankind; but they are not fools without a cause, as they would have been under such circumstances.

During the time of the Tulipomania, a speculator often offered and paid large sums for a root which he never received, and never wished to receive. Another sold roots which he never possessed or delivered. Oft did a nobleman purchase of a chimney-sweep tulips to the amount of 2000 florins, and sell them at the same time to a farmer; and neither the nobleman, chimney-sweep or farmer had roots in their possession, or wished to possess them. Before the tulip season was over, more roots were sold and purchased, bespoke and promised to be delivered, than in all probability were to be found in the gardens of Holland; and when Semper Augustus was not to be had, which happened twice, no species perhaps was oftener purchased and sold. In the space of three years, as Munting tells us, more than ten millions were expended in this trade in only one town of Holland.

To understand this gambling traffic, it may be necessary to make the following supposition. A nobleman bespoke of a merchant a tulip-root, to be delivered in six months, at the price of 1000 florins. During these six months the price of that species of tulip must have risen or fallen, or remained as it was. We shall suppose that at the expiration of that time the price was 1500 florins; in that case the nobleman did not wish to have the tulip, and the merchant paid him 500 florins, which the latter lost and the former won. If the price was fallen when the six months were expired, so that a root could be purchased for 800 florins, the nobleman then paid to the merchant 200 florins, which he received as so much gain; but if the price continued the same, that is 1000 florins, neither party gained or lost. In all these circumstances, however, no one ever thought of delivering the roots or of receiving them. Henry Munting, in 1636, sold to a merchant at Alkmaar, a tulip-root for 7000 florins, to be delivered in six months; but as the price during that time had fallen, the merchant paid, according to agreement, only ten per cent. “So that my father,” says the son, “received 700 florins for nothing; but he would much rather have delivered the root itself for 7000.” The term of these contracts was often much shorter, and on that account the trade became brisker. In proportion as more gained by this traffic, more engaged in it; and those who had money to pay to one, had soon money to receive of another; as at faro, one loses upon one card, and at the same time wins on another. The tulip-dealers often discounted sums also, and transferred their debts to one another; so that large sums were paid without cash, without bills, and without goods, as by the Virements at Lyons. The whole of this trade was a game at hazard, as the Mississippi trade was afterwards, and as stock-jobbing is at present. The only difference between the tulip-trade and stock-jobbing is, that at the end of the contract the price in the latter is determined by the Stock-exchange; whereas in the former it was determined by that at which most bargains were made. High- and low-priced kinds of tulips were procured, in order that both the rich and the poor might gamble with them; and the roots were weighed by perits, that an imagined whole might be divided, and that people might not only have whole, but half and quarter lots. Whoever is surprised that such a traffic should become general, needs only to reflect upon what is done where lotteries are established, by which trades are often neglected, and even abandoned, because a speedier mode of getting fortunes is pointed out to the lower classes. In short, the tulip-trade may very well serve to explain stock-jobbing, of which so much is written in gazettes, and of which so many talk in company without understanding it; and I hope, on that account, I shall be forgiven for employing so much time in illustrating what I should otherwise have considered as below my notice[52].

At length, however, this trade fell all of a sudden. Among such a number of contracts many were broken; many had engaged to pay more than they were able; the whole stock of the adventurers was consumed by the extravagance of the winners; new adventurers no more engaged in it; and many, becoming sensible of the odious traffic in which they had been concerned, returned to their former occupations. By these means, as the value of tulips still fell, and never rose, the sellers wished to deliver the roots in natura to the purchasers at the prices agreed on; but as the latter had no desire for tulips at even such a low rate, they refused to take them or to pay for them. To end this dispute, the tulip-dealers of Alkmaar sent in the year 1637 deputies to Amsterdam; and a resolution was passed on the 24th of February, that all contracts made prior to the last of November 1636 should be null and void; and that, in those made after that date, purchasers should be free on paying ten per cent. to the vender.

The more people became disgusted with this trade, the more did complaints increase to the magistrates of the different towns; but as the courts there would take no cognizance of it, the complainants applied to the states of Holland and West Friesland. These referred the business to the determination of the provincial council at the Hague, which on the 27th of April 1637 declared that it would not deliver its opinion on this traffic until it had received more information on the subject; that in the mean time every vender should offer his tulips to the purchaser; and, in case he refused to receive them, the vender should either keep them, or sell them to another, and have recourse on the purchaser for any loss he might sustain. It was ordered also, that all contracts should remain in force till further inquiry was made. But as no one could foresee what judgement would be given respecting the validity of each contract, the buyers were more obstinate in refusing payment than before; and venders, thinking it much safer to accommodate matters amicably, were at length satisfied with a small profit instead of exorbitant gain; and thus ended this extraordinary traffic, or rather gambling.

It is however certain, that persons fond of flowers, particularly in Holland, have paid, and still pay, very high prices for tulips, as the catalogues of florists show[53]. This may be called the lesser Tulipomania, which has given occasion to many laughable circumstances. When John Balthasar Schuppe was in Holland, a merchant gave a herring to a sailor who had brought him some goods. The sailor, seeing some valuable tulip-roots lying about, which he considered as of little consequence, thinking them to be onions, took some of them unperceived, and ate them with his herring. Through this mistake the sailor’s breakfast cost the merchant a much greater sum than if he had treated the prince of Orange. No less laughable is the anecdote of an Englishman who travelled with Matthews. Being in a Dutchman’s garden, he pulled a couple of tulips, on which he wished to make some botanical observations, and put them in his pocket; but he was apprehended as a thief, and obliged to pay a considerable sum before he could obtain his liberty[54].

Reimman and others accuse Just. Lipsius of the Tulipomania[55]; but if by this word we understand that gambling traffic which I have described, the accusation is unfounded. Lipsius was fond of scarce and beautiful flowers, which he endeavoured to procure by the assistance of his friends, and which he cultivated himself with great care in his garden; but this taste can by no means be called a mania[56]. Other learned men of the same age were fond of flowers, such as John Barclay[57], Pompeius de Angelis, and others, who would probably have been so, even though the cultivation of flowers had not been the prevailing taste. It however cannot be denied, that learned men may be infected with epidemical follies. In the present age, many have become physiognomists because physiognomy is in fashion; and even animal magnetism has met with partisans to support it.

FOOTNOTES

[41] “As we passed, we saw everywhere abundance of flowers, such as the narcissus, hyacinth, and those called by the Turks tulipan, not without great astonishment, on account of the time of the year, as it was then the middle of winter, a season unfriendly to flowers. Greece abounds with narcissuses and hyacinths, which have a remarkably fragrant smell: it is, indeed, so strong as to hurt those who are not accustomed to it. The tulipan, however, have little or no smell, but are admired for their beauty and variety of their colour. The Turks pay great attention to the cultivation of flowers; nor do they hesitate, though by no means extravagant, to expend several aspers for one that is beautiful. I received several presents of these flowers, which cost me not a little.”--Busbequii Ep., Basiliæ, 1740, 8vo, p. 36.Return to passage

[42] See some account of them in Memoriæ populorum ad Danubium by Stritter.Return to passage

[43] The Tulipa sylvestris, Linn. grows wild in the southern parts of France. Dodonæus says, in his Florum coronariarum herbarum historia, Antverpiæ 1569, 8vo, p. 204, “In Thracia et Cappadocia tulipa exit; Italiæ et Belgio peregrinus est flos. Minores alicubi in Gallia Narbonensi nasci feruntur.” Linnæus reckons it among the Swedish plants, and Haller names it among those of Switzerland, but says, afterwards, I do not believe it to be indigenous, though it is found here and there in the meads.--Hist. Stirp. ii. p. 115. It appears that this species is earlier than the common Tulipa Gesneriana, though propagated from it. The useless roots thrown perhaps from Gesner’s garden have grown up in a wild state, and become naturalized, as the European cattle have in America. See Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary, iv. p. 518.Return to passage

[44] See Martini Lexicon Philologicum, and Megiseri Diction. Turcico-Lat., where the word tulbent, a turban, is derived from the Chaldaic.Return to passage

[45] Balbini Miscellanea Bohemiæ, p. 100.Return to passage

[46] Gesneri Epistolæ Medicinales. Tiguri, 1577, 8vo, p. 79 and 80.Return to passage

[47] Vita Peirescii, auctore Gassendo. 1655, 4to, p. 80.Return to passage

[48] Hakluyt says, “And now within these four years there have been brought into England from Vienna in Austria, divers kind of flowers called tulipas, and those and others procured thither a little before, from Constantinople, by an excellent man, Carolus Clusius.” See Biographia Britannica, ii. p. 164. [Gerarde in his Herbal, 1597, speaks of the Tulip in the following manner:--“My loving friend Mr. James Garret, a curious searcher of simples, and learned apothecary in London, hath undertaken to find out, if it were possible, the infinite sorts by diligent sowing of their seeds, and by planting those of his own propagation, and by others received from his friends beyond the seas for the space of twenty years, not being yet able to attain to the end of his travail, for that each new year bringeth forth new plants of sundry colours not before seen; all of which, to describe particularly, were to roll Sisyphus’ stone, or number the sands.”]Return to passage

[49] This word was coined by Menage.Return to passage

[50] The principal works in which an account of this Tulipomania is to be found are,--Eerste Tzamenspraak tuschen Waermondt en Gaargoed nopens deopkomst en ondergang van Flora. Amsterdam, 1643, 12mo.--Meterani Novi, or New History of the Netherlands, part fourth. Amsterdam, 1640, folio, p. 518, from which Marquard, De Jure Mercatorum, p. 181, has taken his information.--Naauwkeurige beschryving der Aardgewassen, door Abraham Munting. Leyden en Utrecht, 1696, folio, p. 907.--De Koophandel van Amsterdam, door Le Long, ii. p. 307.--Le Negoce d’Amsterdam, par J. P. Ricard. A Rouen, 1723, 4to, p. 11.--Breslauer Samlung von Natur- und Kunst-Geschichten, 1721, May, p. 521.--Francisci Schaubühne, vol. ii. p. 639.--Tenzel, Monatliche Unterredungen, 1690, November, p. 1039.--Année Littéraire, 1773, xv. p. 16.--Martini Zeiler Miscellanea, p. 29.--Christ. Funcii Orbis Politicus, p. 879.Return to passage

[51] A perit is a small weight less than a grain.--TRANS.Return to passage

[52] [How well the author’s remarks apply to the recent mania in railway scrip!]Return to passage

[53] In the year 1769, the dearest kinds in England were Don Quevedo and Valentinier; the former cost 2_l._ 2_s._ and the latter 2_l._ 12_s._ 6_d._ See Weston’s Botanicus Universalis, part 2. In the German catalogues none of the prices are so high. The name Semper Augustus is not once to be found in new catalogues. [They still remain flowers of considerable value among florists; for, according to Mr. Hogg, a moderate collection of choice bulbs cannot now be purchased for a sum much less than 1000_l._, at the usual prices.--See Chambers’ Journal, March 15, 1845.]Return to passage

[54] Blainville’s Travels.Return to passage

[55] Introd. in Hist. Lit. iii. 3, p. 92.Return to passage

[56] That he might relax and refresh his mind, worn out by study, he amused himself with the cultivation of his garden and of flowers, and particularly of tulips, the roots of which he was at great pains to procure from all parts of the world, by means of Dodonæus, Clusius, and Boisotus, men singularly well-skilled in horticulture, and by others of his friends. Here, at a distance from civil tumult, with a cheerful countenance and placid eye, he sauntered through his plants and flowers, contemplating sometimes one declining, sometimes another springing up, and forgetting all his cares amidst the pleasure which these objects afforded him. See the Life of Lipsius, prefixed to the edition of his works printed at Antwerp in 1637. This is confirmed by what Lipsius says himself in his book De Constantia, ii. 2, 3, in praise of gardening.Return to passage

[57] He rented a house near to the Vatican, with a garden, in which he had planted the choicest flowers, and those chiefly which are not propagated from seeds or roots, but from bulbs. These flowers were not known about thirty years before, nor had they been ever seen at Rome, but lay neglected in the Alps.--Of these flowers, which have no smell, but are esteemed only on account of their colours, Barclay was remarkably fond, and purchased their bulbs at a great price. Erythræi Pinacotheca. Lips. 1712, 8vo, iii. 17, p. 623. See also Freheri Theatrum, p. 1515.Return to passage

CANARY BIRD

This little bird, highly esteemed for its song, which is reared with so much care, particularly by the fair sex, and which affords an innocent amusement to those who are fond of the wild notes of nature, is a native of those islands from which it takes its name. As it was not known in Europe till the fifteenth century, no account of it is to be met with in any of the works of the old ornithologists. Bellon, who about the year 1555 described all the birds then known, does not so much as mention it. At that period it was brought from the Canary Islands. It was therefore so dear that it could be procured only by people of fortune, and those who purchased were even often imposed on[58]. It was called the sugar-bird, because it was said to be fond of the sugar-cane, and that it could eat sugar in great abundance. This circumstance seems to be very singular; for that substance is to many birds a poison. Experiments have shown, that a pigeon to which four drachms of sugar were given died in four hours, and that a duck which had swallowed five drachms did not live seven hours after. It is certain, therefore, that the power of poison is relative.

The first figure of this bird is given by Aldrovandus, but it is small and inaccurate. That naturalist reckons the Canary bird among the number of those which were scarce and expensive, as it was brought from a distant country with great care and attention. The first good figure of it is to be found in Olina[59]: it has been copied by both Johnston and Willughby.

In the middle of the seventeenth century these birds began to be bred in Europe, and to this the following circumstance, related by Olina, seems to have given occasion. A vessel, which, among other commodities, was carrying a number of Canary birds to Leghorn, was wrecked on the coast of Italy; and these birds, being thus set at liberty, flew to the nearest land, which was the Island of Elba, where they found the climate so favourable, that they multiplied, and perhaps would have become domesticated, had they not been caught in snares; for it appears that the breed of them there has been long since destroyed. Olina says that the breed soon degenerated; but it is probable that these Canary birds, which were perhaps all males, did at the Island of Elba what the European sailors do in India. By coupling with the birds of the island, they may have produced mules. Such hybrids are described by Gesner and other naturalists[60].

