with utility, because they were again employed during a new danger of the same kind in the fifteenth century.

Brownrigg, an Englishman, who wrote a book on the means of preventing the plague, says, that quarantine was first established by the Venetians in the year 1484', but like his learned countryman Mead, who assigns the same year, without adducing any proofs 2. I imagined that I should find some more certain information respecting this point in Le Bret's History of the Republic of Venice; but as that historian does not mention, as the title professes, the original sources from which he derived his materials, his work is less worthy of credit. He tells us however that the grand council in 1348, chose three prudent persons, whom they ordered to investigate the best means for preserving health, and to lay the result of their inquiry before the council. The plague which broke out afterwards in 1478, rendered it necessary that some permanent means should be thought of, and on that account a peculiar magistracy consisting of three noblemen, with the title of sopra la sanità, was instituted in 1485. As these were

not able to stop the progress of the disease, the painful office was imposed upon them, in 1504, of imprisoning people against whom complaints might be lodged, and even of putting them to death; and in 1585 it was declared, that from the sentence of these judges there should be no appeal. Their principal business was to inspect the lazarettos erected in certain places at some distance from the city, and in which it was required that all persons and merchandize coming from suspected parts should continue a stated time fixed by the laws. The captain of every ship was obliged also to show there the bill of health which he had brought along with him.

As Le Bret produces no proof that quarantine was esta blished by the Venetians so early as he says, I cannot help suspecting that he is mistaken respecting the year (1348), and conjecture that it ought to be 1448, or perhaps 1484. I have not been able however to resolve my doubt; for, in ex

["The Venetians seem to have been the first who established quarantine in their dominions about the year 1484, soon after the Turks became their neighbours in Europe; the constant intercourse which they maintained with those powerful neighbours, either in war or by commerce, rendering it necessary for them to take this and other precautions against the introduction of this contagion into their country."]

2 De Peste, in Mead's Opera Medica.

amining different Italian writers, I find that various years are given. The institution of the council of health (sopra la sanità) is mentioned by Bembo; but I cannot discover from him to what year he alludes 2. His countryman Lancellotti, who undoubtedly must have understood him well, makes it to be 14913. Caspar Contarenus, who died in 1542, in the sixtieth year of his age, mentions no particular period, and only says that the institution had been formed not long before his time. The islands on which the pest-houses were erected, were called il Lazaretto vecchio and il Lazaretto nuovo. the elegant description of Venice, ornamented with abundance of plates, below mentioned, it is remarked that the pest-house on the former island was built in 1423, and that on the latter in 14685. The same account is given in the newest and best Topography of Venice 6.

In

The Venetians are entitled to the merit of having improved the establishments formed to prevent infection; and that their example was followed in other countries is generally admitted. But the year in which quarantine was first ordered by them to be performed is uncertain. Muratori 7, following Lorenzo Candio, gives the year 1484, and Howard 8 says that the college of health was instituted in 1448.

Brownrigg affirms that letters of health, in which he confides more than in quarantine, were first written in 1665 by the consuls of the different commercial nations, but they are much older, for Zegata 9 asserts that they were first established in 1527, when the plague again made its appearance in Europe. This much is certain, that all these means against infection, which, though far from being perfect, have secured Europe from this misfortune, were not invented or proposed by physi

1 Everything said by Le Bret on this subject may be found equally full in D. C. Tentori, Saggio sulla Storia Civile, &c., della Republica di Venezia. Ven. 1786, 8vo, t. vi. p. 391. As Sandi in his Principi di Storia Civile della Republica di Venezia, 9 vols. 4to, 1755-1769, gives the same account, lib. viii. cap. 8. art. 4, they must have both got their information from the 2 Historia Vinitiana. Vinegia, 1552, 4to, lib. i. p. 10. 3 L'Hoggidi, overo il mondo non peggiore, ne più calamitoso del passato. Ven. 1627, 8vo, p. 610. 4 De Republica Venetorum, lib. iv,

same source.

5 Thesaurus Antiquitatum Italiæ, v. 2, p. 241.

6 Topografia Veneta, overo Descrizione della Stato Veneto. Venezia, 1786, 8vo, iv. p. 263. 7 Lib. i. cap. 11, p. 65.

8 Account of the principal Lazarettos, Lond. 1789, 4to, p. 12. 9 Cronica di Verona, in Verona, 1747, 4to, iii. p. 93.

cians, but ordered by the police, contrary to their theory. The latter seem to have known, at an early period, the most dangerous causes of infection, and to have formed at a very great expense precautionary means, the observance of which was enforced under pain of the severest punishment.

Why the space of forty days was chosen as a proof I do not know. It arose no doubt from the doctrine of the physicians in regard to the critical days of many diseases. The fortieth day seems to have been considered as the last or extreme of all the critical days; on which subject many physicians appear to have entertained various astrological conceits'. On the Turkish frontiers this period was reduced under the emperor Joseph II. to twenty days 2.

