Chapter XVI: Part 16

... ubi sedulus hospes
Pæne arsit, macros dum turdos versat in igne;
Nam vaga per veterem dilapso flamma culinam
Vulcano summum properabat lambere tectum[920].

Had there been chimneys in the Roman houses, Vitruvius certainly would not have failed to describe their construction, which is sometimes attended with considerable difficulties, and which is intimately connected with the regulation of the plan of the whole edifice. He does not, however, say a word on this subject; neither does Julius Pollux, who has collected with great care the Greek names of every part of a dwelling-house; and Grapaldus, who in later times made a like collection of the Latin terms, has not given a Latin word expressive of a modern chimney[921]

I shall here answer an objection which may be made, that the word _caminus_ means a chimney; and I shall also explain what methods the ancients, and particularly the Romans, employed without chimneys to warm their apartments. _Caminus_ signified, as far as I have been able to learn, first a chemical or metallurgic furnace, in which a crucible was placed for melting and refining metals. It signified also a smith’s forge[922]. It signified likewise, without doubt, a hearth, or as we talk at present, a fire-place, which served for warming the apartment in which it was constructed; and for that purpose portable stoves or fire-pans were also employed. These were either filled with burning coals, or wood was lighted in them, and, when burned to coal, was carried into the apartment. In all these however there appears no trace of a chimney.

The complaints often made by the ancients respecting smoke serve also to confirm the opinion that they had no chimneys. Vitruvius[923], where he speaks of ornamenting and fitting up apartments, says expressly, that there ought to be no carved work or mouldings, but plain cornices, in rooms where fire is made and many lights burned, because they will soon be covered with soot, and therefore will require to be often cleaned. On the other hand, he allows carving in summer apartments, where the effects of smoke are not to be apprehended. The moderns, however, who use chimneys, ornament the borders of them with carving, painting and gilding, nor are they injured by the smoke; but we find that among the ancients, furniture of every kind, ceilings and walls were soon covered over with soot; and from this even the images of their ancestors, _imagines majorum_, were not secure, which, though they were to be found only in the houses of the great, and stood in niches in the _atrium_[924] or hall, became black with smoke, and on that account were justly named _fumosæ_[925]. The smoke therefore must have been blown very much about, and carried into every apartment. In the houses of the opulent, care in all probability was employed to keep them clean; but the habitations of families who did not belong to the common or poorest classes, are represented as smoky and black; and we are told that their walls and ceilings were full of soot. They were therefore called black houses, as in Russia the huts of the common people, which are furnished with paltry stoves, and which are blackened in the same manner by the smoke of the fir-wood used in them for fuel, are called black huts[926].

As the houses of the ancients were so smoky, it may be easily comprehended how, by means of smoke, they could dry and harden, not only various articles used as food, but also different pieces of timber employed for making all sorts of large and small implements. In this manner was prepared the wood destined for ploughs, waggons, and ships, and particularly that of which rudders were formed[927]. For this reason pantries for flesh and wine, and also coops to hold fowls, which were said to thrive by smoke, were constructed near the kitchen, where it always abounded[928]; and on the other hand, it was necessary to remove to a distance from kitchens, apartments destined for the purpose of preserving such articles as were liable to be spoiled by smoke[929]: but among us the case is widely different, for we often have neat and elegant apartments in the neighbourhood of the kitchen.

From what has been said it will readily appear why the ancients kept by them such quantities of hard wood, which, when burning, does not occasion smoke. The same kind is even sought after at present, and on this account we value that of the white and common willow, _Salix alba_ and _triandra_; because when burned in our chimneys, it makes little smoke, and throws out fewest sparks. The great trouble, however, which was taken in old times to procure wood that would not smoke, clearly proves that this was much more necessary in those periods than at present. It was customary to peel off the bark from the wood, to let it lie afterwards a long time in water, and then to suffer it to dry[930]. This process must undoubtedly have proved of great service, for we know that wood which has been conveyed by water, in floats, kindles more readily, burns brisker, and throws out less smoke than that which has been transported from the forest in waggons. Another method, much employed, of rendering wood less apt to smoke, was to soak it in oil or oil-lees, or to pour oil over it[931]. With the like view, wood, before it was used, was hardened or scorched over the fire, until it lost the greater part of its moisture, without being entirely reduced to charcoal. This method is still employed with advantage in glass-houses and porcelain manufactories, where there are stoves made on purpose to dry wood. Such scorched wood appears to be that to which the ancients gave the name of _ligna cocta_ or _coctilia_[932]. It was sold in particular warehouses at Rome, called _tabernæ coctiliariæ_, and the preparing as well as the selling of it formed an employment followed by the common people, and which, as we are told, was carried on by the father of the emperor Pertinax[933]. When it was necessary to kindle fire without wood prepared in that manner, an article probably too expensive for indigent families, we find complaints of smoke which brought on a watering of the eyes; and this was the case with Horace at a paltry inn where he happened to stop when on a journey[934].

The information which can be collected from the Greek and Roman authors respecting the manner in which the ancients warmed their apartments, however imperfect, nevertheless shows that they commonly used for that purpose a large fire-pan or portable stove, in which they kindled wood, and, when the wood was well-lighted, carried it into the room, or which they filled with burning coals. When Alexander the Great was entertained by a friend in winter, as the weather was cold and raw, a small fire-bason was brought into the apartment to warm it. The prince, observing the size of the vessel, and that it contained only a few coals, desired his host, in a jeering manner, to bring more wood or frankincense, giving him thus to understand that the fire was fitter for burning perfumes than to produce heat[935]. Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher, though displeased with many of the Grecian customs, praised the Greeks, however, because they shut out the smoke and brought only fire into their houses[936]. We are informed by Lampridius, that the extravagant Heliogabalus caused to be burned in these stoves, instead of wood, Indian spiceries and costly perfumes[937]. It is also worthy of notice, that coals were found in some of the apartments of Herculaneum, as we are told by Winkelmann, but neither stoves nor chimneys. As in Persia and other countries of the East no stoves made in the European manner are used at present, and as it is certain that the manners, customs and furniture of the early ages have been retained there almost without variation, we have reason to suppose that the methods employed by the inhabitants for warming themselves are the same as those used by the ancients. They agree perfectly with the descriptions given by the Greek and Roman authors, and serve in some measure to illustrate them. I shall therefore here insert the account given by De la Valle, as it is the clearest and most to the purpose.