The breeding of these birds was at first attended with great difficulty; partly because the treatment and attention they required were not known, and partly because males chiefly, and few females, were brought to Europe. We are told that the Spaniards once forbade the exportation of males, that they might secure to themselves the trade carried on in these birds, and that they ordered the bird-catchers either to strangle the females or to set them at liberty[61]. But this order seems to have been unnecessary; for, as the females commonly do not sing, or are much inferior in the strength of their notes to the males, the latter only were sought after as objects of trade. In the like manner, as the male parrots are much superior in colour to the females, the males are more esteemed, and more of them are brought to Europe than of the females. It is probable, therefore, that in our system of ornithology, many female parrots belonging to species already well-known are considered as distinct species. It was at first believed that those Canary birds bred in the Canary Islands were much better singers than those reared in Europe; but this at present is doubted[62]. In latter times various treatises have been published in different languages, on the manner of breeding these birds, and many people have made it a trade, by which they have acquired considerable gain. It does no discredit to the industry of the Tyrolese that they have carried it to the greatest extent. At Ymst there is a company who, after the breeding season is over, send out persons to different parts of Germany and Switzerland to purchase birds from those who breed them. Each person brings with him commonly from three to four hundred, which are afterwards carried for sale, not only through every part of Germany, but also to England, Russia, and even Constantinople. About sixteen hundred are brought every year to England; where the dealers in them, notwithstanding the considerable expense they are at, and after carrying them about on their backs, perhaps a hundred miles, sell them for five shillings apiece. This trade, hitherto neglected, is now carried on in Schwarzwalde; and at present there is a citizen here at Göttingen, who takes with him every year to England several Canary birds and bullfinches (Loxia pyrrhula), with the produce of which he purchases such small wares as he has occasion for.

The principal food of these birds is the Canary seed, which, as is commonly affirmed, and not improbably, was first brought, for this purpose, from the Canary Islands to Spain, and thence dispersed all over Europe. Most of the old botanists, however, are of opinion that the plant which produces it is the same as that called Phalaris by Dioscorides[63]. Should this be true, it will follow that this kind of grass must have grown wild in other places besides the island it takes its name from; which is not improbable. But those who read the different descriptions which the ancients have given of Phalaris, will, in my opinion, observe that they may be equally applied to more plants; and Pliny seems to have used this name for more than one species of grass[64].

However this may be, it is certain that this seed, when it was used as food for these birds, began to be cultivated first in Spain, and afterwards in the southern parts of France. At present it is cultivated in various parts, and forms no inconsiderable branch of trade, particularly in the island of Sicily, where the plant is called Scagliuola, or Scaghiola. The seed is sold principally to the French and the Genoese. In England, the industrious inhabitants of the Isle of Thanet, particularly those around Margate and Sandwich, gain considerably by this article, as they can easily transport it to London by water.

That this plant might be cultivated with little trouble in Germany, is shown by the yearly experience of those who raise it in their gardens, and by its having become so naturalized in some parts of Hesse, that it propagates by seed of itself in the fields. The use of the seed might also be extended, for it yields a good meal; but the grains are not easily freed from the husks.

I shall here take occasion to remark, that Savary[65] has been guilty of an error, when he says that archil is cultivated in the Canary Islands in order to be sold as food for Canary birds. One may easily perceive that this mistake has arisen from his confounding that lichen used for dyeing with this kind of grass; and I should not have considered it worth notice, had it not been copied into Ludovici’s Dictionary of Trade, from which, perhaps, it may be copied into the works of others.

FOOTNOTES

[58] Gesneri Historiæ Animalium, liber tertius. Tiguri, 1555, fol. p. 234.Return to passage

[59] Uccelliera, overo Discorso della natura di diversi Uccelli. Roma, 1622, 4to.Return to passage

[60] Gesneri redivivi, aucti et emendati, tomus ii. Franc. 1669, fol. p. 62. More information respecting hybrids may be found in Brisson, Ornithologie, t. iii. p. 187; and Frisch, Vorstellung der Vögel in Teutschland, the twelfth plate of which contains several good figures.Return to passage

[61] Coleri Œconomia ruralis et domestica. Franc. 1680, folio.Return to passage

[62] Barrington’s paper in the Phil. Trans. vol. lxiii. p. 249.Return to passage

[63] Phalaris Canariensis. The best figure and description of it are to be found in Schreber’s Beschreibung der Gräser, ii. p. 83, tab. x. 2.Return to passage

[64] Lib. iii. c. 159, and lib. xxvii. c. 12.Return to passage

[65] Dictionnaire de Commerce, t. v. 1765, fol. p. 1149.Return to passage

ARCHIL

Under the names Orseille, Orceille, Orsolle, Ursolle, Orcheil, Orchel, in Italian Oricello[66], Orcella, Roccella, in Dutch Orchillie, and in English Archil, Canary weed or Orchilla weed, is understood a lichen used for dyeing, and from which a kind of paint is also prepared. This species of lichen, of which the best figure and a full description may be seen in Dillenius[67], is by Linnæus called Lichen roccella. It is found in abundance in some of the islands near the African coast, particularly in the Canaries, and in several of the islands in the Archipelago. It grows upright, partly in single partly in double stems, which are about two inches in height. When it is old these stems are crowned with a button, sometimes round and sometimes of a flat form, which Tournefort very properly compares to the excrescences on the arms of the Sepia. Its colour is sometimes a light, and sometimes a dark gray. Of this lichen with lime, urine, ammoniacal salts, or a solution of ammonia prepared by distillation, is formed a dark red paste, which in commerce has the same name, and which is much used in dyeing. That well-known substance called litmus is also made of it.

Theophrastus[68], Dioscorides[69], and their transcriber Pliny[70], give the name of Phycos thalassion or pontion to a plant which, notwithstanding its name, is not a sea-weed but a lichen, as it grew on the rocks of different islands, and particularly on those of Crete or Candia. It had in their time been long used for dyeing wool, and the colour it gave when fresh was so beautiful, that it excelled the ancient purple, which was not red, as many suppose, but violet. Pliny tells us, that with this lichen dyers gave the ground or first tint to those cloths which they intended to dye with the costly purple. At least I so understand, with Hardouin and others, the words conchyliis substernitur, which the French dyers express by the phrase donner le pied.

Though several kinds of lichen produce a similar red dye, I agree in opinion with Dillenius, that Phycos thalassion is our archil; for at present no species is known which communicates so excellent a colour, and which corresponds so nearly with the description of Theophrastus. Besides, it is still collected in the Grecian islands, and it appears that it has been used there since the earliest ages[71].

Tournefort[72] found this lichen in the island Amorgos, which lies on the eastern side of Naxos, and which at present is called Morgo. In his time it was sent to England and Alexandria, at the rate of ten rix-dollars per hundred weight; and he says expressly that it was common in the other islands. He shows from Suidas, Julius Pollux[73], and other ancient writers, that this island was once celebrated for a kind of red linen cloth, which in commerce had the name of the island; and he conjectures, not without probability, that it might have been dyed with this lichen.

Imperati[74] says, that the roccella, of which he gives a figure, was procured from the Levant. This naturalist gives the figure also of a lichen from Candia, used for dyeing, which was then called rubicula, and which, as may be seen in Bauhinus[75], is comprehended under the name of Roccella. Dillenius and Linnæus, however, make it a distinct species; and the latter names it Lichen fuciformis. This distinction is, perhaps, not improper: for the rubicula does not grow like a shrub or bush, as the roccella, but belongs rather to the foliaceous lichens. Be this as it may, it is certain, as Dillenius has remarked, and as I know from my own observation, that L. fuciformis is often mixed with the real roccella, and particularly with that brought from the Canary Islands; but whether it be equally good, experience has not yet taught us.

From what has been said, I think I may venture to conclude that our archil was not unknown to the ancient Grecians. But when was it first employed as a dye by the moderns, and introduced into our commerce? Some writers are of opinion that this drug was first found in the Canary Islands, and afterwards in the Levant. The use of it, therefore, is not older than the last discovery of that island. That this opinion is false, will appear from what follows.

Among the oldest and principal Florentine families is that known under the name of the Oricellarii or Rucellarii, Ruscellai or Rucellai, several of whom have distinguished themselves as statesmen and men of letters. This family are descended from a German nobleman named Ferro or Frederigo, who lived in the beginning of the twelfth century[76]. One of his descendants in the year 1300 carried on a great trade in the Levant, by which he acquired considerable riches, and returning at length to Florence with his fortune, first made known in Europe the art of dyeing with archil. It is said that a little before his return from the Levant, happening to make water on a rock covered with this lichen, he observed that the plant, which was there called respio or respo, and in Spain orciglia, acquired by the urine a purple, or, as others say, a red colour. He therefore tried several experiments; and when he had brought to perfection the art of dyeing wool with this plant, he made it known at Florence, where he alone practised it for a considerable time, to the great benefit of the state. From this useful invention the family received the name of Oricellarii, from which at last was formed Rucellai[77].

As several documents, still preserved among the Florentine archives, confirm the above account of the origin of this family name, from the discovery of dyeing with oricello[78], we may, in my opinion, consider it as certain that the Europeans, and first the Florentines, were made acquainted with this dye-stuff and its use in the beginning of the fourteenth century. At that time the Italians brought from the East the seeds of many arts and sciences, which, afterwards sown and nurtured in Europe, produced the richest harvests; and nothing is more certain than that the art of dyeing was brought to us from the East by the Italians. I do not believe that the merit of having discovered this dye by the above-mentioned accident is due to that Florentine; but I am of opinion that he learnt the art in the Levant, and on his return taught it to his countrymen, which was doing them no small service[79]. After that period the Italians long procured archil from the Levant for themselves, and afterwards for all Europe. I say for a long time, because since the discovery of the Canary Islands the greater part of that substance has been procured from them.

These islands, after being a considerable time lost and forgotten, were again discovered about the end of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century, and since that time they have been much frequented by the Europeans. One of the first who endeavoured to obtain an establishment there, was John de Betancourt, a gentleman of Normandy, who in 1400, or, as others say, in 1417, landed on Lancerotta. Amongst the principal commodities which this gentleman and other Europeans brought back with them was archil, which was found there more beautiful and in greater abundance than anywhere else; and Betancourt enjoyed in idea the great profit which he hoped to derive from this article in commerce. Glass is surprised that the Europeans, immediately upon their arrival, sought after this lichen with as much eagerness and skill as they did after gold in America, though they were not so well acquainted with the former as the latter before the discovery of these new lands[80]. But as this is not true, the wonder will cease.

According to information procured in the year 1731, the island of Teneriffe produced annually five hundred quintals of this moss; Canary, four hundred; Forteventura, Lancerotta, and Gomera, three hundred each; and Fero, eight hundred; making in all two thousand six hundred quintals. In the islands of Canary, Teneriffe and Palma, the moss belongs to the crown; and in the year 1730 it was let by the king of Spain for one thousand five hundred piastres. The farmers paid then for collecting it from fifteen to twenty rials per hundred weight[81]. In the rest of the islands it belongs to private proprietors, who cause it to be collected on their own account. In the beginning of the last century a hundred weight, delivered on board at Santa Cruz, the capital of Teneriffe, was worth from only three to four piastres; but since 1725 it has cost labour amounting to ten piastres, because it has been in great request at London, Amsterdam, Marseilles, and throughout all Italy[82]. In the year 1726 this lichen cost at London eighty pounds sterling per ton, as we are told by Dillenius, and in 1730 it bore the same price.

Towards the end of the year 1730, the captain of an English vessel, which came from the Cape de Verde islands, brought a bag of archil to Santa Cruz by way of trial. He discovered his secret to some Spanish and Genoese merchants, who, in the month of July 1731, resolved to send a ship to these islands. They landed on that of St. Anthony and St. Vincent, where in a few days they obtained five hundred quintals of this lichen, which they found in such abundance, that it cost them nothing more than a piastre per cent. by way of present to the governor. The archil of the Cape de Verde islands appears larger, richer, and longer than that of the Canaries, and this, perhaps, is owing to its not being collected every year[83]. Adanson, in 1749, found also the greater part of the rocks in Magdalen island, near Senegal, covered with this lichen. Though the greater part of our archil is at present procured from the Canary and Cape de Verde islands, a considerable quantity is procured also from the Levant, from Sicily, as Glass says, and from the coast of Barbary; and some years ago the English merchants at Leghorn caused this lichen to be collected in the island of Elba, and paid a high price for it[84].

Our dyers do not purchase raw archil, but a paste made of it, which the French call orseille en pâte. The preparation of it was for a long time kept a secret by the Florentines. The person who, as far as I know, made it first known was Rosetti; who, as he himself tells us, carried on the trade of a dyer at Florence. Some information was afterwards published concerning it by Imperati[85] and Micheli the botanist[86]. In later times this art has been much practised in France, England, and Holland. Many druggists, instead of keeping this paste in a moist state with urine, as they ought, suffer it to dry, in order to save a little dirty work. It then has the appearance of a dark violet-coloured earth, with here and there some white spots in it.

The Dutch, who have found out better methods than other nations of manufacturing many commodities, so as to render them cheaper, and thereby to hurt the trade of their neighbours, are the inventors also of lacmus[87], a preparation of archil called orseille en pierre, which has greatly lessened the use of that en pâte, as it is more easily transported and preserved, and fitter for use; and as it is besides, if not cheaper, at least not dearer. This art consists, undoubtedly, in mixing with that commodity some less valuable substance, which either improves or does not much impair its quality, and which at the same time increases its weight[88]. Thus they pound cinnabar and smalt finer than other nations, and yet sell both these articles cheaper. In like manner they sift cochineal, and sell it at a less price than what is unsifted.

It was for a long time believed that the Dutch prepared their lacmus from those linen rags which in the south of France are dipped in the juice of the Croton tinctorium[89]; and this idea appeared the more probable, as most of this tournesol en drapeaux was bought up by the Hollanders: but, as they are the greatest adulterators of wine in Europe, they may perhaps have used these rags to colour Pontack and other wines. It is however not improbable that they at first made lacmus of them, as their dye approaches very near to that of archil. At present it is almost certainly known that orseille en pâte is the principal ingredient in orseille en pierre, that is in lacmus[90]: and for this curious information we are indebted to Ferber[91]. But whence arises the smell of the lacmus, which appears to me like that of the Florentine iris? Some of the latter may, perhaps, be mixed with it; for I think I have observed in it small insoluble particles, which may have been pieces of the roots. The addition of this substance can be of no use to improve the dye; but it may increase the weight, and give the lac more body; and perhaps it may be employed to render imperceptible some unpleasant smell, for which purpose the roots of that plant are used on many other occasions.