[With respect to the quarantine establishments in this country, Mc Culloch observes that they are exceedingly defective. Even in the Thames there is not a lazaretto where a ship from a suspected place may discharge her cargo and refit; so that she is detained, frequently at an enormous expense, during the whole period of quarantine, while if she have perishable goods on board, they may be very materially injured. The complaints as to the oppressiveness of quarantine regulations are almost wholly occasioned by the want of proper facilities for its performance. Were these afforded, the burdens it imposes would be rendered comparatively light.

The existing quarantine regulations are embodied in the act 6 George IV. c. 78, and the different orders in council issued under its authority. These orders specify what vessels are liable to perform quarantine, the places at which it is to be performed, and the various formalities and regulations to be complied with.]

1 See G. W. Wedelii exercitatio de quadragesima medica, in his Centuria Exercitationum Medico-philologicarum. Jenæ, 1701, 4to, decas iv. p. 16. Wedel mentions various diseases in which Hippocrates determines the fortieth day to be critical. Compare Rieger in Hippocratis Aphoris. Hag. Com. 1767, 8vo, i. p. 221.

2 Martini Lange Rudimenta Doctrinæ de Peste. Offenbachii 1791, 8vo. See Gottingische Anzeigen von gelehrt. Sachen, 1791, p. 1799.

379

PAPER-HANGINGS.

THREE kinds of paper-hangings have for some time past been much used on account of their beautiful appearance and their moderate price. The first and plainest is that which has on it figures printed or drawn either with one or more colours. The second sort contains figures covered with some woolly stuff pasted over them; and the third, instead of woolly stuff, is ornamented with a substance that has the glittering brightness of gold and silver. It appears that the idea of covering walls with parti-coloured paper might have readily occurred, but the fear of such hangings being liable to speedy decay may have prevented the experiment from being made. In my opinion the simplest kind was invented after the more ingenious, that is to say, when the woolly or velvet kind was already in use. The preparation of them has a great affinity to the printing of cotton. Wooden blocks of the like kind are employed for both; plates of copper are also used; and sometimes they are painted after patterns. Artists possess the talent of giving them such a resemblance to striped and flowered silks and cottons, that one is apt to be deceived by them on the first view. Among the most elegant hangings of this kind, may be reckoned those which imitate so exactly every variety of marble, porphyry, and other species of stones, that when the walls of an apartment are neatly covered with them, the best connoisseur may not without close examination be able to discover the deception. That the resemblance may be still greater, a hall may be divided by an architect into different compartments by pillars, so as to have the appearance of a grand piece of regular architecture. Whether M. Breitkopf at Leipsic was the inventor of this kind of hangings, I do not know, but it is certain that he brought it to great perfection.

1 The simplest or worst articles are not always the oldest or the first. The deterioration of a commodity is often the continuation of an invention, which, when once begun, is by industry practised in every form, in order that new gain may be acquired from each variation. The earliest printers, for example, had not the art of printing with such slight ink and on such bad paper as ours commonly employ; and Aldus, perhaps, were he now alive, would be astonished at the cheap mode of printing some of our most useful and popular books.

The second kind, or, as it is called, velvet-paper (now called flock-paper), is first printed like the former, but the figures are afterwards wholly, or in part, covered with a kind of glue, over which is strewed some woolly substance, reduced almost to dust, so that by these means they acquire the appearance of velvet or plush. The ground and the rest of the figures are left plain; but the whole process is so complex that it is impossible to convey a proper idea of it by a short description. The shearings of fine white cloth, which the artist procures from a cloth manufactory, and dyes to suit his work, are employed for this purpose. If they are not fine enough, he renders them more delicate by making them pass through a close hair-sieve. This, as well as the third kind, was formerly made much more than at present upon canvas; and, in my opinion, the earliest attempts towards this art were tried, not upon paper, but on linen cloth. The paper procured at first for these experiments was probably too weak; and it was not till a later period that means were found out to strengthen and stiffen it by size and paste.

The invention of velvet-paper is by several French writers1 ascribed to the English; and, if they are not mistaken, it was first made known in the reign of Charles I. On the 1st of May 1634, an artist, named Jerome Lanyer, received a patent for this art, in which it is said that he had found out a method of affixing wool, silk and other materials of various colours upon linen cloth, silk, cotton, leather and different substances with oil, size and cements, so that they could be employed for hangings as well as for other purposes. The inventor wished

1 Origny, in Dictionnaire des Origines, v. p. 332. Journal Economique, 1755, Mars, p. 86. Savary, Dictionnaire de Commerce, iv. p. 903.

2 I shall here insert the words of the patent: "To all those to whom these presents shall come, greeting. Whereas our trusty and wellbeloved subject and servant Jerome Lanyard hath informed us, that he by his endeavours hath found out an art and mystery by affixing of wool, silk and other materials of divers colours upon linen cloth, silk, cotton, leather and other substances, with oil, size and other cements, to make them useful and serviceable for hangings and other occasions, which he calleth Londrindiana, and that the said art is of his own invention, not formerly used by any other within this realm, &c."-Rymeri Fœdera, tom. xix. London, 1732, fol. p. 554. The following observations may serve to illustrate all works of this nature in general. Painting, according to the most common technical meaning, may be divided into three kinds. In the first the colours or pigments are mixed with a viscous or glutinous fluid to bind them, and