“The Persians,” says he, “make fires in their apartments, not in fire-places as we do, but in stoves in the earth, which they call _tennor_. These stoves consist of a square or round hole, two spans or a little more in depth, and in shape not unlike an Italian cask. That this hole may throw out heat sooner, and with more strength, there is placed in it an iron vessel of the same size, which is either filled with burning coals, or a fire of wood and other inflammable substances is made in it. When this is done, they place over the hole or stove a wooden top, like a small low table, and spread above it a large coverlet quilted with cotton, which hangs down on all sides to the floor. This covering condenses the heat, and causes it to warm the whole apartment. The people who eat or converse there, and some who sleep in it, lie down on the floor above the carpet, and lean, with their shoulders against the wall, on square cushions, upon which they sometimes also sit; for the _tennor_ is constructed in a place equally distant from the walls on both sides. Those who are not very cold, only put their feet under the table or covering; but those who require more heat can put their hands under it, or creep under it altogether. By these means the stove diffuses over the whole body, without causing uneasiness to the head, so penetrating and agreeable a warmth, that I never in winter experienced anything more pleasant. Those, however, who require less heat let the coverlet hang down on their side to the floor, and enjoy without any inconvenience from the stove the moderately heated air of the apartment. They have a method also of stirring up or blowing the fire when necessary, by means of a small pipe united with the _tennor_ or stove under the earth, and made to project above the floor as high as one chooses, so that the wind, when a person blows into it, because it has no other vent, acts immediately upon the fire like a pair of bellows. When there is no longer occasion to use this stove, both holes are closed up, that is to say, the mouth of the stove and that of the pipe which conveys the air to it, by a flat stone made for that purpose. Scarcely any appearance of them is then to be perceived, nor do they occasion inconvenience, especially in a country where it is always customary to cover the floor with a carpet, and where the walls are plastered. In many parts these stoves are used to cook victuals, by placing kettles over them. They are employed also to bake bread, and for this purpose they are covered with a large broad metal plate, on which the cake is laid; but if the bread is thick and requires more heat, it is put into the stove itself[938].” I shall here remark, that the Jews used such stoves in their houses, and the priests had them also in the temple[939].

Those who have employed their talents on this subject before me, have collected a great many passages from the Greek and Roman writers which speak of fires made for the purpose of affording warmth; but as they contain nothing certain or decisive, I shall not here enlarge upon them[940]. Though one or more expressions may appear to allude to a chimney, and even if we should conclude from them, with Montfaucon, that the ancients were acquainted with the art of constructing in mason-work elevated funnels for conveying off the smoke, it must be allowed, when we consider the many proofs which we find to the contrary, that they were at any rate extremely rare. As they are so convenient and useful, and can be easily constructed upon most occasions, it is impossible, had they been well known, that they should have ever been forgotten. Montfaucon says, from _caminus_ is derived _chiminea_ of the Spaniards; _camino_ of the Italians; _cheminée_ of the French; and _kamin_ of the Germans; and it seems, adds he, beyond a doubt, that the name, with the thing signified, has been transmitted to us from the ancients. Though this derivation be just, the conclusion drawn from it is false. The ancient name of a thing is often given to a new invention that performs the same service. The words _mill_ and _moulin_ came from _mola_; and yet our mills were unknown to the ancients. Guys relates, that a Greek woman, seeing an European lady covered with a warm cloak, said, “That woman carries her _tennor_ about with her.”

Besides the methods already mentioned, of warming apartments, the ancients had another still more ingenious, which was invented and introduced about the time of Seneca[941]. A large stove or several smaller ones were constructed in the earth under the edifice; and these being filled with burning coals, the heat was conveyed from them into dining-rooms, bed-chambers, or other apartments which one wished to warm[942] by means of pipes inclosed in the walls. The upper end of these hot-air pipes was often ornamented with the representation of a lion’s or a dolphin’s head, or any other figure according to fancy, and could be opened or shut at pleasure. It appears that this apparatus was first constructed in the baths, and became extended afterwards to common use. These pipes sometimes were conducted around the whole edifice[943], as I have seen in our theatres. Palladius advises a branch of such pipes to be conveyed under the floor of an oil-cellar, in order that it may be heated without contracting soot[944]. Such a mode of warming apartments, which approaches very near to that employed in our German stoves, would have been impossible, had the houses been without windows; and it is worthy of remark, that transparent windows, at the time Seneca lived, were entirely new. These pipes, like those of our stoves, could not fail in the course of time to become filled with soot; and as they were likely to catch fire by being overheated, laws were made forbidding them to be brought too near to the wall of a neighbouring house[945], though there were other reasons also for this regulation. As what is here said will be better elucidated by a description of the still existing ruins of some ancient baths, I shall transcribe the following passage from Winkelmann:--

