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dilating the pores of the body you mean to dye; to depofit in them the particles of a foreign substance; to confine them by some kind of cement, fo that neither rain nor fun can poffibly alter them; to choose the colouring particles of fuch a tenuity as to penetrate and be retained, by being fufficiently wedged into the pores of the fubject when dilated by the heat of boiling water, and afterwards çontracted by cold, and finally covered with a kind of mattick, left by the falt ufed in preparation. Whence it follows that the pores of the fibres of the woollen, either fabricated or to be fabricated into stuffs, ought to be cleanfed, expanded, cemented, or glued, and then contracted, that the colour-atoms may be retained or faftened, as it were, like a diamond in the beazel, or collet of a ring.

From repeated experiments I am also taught that every ingre dient for dying in grain has, in fome degree, an aftringent and precipitating quality; that this quality is fufficient to feparate the earth of alum, one of the falts ufed in the preparation of wool before it be dyed, and that this earth, mixed with the colouring atoms, forms a kind of lacker, fomething like what painters ufe, but infinitely finer; that in bright colours, fuch as fcarlet, where alum cannot be ufed, it is neceffary to fubftitute for this carth, which is always white, when the alum is good, fome other body that may supply the colouring atoms with a bafis equally white; that tin gives this bafis in the fcarlet dye; that when all these minute atoms of the colouring earthy lacker, are diftributed through the pores of the dilated subject; the gluten which the tartar (another falt ufed in the preparation) depofites, ferves to cement thefe atoms; and finally, that the contraction of the pores, occafioned by the cold, confines them.

Probably the falfe colours are defective only because the subject is not fufficiently prepared; and the colouring particles being depofited only on the fmooth furface, or in pores not enough dilated for their reception, the leaft accident muft inevitably detach them. If a method of fupplying colouring parts of dying woods with the neceffary aftringency could be difcovered, and at the fame time the wool properly prepared, as it is prepared to receive the red of madder, I am convinced, from at least thirty experiments, that these woods might be rendered as ufeful to dyers in grain, as they have hitherto been to the fecond clafs of dyers.'

The art of dying wool in various colours is treated at great length, confifting of thirty-nine chapters, exclufive of fome important inftructions; that of dying filk is detailed in more than a third of the fame quantity; and of cotton in almost as much. Thefe fubftances being of a different texture, and their pores alfo different as well in fize as in form, muft neceffarily be different in their aptitude for receiving and retaining the colouring particles. Wool is compofed of an infinite number of fibres, which, like hairs, are only tubes containing a medullary fubftance. Thefe tubes are themfelves fieves throughout their Jength, with an infinity of lateral pores; and they are more or Jefs curled in proportion to the greater or lefs quantity of those

pores.

pores. The fibres of wool having thus many pores, afford great room for extraneous fubftances, which may not only be lodged in the exterior pores, but even penetrate into the whole extent of the tubes, after the medullary substance has been expelled. It is therefore not to be wondered at if wool, being of all substances that are made into stuffs the moft porous, fhould be the most easy to dye, and imbibe the greatest quantity of colour.

Silk is a glutinous matter, formed in the body of the worm, and which hardens in the air while the animal is fpinning. This liquor doubtless originally proceeds from the mucilage of the mulberry-leaf, which, in the body of the worm, by its combination with the volatile alkali, becomes an animal gluten. It afterwards acquires confiftence in the air, in confequence of the evaporation of a thin oil, and a part of this volatile alkali.

Cotton is a thready fubftance, enveloping the grain of the cotton-tree. It is not formed, as fome imagine, by the extravasation of the nourishing juice of the plant; for, were it fo, it would vary both in fize and form. It is truly a vegetation produced on the outside of the plant; and as no vegetable fubstance can receive a juice without having veffels proper for its circulation, it neceffarily follows that the fibres of the cotton are tabular, in the fame manner as the wool; but being a great deal finer, must be more difficult to dye, because incapable of admitting fuch grofs particles. It has alfo lateral pores, like thofe of wool, containing a kind of medullary oil, which must neceffarily be expelled previous to dying; otherwife the dye would be extremely fuperficial.

We have fubjoined this general account of those different fubftances, with the view of explaining to our readers the principles on which the art of dying is founded. Our limits will not permit of defcribing the procefs in any of the different operations; but we can recommend the present work as an excellent introduction to the scientific knowledge of the art of dying. It exhibits, we believe, a faithful display of the practice in France, where great chemical abilities have been exerted towards the improvement of the art; and muft therefore afford' much useful information to thofe who would derive advantage in the prosecution of it from the affiftance of a rational theory.

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ART.

ART. V. The History and Antiquities of the Town and County of the Town of Newcastle upon Tyne; including an Account_of_the Coal-trade of that Place, and embellished with engraved Views of the Public Buildings, &c. By John Brand, M. A. Fellow and Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries. 4to. 2 vols. 21. 2s. boards. White. London, 1789.

THAT a great book is a great evil,' is a trite obfervation,

but was never more aptly exemplified than by the modern writers of topographical hiftories. The indefatigable Maitland had a genius particularly calculated for this fpecies of inquiry; and he chose for the purpose fuch subjects as would afford the most ample scope to his laborious investigation; but his literary fucceffors, lefs fortunate in their felection, while they have endeavoured to imitate the industry, have far exceeded the mi- . nuteness of that inquifitive author; and instead of interefting details, and researches gratifying to curiofity, present us with an enormous mass of trifling facts and circumstances, and a regifter of names which ought to have remained unmolested in their native obfcurity. The principal cause of the extreme amplification of these writers is doubtless a partiality for their subject, to which having themselves annexed an idea of importance, they feem to imagine that the moft circumftantial account of it cannot fail of contributing, in a proportionable degree, to the gratification of the public. But in this they are greatly mistaken. The public will never look with complacency at a work, however laboriously executed, which neither engages the attention with interefting narrative, nor repays it with ufeful information. To delineate the origin and progrefs of eminent places; to trace the various natural or political causes of their advancement or decline; and to recite the extraordinary events which occur in their hiftory; these are objects which will, in general, afford both pleasure aud inftruction; but to answer thefe ends, the inquiry must be profecuted with the appearance of judgment, and the reader muft not, through the indiscriminating zeal of his author, be overwhelmed in the rubbish of antiquity.