Another kind of lichen, different from the roccella, which in commerce is known by the names orseille de terre, orseille d’Auvergne, is used also for the like purpose; but it contains fewer and weaker colouring particles. This species, in botany, is called Lichen Parellus (Lecanora Parella), and is distinguished from the roccella by its figure, as it grows only in a thin rind on the rocks. It is collected in Auvergne, on rocks of granite and volcanic productions, and in some parts of Languedoc; the greater part of it is brought from St. Flour. Its name, perelle, comes from an old Languedocian word pére (pierre, a rock); as roccella, afterwards transformed into orseille, is derived from rocca. The use of perelle is very trifling: the Dutch purchase it to make lacmus, perhaps on account of its low price. This lichen has been found also in Northumberland[92] and other mountainous districts of Great Britain, but it is not collected there for any purpose.

FOOTNOTES

[66] In the Dictionary of the Academy della Crusca the word oricello is thus explained: Tintura colla quale si tingono i panni, che si fa con orina d’uomo, e con altri ingredienti.Return to passage

[67] Historia Muscorum, Ox. 1741, 4to, p. 120.Return to passage

[68] Hist. Plant. iv. c. 7.Return to passage

[69] Lib. iv. c. 95.Return to passage

[70] Lib. xxvi. c. 10; xxxii. c. 6.Return to passage

[71] Hardouin quotes Aristot. Hist. Animal. vi. c. 9. But that naturalist speaks of a sea-weed which was cast on shore by the Hellespont. A dye or paint was made of it, and the people in the neighbourhood imagined that the purple of this sea-weed, which served as food to certain shell-fish, communicated to them their beautiful dye. A proof that sea-weeds (fuci) can communicate a red colour may be found in the Transactions of the Swedish Academy, iv. p. 29.Return to passage

[72] Voyage du Levant. Amsterd. 1718, 4to, i. p. 89.Return to passage

[73] “Præterea Amorgina, optima quidem in Amorgo fiunt, sed et hæc e lino esse asserunt. Tunica autem Amorgina etiam amorgis nuncupatur.”--Onomasticon, vii. c. 16.Return to passage

[74] Histor. Nat. lib. xxvii. c. 11.Return to passage

[75] Pinax Plant. p. 365. Hist. Plant. iii. 2. p. 796.Return to passage

[76] Other accounts say that he was an Englishman; but the name Frederigo confirms his German extraction.Return to passage

[77] Giornale de’ Letterati d’ Italia, t. xxxiii. parte i. p. 231.Return to passage

[78] These documents from the Florentine records may be found in Dominici Mariæ Manni de Florentinis Inventis Commentarium. Ferrariæ, 1731, p. 37, from which I have extracted the following:--“One of this family resided formerly a long time in the Levant, where he carried on trade, according to the custom of the Florentine nation. Being one day in the fields, and happening to make water on a plant, of which there was great abundance, he observed that it immediately became extraordinarily red. Like a prudent man, therefore, he resolved to make use of this secret of nature, which till that time had lain hid; and having made several experiments on that herb, and finding it proper to dye cloth, he sent some of it to Florence, where, being mixed with human urine and other things, it has always been employed to dye cloth purple. This plant, which is called respo, is in Spain named orciglia, and by botanists commonly corallina. The mixture made with it is called oricello, and has been of great utility and advantage to the woollen manufacture, which is carried on to greater extent in Florence than in any other city. From this circumstance the individuals of that family, by being the inventors of oricello, have been called Oricellai, and have been beloved by the people for having procured to them this particular benefit. Thus has written John di Paolo Rucellai (Manni says that this learned and opulent man wrote in the year 1451); and the same account is still given by dyers in our city, who relate and affirm that their ancestors have for a century exercised the art of dyeing, and that they know the above from tradition.”Return to passage

This is confirmed by another passage:--“One of this family, on account of the trade carried on faithfully and honestly by the Florentines, travelled to the Levant, and brought thence to Florence the art, or rather secret, of dyeing in oricello.”

[79] In the genealogical history of the noble families of Tuscany and Umbria, written by P. D. Eugenio Gamurrini, and published at Florence 1668-1673, 3 vols. in folio, is the following account, vol. i. p. 274, of the origin of this family:--“This family acquired their name from a secret brought by one of them from the Levant, which was that of dyeing in oricello, never before used in this country. On that account they were afterwards called Oricellari, as appears from several records among the archives of Florence, and then by corruption Rucellari and Rucellai. Of their origin many speak, and all agree that they came into Tuscany from Britain.”Return to passage

[80] The History of the Discovery and Conquest of the Canary Islands, by George Glass. London, 1764, 4to.Return to passage

[81] [Dr. Ure copies this information in his Dictionary, but gives it as the return of an official report for the year 1831!]Return to passage

[82] This information is to be found in Hellot’s Art of Dyeing, into which it has been copied, as appears by the Dictionnaire d’Histoire Naturelle, par Valmont de Bomare, from an account written by M. Porlier, who was consul at Teneriffe in 1731.Return to passage

[83] As the archil grows in the African islands, and on the coast of Africa, Glass supposes that the Getulian purple of the ancients was dyed with it; but this opinion is improbable, for Horace praises “Gætula murice tinctas vestes.”Return to passage

[84] Lettres sur l’Histoire Naturelle de l’Isle d’Elbe, par Koestlin. Vienne, 1780, 8vo, p. 100.Return to passage

[85] Lib. xxvii. c. 9.Return to passage

[86] Nova Plantarum Genera. Flor. 1729.Return to passage

[87] Some translate this word lacca musica, musiva.Return to passage

[88] [According to Dr. Ure, the Dutch first reduce the lichen to a fine powder by means of a mill, then mix a certain proportion of potash with it. The mixture is watered with urine and allowed to undergo a species of fermentation. When this has arrived at a certain degree, carbonate of lime in powder is added to give consistence and weight to the paste, which is afterwards reduced into small parallelopipeds, which are carefully dried.]Return to passage

[89] This plant grows in the neighbourhood of Montpelier, and above all, in the flats of Languedoc. In harvest, the time when it is collected, the peasants assemble from the distance of fifteen or twenty leagues around, and each gathers on his own account. It is bruised in a mill, and the juice must be immediately used; some mix with it a thirtieth part of urine. It is poured over pieces of canvas, which they take care to provide, and which they rub between their hands. These rags are dried in the sun, and then exposed, above a stone stove, to the vapour of urine mixed with quick-lime or alum. After they have imbibed the juice of the plant, the same operations are repeated till the pieces of cloth appear of a deep blue colour. They are called in commerce tournesol en drapeaux. Large quantities of them are bought up by the Dutch, who make use of them to colour wines and the rinds of their cheese.--TRANS.Return to passage

[90] [Lacmus or litmus is now prepared from Lecanora tartarea, the famous Cudbear, so called after a Mr. Cuthbert, who first brought it into use. It is imported largely from Norway, where it grows more abundantly than with us; yet in the Highland districts many an industrious peasant gets a living by scraping off this lichen with an iron hoop, and sending it to the Glasgow market.]Return to passage

[91] Linn. Mantissa Plantarum, i. p. 132.Return to passage

[92] See Wallis’s Natural History and Antiquities of Northumberland, 1769, 2 vols. 4to, i. p. 279.Return to passage

MAGNETIC CURES

The external use of the magnet, to cure the tooth-ache and other disorders, is a remedy brought into fashion in modern times, but not a new discovery, as supposed by Lessing, who ascribes it to Paracelsus[93]. It was known to Aëtius, who lived so early as the year 500. That author says, “We are assured that those who are troubled with the gout in their hands or their feet, or with convulsions, find relief when they hold a magnet in their hand[94].” He does not however give any proof of this from his own experience: and perhaps he doubted the truth of it. The above passage contains the oldest account known at present respecting this virtue; for the more ancient writers speak only of the internal use of the magnet.

It is evident therefore that this cure has not been discovered in later times, but that it has been preserved by the old physicians copying it from each other into their works. In like manner, many things are mentioned in the Materia Medica which were used or proposed by the ancients, but into the properties of which they never made sufficient inquiry.

Paracelsus recommended the magnet in a number of diseases, as fluxes, hæmorrhages, &c. Marcellus, who lived in the fifteenth century, assures us that it cures the tooth-ache[95]. The same virtue is ascribed to it by Leonard Camillus[96], who lived in the sixteenth century: and Wecker[97], who was nearly co-temporary, says that the magnet when applied to the head, cures the head-ache; and adds that Holler had taken this cure from the works of the ancients[98]. We read also in Porta[99], that it was recommended for the head-ache; and in Kircher[100], that it was worn about the neck as a preventive against convulsions, and affections of the nerves. About the end of the 17th century magnetic tooth-picks and ear-pickers were made, and extolled as a secret preventive against pains in the teeth, eyes and ears[101].

[In addition to these external uses of the magnet, in which it was supposed to act by a peculiar power over the nervous system, it has been employed on account of its true magnetic properties. Thus Kirkringius, Fabricius Hildanus, and subsequently Morgagni, have used it to remove particles of iron which had accidentally fallen into the eyes. Kircher employed it also to cure hernia. The patient took iron-filings internally; and the loadstone in the state of powder mixed with some vegetable substance, thus forming a magnetic plaster, was applied to the hernia. Even Ambrose Paré states on the authority of a surgeon, that several patients had been thus cured.

About the 16th and early in the 17th century, two cases occurred, one near Prague in Bohemia, the other in Prussia, in which a knife was swallowed, but it unfortunately got too far and passed into the stomach. By the application of these magnetic plasters, the point became attracted towards the surface, so that it could be removed by incision[102].

In the 18th century, after the properties of magnets had begun to be scientifically investigated, they were made of various forms and their effects studied in numerous parts of Europe, and many treatises were published on their supposed properties. Perhaps the most important and best authenticated, are those of MM. Audry and Thouret. These experimenters believed that they were effective agents.

Since that time, the use of magnets as remedial agents has been almost entirely laid aside and forgotten, it having been found that no constancy was exhibited in the results of their application, and that their occasional supposed efficacy depended upon other circumstances, which were overlooked from the sufferers’ attention being engrossed by the magnet. The application of the magnet to remove small particles of iron or steel which have accidentally fallen into the eyes, has been lately revived. In some manufactories, where these minute particles are constantly thrown off in the grinding of hardware and driven into the eyes, large magnets are kept fixed at a proper height, so that the workmen can resort to them immediately. Such is the case for instance at Fairbairne in Belgium, and we believe the same has been adopted in some of our own manufactories to catch the floating particles, and thus to prevent their being drawn into the lungs during respiration. The reader may form some idea of the effective manner in which magnets can be applied, from the following incident which occurred to Prof. Faraday, whilst experimenting with a powerful (electro-) magnet; an iron candlestick which happened to be standing near its poles on the table at which he was at work flew to them, attracted with such violence as to displace or break everything in its way.

In the 18th century, a new supposed magnetic power was discovered, and with various success has continued to be applied to the delusion of the public. About 1770, Father Hehl, a jesuit, the Professor of Astronomy at Vienna, who had great faith in the influence of the loadstone on human diseases, and had invented steel plates of a peculiar form, which he impregnated with magnetic virtues and applied to the cure of diseases, communicated his discoveries to Anton Mesmer, who subsequently invented animal magnetism or mesmerism. Mesmer made use of his friend Hehl’s plates to employ the magnet according to certain notions of his own. In his subsequent experiments magnets were gradually dispensed with, and as practised in modern times, they have been found unnecessary. Hence mesmerism or animal magnetism has no relation to the magnetism of the magnet, and may therefore form the subject of a future article.

About the year 1798, a man named Perkins invented a method of treating various diseases with metallic bars called tractors; these were applied to and drawn over various parts of the body, and were supposed to cure numerous maladies, such as ulcers, head-aches, &c. These instruments were patented. A few years afterwards, Dr. Falconer had wooden tractors made so exactly to resemble those of Perkins, that they could not be distinguished by the eye; on employing these on a large scale at the Bath hospital, he found that exactly the same effects and cures were produced by one as the other. Since that time these tractors have hardly been heard of, and are now forgotten.

Quite recently, a new means has been contrived in England for deluding the public, in the form of rings, which are to be worn upon the fingers or toes, and are said to prevent the occurrence of, and cure various diseases. They are called galvanic rings. But this invention may be with propriety classed with the real magnet, animal magnetism and tractation.

What has been stated relative to the metallic tractors, equally applies to the magnetic rings; for although by the contact of the two metals of which they are composed an infinitesimally minute current of electricity, hence also of magnetism, is generated, still from the absurd manner in which the pieces of metal composing the ring are arranged, and which displays the most profound ignorance of the laws of electricity and magnetism, no trace of the minute current traverses the finger or toe on which the ring is worn; so that a wooden, any other ring, or none at all, would have exactly the same effect, as regards the magnetism or galvanism.]

FOOTNOTES

[93] In his Kollektaneen. Berlin, 1790, ii. p. 117.Return to passage

[94] Aëtii Op. 1. ii. c. 25.Return to passage

[95] In Stephani Artis Med. Princip. ii. p. 253.Return to passage

[96] De Lapidibus, lib. ii. p. 131.Return to passage

[97] J. J. Wecker, De Secretis.Return to passage

[98] I took the trouble to search for this passage in Jac. Hollerii lib. de morbis internis, Parisiis 1711, 4to, but I could not find it, though the beginning of the book treats expressly of head-aches.Return to passage

[99] Magia Naturalis, lib. vii.Return to passage

[100] Kircheri Magnes, sive De Arte Magnetica, lib. iii. c. i.Return to passage

[101] P. Borrelli, Hist. et Observ. Medico-physic. cent. 4. obs. 75.Return to passage

[102] Observations sur l’usage de l’aimant en médecine, par MM. Audry et Thouret.Return to passage

SECRET POISON

Under this name are generally understood all poisons which can be administered imperceptibly, and which gradually shorten the life of man, like a lingering disease. They were not first discovered in the 17th century in France and Italy as many believe, but were known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, by whom they were used. I must however allow, that they were never prepared with more art at any period, or in any country, or employed oftener and with more success, than they were in these countries, and at that time. If it be true that they can be prepared in such a manner as to occasion death at a certain period previously determined, or that the person to whom they are given will die within a certain time limited, it must be confessed that the ancient poisoners have been far exceeded by the modern. But this advantage will be considered as scarcely possible, when one reflects upon the many variable circumstances which have an influence on the operation of medicines and poisons; and it has often happened that a company have swallowed the same poison, at the same time, and in the same quantity, some of whom have died sooner and some later, while some have survived. Thus died Pope Alexander VI. in the year 1503, and Cæsar Borgia recovered without any loss of health, though, by the bottles being changed through mistake, he drank of the poison that had been prepared for the other guests alone. At any rate, I am of opinion that the celebrated Tophania, when she engaged to free wives from disagreeable husbands within stated weeks and days, must have had certain and very accurate information respecting their constitution and manner of living, or, as the physicians say, their idiosyncrasy.