“Of chimneys in apartments,” says this author, “no traces are to be seen. Charcoal was found in some of the rooms in the city of Herculaneum, from which we may conclude that the inhabitants used only charcoal fires for warming themselves. In the houses of the common citizens at Naples, there are no chimneys at present; and people of rank there as well as at Rome, who strictly adhere to the rules laid down by physicians for preserving health, live in apartments without chimneys, and which are never heated by coal-fires. In the villas, however, which were situated without Rome, on eminences where the air was purer and colder, the ancients had _hypocausta_ or stoves, which were more common perhaps than in the city. Stoves were found in the apartments of a ruined villa, when the ground was dug up to form a foundation for the buildings erected there at present. Below these apartments there were subterraneous chambers, about the height of a table, two and two under each apartment, and close on all sides. The flat top of these chambers consisted of very large tiles, and was supported by two pillars, which, as well as the tiles, were joined together, not with lime but some kind of cement, that they might not be separated by the heat. In the roofs of these chambers there were square pipes made of clay, which hung half-way down into each, and the mouths of them were conveyed into the apartment above. Pipes of the like kind, built into the wall of this lower apartment, rose into another in the second story, where their mouths were ornamented with the figure of a lion’s head, formed of burned clay. A narrow passage, of about two feet in breadth, conducted to the subterranean chambers, into which coals were thrown through a square hole, and the heat was conveyed from them by means of the before-mentioned pipes into the apartment immediately above, the floor of which was composed of coarse mosaic-work, and the walls were incrusted with marble. This was the sweating-apartment (_sudatorium_). The heat of this apartment was conveyed into that on the second story by the clay pipes enclosed in the wall, which had mouths opening into the former, as well as the latter, to collect and afford a passage to the heat, which was moderated in the upper apartment, and could be increased or lessened at pleasure.” Such a complex apparatus would have been unnecessary had the Romans been acquainted with our stoves[946].

I have, as yet, made no mention of a passage of the emperor Julian, which is too remarkable to be entirely omitted; though, at the same time, it is so corrupted that little can be collected from it[947]. Julian relates, that during his residence at Paris the winter was uncommonly severe; but that he would not allow the house in which he lived to be heated, though it had the same apparatus for that purpose as the other houses of the city. His reason for this was, that he wished to inure himself to the climate; and he was apprehensive also, that the walls by being heated might become moist and throw out a damp vapour. He suffered, therefore, burning coals only to be brought into his apartment, which, however, occasioned pains in his head, and other disagreeable symptoms. What apparatus the houses of Paris then had for producing heat, no one can conjecture from the passage alluded to. In my opinion, they were furnished with the above-described subterranean stoves: but even if these should not be here meant, I cannot help thinking that the emperor’s relation confirms that they had not chimneys like ours; for, had the case been otherwise, the cautious prince would not have exposed himself to the vapour of charcoal, the noxious quality and effects of which could not be unknown to him.

Though the great antiquity of chimneys is not disputed, too little information has been collected to enable us to determine, with any degree of certainty, the period when they first came into use. If it be true, as Du Cange, Vossius, and others affirm, that apartments called _caminatæ_ were apartments with chimneys, these must, indeed, be very old; for that word occurs as early as the year 1069, and perhaps earlier[948]; but it is always found connected in such a manner as contradicts entirely the above signification. Papias the grammarian, who wrote about 1051, explains the word _fumarium_ by _caminus per quem exit fumus_; and Johannes de Janua, a monk, who about 1268 wrote his Catholicon, printed at Venice, says “Epicaustorium, instrumentum quod fit super ignem caussa emittendi fumum.” But these _fumaria_ and _epicaustoria_ may have been pipes by which the smoke, as is the case in our vent-furnaces, was conveyed through the nearest wall or window: at any rate, this expression, with its explanations, can afford no certain proof that chimneys are so old[949]; especially as later writers give us reason to believe the contrary. Riccobaldus de Ferrara[950], Galvano Fiamma or Flamma, a Dominican monk from Milan[951], who died in 1344 professor at Pavia, and Giovanni de Mussis, who about 1388 wrote his Chronicon Placentinum[952], and all the writers of the fourteenth century, seem either to have been unacquainted with chimneys, or to have considered them as the newest invention of luxury.

That there were no chimneys in the tenth, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, seems to be proved by the so-called _ignitegium_, or _pyritegium_, the curfew-bell of the English, and _couvre-feu_ of the French. In the middle ages, as they are termed, people made fires in their houses in a hole or pit in the centre of the floor, under an opening formed in the roof; and when the fire was burnt out, or the family went to bed at night, the hole was shut by a cover of wood. In those periods a law was almost everywhere established, that the fire should be extinguished at a certain time in the evening; that the cover should be put over the fire-place; and that all the family should retire to rest, or at least be at home[953]. The time when this ought to be done was signified by the ringing of a bell. William the Conqueror introduced this law into England in the year 1068, and fixed the _ignitegium_ at seven in the evening, in order to prevent nocturnal assemblies[954]; but this law was abolished by Henry I., in 1100. From this ancient practice has arisen, in my opinion, a custom in Lower Saxony of saying, when people wish to go home sooner than the company choose, that they hear the _Bürgerglocke_, burghers’ bell. The ringing of the curfew-bell gave rise also to the prayer-bell, as it was called, which has still been retained in some protestant countries. Pope John XXIII., with a view to avert certain apprehended misfortunes, which rendered his life uncomfortable, gave orders that every person, on hearing the _ignitegium_, should repeat the _Ave Maria_ three times[955]. When the appearance of a comet and a dread of the Turks afterwards alarmed all Christendom, Pope Calixtus III. increased these periodical times of prayer by ordering the prayer-bell to be rung also at noon[956].

The oldest certain account of chimneys with which I am acquainted, occurs in the year 1347; for an inscription which is still existing or did exist at Venice, relates that at the above period a great many chimneys (_molti camini_) were thrown down by an earthquake[957]. This circumstance is confirmed by John Villani, the historian, who died at Florence in 1348, and who calls the chimneys _fumajuoli_[958]. Galeazzo Gataro, who in the Dictionary of Learned Men is named De Gataris, and who died of the plague in 1405, says in his History of Padua, which was afterwards improved and published by his son Andrew, that Francesco da Carraro, lord of Padua, came to Rome in the year 1368, and finding no chimneys in the hotel where he lodged, because at that time fire was kindled in a hole in the middle of the floor, he caused two chimneys, like those which had been long used at Padua, to be constructed, and arched by masons and carpenters whom he had brought along with him. Over these chimneys, the first ever seen at Rome, he affixed his arms, which were still remaining in the time of Gataro[959].