We have been led into these thoughts by the huge and undigefted volumes now before us; in which we can hardly perceive any glimmering of useful investigation; but where, on the contrary, our patience is exhaufted with the most frivolous details; and curiofity, instead of being gratified, meets in every ftep with difappointment.

The author begins with an account of the fortifications and various buildings at Newcastle; informing us that the town

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was enclosed with a wall during the reign of William Rufus, We learn likewife that, after the completion of this structure, the town was divided into twenty-four wards, according to the number of the gates, and the round towers with which they were accompanied; and that these were defended, in times of hoftility with the Scots, by the particular wards originally appro priated to them. The account of the buildings, their various repairs and additions, with the names of the perfons concerned, a detail of epitaphs, &c. occupy the whole of the first volume, which is furnished with a copious appendix....

The fecond volume commences with an account of the river Tyne. The author obferves that no literary monuments have been tranfmitted to inform us with certainty by what name this river was distinguished while the Roman legions were ftationed on its banks. It occurs not as a river of Northumberland in Ptolemy's ancient map of Britain; if it was not then called the Vedra, which is the name of a river marked in it, about the place where that of Tyne ought to be found. The present appellation of this river is implied in the firft accounts of a religious house at Tinmouth, evidently fo called from its vicinity to the mouth of the Tyne. The houfe alluded to was first erected a little after the beginning of the feventh century.

According to our author's information, glafs-makers are faid to have been firft brought out of France into England A. D. 674, on the building of the new abbey of Weremouth, at a few miles diftance from the mouth of the river Tyne; and he fixes the epoch of the glass-works upon the river Tyne about the year 1619, when they were established by Sir Robert Manfell, Knt. vice-admiral of England. The cheapness of fea-coal, as our author observes, was doubtless the chief inducement for erecting them at fo great a distance from London.

Our author gives the following account of the monaftery and castle of Tinmouth:

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Notwithstanding what has been advanced to the contrary by the learned Horfley, fome recent discoveries feem clearly to prove to us, that the Romans had a station in this place during their refidence in Britain.

A religious house, doubtless of rude and fimple architecture, is faid to have been erected here in the very earliest ages of Christianity, and foon after the introduction of the monaftic inftitution into our island. D

Edwin, King of the Northumbrians, fometime between the years of Chrift 617 and 633, erected here of wood a place of refidence for nuns only, as fome writers inform us, but more probably for religious perfons of both fexes, and in which his own daughter Rofella after-terwards took the veil.

•Ofwald,

Ofwald, a fucceeding king of the fame people, and who began his reign A.D. 634, foon afterwards caufed this houfe of wood to be taken down, and raised upon the fite thereof a new structure of stone; a circumftance which no doubt gave rife to the opinion of those writers who affert that this Ofwald was the original founder of Tinmouth monaftery.

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Mention occurs of an oratory dedicated to St. Mary at this place, foon after it had been rebuilt of ftone, where a great number of perfons of diftinction affembled under a regular order for the performance of divine fervice; the monaftery had by this time acquired fuch a reputation of local fanctity, that perfons dying in the neighbourhood were brought to be interred in it according to a fuperftitious custom that prevailed in that age.

Hither was conveyed for that purpofe the murdered body of Ofwin, King of Deira, one of the provinces of the then divided kingdom of Northumberland, who, through the treachery of the ungrateful Hunweld, fell a facrifice to the ambition of Ofwy, King of Bernicia, the other province, on the 13th of the kalends of September, A.D.651, at a place called Chillingham, where Queen Eanfleda, a relation of the deceafed king, is faid to have erected a monaftery for his foul. Harding, the writer of an old English chronicle in metre, has erromeously fuppofed her to have founded that of Tinmouth on this mournful occafion.

The divifion of the kingdom of Northumberland is reported, and with great probability, to have been the caufe of the quarrel between the kings Ofwy and Ofwin.

Egfrid, made King of Northumberland A. D. 671, and who was flain May 20th, 685, was the founder of this monaftery, if we will give credit to an old account, that Leland has preserved, of the ravages committed by the pagans in Northumberland during the reign of that king, and which cannot be reconciled with the former history of this place, unless we fuppofe it to have been destroyed, with other religious houfes, in the time of that king, by the barbarous Danes, and to have been reftored by his pious munificence; a conjecture which feems by no means to want probability.

St. Herebald, the companion of St. John of Beverley, archbishop of York, who died A. D. 721, appears to have been a monk, and ́afterwards abbot of Tinmouth.

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Ofred, the banished king of the Northumbrians, who was apprehended and flain the 18th of the kalends of October, A. D. 794, on his return from exile, was afterwards interred in this monaftery.. In the year of Chrift 800 the monastery of Tinmouth was plundered by the Danes.

A.D. 832 an army of pirates from the fame barbarous nation made an attempt to land at this place, but were routed and driven back to their ships.

In the year 866, during the ravages of Hungar and Hubba, the monastery of Tinmouth is faid to have been utterly destroyed.

A. D. 870 a monaftery of nuns occurs at this place as having been plundered by the fame infidels, who, three years before, had fubjugated the whole province of Northumberland.

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