Some physicians have doubted respecting secret poison[103]; and others have only denied that its effects can with certainty be regulated to a fixed time[104]. I agree in opinion with the latter; but the former can be confuted by many examples both of ancient and modern times; for that the ancients were acquainted with this kind of poison, can be proved by the testimony of Plutarch, Quintilian, and other respectable authors. We are told by Plutarch, that a slow poison, which occasioned heat, a cough, spitting of blood, consumption, and a weakness of intellect, was administered to Aratus of Sicyon[105]; and Quintilian in his Declamations, speaks of this poison in such a manner as proves that it must then have been well known[106]. It cannot be said that such an invention was too great for that period, or that it required more knowledge of chemistry than any one possessed; for the Indians in America are acquainted with a most perfect poison of this kind, and can employ it with so much skill, that the person to whom it is given cannot guard against the treachery, even with the utmost precaution, but infallibly dies, though in a lingering manner, often after the expiration of some years[107].

Theophrastus speaks of a poison which could be moderated in such a manner as to have effect in two or three months, or at the end of a year, or two years; and he remarks that the death, the more lingering it was, became the more miserable. This poison was prepared from aconitum, a plant which, on that account, people were forbidden to have in their possession, under pain of capital punishment[108]. He relates also, that Thrasyas had discovered a method of preparing from other plants a poison which, given in small doses of a drachm, occasioned an easy but certain death, without any pain, and which could be kept back for a long time without causing weakness or corruption. This Thrasyas, whose scholar Alexias carried the art still further, was a native of Mantinea, a city in Arcadia, and is celebrated by Theophrastus on account of his abilities, and particularly his knowledge of botany; but those are mistaken who ascribe to him the discovery of secret poison.

This poison was much used at Rome about two hundred years before the Christian æra. As several persons of distinction died the same year at that period, and of the like distemper, an inquiry being made into the cause, a maid-servant gave evidence against some ladies of the first families, who, she said, prepared and distributed poison; and above a hundred and fifty of them were convicted and punished[109]. As so many had learnt this destructive art, it could not be suppressed; and we find sufficient proofs in the Roman history that it was continually preserved. Sejanus caused such a secret poison to be administered by an eunuch to Drusus, who gradually declined afterwards, as by a consumptive disorder, and at length died[110]. Agrippina, being desirous of getting rid of Claudius, but not daring to despatch him suddenly, and yet wishing not to leave him sufficient time to make new regulations respecting the succession to the throne, made choice of a poison which should deprive him of his reason, and gradually consume him. This she caused to be prepared by an expert poisoner, named Locusta, who had been condemned to death for her infamous actions, but saved that she might be employed as a state engine. The poison was given to the emperor in a dish of mushrooms; but as, on account of his irregular manner of living, it did not produce the desired effect, it was assisted by some of a stronger nature[111]. This Locusta prepared also the poison with which Nero despatched Britannicus, the son of Agrippina, whom his father Claudius wished to succeed him on the throne. As this poison occasioned only a dysentery, and was too slow in its operation, the emperor compelled Locusta by blows, and by threatening her with death, to prepare in his presence one more powerful. It was first tried on a kid; but as the animal did not die till the end of five hours, she boiled it a little longer, until it instantaneously killed a pig to which it had been given, and this poison despatched Britannicus as soon as he had tasted it[112]. For this service the emperor pardoned Locusta, rewarded her liberally, and gave her pupils whom she was to instruct in her art, in order that it might not be lost.

The art of preparing this poison must have been well understood also at Carthage. When M. Attilius Regulus, the Roman general, who had been taken by the Carthaginians, was sent to Rome to propose to the senate that the Carthaginian prisoners might be restored in exchange for him, he prevented this negotiation, because he knew that a poison had been administered to him, by which the state would soon be deprived of his services. He returned, therefore, to Carthage, in compliance with the promise he had made to the enemy, who put him to death with the most exquisite torture[113].

All these poisons were prepared from plants, particularly aconite, hemlock and poppy, or extracted from animal substances. Among those made from the latter, none is more remarkable than that supplied by the sea-hare, lepus marinus, with which, as Philostratus says[114], Titus was despatched by Domitian. Without here attempting to define the substances employed by the ancients to compose their poisons, I shall only observe, that the lepus marinus, the terrible effects of which are expressly mentioned by Dioscorides, Galen, Nicander, Aëtius, Ælian[115], Pliny[116], and others, is that animal called at present in the Linnæan system Aplysia depilans[117], as Rondelet conjectured, and has been since fully proved by Bohadsch[118]. This animal poison however seems to have been seldom used, as it easily betrays itself by some peculiar symptoms. It appears that it was not known to Aristotle, at least he makes no mention of it[119]. With the far stronger, and now common mineral poisons the ancients were not acquainted; for their arsenic was what we call orpiment, and not that pernicious metallic oxide which formed the principal ingredient of those secret poisons which in latter times were in France and Italy brought to a diabolical perfection[120].

No one was ever more infamous by this art than Tophania, or Toffana, a woman who resided first at Palermo, and afterwards at Naples. She sold those drops, which from her acquired the name of aqua Tophania, aqua della Toffana, and which were called also acquetta di Napoli, or only acquetta; but she distributed her preparation by way of charity to such wives as wished to have other husbands. From four to six drops were sufficient to destroy a man; and it was asserted that the dose could be so proportioned as to operate in a certain time. As she was watched by the government, she fled to an ecclesiastical asylum; and when Keysler was at Naples in 1730, she was then still living, because no one could, or was willing to take away her life, while under that protection. At that time she was visited by many strangers out of curiosity.

In Labat’s Travels through Italy[121] we also find some information which may serve still further to illustrate the history of Tophania. She distributed her poison in small glass phials, with this inscription, Manna of St. Nicholas of Bari, and ornamented with the image of the saint. A miraculous oil, employed by folly in the cure of many diseases, drops from the tomb of that saint which is shown at Bari in the kingdom of Naples; and on this account it is dispersed in great abundance under the like name. It was therefore the best appellation which Tophania could give to her poison, because the reputed sanctity of it prevented the custom-house officers from examining it too closely. When the viceroy was informed of this, which I think was in 1709, Tophania fled from one convent to another, but was at length seized and thrown into prison. The clergy raised a loud outcry on account of this violation of ecclesiastical freedom, and endeavoured to excite the people to insurrection. But they were soon appeased on a report being spread that Tophania had confessed she had poisoned all the springs in the city. Being put to the rack, she acknowledged her wickedness, and confessed to having caused the death of not less than 600 persons; named those who had protected her, who were immediately dragged from churches and monasteries; and declared that the day before she had absconded, she had sent two boxes of her manna to Rome, where it was found in the custom-house, but she did not accuse any one of having ordered it. She was afterwards strangled, and to mitigate the archbishop, her body was thrown at night into the area of the convent from which she had been taken. Tophania however was not the only person at Naples who understood the making of this poison; for Keysler says that at the time he was there it was still secretly prepared and much employed.

In the year 1659, under the government of Pope Alexander VII., it was observed at Rome that many young married women were left widows, and that many husbands died when they became disagreeable to their wives. Several of the clergy declared also, that for some time past various persons had acknowledged at confession that they had been guilty of poisoning. As the government employed the utmost vigilance to discover these poisoners, suspicion fell upon a society of young married women, whose president appeared to be an old woman who pretended to foretell future events, and who had often predicted very exactly many deaths to persons who had cause to wish for them. To ascertain the truth, a crafty female, given out to be a person of considerable distinction, was sent to this old woman, pretending that she wished to obtain her confidence, and to procure some of her drops for a cruel and tyrannical husband. The whole society were by this stratagem arrested; and all of them, except the fortune-teller, whose name was Hieronyma Spara, confessed before they were put to the torture.--“Where now,” cried she, “are the Roman princes, knights and barons, who on so many occasions promised me their protection! Where are the ladies who assured me of their friendship! Where are my children whom I have placed in so distinguished situations!” In order to deter others from committing the like crime, one Gratiosa, Spara’s assistant, three other women, and the obstinate Spara herself, who still entertained hopes of assistance till the last moment, were hanged in the presence of innumerable spectators. Some months after, several more women were executed in the same manner; some were whipt, and others were banished from the country. Notwithstanding these punishments, the effects of this inveterate wickedness have been from time to time remarked. Le Bret, to whom we are indebted for the above account, says[122] that Spara was a Sicilian, and acquired her knowledge from Tophania at Palermo. If that be true, the latter must have been early initiated in villany, and must have become when very young a teacher of her infamous art. Keysler calls her a little old woman.

The art of poisoning never excited more attention than it did in France about the year 1670[123]. Mary Margaret d’Aubray, daughter of the lieutenant-civil Dreux d’Aubray, was in the year 1651 married to the Marquis de Brinvillier, son of Gobelin president of the Chamber of Accounts, who had a yearly income of thirty thousand livres, and to whom she brought a portion of two hundred thousand. He was mestre-de-camp of the regiment of Normandy, and during the course of his campaigns became acquainted with one Godin de Sainte Croix, a young man of a distinguished family, who served as a captain of cavalry in the regiment of Trassy. This young officer, who was then a needy adventurer, became a constant visitor of the marquis, and in a short time paid his addresses to the marchioness, who lost her husband after she had helped to dissipate his large fortune, and was thus enabled to enjoy her amours in greater freedom. Her indecent conduct, however, gave so much uneasiness to her father, that he procured a lettre de cachet, had Sainte Croix arrested while in a carriage by her side, and thrown into the Bastille[124]. Sainte Croix there got acquainted with an Italian named Exili, who understood the art of preparing poison, and from whom he learnt it. As they were both set at liberty after a year’s imprisonment, Sainte Croix kept Exili with him until he became perfectly master of the art, in which he afterwards instructed the marchioness, in order that she might employ it in bettering the circumstances of both. When she had acquired the principles of the art, she assumed the appearance of a nun, distributed food to the poor, nursed the sick in the Hôtel-Dieu, and gave them medicines, but only for the purpose of trying the strength of her poison undetected on these helpless wretches[125]. It was said in Paris, by way of satire, that no young physician, in introducing himself to practice, had ever so speedily filled a churchyard as Brinvillier. By the force of money, she prevailed on Sainte Croix’s servant, called La Chaussée, to administer poison to her father, into whose service she got him introduced, and also to her brother, who was a counsellor of the parliament, and resided at his father’s house. To the former the poison was given ten times before he died; the son died sooner; but the daughter, Mademoiselle d’Aubray, the marchioness could not poison, because perhaps she was too much on her guard; for a suspicion soon arose that the father and son had been poisoned, and the bodies were opened. She would however have escaped, had not Providence brought to light the villany.

Sainte Croix, when preparing poison, was accustomed to wear a glass mask; but as this once happened to drop off by accident, he was suffocated, and found dead in his laboratory. Government caused the effects of this man, who had no family, to be examined, and a list of them to be made out. On searching them, there was found a small box, to which Sainte Croix had affixed a written request, that after his death it might be delivered to the Marchioness de Brinvillier, or in case she should not be living, that it might be burnt[126]. Nothing could be a greater inducement to have it opened than this singular petition; and that being done, there was found in it a great abundance of poisons of every kind, with labels on which their effects, proved by experiments made on animals, were marked. When the marchioness heard of the death of her lover and instructor, she was desirous to have the casket, and endeavoured to get possession of it, by bribing the officers of justice; but as she failed in this, she quitted the kingdom. La Chaussée, however, continued at Paris, laid claim to the property of Sainte Croix, was seized and imprisoned, confessed more acts of villany than were suspected, and was in consequence broke alive on the wheel in 1673.

A very active officer of justice, named Desgrais, was despatched in search of the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who was found in a convent at Liège, to which she had fled from England. To entice her from this privileged place, which folly had consecrated for the protection of vice, Desgrais assumed the dress of an abbé, found means to get acquainted with her, acted the part of a lover, and, having engaged her to go out on an excursion of pleasure, arrested her. Among her effects at the convent, there was found a confession, written by her own hand, which contained a complete catalogue of her crimes. She there acknowledged that she had set fire to houses, and that she had occasioned the death of more persons than any one ever suspected. She remarked also, that she had continued a virgin only till the seventh year of her age. Notwithstanding all the craft which she employed to escape, she was conveyed to Paris, where she at first denied everything; and, when in prison, she played picquet to pass away the time. She was however convicted, brought to a confession of her enormities, became a convert, as her confessor termed it, and went with much firmness to the place of execution, on the 16th of July, 1676; where, when she beheld the multitude of the spectators, she exclaimed in a contemptuous manner, “You have come to see a fine spectacle!” She was beheaded and afterwards burnt; a punishment too mild for such an offender[127]. As she had been amused with some hopes of a pardon, on account of her relations, when she mounted the scaffold, she cried out, “C’est donc tout de bon![128]”

Among a number of persons suspected of being concerned in this affair, was a German apothecary, named Glaser, who on account of his knowledge in chemistry, was intimate with Exili and Sainte Croix. From him they had both procured the materials which they used, and he was some years confined in the Bastille; but the charge against him being more minutely investigated, he was declared innocent, and set at liberty. He was the author of a Treatise on Chemistry, printed at Paris in 1667, and reprinted afterwards at Brussels in 1676, and at Lyons in 1679.

By the execution of this French Medea, the practice of poisoning was not suppressed; many persons died from time to time under very suspicious circumstances; and the archbishop was informed from different parishes that this crime was still confessed, and that traces of it were remarked both in high and in low families. For watching, searching after, and punishing poisoners, a particular court, called the Chambre de Poison or Chambre ardente, was at length established in 1679. This court, besides other persons, detected two women named La Vigoreux and La Voisin[129], who carried on a great traffic in poisons. The latter was a midwife. Both of them pretended to foretell future events, to call up ghosts, and to teach the art of finding hidden treasures, and of recovering lost or stolen goods. They also distributed philtres, and sold secret poison to such persons as they knew they could depend upon, and who wished to employ them either to get rid of bad husbands, or recover lost lovers. Female curiosity induced several ladies of the first rank, and even some belonging to the court, to visit these women, particularly La Voisin; and who, without thinking of poison, only wished to know how soon a husband, a lover, the king or his mistress, would die. In the possession of La Voisin was found a list of all those who had become dupes to her imposture. They were arrested and carried before the above-mentioned court, which, without following the usual course of justice, detected secret crimes by means of spies, instituted private trials, and began to imitate the proceedings of the holy inquisition. In this list were found the distinguished names of the Countess de Soissons, her sister the Duchess de Bouillon, and Marshal de Luxembourg. The first fled to Flanders to avoid the severity and disgrace of imprisonment; the second saved herself by the help of her friends; and the last, after he had been some months in the Bastille, and had undergone a strict examination, by which he almost lost his reputation, was set at liberty as innocent. Thus did the cruel Louvois the war minister, and the Marchioness de Montespan, ruin those who opposed their measures. La Vigoreux and La Voisin were burnt alive on the 22nd of February 1680, after their hands had been bored through with a red-hot iron and cut off. Several persons of ordinary rank were punished by the common hangman; those of higher rank, after they had been declared by this tribunal not guilty, were set at liberty; and in 1680 an end was put to the Chambre ardente, which in reality was a political inquisition.