While chimneys continued to be built in so simple a manner, and of such a width as they are still observed to be in old houses, they were so easily cleaned that this service could be performed by a servant with a wisp of straw, or a little brushwood fastened to a rope; but after the flues, in order to save room, were made narrower, or when several flues were united together, the cleaning of them became so difficult, that they required boys, or people of small size, accustomed to that employment. The first chimney-sweepers in Germany came from Savoy, Piedmont, and the neighbouring territories[960]. These for a long time were the only countries where the cleaning of chimneys was followed as a trade; and I am thence inclined to conjecture that chimneys were invented in Italy[961], rather than that the Savoyards learned the art of climbing from the marmots or mountain-rats, as some have asserted[962]. These needy but industrious people chose and appropriated to themselves, perhaps, this occupation, because they could find no other so profitable. The Lotharingians, however, undertook this business also, and on that account the duke of Lotharingia was styled the Imperial Fire-master. The first Germans who condescended to clean chimneys appear to have been miners; and our chimney-sweepers still procure boys from the Hartz forest, who may be easily discovered by their language. The greater part of the chimney-sweepers (_ramoneurs de cheminées_) in Paris, at present, are Savoyards; and one may see there everywhere in the streets large groups of their boys[963], many of whom are not above eight years of age, and who, clad in linen frocks, will, when called upon, scramble up at the hazard of their lives, with their besoms and other instruments, through a narrow funnel often fifty feet in length, filled with soot and smoke, and in which they cannot breathe till they arrive at the top, in order to gain five sous; and even of this small pittance they are obliged to pay a part to their avaricious masters[964].

FOOTNOTES

[904] Winkelmann in his Observations on the Baths of the Ancients.

[905] The following are the principal authors in whose works information is to be found respecting this subject:--Octavii Ferrarii Electorum libri duo. Patavii 1679, 4to. This work consists of short treatises on different subjects of antiquity. The ninth chapter of the first book, page 32, has for title, “Fumaria, seu fumi emissaria, vulgo caminos, apud veteres in usu fuisse, disputatur.”

Justi Lipsii Epistolarum selectarum Chilias, 1613, 8vo. The seventy-fifth letter in Centuria tertia ad Belgas, page 921, treats of chimneys, with which the author says the Greeks and the Romans were unacquainted.

Eberharti a Weyhe Parergon De Camino. To save my readers the trouble which I have had in searching for this small treatise, I shall give them the following information: E. von Weyhe was a learned nobleman of our electorate, a particular account of whose life and writings may be found in Molleri Cimbria Litterata, vol. ii. p. 970. In the year 1612 he published Discursus de speculi origine, usu et abusu, Eberharti von Weyhe. This edition contains nothing on chimneys, nor is there any thing to be found respecting them in the second, inserted in Dornavii Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ Socraticæ Joco-seriæ, Hanoviæ 1619, fol. i. p. 733. But this treatise was twice printed afterwards, as an appendix to the author’s Aulicus Politicus: Francf. 1615, and Wolfenb. 1622, in quarto; and in both these editions may be found at the end, Parergon de camino, inquirendi causa adjectum. In this short essay, which consists of only two pages, the author denies that the Jews, the Greeks, or the Romans had chimneys. Fabricius, in his Bibliograph. Antiquaria, does not quote Von Weyhe, either p. 1004, where he speaks of chimneys, or page 1014, where he speaks of looking-glasses.

Balthasaris Bonifacii Ludicra Historia. Venetiis 1652, 4to, lib. iii. cap. 23. De Caminis, p. 109. What this author says on the subject is of little importance.

Jo. Heringii Tractatus de molendinis eorumque jure, Francf. 1663, 4to.

P. Manutii Comment. in Ciceronis Epist. Familiar. lib. vii. epist. 10, decides against chimneys, and speaks of the manner of warming apartments.

Petronii Satyricon, cura Burmanni, Amst. 1743, 4to, i. p. 836. Burmann, on good grounds, is of opinion that the ancients had not chimneys.

Martini Lexicon Philologicum. Franc. 1655, fol. article _Caminus_.

Pancirollus De Rebus deperditis, ed. Salmuth, vol. i. tit. 33, p. 77.

Montfaucon, l’Antiquité expliquée, vol. i. p. 102. Montfaucon believes that the ancients had chimneys.

Pitisci Lexicon Antiquitatum Romanarum, fol. The whole article _Caminus_ is transcribed from Lipsius, Ferrarius, and others, without the author’s own opinion.

Muratori, Antiquitates Italiæ Medii Ævi, ii. p. 418.

Constantini Libri de Ceremoniis aulæ Byzantinæ, t. ii. Lipsiæ, 1754, fol. in Reiskii Commentar. p. 125.

Encyclopédie, tome troisième, Paris, 1753, fol. p. 281.

Deutsche Encyclopedie, vol. iv. Frank. 1780, 4to, p. 823.

Maternus von Cilano, Römische Alterthümer, vol. iv. Altona, 1776, 8vo, p. 945. This author is of opinion that chimneys were used by the Greeks, but not by the Romans.

Bibliothèque Ancienne et Moderne, par Jean le Clerc, tom. xiii. 1720, part i. p. 56. The author gives an extract from Montfaucon, which contains a great many new observations.

Zanetti dell’ origine di alcune arti principali appresso i Veneziani. Venezia, 1758, 4to, p. 78.

Raccolta d’ opuscoli scientifici e filologici. Venezia, 1752, 12mo, tom. xlvii. A Treatise on Chimneys by Scip. Maffei is to be found page 67.

