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adviseable to secure the best of them for the benefit of the public? I must however observe, that all the compositions I have as yetheard of for this purpose (except that of Sir Charles Blagden) are liable to the objection, that while they revive for a time the ink made of vitriol and astringents, they in general leave a fixed stain on the paper or vellum, which increases by time, and renders the documents to which they have been applied perfectly illegible; great caution must be used in this respect.

Thirdly; As to the materials for writing upon, there can be no doubt that vellum or parchment are much preferable to paper, for all manner of instruments that are to be handed down to posterity. But here likewise I must observe, that our ancestors appear to have had a better mode of preparing parchment than we possess at present; the skins used at and before the eleventh century, being in general finer, whiter, and of a more even texture than those of a later date. The makers of parchment I think might be instructed to use their endeavours to arrive at the same degree of perfection; and should in this, as in some other manufactories, the mode of collecting the duties be an obstacle to so desirable an improvement, the vellum or parchment made for the use of the public, might be exempted from such restraints; and proper persons might be appointed for the sole making of these articles, on condition of their being prepared in the most perfect manner.

Fourthly; As to the preference to be given either to rolls or books, I cannot hesitate to decide in favour of the latter, especially when the articles are of such a length as to take up many skins: Where the instrument consists of only one or a few skins, it may be doubled in the manner in which deeds are usually folded, and thus by keeping the articles separate, much facility will be afforded towards their methodical arrangement; but one of the chief reasons, that induces me to object to the mode of entering a series of deeds on a large roll, is the numerous instances I have observed where both ends of the rolls are become quite illegible and mutilated, by having been sometimes folded inwards, and sometimes outwards. The books should be strongly bound in boards, and the leaves held tight together by means of metal clasps no wood should be used in the covers, as this substance frequently harbours insects, which, when in their perfect state, are able to cut with their teeth through many folds of vellum or paper.

Fifthly; I cannot but object to the mode of preserving records in close presses or chests, where, for want of a free circulation of air, they will be liable to contract damp and mouldiness.

The best mode of guarding against these inconveniences, as well as against the effects of dust, is to put the records into linen bags, and to place them on frames, not in contact with the walls, and which, if not the shelves, at least uprights are composed of open rack-work; and if it be thought necessary to have doors to these presses, they should also consist of open lattice or wirework.

Sixthly

Sixthly; The same object of providing for the dryness and airiness of the repository, induces me to recommend a building exposed to the south, or (as westerly winds are in this part of the kingdom generally attended with rain) some points to the east of the south. The rays of the sun, when admitted into a close room, cause heat to accumulate to a considerable degree; and this accumulation, which will take place at intervals throughout the year, will effectually dispel the damp which would otherwise deposit, and become very pernicious. As however the rays of light will gradually discharge the colour of any sort of ink, it will be proper that all the fronts of the cases opposite to the light, be constructed in the manner of Venetian blinds, so as to admit the free circulation of air, and at the same time to exclude the direct rays of the sun.

It will perhaps be needless to recommend proper cautions against fire, such as having the building raised upon arches, admitting none but iron doors, excluding fires and candles, and various other expedients which skilful architects are best able to suggest.

British Museum, June 28, 1800.

TUNBRIDGE WELLS.

J. PLANTA.

From Stockdale's History of London, and its Environs,

Now Publishing.

TUNBRIDGE WELLS are of no antiquity; their rise was singular. The gay, dissipated, young Dudley lord North had exhausted his constitution by his gallantries in the court of Henry prince of Wales; and was advised by his physicians to retire to the country as the last trial to regain his lost strength. In the year 1606 he went to Eridge-house, a hunting seat of lord Abergavenny, whose park was "an assemblage," says Mr. Aaron Hill, of all nature's beauties-hills, vales, brooks, lawn, groves, thickets, rocks, waterfalls, all noble and regugarly amiable." This situation, however charming, ill suited a young nobleman in his twenty-fourth year, who had been engaged in all the pleasures attendant upon a court; he therefore determined to leave his retreat and return to town; the solicitations of his friends prevailed upon him to promise to remain another six weeks. Tired with solitude, he broke through restraint, and set out for London. His way lay through the wood in which these springs were; it was in the morning, and he had leisure to contemplate the water, with its surface shining with mineralic scum. One of those persons who instantly discovered what others, less observant, neglect, he sent to a neighbouring cottage for a vessel; drank of the stream, and was convinced it was chalybeate. Pleased with the idea, he determined to have it examined by the physicians; for this purpose he took some with him to town. The faculty coincided in opinion: his lordship, therefore, returned in the summer, that he might add the power of the waters