It is certain that notwithstanding such punishments, like crimes have given occasion to unjust succession both in Italy and in France, and that attempts have been made for the same purpose even in the northern kingdoms. It is known that in Denmark Count Corfitz de Ulfeld was guilty, though it was not proved, of having intended to give the king a poison, which should gradually destroy him like a lethargy[130]. Charles XI. also, king of Sweden, died by the effects of such a poison. Having ruined several noble families by seizing on their property, and having after that made a journey to Torneo, he fell into a consumptive disorder which no medicine could cure. One day he asked his physician in a very earnest manner, what was the cause of his illness? The physician replied, “Your majesty has been loaded with too many maledictions.” “Yes,” returned the king, “I wish to God that the reduction of the nobility’s estates had not taken place, and that I had never undertaken a journey to Torneo!” After his death his intestines were found to be full of small ulcers[131].

The oftener poisoning in this manner happens, the more it is to be wished that preventives and antidotes were found out, and that the symptoms were ascertained; but this is hardly possible as long as it is not known of what the poison properly consists. Governments, however, have wisely endeavoured to conceal the recipes, by suppressing the criminal procedures. Pope Alexander VII. caused them to be shut up in the castle of St. Angelo; in France, it is said, they were burnt together with the criminals; in Naples only the same precaution was not taken. I do not know that observations on the bodies of persons destroyed by slow poison have been ever published; for what Pitaval says on that subject is not sufficient[132]. People talk of powders and pills, but the greater part of this kind of poison appears to be a clear insipid water, and that prepared by Tophania never once betrayed itself by any particular effects on the body. The sale of aqua-fortis was a long time forbidden at Rome, because it was considered as the principal ingredient; but this is very improbable. At Paris it was once believed that succession powder consisted of diamond dust pounded exceedingly fine. Without assenting to this idea, one may contradict Voltaire, who conceives that diamond dust is not more prejudicial than powder of coral. It may be rather compared to that fine sand which is rubbed off from our mill-stones, and which we should consider and guard against as a secret poison, were we not highly negligent and careless of our health in the use of food[133]. In the casket of Sainte Croix were found corrosive sublimate, opium, regulus of antimony, vitriol, and a large quantity of poison ready prepared, the principal ingredients of which the physicians were not able to distinguish. Many have affirmed that sugar of lead was the chief ingredient[134]; but the consequences of the poison did not seem to indicate the use of that metal. For some years past a harmless plant, which is only somewhat bitter and astringent, the ivy-leaved Toadflax (Linaria Cymbalaria), that grows on old walls, has been loaded with the opprobrium of producing this slow poison, while at the same time it has been celebrated by others on account of its medicinal properties; but it is perhaps not powerful enough to do either mischief or good; and it is probable that it has been added to poisons either through ignorance, or to conceal other ingredients; for the emperor Charles VI., who was king of the Two Sicilies at the time when Tophania was arrested, told his physician Garelli, who communicated the same in a letter[135] to the celebrated Hoffmann, in 1718 or 1719, that the poison of that Italian Circe was composed of an arsenical oxide, dissolved in aqua cymbalariæ, and which I suppose was rendered stronger and more difficult to be detected by a salt that may be readily guessed. It is dreadful to think that this secret poison is administered as a febrifuge by ignorant or unprincipled physicians, quacks, and old women. It drives off obstinate fevers, it is true; but it is equally certain that it hastens death: it is therefore a cure, which is far worse than the disease, and against which governments and physicians cannot exclaim too severely. It was remarked at Rome, by accident, that lemon juice and the acid of lemons are, in some measure, counter-poisons; and a physician named Paul Branchaletti, respecting whom I can find no information, wrote a book expressly on this antidote to these drops, according to the account of Keysler, who however adds, “Everything hitherto found out, supposes that one has taken the drops only for a short time, or that one has had an opportunity to be upon one’s guard when suspicious circumstances occurred, and to discover the threatened danger.”

It seems to be almost certain that the poisons prepared by Tophania and Brinvillier were arsenical mixtures, or, as Dr. Hahneman[136] rightly conjectures, neutral salts of arsenic. Loss of appetite, faintness, gnawing pains in the stomach, loss of strength without any visible cause, a continual indisposition, followed by a wasting of the viscera, a slow fever, &c., are all symptoms which seem to announce that dangerous metallic oxide. The opinion, however, that it was composed of opium and cantharides has, in latter times, received so many confirmations, that one is almost induced to believe that there are more kinds than one of this Stygian water. The information given by the abbé Gagliani, seems to carry too much weight with it to be denied[137]. It is confirmed also by M. Archenholz[138]; but what he says of the use made of Spanish flies, by the Chinese, to invigorate the sixth sense, gives reason to suspect that his voucher is L’Espion Dévalisé, to whom the abbé Gagliani ascribes the same words. It appears to me, however, if I may be allowed to judge from probabilities, that the poison known in the East Indies under the name of powst is also water which has stood a night over the juice of poppies. It is given in the morning fasting to those persons, and particularly princes, whom people wish to despatch privately, and without much violence. It consumes them slowly, so that they at length lose all their strength and understanding, and in the end die torpid and insensible[139].

[Chemical science has made such rapid progress of late years, that there are but few, if any, poisonous substances which cannot be detected with certainty. The improved state of our medical knowledge, and the institution of coroners’ inquests in all cases where any suspicion of the cause of death occurs, fortunately renders secret poisoning almost, if not quite impossible, at least in this country.]

FOOTNOTES

[103] Heberden in the Neue Hamburg. Mag. xvii. p. 219. I am convinced that many of the accounts we have of the extraordinary effects of poison are fabricated, like those mentioned in Frid. Hoffmanni Dissert. de Læsionibus externis, abortivis Venenis ac Philtris. Francof. 1729, et recusa Lips. 1755. That author, however, denies some which are true. It is, for example, certain that camphor and rue do not produce the effects ascribed to them by Dioscorides, Paulus Ægineta, and others; but there are without doubt other substances which will produce these effects.Return to passage

[104] Sennerti Instit. Med. ii. 2, 12.Return to passage

[105] He gave to Aratus a poison, not speedy and violent, but of that kind which at first occasions a slow heat in the body, with a slight cough, and then gradually brings on a consumption. One time, when Aratus spat up blood, he said, “This is the effect of royal friendship.” See Plutarch, Vit. Arati.Return to passage

[106] Quint. Declamat. xvii. 11.Return to passage

[107] With the poison of the Indians, however, the ancients could not be acquainted, as it is prepared from a plant unknown in Europe before the discovery of America. Kalm, in his Travels, does not name it, and in that he has done right; for, as the plant is now to be found everywhere, no government could guard against a misapplication of it, were it publicly known.Return to passage

[108] They say a poison can be prepared from aconite so as to occasion death within a certain period, such as two, three, or six months, a year, and even sometimes two years. Those, we are told, whose constitutions are able to hold out longest, die in the greatest misery; for the body is gradually consumed, and must perish by continual wasting. Those die easiest who die speedily. No remedy has been found out for this poison.--Theophr. Hist. Plant. ix. c. 16.Return to passage

[109] Livius, lib. viii. c. 18.Return to passage

[110] Taciti Annal. lib. iv. c. 8.Return to passage

[111] The account given by Tacitus deserves to be read; see lib. xii. c. 66.Return to passage

[112] The history of this horrid affair may be found both in Tacitus, Annal. xiii. c. 15 and 16, and in Suetonius, vi. cap. 33. Respecting Locusta, see also Juvenal, sat. i. 71.Return to passage

[113] This account is given by Aulus Gellius from the now lost works of Tuditanus.--Noct. At. lib. vi. cap. 4. Cicero often speaks of the magnanimity of Regulus; as, for example, in his Oration against Piso, and in his Offices, book iii. chap. 27; but he makes no mention of his having been poisoned. Valerius Maximus also, book i. chap. i. 14, says nothing of poison.Return to passage

[114] Apollonii Vit. lib. vi. c. 14.Return to passage

[115] Histor. Animal. lib. ii. c. 45.Return to passage

[116] Lib. ix. c. 48, and lib. xxxii. c. 1.Return to passage

[117] In Linnæi Systema Nat., through an error of the press, stands Laplysia, which word has since become common. Ἀπλυσία signifies an uncleanness which cannot be washed off; and in Aristotle’s History of Animals, b. v. ch. 15, and Pliny, b. ix. ch. 45, it is the name of a zoophyte. In the like manner other errors in the System of Linnæus have been copied into the works of others, such as Dytiscus instead of Dyticus, &c.Return to passage

[118] J. B. Bohadsch De quibusdam animalibus marinis. Dresdæ, 1761, 4to, p. 1-53. In this work there is a full description, with a figure of this animal, under the name of Lernæa, which was used in the first editions of Linnæus.Return to passage

[119] The accounts given by the ancients of the sea-hare have been collected in Grevini Lib. de Venenis, Antverpiæ 1571, p. 209. In the Annals of Glycas, iii. (Script. Byz.), it is said that Titus was despatched by this poison; and in the first book, b. 27, he says the sea-hare occasions speedy and inevitable destruction to man.Return to passage

[120] See Stenzelii Diss. de venenis terminatis et temporaneis, quæ Galli les poudres de succession vocant; resp. J. G. Arnold. Vitebergæ, 1730. This tract contains several historical relations; but the reader is often referred to authors who either do not say that for which they were quoted, or who must relate the same thing in a different manner in some other place. As for example, Galen in b. ii. c. 7, De Antidotis, speaks of poisons without mentioning secret poison in particular. Avicenna is made to say, in his book De Viribus Cordis, that the Egyptian kings often employed this poison; but if by that quotation we are to understand Fen. undecima de dispositionibus cordis, I have sought for this information in vain. In lib. iv. fen. 6. tract. 2. c. 14, it is said “Fel canis aquatici interficit post hebdomadam.” Rhodiginus also does not relate that for which he is quoted by Stenzel. p. 7.Return to passage

[121] Vol. iv. p. 33.Return to passage

[122] J. F. le Bret, Magazin zum Gebrauche der Staaten und-Kirchen-Geschichte, part iv. Francf. and Leips. 1774, 8vo, p. 131-141.Return to passage

[123] The following account is collected from Causes celèbres, par M. Guyot de Pitaval, tome i.--Lettres de Mad. de Sevigné, tome iv.--Histoire du Règne de Louis XIV., par M. de Reboulet. Avignon, 1746, v. p. 159.--Histoire de Louis XIV., par M. B. de la Martinière, 1740, iv. p. 229.--Le Siècle de Louis XIV., par Voltaire, etc.Return to passage

[124] Voltaire says that the father did not get Sainte Croix thrown into the Bastille, but sent to his regiment. This however is not the case, for this reprobate was at that time not in the army.Return to passage

[125] This circumstance is denied by Voltaire, but only, as appears, to contradict Pitaval, whom he calls un avocat sans cause.Return to passage

[126] This request was as follows:--“I humbly beg that those into whose hands this box may fall, will do me the favour to deliver it into the hands only of the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who resides in the Rue Neuve Saint Paul, as everything it contains concerns her, and belongs to her alone; and as, besides, there is nothing in it that can be of use to any persons except her; and in case she shall be dead before me, to burn it, and everything it contains, without opening or altering anything; and in order that no one may plead ignorance, I swear by the God whom I adore, and by all that is most sacred, that I advance nothing but what is true. And if my intentions, just and reasonable as they are, be thwarted in this point, I charge their consciences with it, both in this world and the next, in order that I may unload mine, protesting that this is my last will. Done at Paris this 25th of May in the afternoon, 1672.Return to passage

“DE SAINTE CROIX.”

[127] Martinière says that she was burnt alive, together with all the papers respecting her trial. The latter is improbable, and the former certainly false, notwithstanding the account given in the Encyclopédie.Return to passage

[128] The following description of Brinvillier may perhaps be of use to our physiognomists:--“In order to satisfy the curiosity of those who may be desirous of knowing if such a celebrated criminal partook of the beauties of her sex, I shall observe that nature had not been sparing of them to the marchioness; her features were exceedingly regular, and the form of her face, which was round, was very graceful. This beautiful outside concealed a heart extremely black. Nothing proves more that metoposcopy, or the science of physiognomy, is false; for this lady had that serene and tranquil air which announces virtue.”--Pitaval, p. 269.Return to passage

[129] Some information respecting La Voisin may be found in Lettres Historiques et Galantes par Madame de C----. A Cologne, 1709-1711, 4 vols. 12mo, ii. p. 101, and iv. p. 376. The authoress of these letters was Mad. du Noyer.Return to passage

[130] Leben des Grafen von Ulfeld, von H. P. aus dem Dänischen übersetzt. Copenhagen und Leipzig, 1775, 8vo, p. 200.Return to passage

[131] This anecdote was told to me by the celebrated Linnæus. An account of what appeared on opening the body of this prince may be seen in Baldinger’s Neues Magazin für Aerzte, vol. i. p. 91.Return to passage

[132] “The lieutenant-civil continued still to grow worse. After having languished a long time, being seized with a loathing of every kind of food presented to him, his vomitings still continuing, and nature being at length exhausted, he expired without any fever. The three last days he had wasted very much; he was become extremely shrunk, and he felt a great heat in his stomach. When opened, that part and the duodenum were found to be black, and sloughing off in pieces; the liver was mortified, and as it were burnt. The counsellor was ill three months, had the like symptoms as the lieutenant-civil, and died in the same manner. When opened, his stomach and liver were found in a similar state.”--pp. 274, 275.Return to passage

[133] In one year a ton of sand, at least, which is baked with the flour, is rubbed off from a pair of mill-stones. If a mill grinds only 4385 bushels annually, and one allows no more than twelve bushels to one man, a person swallows in a year above six pounds, and in a month half a pound of pulverized sandstone, which, in the course of a long life, will amount to upwards of three hundred weight. Is not this sufficient to make governments more attentive to this circumstance?Return to passage

[Although not very agreeable to the reader to learn that he swallows above six pounds of mill-stone powder in the course of the year, it may perhaps ease his mind to know that the learned author is entirely mistaken in regarding it as a poison. The inhabitants of the northern countries of Europe frequently mix quartz powder with their heavy food to assist in its digestion; and we are informed by Professor Ehrenberg, that in times of scarcity, the inhabitants of Lapland mix the siliceous shells of some species of fossil Infusoria with the ground bark of trees for food. It is probably from this circumstance that the infusorial deposit derives its name of Berg-mehl, or Mountain-meal.]