[906] Odyss. lib. i. ver. 58.

[907] Lib. viii. c. 137.

[908] Ver. 139.

[909] Lib. ix. p. 386.

[910] Lib. vi. p. 236.

[911] Lib. ix. p. 378.

[912] Antholog. lib. ii. cap. 32. p. 229.

[913] De Bellis Civil. lib. iv. p. 962, edit. Tollii.

[914] Sat. x. ver. 17.

[915] Epist. 64.

[916] Such fire-watchmen were appointed by the emperor Augustus.--Sueton. in Vit. Octav. August. cap. 30. That these watchmen, whom the soldiers in ridicule called Sparteoli, were stationed in the neighbourhood of houses where there were grand entertainments, is proved by Tertulliani Apologet. cap. xxxix. p. 188, edit. De la Cerda. Compare also Casaubon’s annotations on the passage of Suetonius above quoted.

[917] Eclog. i. ver. 83.

[918] Aulular. act. ii. sc. 4.

[919] De Re Rustica, lib. i. cap. 6.

[920] Horat. lib. i. sat. 5.

[921] Grapaldus De Partibus Ædium.

[922] Plin. xxxiii. cap. 4. Virgil. Æn. iii. ver. 580. Juvenal, sat. xiv. ver. 117.

[923] Lib. vii. cap. 3.

[924] The name _atrium_ had its rise from the walls of such places being black with smoke. Isidorus, xv. 3. This derivation is given also by Servius, Æn. lib. i. ver. 730.

[925] Seneca, ep. 44. Cicero in Pison. cap. i. Juvenal, sat. viii. ver. 6.

[926] In the _Equites_ of Aristophanes the houses of the common people are called γύπαι and γυπάρια, because γὺψ signifies _fuliginosum_ or _fuscum_. On account of the smoke they were called also μέλαθρα. Lycophron, 770, and 1190. Μέλαθρον αἰθαλόεν, domicilium fuliginosum, occurs in Homer, Iliad. ii. ver. 414, of which expression and i. ver. 204, the scholiast very properly gives the following explanation: ἀπὸ τοῦ μελαίνεσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ κάπνου, quoniam a fumo reddebantur nigræ. For the same reason, according to the scholiasts, Apollonius Rhodius, lib. ii. ver. 1089, calls the middle beam of the roof μέλαθρον. Columella, i. 17, says, “Fuligo quæ supra focos tectis inhæret:” among us the soot adheres to the funnel of the chimney, and not to the roof or ceiling.

Tecta senis subeunt, nigro deformia fumo;
Ignis in hesterno stipite parvus erat.--Ovid. Fast. lib. v. 505.

In cujus hospitio nec fumi nec nidoris nebulam vererer.--Apuleii
Metam. 1.

Sordidum flammæ trepidant rotantes
Vertice fumum.--Horat. iv. od. 11.

It may be here said, that the above passages allude to the hovels of the poor, which are black enough among us. These are not, however, all so smoky and so covered with soot both without and within; for though this may be the case in some villages, the houses of the common people in our cities may be called dirty rather than smoky. These passages of Roman authors speak principally of town-houses. The house in which Horace wished to entertain his Phyllis was not a mean one, for, he tells her a little before, “Ridet argento domus.” [Black huts or hovels, such as are described in the above remarks, having merely a hole in the roof, or an open window for the escape of smoke, are still common in Ireland, and in some of the less-frequented villages of the Continent. Indeed they are met with even in England. But in all cases the buildings appear to be very ancient.]

[927] Hesiodi Op. ver. 627. Virgilii Georg. lib. i. 175.

[928] Columella, i. 6, et viii. cap. 3.

[929] Columella, lib. i. cap. 6, p. 405. Artificial heat could not be employed to prevent oil from becoming clotted by being frozen; for it was liable to be hurt by soot and smoke, the constant attendants of artificial warming.--Columella, lib. i. cap. 6.

[930] This method of preparing wood is described by Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. lib. xv. cap. 10.

[931] Cato De Re Rust. cap. 130. Pliny, lib. xv. cap. 8.

[932] Such wood in Greek was called ἄκαπτα, in Latin _acapna_, in Homer’s Odyssey, book vi. κάγκανα and δανὰ, Pollux, p. 621, καύσιμα. This wood is mentioned also by Galen, in Antidot. lib. i. Trebellius Pollio in Vita Claudii, in an account of the firing allowed to him when a tribune, shows that wood was given out or sold by weight, as it is at present at Amsterdam. On the other hand, the _coctilia_ were measured like coals. Martial, lib. xiii. ep. 15: Ligna acapna:--

Si vicina tibi Nomento rura coluntur,
Ad villam monco, rustice, ligna feres.

It would seem that in the above-mentioned neighbourhood there was no wood proper for fuel, so that people were obliged to purchase that which had been dried. Some hence conclude that the _acapna_ must not have been dear, because it is recommended to a countryman. But the advice here given is addressed to the possessor of a farm who certainly could afford to purchase dried wood.

[933] Jul. Capitol. in Vita Pertin. cap. iii. Capitolinus says before, that the father carried on _lignariam negotiationem_. See the annotations of Salmasius and Casaubon.

[934] Horat. lib. i. sat. 5, 79.

[935] Plutarch. Apophthegm. p. 180.

[936] Plutarch. Sympos. lib. vi. 7.

[937] Æl. Lamprid. Vita Heliogab. cap. 31.

