Originally published in The Leisure Hour (Religious Tract Society) vol.1 #8 (19 Feb 1852).
Antiquity of the Bronze.—Bronze appears to have been amongst the most ancient of the manufactures of mixed metals. The earliest coins, statuettes, warlike weapons, and agricultural tools were of bronze. It has been stated that the ancients were ignorant of brass, but this is now known not to be the case, for we have examples of combinations of copper and zinc, although it is quite certain that neither the Greeks nor the Romans knew of the latter metal in its pure state. The oxide of zinc, tutia, or calamine earth, was known to them, and employed for making yellow metal.
London Signs.—Few casual observers are perhaps aware of the curious origin of many of the shop and public-house signs, and a still smaller number remember when most shopkeepers displayed signs, which projected far into the streets, with iron supports, and upon which large sums were expended. It is stated in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1770, that the signs exhibited upon Ludgate-hill cost several hundred pounds. In The Spectator, No. 28, Addison mentions the sign of a goat before the door of a perfumer, and the French king's head at a sword cutler's. In the sixth plate of Hogarth's "Industry and Idleness," the sign of West and Goodchild, who are silk weavers, is a rampant lion with a cornucopia on either side. In the same artist's plate of "Noon," the cook's shop has a Baptist's head; and in the plate of "Night," in the same series, the sign of the barber's shop is, besides his pole, a hand drawing a tooth, the head being in exquisite pain, having written underneath, "Shaving, bleeding, and teeth drawn with a touch—Ecce signum." The well-known sign of the "Good woman," which is a woman without a head, was a common emblem at oil shops, and it is supposed to have been originally started from a large oil jar, fancifully painted, so as to resemble a headless woman; and at the present day it is very frequently seen over the door, by way of sign. At ironmonger's shops, a dog licking a porridge pot was the usual sign: an instance might, a short time ago, be seen at a large ironmonger's in the Blackfriars'-road. The barber's pole, likewise, is one of the few remaining shop signs, and one which has caused much antiquarian discussion; it is supposed to represent (when barbers were surgeons also) the bleeding-stick, the black stripes being the tape wound round it. As recently as seventy years since, and perhaps even later, the shops in London displayed signs swinging across the streets, but from their impeding the free circulation of air they were taken down and placed against the houses, and were, after a time, superseded by the present fashion, of the name and business being painted on the front.
Antiquity of Seals.—The Bible abounds in allusions to seals, and in proofs of the reverence attached to them. In the book of Job we are told that the earth in God's hand "is turned as clay to the seals," probably pointing to the brickmaker's stamp, in which the germ of the printing-press is discovered in the dawn of civilization. In the Canticles, the royal speaker, mingling menaces with entreaty, conjures his beloved to wear him "as a seal upon her breast, as a seal upon her arm." The seal of Solomon was the most potent of oriental talismans. It is perhaps also a tribute to its sacred character, that in eastern romance it is a standing simile for a woman's mouth, in spite of its inappropriate shape. Although public seals were unknown to the governments of antiquity, the private ones of kings and great men were frequently objects of historical notice. Pyrgoteles enjoyed the monopoly of engraving the face of Alexander the Great on gems, as Apelles and Lysippus did in painting and sculpture. After the defeat of Darius, it was noticed that the conqueror sealed his letters for the Asiatic post with that monarch's head; for the mail to Europe with his own. The capture of Jugurtha, engraved by Sylla's order on his signet, was one of the first causes which moved the jealousy of Marius. Pompey had a figure of Victory on his seal; an emerald cut with the head of Ptolemy was the favourite gem of Lucullus; a frog was the impress of the seal of Mceænas. Of Macrianus, one of the pretenders to the purple during Valerian's captivity, the most characteristic trait preserved is, that he and his children, male and female, used seals with the effigy of Alexander, thus assuming the Macedonian's head for their family crest.
Origin of the Words Blanket, Worsted, Kerseymere, And Linsey Wolsey.—While Edward III, in 1337, repeated his invasion of Scotland, and while he was engaged in raising an army to invade France in 1338, exacting money from the impoverished English people to waste in war; there was a servant of mankind making a noise in Bristol, which was of infinitely greater service to England than the entire conquest of Europe would have been. This was Thomas Blanket. The noise he made was not that of the clashing sword, but of the clashing shuttle. His purpose was not to destroy what his country already possessed, but to give his country what it did not yet possess—namely, blankets. Thomas Blanket was soon imitated by his neighbours, who, like him, set up looms in their own houses, and made woollen cloth like that which he made. The cloth was named after him; though nothing else is known of this weaver than that he was the first to introduce the blanket manufacture into England. No cloth of any kind had been woven in England before the reign of Edward III. We read that in 1331, John Kemp, from Flanders, introduced the weaving of cloth into England; and the king invited fullers, dyers, and so forth, to come from Flanders and settle here. This policy on the part of Edward was discreet; and, viewed in connexion with some other of his actions, proved him to have had some perception of the real sources of national well-being. But he no sooner allowed the cloth manufacture to be implanted in England, than he almost rooted it up again by restrictive enactments and oppressive taxes to carry on his wars. The manufacture of the twisted double thread of woollen, called worsted, was also introduced into England about this time. The village of Worsted, near Norwich, was the first place where this thread was made, and it took the name of the village. There is no spinning nor woollen manufactures at Worsted now, but from the tombs in the graveyard, and the benefactions left to the parish, which are recorded in the church, we have proof that the manufacturers of Worsted were numerous and opulent during several centuries. It may also be noticed here, that the town of Linsey gave the name to the fabric known as Linsey wolsey; and the Kersey and the Mere, close to it in Suffolk, contained the workshops in which the cloth called kerseymere was first made. As at Worsted, the graveyard and the church have many records of manufacturers long deceased. Their names, though now Anglicised and common in Suffolk, are all of Flemish origin.
Umbrella.—It was introduced to Bristol about 1780. A lady now eighty-three years of age remembers its first appearance, which occasioned a great sensation. Its colour was red, and it probably came from Leghorn, with which place Bristol at that time maintained a great trade.