[134] For the following important information I am indebted to Professor Baldinger:--“There is no doubt that the slow poison of the French and Italians, commonly called succession powder (poudre de la succession), owes its origin to sugar of lead. I know a chemist who superintends the laboratory of a certain prince on the confines of Bohemia, and who by the orders (perhaps not very laudable) of his patron, has spent much time and labour in strengthening and moderating poisons. He has often declared, that of sugar of lead, with the addition of some more volatile corrosive, a very slow poison could be prepared; which, if swallowed by a dog or other animal, would insensibly destroy it, without any violent symptoms, in the course of some weeks or months.”Return to passage

[135] Garelli, the emperor’s principal physician, lately wrote to me something remarkable in the following words:--“Your elegant dissertation on the errors respecting poisons brought to my recollection a certain slow poison, which that infamous poisoner, still alive in prison at Naples, employed to the destruction of upwards of six hundred persons. It was nothing else than crystallised arsenic, dissolved in a large quantity of water by decoction, with the addition, but for what purpose I know not, of the herb cymbalaria. This was communicated to me by his imperial majesty himself, to whom the judicial procedure, confirmed by the confession of the criminal, was transmitted. This water, in the Neapolitan dialect, is called aqua del Toffnina. It is certain death, and many have fallen a sacrifice to it.”--Hoffmanni Med. Rationalis System., p. ii. c. 2. § 19.Return to passage

[136] Ueber die Arsenikvergiftung. Leips. 1786, 8vo, p. 35.Return to passage

[137] On the 20th of December, 1765, died the dauphin, father of Louis XVI., and in 1767 died the dauphiness. It was a public report that they were both despatched by secret poison: and the gradual decline of their health, the other circumstances which accompanied their illness, and the cabals which then existed at court, make this at least not improbable. Many private anecdotes respecting these events may be found in a book entitled L’Espion Dévalisé. Feliciter audax. London, 1782. In page 61 it is said, that on account of the suspicions then entertained, it was wished that information might be procured respecting secret poison, and the methods of preparing it; and that the abbé Gagliani, well known as a writer, has given the following:--“It is certain that in Europe the preparation of these drugs renders them pernicious and mortal. For example, at Naples the mixture of opium and cantharides, in known doses, is a slow poison; the surest of all, and the more infallible as one cannot mistrust it. At first it is given in small doses, that its effects may be insensible. In Italy we call it aqua di Tufania, Tufania water. No one can avoid its attacks, because the liquor obtained from that composition is as limpid as rock water, and without taste. Its effects are slow and almost imperceptible: a few drops of it only are poured into tea, chocolate, or soup, &c. There is not a lady at Naples who has not some of it lying carelessly on her toilette with her smelling-bottles. She alone knows the phial, and can distinguish it. Even the waiting-woman, who is her confidant, is not in the secret, and takes this phial for distilled water, or water obtained by precipitation, which is the purest, and which is used to moderate perfumes when they are too strong.Return to passage

“The effects of this poison are very simple. A general indisposition is at first felt in the whole frame. The physician examines you, and perceiving no symptoms of disease, either external or internal, no obstructions, no collection of humours, no inflammations, orders detergents, regimen, and evacuation. The dose of poison is then doubled, and the same indisposition continues without being more characterized. The physician, who can see in this nothing extraordinary, ascribes the state of the patient to viscous and peccant humours, which have not been sufficiently carried off by the first evacuation. He orders a second--a third dose--a third evacuation--a fourth dose. The physician then sees that the disease has escaped him; that he has mistaken it, and that the cause of it cannot be discovered but by changing the regimen. He orders the waters, &c. In a word, the noble parts lose their tone, become relaxed and affected, and the lungs particularly, as the most delicate of all, and one of those most employed in the functions of the animal œconomy. The first illness then carries you off; because the critical accumulation settles always on the weak part, and consequently on the lobes of the lungs; the pus there fixes itself, and the disease becomes incurable. By this method they follow one as long as they choose for months, and for years. Robust constitutions resist a long time. In short, it is not the liquor alone that kills, it is rather the different remedies, which alter and then destroy the temperament, exhaust the strength, extenuate and render one incapable of supporting the first indisposition that comes.”

[138] England und Italien, ii. p. 354.Return to passage

[139] Universal History, xxiii. p. 299-323.--The information contained there is taken from Fraser’s History of Nadir Shah. Aurengzebe also caused one of his sons to be put to death by this poison.Return to passage

WOODEN BELLOWS

After the discovery of fire, the first instrument employed to blow it and strengthen it, has undoubtedly been a hollow reed, until the art was found out of forming a stick into a pipe by boring it. Our common bellows, which consist of two boards joined together by a piece of leather, and which probably are an imitation of the lungs, appear to have been early known to the Greeks. I have, however, met with no passage in any ancient author from which I could learn the oldest construction of this machine, which in latter times has received many improvements. Had I found such information, I should have endeavoured to explain it, as it would have contributed to enlarge the knowledge we have of the metallurgy of the ancients.

It may be remarked on the following lines of Virgil,

... Alii taurinis follibus auras Accipiunt redduntque[140]....

that bull’s leather is unfit for bellows, and that ox or cow leather only can be used for that purpose; but accuracy is not to be expected in a poet; and besides, Virgil is not the only author who employs the expression folles taurinos; for Plautus says also, “Quam folles taurini habent, cum liquescunt petræ, ferrum ubi fit.”

Strabo[141] tells us, from an old historian, that Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher, who lived in the time of Solon, invented the bellows, the anchor, and the potter’s wheel: but this account is very doubtful, as Pliny, Seneca[142], Diogenes Laërtius[143], and Suidas, who likewise speak of the inventions ascribed to that philosopher, mention only the last two, and not the bellows: besides, Strabo himself remarks that the potter’s wheel is noticed in Homer, and this poet is certainly older than Anacharsis. The latter, perhaps, became acquainted with that useful instrument during the course of his travels, and on his return, made his countrymen first acquainted with it. However this may be, it is well known that the person who introduces a foreign invention among a people, is often considered as the author of it.

In the oldest smelting-houses the bellows were worked by men. Refuse, therefore, and other remains of metal, are often found in places where until a recent period no works could be erected, on account of the want of water.

Bellows made with leather, of which I have hitherto spoken, are attended with many inconveniences. They require careful management; are expensive in their repairs; and besides last often not more than six or seven years. If thin leather is employed, it suffers a great deal of the air to escape through it; an evil which must be guarded against by continually besmearing it with train-oil, or other fat substances; and this is even necessary when thick leather is used, to prevent it from cracking in the folds. Damage by fire and water must also be avoided; and every time they are repaired, the leather must be again softened with oil, which occasions a considerable loss of time.

In wooden bellows these inconveniences are partly lessened, and partly remedied. As these bellows, except the pipe, consist entirely of wood, many, who are not acquainted with the construction of them, can hardly conceive the possibility of making such a machine. Though they cannot be properly described without a figure, I shall endeavour to give the reader some idea of them by the following short sketch. The whole machine consists of two boxes placed the one upon the other, the uppermost of which can be moved up and down upon the lower one, in the same manner as the lid of a snuff-box, which has a hinge, moves up and down when it is opened or shut; but the sides of the uppermost box are so broad as to contain the lower one between them, when it is raised to its utmost extent. Both boxes are bound together, at the smallest end, where the pipe is, by a strong iron bolt. It may be readily comprehended, that when both boxes fit each other exactly, and the upper one is raised over the under one, which is in a state of rest, the space contained by both will be increased; and consequently more air will rush in through the valve in the bottom of the lower one; and when the upper box is again forced down, this air will be expelled through the pipe. The only difficulty is to prevent the air, which forces its way in, from escaping anywhere else than through the pipe; for it is not to be expected that the boxes will fit each other so closely as to prevent entirely the air from making its way between them. This difficulty, however, is obviated by the following simple and ingenious method. On the inner sides of the uppermost box there are placed moveable slips of wood, which, by means of metal springs, are pressed to the sides of the other box, and fill up the space between them. As these long slips of wood might not be sufficiently pliable to suffer themselves to be pressed close enough, and as, though planed perfectly straight at first, they would in time become warped in various directions, incisions are made in them across through their whole length, at the distance of from fifteen to eighteen inches from each other, so as to leave only a small space in their thickness, by which means they acquire sufficient pliability to be everywhere pressed close enough to the sides[144].

The advantages of these wooden bellows are very great. When made of clean fir-wood without knots, they will last thirty or forty years, and even longer, though continually kept in action forty-six or forty-eight weeks every year: nay, Polhem assures us, that, when properly made, they will last a century. The effect produced by them is stronger, as well as more uniform, and can be moderated according to circumstances. They are worked also with greater facility. The slips of wood on their sides are apt to become damaged; but they can soon and easily be repaired. Every three or four months, however, the outer sides only of the inner box, and the bolt which keeps the boxes together, must be smeared with oil. If we reckon up the price of such bellows, and the yearly expense, they will, according to Grignon’s account, be only a fifth part of those of the old leather bellows.

That the invention of these wooden bellows belongs to the Germans, is certain. Grignon[145] expressly affirms so; and in Becher’s[146] time they were to be found in Germany, but not in England. Genssane, who ascribes the invention to the Swiss, is certainly mistaken; and perhaps he was led into this error, because these bellows were first made known in France by a Swiss. I cannot, however, ascertain the name of the real inventor. In the middle of the sixteenth century lived at Nuremberg an artist called Hans Lobsinger, who, in the year 1550, gave to the magistrates of that city a catalogue of his machines. From this catalogue Doppelmayer concludes that he understood the art of making small and large bellows without leather, and entirely of wood, which could be used in smelting-houses and for organs, and likewise copper bellows that always emitted a like degree of wind. As Lobsinger made organs, he, perhaps, fell upon this invention; but in what it actually consisted, or whether it might not have died with him, I have not been able to learn. Agricola, who died in the year 1555, makes no mention of wooden bellows.

Samuel Reyher, formerly professor at Kiel, in a dissertation on air[147], printed there in 1669, tells us, that about forty years before that period, two brothers, Martin and Nicholas Schelhorn, millers at the village of Schmalebuche in Coburg, first invented wooden bellows. Both the brothers, he says, kept the invention secret, though he thinks they did not conceal it so closely as to prevent its being guessed at; and he relates also how he himself formed an idea of it[148].

To these bellows Schluter has assigned a much nobler inventor, who, perhaps, was the first person who made them known by a description. He says expressly that they were invented by a bishop of Bamberg[149]: but of this I have been able to find no confirmation; and I am inclined to ascribe that service rather to an organ-builder, or a miller, than to a bishop. According to Schluter’s account, these bellows were employed so early as the year 1620, in the Harz forest, to which they were first brought by some people from Bamberg. What Calvor says respecting the introduction of these bellows into the Harz forest is much more probable; that in the year 1621 Lewis Pfannenschmid, from Thuringia, settled at Ostfeld near Goslar, and began to make wooden bellows. The bellows-makers of that place conspired therefore against him, and swore they would put him to death; but he was protected by the government. He would disclose his art to no one but his son, who, as well as his grandson a few years ago, had the making of all the bellows in the forest.

We are told by French authors, that the art of making these bellows was introduced into France, particularly into Berry, Nivernois, and Franche Comté, by a German.

FOOTNOTES

[140] Georg. iv. 171.Return to passage

[141] Lib. vii.Return to passage

[142] Epist. 90.Return to passage

[143] Lib. i. 8.Return to passage

[144] A complete description and a figure of these bellows may be found in Schluter’s Unterricht von Hütten-werken. Brunswick, 1738.--Traité de la fonte des mines par le feu du charbon de terre; par M. de Genssane. Paris, 1770, 2 vols. 4to. [Ure’s Dictionary, p. 1128, also contains an excellent figure of these wooden bellows.]Return to passage

[145] “Germany is the country of machines. In general the Germans lessen manual labour considerably by machines adapted to every kind of movement; not that we are destitute of able mechanics; we have the talent of bringing to perfection the machines invented by our neighbours.”--P. 200. [This remark of Grignon will sound rather odd to English ears.]Return to passage

[146] Becher’s Narrische Weisheit und weise Narrheit. Frankfort, 1683, 12mo, p. 113.Return to passage

[147] In this dissertation, the time of the invention is stated to be about forty years before, which would be the year 1629 or 1630; but in an improved edition, printed with additions at Hamburg, in 1725, a different period is given. “About eighty years ago,” says the author, “a new kind of bellows, which ought rather to be called the pneumatic chests, was invented in the village of Schmalebuche, in the principality of Coburg, in Franconia. Two brothers, millers in that village, Martin and Nicholas Schelhorn, by means of some box made by them, the lid of which fitted very exactly, found out these chests, as I was told by one of their friends, a man worthy of credit. These chests are not of leather, but entirely of wood joined together with iron nails. In blacksmiths’ shops they are preferred to those constructed with leather, because they emit a stronger blast, as leather suffers the more subtile part of the air to escape through its pores.”Return to passage

[148] In many places these bellows were at first put in a wooden case, to prevent their construction from being known.Return to passage

[149] In J. P. Ludewig, Scriptores Rerum Episcopatus Bambergensis. Francof. 1718, fol. Where any bishop of latter times is praised, I find no mention of this useful and ingenious invention.Return to passage

COACHES

If by this name we are to understand every kind of covered carriage in which one can with convenience travel, there is no doubt that some of them were known to the ancients. The arcera, of which mention is made in the twelve tables, was a covered carriage used by sick and infirm persons[150]. It appears to have been employed earlier than the soft lectica, and by it to have been brought into disuse. A later invention is the carpentum, the form of which may be seen on antique coins, where it is represented as a two-wheeled car with an arched covering, and which was sometimes hung with costly cloth[151]. Still later were introduced the carrucæ, first mentioned by Pliny; but so little is known of them, that antiquaries are uncertain whether they had only one wheel, like our wheelbarrows, or, as is more probable, four wheels. This much, however, is known, that they were first-rate vehicles, ornamented with gold and precious stones, and that the Romans considered it as an honour to ride in those that were remarkably high[152]. In the Theodosian code the use of them is not only allowed to civil and military officers of the first rank, but commanded as a mark of their dignity[153].