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to the purity of the air, and they unitedly restored him to the full enjoyment of his health, and he lived upon the remains of a noble fortune to an happy old age, dying January 16, 1666, aged eightyfive years.

So wonderful a restoration made a great impression upon the public mind. Lord Abergavenny, procuring the consent of Mr. Weller, of Tunbridge, the lord of the manor, came down personally to inspect the place, and to see it cleared of all its incumbering brushwood. He then had wells sunk, paved with stone, and enclosed with rails in a triangular form. Hither came the afflicted, and returned healthy; but as no accommodations were nearer than the town of Tunbridge, the number was few.

The beautiful Henrietta-Maria, queen to Charles I., being much indisposed after the birth of the prince, afterwards Charles II., stayed here six weeks; but as no house was near, suitable for so great a personage, she and her suite remained under tents pitched upon Bishop's-down. The splendid court formed a fine contrast to the country, every where rude, and in the hands of nature. In honour of her majesty the wells changed their name from Frant to that of Queen Mary's Wells; both have given place to their present one, Tunbridge-wells, though the springs evidently rise in the parish of Speldhurst.

Pleasure uniting with health, first neat cottages, afterwards handsome lodginghouses, were erected; and that trade might be an attendant, retailers took their stands, with various wares, under a row of planted trees in the road which the company were accustomed to take when they went to drink of the limpid stream. Southborough and Rusthall, the one two, the other one mile from the wells, soon had houses for the use of visitants. Poetry aided the fame of this new-discovered spot, consecrated alike to health and dissipation. Waller makes his tuneful verses celebrate the virtues of the waters, in the lines he addressed to his exquisitely beautiful Sacharissa. Dr. Rowzee wrote to prove the fact professionally.

The civil wars that ensued left the wells neglected and almost forgotten; but legal government restored, they shone forth with redoubled lustre. The sincere joy that event brought with it, led the English to an extravagance of mirth and entertainment unknown before. It was seen every where, Tunbridge-wells uniting in the general sentiment: hence we may date the assembly-room, bowling-green, and other appropriate places at Rusthall; and another bowling-green and a coffee-house at Southborough, Lord Abergavenny's old wooden rails in 1664 gave place to a strong stone enclosure, built by lord Muskerry, son to the second earl of Clancarty. His lordship also renewed the stone pavement within the wall, made a handsome basin over the main spring, the better to receive the water; erected a convenient hall to shelter the dippers from the weather, during their hours of attendance upon the company, and made a projection to preserve the well from any mixture with rainwater. The wells, by his premature death, the following year, in the Dutch war, lost a patron that would, had he lived, have perfected

fected all that could be wanting. Few have ever been deservedly loved or lamented by their sovereign, soldiers, or tenants, more than this elegant, gallant, munificent, and charitable nobleman. The surrounding country caught the happy enthusiasm of the amiable young peer. The circumjacent wilds were spotted with neat, rural habitations; until whim, and some altercations between the lord of the manor and the tenants, soon varied the scene.

Rusthall was deserted for Mount Ephraim; and that for Southborough, which again was eclipsed by the New favourite Mount Sion. Here you might have seen a jovial company with a house placed upon a machine, conveying it to this future abode of pleasure, attended with music and every festive decoration. The town of Tunbridge was now left to its original quiet; for the wells became a complete village, with houses sufficient to lodge all the visitants, owing to the liberal manner with which the lord of the manor granted building and other leases. Benevolence united with piety, raised and supported the school for feeding, clothing, and educating the children of the poor, and the chapel for the worship of the Almighty; which by an excess of loyalty was indecently dedicated to king Charles the martyr: there is only another instance of this enthusiasm. Charles had many great virtues, but he had many great failings; the former were the man's, the other the monarch's.