[938] See also Tavernier, Voyages, vol. i.--Olearius, vol. i.--Schweigger’s Reisebeschreibung nach Constantinopel und Jerusalem, p. 264.--Voyage de Chardin, 12mo, vol. iv. p. 236.--Voyage Littéraire de la Grèce, par M. Guys, Paris, 1776, 2 vols. 8vo, i. p. 34. Because this author is one of the latest who has taken the trouble to compare the manners of the ancient and modern Greeks, I shall here give his account at full length:--“The Greeks have no chimneys in the apartments of their houses; they make use only of a chaffing-dish, which is placed in the middle of the apartment to warm it, or for the benefit of those who choose to approach it. This custom is very ancient throughout all the East. The Romans had no other method of warming their chambers; and it has been preserved by the Turks. Λαμπτὴρ, says Hesychius, was a chaffing-dish placed in the middle of a room, on which dry wood was burned to warm it, and resinous wood to give light. This chaffing-dish was supported, as those at present, by a tripod; lamps were not introduced till long after. To secure the face from any inconvenience, and from the heat of the chaffing-dish, oftentimes dangerous, the _tendour_ was invented. This is a square table under which the fire is placed. It is covered with a carpet which hangs down to the floor, and with another of silk, more or less rich, by way of ornament. People sit around it either on a sofa or on the pavement, and they can at the same time put their hands and their feet under the covering, which, as it encloses the chaffing-dish on all sides, preserves a gentle and lasting heat. The tendour is destined principally for the use of the women, who during the winter pass the whole day around it, employed either in embroidering or in receiving the visits of their friends.”

[939] As a proof of this, Faber, in his Archæologie der Hebräer, Halle, 1773, 8vo, p. 432, quotes Kelim, v. 1, and Maimonides and Bartenora, p. 36, Tamid, c. 50. Compare Othon. Lex Rabbin. p. 85.

[940] As it would be tedious to transcribe all these passages, I shall, as examples, give only the following:--

Dissolve frigus, ligna super foco
Large reponens.--Horat. lib. i. od. 9.

These lines show that the poet had an aversion to cold when enjoying his bottle, and that he wished for a good fire; but they do not inform us whether the hearth, _focus_, had a chimney. We learn as little from the advice of Cato, c. 143: “Focum purum circumversum quotidie, priusquam cubitum eat, habeat.” It was certainly wholesome to rake the fire together at night, but it might have burned either with or without a chimney. Cicero, Epist. Famil. lib. vii. 10: “Valde metuo ne frigeas in hibernis; quam ob rem camino luculento utendum censeo.” Cicero perhaps understood under that term some well-known kind of stove which afforded a strong heat. Suetonius, in Vita Vitellii, cap. viii.: “Nec ante in Prætorium rediit, quam flagrante triclinio ex conceptu camini.” As Vitellius was proclaimed emperor in January, a warm dining-room was certainly necessary. Du Cange in his Glossarium quotes the word _fumariolum_ from the Paræneticum ad Pœnitentiam of the Spaniard Pacianus; but the latter takes the whole passage from Tertullian, who wrote more than a century before. Sidonius Apollin. lib. ii. epist. i.: “A cripto porticu in hyemale triclinium venitur, quod arcuatili camino sæpe ignis animatus pulla fuligine infecit.” No one can determine with certainty the meaning of _arcuatilis caminus_. A covering made of a thin plate of metal, or a screen, was perhaps placed over a portable stove; we however learn, that even where the _arcuatilis caminus_ was used, the beauty of the dining-room was destroyed by smoke and soot. Ammianus Marcell. lib. xxv. in the end of the life of Jovian: “Fertur recente calce cubiculi illiti ferre odorem noxium neqnivisse, vel extuberato capite periisse succensione prunarum immensa.” This in an apartment where there was a stove or a chimney would have been impossible.

The passage of Athenæus, lib. xii. p. 519, which speaks of πύελοι, will admit of various explanations. Dalechamp thinks that they were the _poëles_ of the French (something like our stoves). Casaubon says they were bathing-tubs. This opinion is in some measure confirmed by Suidas, who gives that meaning to πύελος; and by Jul. Pollux, in whom it occurs in the same sense more than once. Lipsius however rejects these explanations, and considers πύελοι to have been _thecæ_, or vessels similar to those which in low German are called _riken_, and which, instead of our stoves, are much used in Holland by the women, who seldom approach the chimney.

[941] Seneca, ep. 90.

[942] Senec. De Provident. p. 138. Cicero ad Fratrem, lib. iii. ep. i. Plin. lib. ii. ep. 17.

[943] Statii Sylv. lib. i. 5, 17.

[944] Pallad. De Re Rust. lib. i. 20, p. 876.

[945] Digestor. lib. viii. tit. 2, 13.

[946] A passage from And. Baccii Liber de thermis, fol. p. 263, contains information much of the same kind. See also Robortelli Laconici seu sudationis, explicatio, in Grævii Thes. Antiq. Rom. xii. p. 385. Vitruvius, cum annotat. G. Philandri, Lugd. 1586, 4to, p. 279. Philander says that the ancients conveyed from subterranean stoves, into the apartments above, the steam of boiling water; but of this I have found no proof. If this be true, the Roman baths must have been like the Russian sweating-baths. [Many of the large establishments and work-shops in this country are now heated by means of hot air, hot water, or steam circulating through a ramified system of pipes.]

[947] Juliani op. Lips. 1696, fol. p. 341.

[948] Zanetti, p. 78, quotes a charter of that year, in which the following words occur: “Cum tota sua cella et domo, et caminatis cum suo solario, et aliis caminatis.”

[949] Such is the opinion of Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Med. Æv. ii. p. 418.

[950] In Muratori, Script. Ital. vol. ix.

[951] Ibid.

[952] Ibid, vol. xvi. p. 582.

[953] Reiske ad Ceremon. aulæ Byzant. p. 145.