After this, covered carriages seem more and more to have become appendages of Roman pomp and magnificence; but the manner of thinking which prevailed under the feudal system banished the use of them for some time. As it was of the greatest importance to the feudal lords that their vassals should be always able to serve them on horseback, they could not think of indulging them with elegant carriages. They foresaw that by such luxury the nobility would give over riding on horseback, and become much more indolent and less fit for military service. Masters and servants, husbands and wives, clergy and laity, all rode upon horses or mules, and sometimes women and monks upon she-asses, which they found more convenient. The minister rode to court, and the horse, without any conductor, returned alone to his stable, till a servant carried him back to court to fetch his master. In this manner the magistrates of the imperial cities rode to council in the beginning of the sixteenth century; so that in the year 1502 steps to assist in mounting were erected by the Roman gate at Frankfort[154]. The members of the council who, at the diet and on other occasions, were employed as ambassadors, were on this account called Rittmeister; and even at present the expression riding servant is preserved in some of the imperial cities. The public entry of great lords into any place, or their departure from it, was never in a carriage, but on horseback; and in all the works which speak of the papal ceremonies there is no mention of a state coach or body coachmen, but of state horses or state mules. It was necessary that a horse for his holiness should be of a gray colour; not mettlesome however, but a quiet, tractable nag; that a stool with three steps should be brought to assist him to mount, and the emperor and kings, if present, were obliged to hold his stirrup and to lead the horse[155], &c. Bishops made their public entrance on horses or asses richly decorated[156]. At the coronation of the emperor, the electors and principal officers of the empire were ordered to make their entrance on horses, and to perform their service on horseback[157]. Formerly it was requisite that those who received an investiture should make their appearance on horseback: the vassal was obliged to ride with two attendants to his lord’s court, where, having dismounted from his horse, he received his fief.

Covered carriages were known in the beginning of the sixteenth century; but they were used only by women of the first rank, for the men thought it disgraceful to ride in them. At that period, when the electors and princes did not choose to be present at the meetings of the states, they excused themselves by informing the emperor that their health would not permit them to ride on horseback; and it was considered as an established point, that it was unbecoming for them to ride like women[158]. What, according to the then prevailing ideas, was not allowed to princes, was much less permitted to their servants. In the year 1544, when Count Wolf of Barby was summoned by John Frederic, elector of Saxony, to go to Spires to attend the convention of the states assembled there, he requested leave, on account of his ill state of health, to make use of a close carriage with four horses. When the counts and nobility were invited to the marriage solemnity of the elector’s half brother, duke John Ernest, the invitation was accompanied with a memorandum, that such dresses of ceremony as they might be desirous of taking with them should be transported in a small waggon[159]. Had they been expected in coaches, such a memorandum would have been superfluous. The use of covered carriages was for a long time forbidden even to women. In the year 1545 the wife of a certain duke obtained from him, with great difficulty, permission to use a covered carriage in a journey to the baths, in which however much pomp was displayed, but with this express stipulation, that her attendants should not have the same indulgence[160]. It is nevertheless certain, that the emperor, kings and princes, about the end of the fifteenth century, began to employ covered carriages on journeys, and afterwards on public solemnities.

In the year 1474 the emperor Frederic III. came to Frankfort in a close carriage; and as he remained in it on account of the wetness of the weather, the inhabitants had no occasion to support the canopy which was held over him, but while he went to the council-house, and again returned. In the year following the emperor visited the same city in a very magnificent covered carriage. In the description of the splendid tournament held by Joachim, elector of Brandenburg, at Ruppin, in 1509, we read of a carriage gilt all over, which belonged to the electress; of twelve other coaches ornamented with crimson, and of another of the duchess of Mecklenburg, which was hung with red satin. At the coronation of the emperor Maximilian, in the year 1562, the elector of Cologne had twelve carriages. In 1594, when the margrave John Sigismund did homage at Warsaw on account of Prussia, he had in his train thirty-six coaches with six horses each[161]. Count Kevenhiller, speaking of the marriage of the emperor Ferdinand II. with a princess of Bavaria, says, “The bride rode with her sisters in a splendid carriage studded with gold; her maids of honour in carriages hung with black satin, and the rest of the ladies in neat leather carriages.” The same author mentions the entrance of Cardinal Dietrichstein into Vienna in 1611, and tells us that forty carriages went to meet him[162]. At the election of the emperor Matthias, the ambassador of Brandenburg had three coaches[163]. When the consort of that emperor made her public entrance, on her marriage in 1611, she rode in a carriage covered with perfumed leather. Mary, infanta of Spain, spouse of the emperor Ferdinand III., rode, in Carinthia, in 1631, in a glass carriage in which no more than two persons could sit. The wedding carriage of the first wife of the emperor Leopold, who was also a Spanish princess, cost together with the harness 38,000 florins[164]. The coaches used by that emperor are thus described by Rink:--“In the imperial coaches no great magnificence was to be seen: they were covered over with red cloth and black nails. The harness was black, and in the whole work there was no gold. The pannels were of glass, and on this account they were called the imperial glass coaches. On festivals the harness was ornamented with red silk fringes. The imperial coaches were distinguished only by their having leather traces; but the ladies in the imperial suite were obliged to be contented with carriages the traces of which were made of ropes.” At the magnificent court of duke Ernest Augustus at Hanover, there were, in the year 1681, fifty gilt coaches with six horses each[165]. So early did Hanover begin to surpass other cities in the number of its carriages. The first time that ambassadors appeared in coaches on a public solemnity was at the imperial commission held at Erfurth in 1613, respecting the affair of Juliers[166].

The great lords at first imagined that they could suppress the use of coaches by prohibitions. In the archives of the county of Mark there is still preserved an edict, in which the feudal nobility and vassals are forbid the use of coaches, under pain of incurring the punishment of felony. In the year 1588, duke Julius of Brunswick published an order, couched in very expressive terms, by which his vassals were forbid to ride in carriages. This curious document is in substance as follows:--“As we know from ancient historians, from the annals of heroic, honourable and glorious achievements, and even by our own experience, that the respectable, steady, courageous and spirited Germans were heretofore so much celebrated among all nations on account of their manly virtue, sincerity, boldness, honesty and resolution, that their assistance was courted in war, and that in particular the people of this land, by their discipline and intrepidity, both within and without the kingdom, acquired so much celebrity, that foreign nations readily united with them; we have for some time past found, with great pain and uneasiness, that their useful discipline and skill in riding, in our electorate, county and lordship, have not only visibly declined, but have been almost lost (and no doubt other electors and princes have experienced the same among their nobility); and as the principal cause of this is that our vassals, servants and kinsmen, without distinction, young and old, have dared to give themselves up to indolence and to riding in coaches, and that few of them provide themselves with well-equipped riding horses and with skilful experienced servants, and boys acquainted with the roads: not being able to suffer any longer this neglect, and being desirous to revive the ancient Brunswick mode of riding, handed down and bequeathed to us by our forefathers, we hereby will and command, that all and each of our before-mentioned vassals, servants and kinsmen, of whatever rank or condition, shall always keep in readiness as many riding-horses as they are obliged to serve us with by their fief or alliance; and shall have in their service able, experienced servants, acquainted with the roads; and that they shall have as many horses as possible with polished steel harness and with saddles proper for carrying the necessary arms and accoutrements, so that they may appear with them when necessity requires. We also will and command our before-mentioned vassals and servants to take notice, that when we order them to assemble, either altogether or in part, in times of turbulence or to receive their fiefs, or when on other occasions they visit our court, they shall not travel or appear in coaches, but on their riding-horses, &c.”[167] Philip II., duke of Pomerania-Stettin, reminded his vassals also, in 1608, that they ought not to make so much use of carriages as of horses[168]. All these orders and admonitions however were of no avail, and coaches became common all over Germany.

It would be difficult to give an exact description of these carriages without a figure, and drawings or paintings of them do not seem to be common.

In the month of October 1785, when I visited the senate-house at Bremen, I saw in the tax-chamber a view of the city, painted on the wall in oil colours, by John Landwehr, in 1661. On the left side of the fore-ground I observed a long quadrangular carriage, which did not appear to be suspended by leather straps. It was covered with a canopy supported by four pillars, but had no curtains, so that one could see all the persons who were in it. In the side there was a small door, and before there seemed to be a low seat, or perhaps a box. The coachman sat upon the horses. It was evident, from their dress, that the persons in it were burgomasters.

In the history of France we find many proofs that at Paris, in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and even sixteenth centuries, the French monarchs rode commonly on horses, the servants of the court on mules, and the princesses, together with the principal ladies, sometimes on asses. Persons of the first rank frequently sat behind their equerry, and the horse was often led by servants. When Charles VI. wished to see incognito the entrance of the queen, he placed himself on horseback behind Savoisy, who was his confidant, with whom, however, he was much incommoded in the crowd[169]. When Louis, duke of Orleans, that prince’s brother, was assassinated in 1407, the two ecuyers who accompanied him rode both upon the same horse[170]. In the year 1534, queen Eleonora and the princesses rode on white horses (des haquenées blanches) during a sacred festival. That private persons also, such as physicians, for example, used no carriages in the fifteenth century, is proved by the principal entrance to their public school, which was built in 1472, being so narrow that a carriage could not pass through it, though it was one of the widest at that period. In Paris also, at all the palaces and public buildings, there were steps for mounting on horseback, such as those which the parliament caused to be erected in 1599; and Sauval says on this occasion, that though many of these steps in latter periods had been taken away, there still remained several of them in his time at old buildings.

Carriages, however, appear to have been used very early in France. An ordinance of Philip the Fair, issued in 1294, for suppressing luxury, and in which the citizens’ wives are forbid to use carriages (cars), is still preserved[171]. Under Francis I., or about 1550, somewhat later, there were at Paris, for the first time, only three coaches, one of which belonged to the queen, another to Diana de Poictiers, the mistress of two kings, Francis I. and Henry II., by the latter of whom she was created duchess of Valentinois, and the third to René de Laval, lord of Bois-dauphin. The last was a corpulent unwieldy nobleman, who was not able to ride on horseback. Others say, that the first three coaches belonged to Catherine de Medici; Diana, duchess of Angoulême, the natural daughter of Henry II., who died in 1619, in the eightieth year of her age; and Christopher de Thou, first president of the parliament. The last was excused by the gout; but the rest of the ministers of state soon followed his example[172]. Henry IV. was assassinated in a coach; but he usually rode through the streets of Paris on horseback, and to provide against rain, carried a large cloak behind him. For himself and his queen he had only one coach; as appears by a letter still preserved, in which he writes to a friend, “I cannot wait upon you today, because my wife is using my coach[173].” We, however, find two coaches at the public solemnity on the arrival of the Spanish ambassador, Don Peter de Toledo, under Henry IV.[174] This contradiction is not worth further research; but it shows that all writers do not speak of the same kind of carriages or coaches, and that every improvement has formed as it were an epoch in the history of them, which perhaps would be best elucidated by figures or engravings.

Roubo, in his costly Treatise on joiners’ work[175], has given three figures of such (chars) carriages as were used under Henry IV., from drawings preserved in the king’s library. By these it is seen that those coaches were not suspended by straps, that they had a canopy supported by ornamented pillars, and that the whole body was surrounded by curtains of stuff or leather, which could be drawn up. The coach in which Louis XIV. made his public entrance, about the middle of the seventeenth century, appears, from a drawing in the king’s library, to have been a suspended carriage.

The oldest carriages used by the ladies in England were known under the now-forgotten name of whirlicotes. When Richard II., towards the end of the fourteenth century, was obliged to fly before his rebellious subjects, he and all his followers were on horseback; his mother only, who was indisposed, rode in a carriage. This, however, became afterwards somewhat unfashionable, when that monarch’s queen, Ann, the daughter of the emperor Charles IV., showed the English ladies how gracefully and conveniently she could ride on a side-saddle. Whirlicotes therefore were disused, except at coronations and other public solemnities[176]. Coaches were first known in England about the year 1580, and, as Stow says, were introduced from Germany by Fitz-allen, earl of Arundel[177]. In the year 1598, when the English ambassador came to Scotland, he had a coach with him[178]. Anderson places the period when coaches began to be in common use, about the year 1605. The celebrated duke of Buckingham, the unworthy favourite of two kings, was the first person who rode with a coach and six horses, in 1619. To ridicule this new pomp, the earl of Northumberland put eight horses to his carriage.

Towards the end of the thirteenth century, when Charles of Anjou made his entrance into Naples, the queen rode in a carriage, called by historians caretta, the outside and inside of which were covered with sky-blue velvet, interspersed with golden lilies, a magnificence never before seen by the Neapolitans. At the entrance of Frederic II. into Padua, in the year 1239, it appears that there were no carriages, for the most elegantly dressed ladies who came to meet him were on palfreys ornamented with trappings (sedentes in phaleratis et ambulantibus palafredis). It is well known that the luxury of carriages spread from Naples all over Italy.

Coaches were seen for the first time in Spain in the year 1546. Such at least is the account of Twiss, who, according to his usual custom, says so without giving his authority[179].

Towards the end of the sixteenth century, John of Finland, on his return from England, among other articles of luxury, brought with him to Sweden the first coach[180]. Before that period, the greatest lords in Sweden, when they travelled by land, carried their wives with them on horseback. The princesses even travelled in that manner, and, when it rained, took with them a mantle of wax-cloth.

It appears that there were elegant coaches in the capital of Russia so early as the beginning of the seventeenth century[181].

But to what nation ought we to ascribe the invention of coaches? If under this name we comprehend covered carriages, these are so old as not to admit of any dispute respecting the question. To the following, however, one might expect an answer, Who first fell on the idea of suspending the body of the carriage from elastic springs, by which the whole machine has undoubtedly been much improved? To this question, however, I can find no answer, except the information before-mentioned, that suspended carriages were known in the time of Louis XIV.