It must be allowed that no place owed more to the fostering care of the royal house of Stuart than Tunbridge-wells. HenriettaMaria first honoured it with her residence. Charles II and Catharine his queen came hither, and delighted in this place. How inimitable is count Grammont's account of the dissipated court whilst here, in that most elegant edition of his Memoirs printed by the late earl of Orford; what he says of it cannot be omitted:

"Tunbridge is the same distance from London that Fontainebleau is from Paris, and is, at the season, the general rendezvous of all the gay and handsome of both sexes, The company, though always numèrous, is always select: since those who repair thither for diversion, ever exceed the number of those who go thither for health. Every thing there breathes mirth and pleasure; constraint is banished, familiarity is established upon the first acquaintance, and joy and pleasure are the sole sovereigns of the place.

"The company are accommodated with lodgings in little, clean, and convenient habitations, that lie straggling and separated from each other, a mile and a half all round the wells, where the company meet in the morning. This place consists of a long walk, shaded by pleasant trees, under which they walk, while they are drinking the waters. On one side of this walk is a long row of shops, plentifully stocked with all manner of toys, lace, gloves, stockings, and where there is raffling, as at Paris, in the Foire de Saint Germain. On the other side of the walk is the market; and as it is the custom here for every person to buy their own provisions, care is taken that nothing appears offensive upon the stalls. Here young, fair, fresh-coloured country girls, with clean linen,

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small straw hats, and neat shoes and stockings, sell game, vegetables, flowers, and fruit. Here one may live as one pleases. Here is likewise deep play, and no want of amorous intrigues. As soon as the evening comes, every one quits his little palace to assemble on the bowling-green, where, in the open air, those who choose, dance upon a turf more soft and smooth than the finest carpet in the world."

"

Here was the empire of love established. Charles bent to that all-conquering, weak beauty, Miss Stewart, afterwards dutchess of Richmond: even the hard featured chymical prince Rupert be-. came enamoured of Mrs. Hughes the actress. Here, in one of the constant evening dances at the queen's apartments, the diminutive, distorted lady Muskerry, the well-known " princess of Babylon, dropped, in the quick, mazy dance, the cushion she had placed to hide her advanced pregnancy, which was taken up by the facetious. duke of Buckingham, and dandled as a new born babe, to the no small diversion of the king and all the court: even the queen, though outwardly checking, inwardly enjoyed that mirth which shone every where around her, especially in the features of Miss Stewart, who laughed herself into hysterics: but the cushion replaced, another round of country dances commenced, and the "princess of Babylon" went through the second evolutions without any farther "miscarriage." Here, too, the sprightly Grammont be came more enchanted with the beauteous, prudent Miss Hamilton, who came hither from the melancholy residence of Peckham, and its tiresome master, Mr. Wetenhall.

ON SLEEP.

FROM PYROLOGY.

BY WILLIAM OKELY, M. D.

ONE of the most extraordinary phænomena exhibited by living

animals is that of sleep.

In explaining this phænomenon, I shall almost entirely confine myself to the consideration of it, as it occurs in the human species, by which means I shall gain the advantage of being able to appeal to the experience of every reader, for most of the facts upon which my theory will be constructed.

During sleep, sense, consciousness, and voluntary motion are in a great measure suspended, either from fatigue, or for want of the proper inducements to exertion.

Fatigue does itself produce a difficulty and sluggishness both of perception and voluntary action; and a similar difficulty and sluggishness are likewise the effect of withdrawing many of the usual inducements to action; but this difficulty and sluggishness differ widely from the total cessation of all voluntary motion and percep tion, which characterise the state of sleep, when perfectly formed. Let us then examine into the proximate cause of the sluggishness which precedes sleep, and then into the difference between that and the proximate cause of sleep.

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