[954] The following passages of old writers, collected by Du Cange, allude to this law. Statuta Leichefeldensis ecclesiæ in Anglia: “Est autem ignitegium qualibet nocte per annum pulsandum hora septima post meridiem.” Statuta Massil. lib. v. cap. 4: “Statuimus hac præsenti constitutione perpetuo observandum, quod nullus de cætero vadat per civitatem Massiliæ vel suburbia civitatis contigua de nocte, ex quo campana, quæ dicitur Salvaterra, sonata fuerit, sine lumine.” Charta Johannis electi archiepisc. Upsaliensis, an. 1291: “Statuimus, ut nullus extra domum post ignitegium seu coverfu exeat.”

[955] Pol. Vergil. De Rer. Invent. lib. vi. c. 12. Lugd. 1664, 12mo, p. 460.

[956] The year is probably 1457; Calixtus was elected to the papal chair in 1455.

[957] Dell’ origine di alcune arti principali appresso i Veneziani. Venezia, 1758, 4to, p. 80.

[958] Historie Fiorentine, lib. xii. cap. 121.

[959] This Chronicon Patavinum may be found in Muratori, Scriptor. Rerum Ital. vol. xvii.

[960] Gazoni Piazze Universale, Venet. 1610, 4to, p. 364.

[961] A writer in the German Encyclopedie conjectures that the Italian architects employed in Germany to build houses and palaces of stone, brought with them people acquainted with the art of constructing larger and more commodious chimneys than those commonly used.

[962] Dictionnaire des Arts et des Métiers, par Jaubert, vol. iv. p. 534.

[963]

... Ces honnêtes enfans
Qui de Savoye arrivent tous les ans,
Et dont la main légèrement essuye
Ces longs canaux, engorgés par la suie.--VOLTAIRE.

[964] “C’est ainsi que se ramonent toutes les cheminées de Paris; et des régisseurs n’ont enrégimenté ces petits malheureux, que pour gagner encore sur leur médiocre salaire. Puissent ces ineptes et barbares entrepreneurs se ruiner de fond en comble; ainsi que tous ceux qui ont sollicité des privileges exclusifs!”--Tableau de Paris. Hamburg, 1781, tom. ii. p. 249. [Owing to many serious accidents which attended the climbing of chimneys, this practice was put down in this country by Act of Parliament, (3 & 4 Victoria, c. 85. sec. 2.). The use of machinery is now substituted, but does not perform the operation so effectively as the old mode, especially where the flues are in angles.]

HUNGARY WATER.

Hungary water is spirit of wine distilled upon rosemary, and which therefore contains the essential oil and powerful aroma of that plant. To be really good the spirit of wine ought to be very strong and the rosemary fresh; and if that be the case, the leaves are as proper as the flowers, which according to the prescription of some should only be employed. It is likewise necessary that the spirit of wine be distilled several times over the rosemary; but that process is too troublesome and expensive to admit of this water being disposed of at the low price for which it is usually sold; and it is certain that the greater part of it is nothing else than common spirit, united with the essence of rosemary in the simplest manner. In general, it is only mixed with a few drops of the oil. For a long time past this article has been brought to us principally from France, where it is prepared, particularly at Beaucaire, Montpelier, and other places in Languedoc, where that plant grows in great abundance.

The name, _l’eau de la reine d’Hongrie_, seems to signify that this water, so celebrated for its medicinal virtues, is an Hungarian invention; and we read in many books that the receipt for preparing it was given to a queen of Hungary by a hermit, or as others say, by an angel, who appeared to her in a garden all entrance to which was shut, in the form of a hermit or a youth[965]. Some call the queen St. Isabella[966]; but those who pretend to be best acquainted with the circumstance affirm that Elizabeth wife of Charles Robert king of Hungary, and daughter of Uladislaus II. king of Poland, who died in 1380 or 1381, was the inventress. By often washing with this spirit of rosemary, when in the seventieth year of her age, she was cured, as we are told, of the gout and an universal lameness; so that she not only lived to pass eighty, but became so lively and beautiful that she was courted by the king of Poland, who was then a widower, and who wished to make her his second wife.

John George Hoyer[967] says that the receipt for preparing this water, written by queen Elizabeth’s own hand, in golden characters, is still preserved in the Imperial library at Vienna. But it has been already remarked by others[968] that Hoyer is mistaken, and that he does not properly remember the account given of the receipt. It is to be found for the first time, as far as I know, in a small book by John Prevot, which, after his death in 1631, was published by his two sons at Frankfort in 1659[969].

One may easily see that Prevot mistook this Elizabeth for St. Elizabeth, the daughter of king Andrew II., who was never queen of Hungary, but died wife of a landgrave of Thuringia in 1235. But respecting Elizabeth, the wife of king Charles Robert, we know from the information of Hungarian writers[970], that in her will she really did mention two breviaries, one of which she bequeathed to her daughter-in-law, and the other to one Clara von Pukur, with this stipulation, however, that after her death it should belong to a monastery at Buda. It is not impossible, therefore, that one of these books may have come into the hands of Podacather’s ancestors.

I must however confess, that respecting this pretended invention of the Hungarian queen I have doubts; it may be readily conjectured that this Elizabeth must have been extremely vain; but when she wished to make posterity believe that in the seventieth, or seventy-second year of her age she became so sound and so beautiful that a king, at that time a widower, grew enamoured of her, we may justly conclude that she was more than vain--that she was perhaps childish. I have taken the trouble to search for the king, then a widower, who paid his addresses to Elizabeth, but my labour has proved fruitless. This proposal of marriage must have been made about the year 1370; but Casimir III., brother of the Hungarian Elizabeth, reigned in Poland till that year, and was succeeded by her son Louis, who died after her in 1382; and the throne then remained vacant for three years.