As the name coach is now adopted, with a little variation, in all the European languages, some have thought to determine the country of this invention from the etymology of the word[182]. But even allowing that one could fix the origin of the word, it would by no means be ascertained what kind of a carriage we ought properly to understand by it. M. Cornides[183] has lately endeavoured to prove that the word coach is of Hungarian extraction, and that it had its rise from a village in the province of Wieselburg, which at present is called Kitsee, but was known formerly by the name of Kotsee, and that this travelling machine was even there first invented. However this may be, the grounds on which he supports his assertion deserve to be here quoted, as they seem at least to prove that in the sixteenth century, or even earlier, a kind of covered carriages was known, under the name of Hungarian carriages[184]. As the word Gutschi, and not Gutsche, was used at first in Germany, the last syllable gives us reason to conjecture that it is rather of Hungarian than German extraction. As Hortleder[185] tells us that Charles V., because he had the gout, laid himself to sleep in an Hungarian Gutsche, one might almost conclude that the peculiarity of these carriages consisted in their being so constructed as to admit people to sleep in them. This conjecture is supported by the meaning of the word Gutsche, which formerly signified a couch or sofa[186]. As the writers quoted by Cornides call the Hungarian coaches sometimes (leves) light, sometimes (veloces) swift, they ought rather to be considered as a particular kind of carriages for travelling with expedition. It is, however, still more worthy of remark, that, so early as the year 1457, the ambassador of Ladislaus V., king of Hungary and Bohemia, brought with him to the queen of France, besides other presents, a carriage which excited great wonder at Paris, and which, as an old historian says, was branlant et moult riche[187]. Does not the first word of this expression seem to indicate that the carriage was suspended?

A peculiar kind of coach has been introduced in latter times under the name of Berlin. The name indicates the place which gave birth to the invention, as the French themselves acknowledge; though some, with very little probability, wish to derive it from the Italian[188]. Philip de Chiese, a native of Piedmont, and descended from the Italian family of Chiesa, was a colonel and quarter-master-general in the service of Frederic William, elector of Brandenburg, by whom he was much esteemed on account of his knowledge in architecture. Being once sent to France on his master’s business, he caused to be built, on purpose for this journey, a carriage capable of containing two persons; which, in France and everywhere else, was much approved, and called a berline. This Philip de Chiese died at Berlin in 1673[189].

Coaches have given rise to a profession which in large cities affords maintenance to a great number of people, and which is attended with much convenience; I mean that of letting out coaches for hire, known under the name of fiacres, hackney-coaches[190]. This originated in France; for about the year 1650 one Nicholas Sauvage first thought of keeping horses and carriages ready to be let out to those who might have occasion for them. The Parisians approved of and patronised this plan; and as Sauvage lived in the street St. Martin, in a house called the hôtel St. Fiacre, the coaches, coachmen and proprietor, were called fiacres. In a little time this undertaking was improved by others, who obtained a license for their new institutions on paying a certain sum of money[191]. Some kept coaches ready in certain places of the streets, and let them out as long as was required, to go from one part of the city to another. These alone, at length, retained the name of fiacre, which at first was common to every kind of hired carriage without distinction. Others kept carriages at their houses, which they let out for a half or a whole day, a week, or a month: these coaches were known by the name of carosses de remise. Others kept carriages which at a certain stated time went from one quarter of the city to another, like a kind of stages, and took up such passengers as presented themselves; and in the year 1662 some persons set up carriages with four horses, for the purpose of conveying people to the different palaces at which the court might be; these were called voitures pour la suite de la cour. The proprietors often quarreled respecting the boundaries prescribed to them by their licenses; and on this account they were sometimes united into one company, and sometimes separated. The police established useful regulations, by which the safety and cleanliness of these carriages were promoted; marks were affixed to them, by which they might be known; and young persons and women of the town were forbidden to use them[192], &c.

A particular kind of hackney carriage, peculiar to the Parisians, in the opinion of some does no great honour to their urbanity. I mean the brouettes, called sometimes roulettes, and by way of derision vinaigrettes. The body of these is almost like that of our sedans, but rolls upon two low wheels, and is dragged forwards by men. An attempt was made to introduce such machines under Louis XIII.; but the proprietors of the sedans prevented it, as they apprehended the ruin of their business. In the year 1669 they were however permitted, and came into common use in 1671, but were employed only by the common people. Dupin, the inventor of these brouettes, found means to contrive them so that they did not jolt so much as might have been expected; and he was able to conceal this art so well, that for a long time he was the only person who could make them[193]. The number of all the coaches at Paris is by some said to be fifteen thousand; the author of Tableau de Paris reckons the number of the hackney coaches to amount to eighteen hundred, and asserts that more than a hundred foot passengers lose their lives by them every year.

Coaches to be let for hire were first established at London in 1625. At that time there were only twenty, which did not stand in the streets, but at the principal inns. Ten years after, however, they were become so numerous, that king Charles I. found it necessary to issue an order for limiting their number. In the year 1637 there were in London and Westminster fifty hackney coaches, for each of which no more than twelve horses were to be kept. In the year 1652 their number had increased to two hundred; in 1654 there were three hundred, for which six hundred horses were employed; in 1694 they were limited to seven hundred, and in 1715 to eight hundred[194].

Hackney coaches were first established in Edinburgh in 1673. Their number was twenty; but as the situation of the city was unfavourable for carriages, it fell in 1752 to fourteen, and in 1778 to nine, and the number of sedans increased.

Fiacres were introduced at Warsaw, for the first time, in 1778. In Copenhagen there are a hundred hackney coaches[195].

In Madrid there are from four to five thousand gentlemen’s carriages[196]; in Vienna three thousand, and two hundred hackney coaches.

At Amsterdam coaches with wheels were in the year 1663 forbidden, in order to save the expensive pavement of the streets; for coaches there, even in summer, are placed upon sledges, as those at Petersburgh are in winter. The tax upon carriages in Holland has from time to time been raised, yet the number has increased; and some years ago the coach horses in the Seven United Provinces amounted to twenty-five thousand.

When Prince Repnin made his entrance into Constantinople in 1775, he had with him eighty coaches, and two hundred livery servants.

[Since the former edition of this work, published in 1814, public conveyances have undergone considerable changes. Stage-coaches, which in this country had arrived at such a degree of perfection, and which, till within a few years, passed through and connected almost every small town in the United Kingdom, have now nearly disappeared in consequence of the introduction of railroads. It is also rare in London to meet with a solitary hackney coach, this class of vehicles being almost entirely superseded by the lighter one-horsed cabriolets which were first introduced as public conveyances in the year 1823. The number of hackney coaches and cabriolets now plying for hire in the streets of London amounts to 2650, of which probably not more than 250 are two-horsed coaches.

That very useful form of public conveyance, the omnibus, which is at present met with in nearly every large town in Europe, originated in Paris in 1827. In the latter part of 1831 and the beginning of 1832, omnibuses began to ply in the streets of London. Those running from Paddington to the Bank were the earliest. Carriages, however, of a similar form were used in England as Long Stages more than forty years ago, but were discontinued as they were not found profitable. They were in most request at holiday time, by schoolmasters in the neighbourhood of London; and some even of the present generation will remember their joyous pranks on journeying home in these capacious machines.

There are now about 900 omnibuses running in London and its immediate vicinity. The line from Paddington to the Bank is served by two companies, the London Conveyance Company, and the Paddington Association, which have mutually agreed to run forty omnibuses each. An idea of the utility of these conveyances may be formed from the fact that the receipts of each of the eighty carriages on the above line averages 1000_l._ per annum, in sixpences.

Omnibuses began to run in Amsterdam in 1839.]

FOOTNOTES

[150] See Leges XII. tab. illustratæ a J. N. Funccio, p. 72. Gellius, xx. 1.Return to passage

[151] Scheffer de Re Vehiculari, Spanhem. de Præstant. Numismatum. Amst. 1671, 4to, p. 613. Propertius, iv. 8. 23, mentions serica carpenta.Return to passage

[152] In my opinion the height here alluded to is to be understood as that of the body, rather than that of the wheels, as some think.Return to passage

[153] Codex Theodos. lib. xiv. tit. 12. and Cod. Justin. lib. xi. tit. 19.Return to passage

[154] Lersner, Chronica der Stadt Frankfurt, i. p. 23.Return to passage

[155] Sacrarum Cæremoniarum Romanæ Ecclesiæ Libri tres, auctore J. Catalano. Romæ, 1750, 2 vols. fol. i. p. 131.Return to passage

[156] See Cæremoniæ Episcoporum, lib. i. c. 11.Return to passage

[157] Ludewig’s Erläuter. der Güldenen Bulle. Franc. 1719, vol. i. p. 569.Return to passage

[158] Ludolf, Electa Juris Publici, v. p. 417.Return to passage

[159] Ludolf, l. c.Return to passage

[160] Sattler, Historische Beschreibung des Herzogthums Würtemberg.Return to passage

[161] Suite des Mémoires pour servir à l’Hist. de Brandenburg, p. 63, where the royal author adds, “The common use of carriages is not older than the time of John Sigismund.”Return to passage

[162] Annal. Ferdin. V. p. 2199; and vii. p. 375.Return to passage

[163] In Suite des Mém. pour serv. à l’Hist. de Brandenburg, p. 63, it is remarked that they were coarse coaches, composed of four boards put together in a clumsy manner.Return to passage

[164] Rink, Leben K. Leopold, p. 607.Return to passage

[165] Lünig’s Theatr. Cer. i. p. 289.Return to passage

[166] Ludolf, v. p. 416. Von Moser’s Hofrecht, ii. p. 337.Return to passage

[167] Lunig. Corp. Jur. Feud. Germ. ii. p. 1447.Return to passage

[168] An attempt was made also to prevent the use of coaches by a law in Hungary in 1523.Return to passage

[169] Histoire des Antiquités de Paris, par Sauval, i. p. 187.Return to passage

[170] Sauval; also Mezeray, Abregé Chron. de l’Histoire de France. Amsterdam, 1696, iii. p. 167.Return to passage

[171] This ordinance is to be found also in Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, i. p. 418.Return to passage

[172] Valesiana. Paris, 1695, 12mo, p. 35.Return to passage

[173] Variétés Historiques, p. 96.Return to passage

[174] Sauval says, “I shall here remark, that this was the first time coaches were used for that ceremony (the entrance of ambassadors), and that it was only at this period they were invented, and began to be used.”Return to passage

[175] L’Art du Menuisier-carossier, p. 457, planche 171.Return to passage

[176] Stow’s Survey of London, 1633, fol. p. 70.Return to passage

[177] Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce, iv. p. 180.Return to passage

[178] Arnot’s Hist. of Edinburgh, p. 596.Return to passage

[179] Twiss’s Travels through Spain and Portugal.Return to passage

[180] Dalin, Geschichte des Reichs Schweden, iii. 1, p. 390 and 402.Return to passage

[181] Bacmeister, Essai sur la Bibliothèque de l’Académie de S. Pétersburg, 1776, 8vo, p. 38.Return to passage

[182] Joh. Ihre, Glossarium Sueogothic. i. col. 1178. Kusk, a coachman. It seems properly to denote the carriage itself. Gall. cocher. Hisp. id. Ital. cocchio. Ang. coach. Hung. cotczy. Belg. goetse. Germ. kutsche. The person who drives such carriages is by the English called coachman, which in other languages is made shorter, as the French say cocher, and the Germans kusk. It is difficult, however, to determine whence it is derived, as we do not know by whom these close carriages were invented. Menage makes it Latin, and by a far-fetched derivation from vehiculum; Junius derives it somewhat shorter from ὀχέω to carry. Wachter thinks it comes from the German word kutten, to cover; and Lye from the Belgic koetsen, to lie along, as it properly signifies a couch or chair.Return to passage

[183] Ungrisches Magaz. Pressburg, 1781, vol. i. p. 15.Return to passage

[184] Stephanus Broderithus says, speaking of the year 1526, “When the archbishop received certain intelligence that the Turks had entered Hungary, not contented with informing the king by letter of this event, he speedily got into one of those light carriages, which, from the name of the place, we call Kotcze, and hastened to his majesty.” Siegmund baron Herberstein, ambassador from Louis II. to the king of Hungary, says, in Commentario de Rebus Moscoviticis, Basil 1571, fol. p. 145, where he occasionally mentions some stages in Hungary, “The fourth stage for stopping to give the horses breath is six miles below Jaurinum, in the village of Cotzi, from which both drivers and carriages take their name, and are still generally called cotzi.” That the word coach is of Hungarian extraction is confirmed also by John Cuspinianus (Spiesshammer), physician to the emperor Maximilian I., in Bell’s Appar. ad Histor. Hungariæ, dec. 1, monum. 6, p. 292. “Many of the Hungarians rode in those light carriages called in their native tongue Kottschi.” In Czvittinger’s Specimen Hungariæ Litteratæ, Franc. et Lips. 1711, 4to, we find an account of the service rendered to the arts and sciences by the Hungarians; but the author nowhere makes mention of coaches.Return to passage

[185] In his Account of the German War, p. 612.Return to passage

[186] Examples may be seen in Frisch’s German Dictionary, where it appears that the beds which are used for raising tobacco plants are at present called Tabacks kutschen, tobacco beds. This expression is old, for I find it in Pet. Laurembergii Horticultura, Franc. 1631, p. 43.Return to passage

[187] Roubo, p. 457. The historian, however, gives it no name.Return to passage

[188] “Berlin. A kind of carriage which takes its name from the city of Berlin, in Germany; though some persons ascribe the invention of it to the Italians, and pretend to find the etymology of it in berlina, a name which the latter give to a kind of stage on which criminals are exposed to public ignominy.”--Encyclopédie, ii. p. 209.Return to passage

[189] Nicolai Beschreibung von Berlin, Anhang, p. 67.Return to passage

[190] At Rome, however, at a very early period, there appears to have been carriages to be let out for hire: Suetonius calls them (i. chap. 57) rheda meritoria, and (iv. c. 39) meritoria vehicula.Return to passage

[191] Charles Villerme paid in 1650, into the king’s treasury, for the exclusive privilege of keeping coaches for hire within the city of Paris, 15,000 livres.Return to passage

[192] A full history of the Parisian fiacres, and the orders issued respecting them, may be seen in Continuation du Traité de la Police. Paris, 1738, fol. p. 435. See also Histoire de la Ville de Paris, par Sauval, i. p. 192.Return to passage

[193] An account of the manner in which these brouettes were suspended may be seen in Roubo, p. 588. He places the invention of post-chaises in the year 1664.Return to passage

[194] Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce.Return to passage

[195] Haubers Beschr. von Copenhagen, p. 173.Return to passage

[196] Twiss’s Travels through Spain and Portugal.Return to passage