It is rather singular that the name of aqua-vitæ, and the practice of distilling spirit of wine upon aromatic herbs, should be known in Hungary so early as the fourteenth century, though I will not pretend to affirm the contrary. But I consider it as more remarkable that the botanists of the seventeenth century should have spoken of and extolled the various properties of rosemary without mentioning Hungary water. It cannot however be denied, that in the sixteenth century, long before Prevot, Zapata[971], an Italian physician, taught the method of preparing rosemary-water: and he has even told us that it was known, though imperfectly, to Arnoldus de Villa Nova; but he does not say that it was an Hungarian invention. It appears to me most probable, at present, that the name _l’eau de la reine d’Hongrie_, was chosen by those who in later times prepared rosemary-water for sale, in order to give greater consequence and credit to their commodity; as various medicines, some years ago, were extolled in the gazettes under the title of Pompadour, though the celebrated lady from whose name they derived their importance, certainly neither ever saw them nor used them.

FOOTNOTES

[965] Universal Lexicon, vol. xlix. p. 1340.

[966] Traité de la Chemie, par N. le Febure. Leyde, 1669, 2 vols. 12mo, i. p. 474.

[967] In his notes to Blumentrost’s Haus- und Reise-apotheke. Leipzig, 1716, 8vo, cap. 16, p. 47.

[968] Succincta Medicorum Hungariæ et Transilvaniæ Biographia, ex adversariis St. Wespremi. Wien, 1778, 8vo, p. 213.

[969] Selectiora remedia multiplici usu comprobata, quæ inter secreta medica jure recenseas. In page 6 the following passage occurs: “For the gout in the hands and the feet. As the wonderful virtue of the remedy given below has been confirmed to me by the cases of many, I shall relate by what good fortune I happened to meet with it. In the year 1606 I saw among the books of Francis Podacather, of a noble Cyprian family, with whom I was extremely intimate, a very old breviary, which he held in high veneration, because, he said, it had been presented by St. Elizabeth, queen of Hungary, to some of his ancestors, as a testimony of the friendship which subsisted between them. In the beginning of this book he showed me a remedy for the gout written by the queen’s own hand, in the following words, which I copied:--

“‘I Elizabeth, queen of Hungary, being very infirm and much troubled with the gout in the seventy-second year of my age, used for a year this receipt given to me by an ancient hermit whom I never saw before nor since; and was not only cured, but recovered my strength, and appeared to all so remarkably beautiful, that the king of Poland asked me in marriage, he being a widower and I a widow. I however refused him for the love of my Lord Jesus Christ, from one of whose angels I believe I received the remedy. The receipt is as follows:

“‘℞. Take of aqua vitæ, four times distilled, three parts, and of
the tops and flowers of rosemary two parts: put these together in a
close vessel, let them stand in a gentle heat fifty hours, and then
distil them. Take one dram of this in the morning once every week,
either in your food or drink, and let your face and the diseased
limb be washed with it every morning.

“‘It renovates the strength, brightens the spirits, purifies the marrow and nerves, restores and preserves the sight, and prolongs life.’ Thus far from the Breviary.”--Then follows a confirmation which Prevot gives from his own experience.

[970] Medicorum Hungariæ Biographia, _ut supra_, p. 214.

[971] The book of Zapata, who is not noticed in the Gelehrten Lexicon, was printed at Rome, as Haller says in his Biblioth. Botan. vol. i. p. 368, in the year 1586; and other editions are mentioned in Boerhavii Methodus Studii Medici, p. 728 and 869. I have now before me, Joh. Bapt. Zapatæ, Medici Romani, Mirabilia seu Secreta Medico-chirurgica--per Davidem Spleissium. Ulmiæ, 1696. The passage above alluded to occurs in page 49.

CORK.

Those who are accustomed to value things used in common life only according to the price for which they can be purchased, will perhaps imagine that my subject must be nearly exhausted when I think it worth my while to entertain my readers with a matter so inconsiderable. Cork, however, is a substance of such a singular property, that no other has yet been found which can be so generally employed with the same advantage; and before the use of it was known, people were obliged on many occasions to supply the want of it by means which to us would appear extremely troublesome.

Cork is a body remarkably light, can be easily compressed, expands again by its elasticity as soon as the compressing power is removed, and therefore fills or stops up very closely that space into which it has been driven by force. It may be easily cut into all forms; and though it abounds with pores, which are the cause of its lightness, it suffers neither water, beer, nor any common liquid to escape through it, and it is only very slowly and after a considerable length of time that it can be penetrated even by spirits. Its numerous pores seem to be too small to afford a passage to the finest particles of water and wine, which can with greater facility ooze through more compact wood that has larger or wider pores[972].

Cork is the exterior bark of a tree, belonging to the genus of the oak, which grows wild in the southern parts of Europe, particularly France, Spain, Portugal and Italy[973]. When the tree is about twenty-six years old it is fit to be barked, and this can be done successively every eight years[974]. The bark always grows up again, and its quality improves with the increasing age of the tree. It is commonly singed a little over a strong fire or glowing coals, and laid to soak a certain time in water, after which it is placed under stones in order to be pressed straight.

This tree, as well as its use, was known to the Greeks and the Romans. By the former it was called _phellus_. Theophrastus reckons it among the oaks, and says that it has a thick fleshy bark, which must be stripped off every three years to prevent it from perishing. He adds, that it was so light as never to sink in water, and on that account could be used with great advantage for a variety of purposes[975]. The only circumstance which on the first consideration can excite any doubt of the _phellus_ being our cork-tree, is, that he expressly says it lost its leaves annually, whereas our cork-tree retains them. In another passage however he calls it an evergreen[976]. This apparent contradiction several commentators have endeavoured to clear up, but their labour seems unnecessary; for there is a species of our cork-tree which really drops its leaves. Linnæus did not think this species worth his notice; but it has been accurately observed by Clusius and Matthiolus[977], and its existence is confirmed by Miller[978]. As Theophrastus[979], Pliny[980], Varro[981] and others mention a common oak which always retains its leaves, it appears clear to me that the first-mentioned author, where he speaks of evergreens, meant our common species of the cork-tree, and that extraordinary kind of oak; but in the other passage that species which drops its leaves in winter.