branches of science that form the bafis of that beautiful manufacture? Another inftance of the patriotism of the Eaft-India Directors ought by no means, in this place, to be omitted; that, principally for the fake of promoting the British manufacture, they have, for fome time paft, refrained from importing Oriental porcelain, the plenty and cheapness of which could not fail of operåting towards the depreffion of that made in Britain.

Although the fubterraneous regions of this, ifland abound with mines of the richest copper, and of the beft fpecies of the lapis calaminaris, or calamine, from the cement of which, mineral with the former, the factitious metal, which we call brafs, is compofed; yet, by fome strange infatuation, neither were those mines wrought till within these two centuries, nor had we any brafs befides what was imported from abroad, till long after that riod. The art of making brass is said to have been long kept fecret in Europe by the miners> of Germany; but was indubitably known, ast was before fhewn, during the remotest periods,i in Afia. Its having been used, during thofer early times, and in the infancy of the European empires, as money, is a proof of the

pe

value

value and rarity of this metal in the weft, and probably was one cause of its having been made by the Phoenicians a principal article of barter in their traffic with the old Britons. Before the intrinfic excellence of our own calamine was fully known, great quantities of Indian zinc, under the name of tutenach, were brought into this country by the ships of the Company; and it is remarkable, that it was imported after the very fame manner as the tin of Cornwall is now exported to that country, as the ballaft of those ships. This is judiciously restoring commerce to the fimple original unperplexed mode after which it was carried on in the firft ages of the world, viz. the exchange of commodities immediately drawn from the one country for fuch as are the immediate produce of the other; and perhaps the nearer trade can be brought back to that primitive rational plan, fo much the more mutually advantageous will it turn out to the nations conducting it on these principles. Having taken this furvey of the commodities imported by the Tyrian merchants into Britain, we return to our inquiry respecting the British exports, the first of which in order and importance was tin; but the farther confideration of that ancient ftaple

we

we shall at present defer, to speak of the other two articles, mentioned by Strabo, lead and hides.

It has been before obferved, that the ancients confidered tin and lead as only two different ftates of the fame metal, calling the former plumbum album, and the latter plumbum nigrum; but modern chemical experiments have incontrovertibly proved them to be two metals, radically diftinct. The great use of the former, in various branches of trade and manufacture, have been already in part enumerated; thofe of the latter metal in the fame line are still more important, and indeed the various preparations from lead must have been indifpenfable to a nation devoted, as one great tribe of the Indians always has been, to the most elegant defigns in mechanic science: a tribe, the members of which are from their very birth, and from generation to generation, fully inftructed in all the arts peculiarly tending to promote a flourishing and vigorous commerce, as well domestic as foreign. The beautiful varnish, the vivid painting, and curious gilding, displayed on their cabinet and other furniture; their elegant work in enamel, and the rich glaze on the porcelain of Afia, into all which thofe preparations must

i

of

of neceffity largely enter, are proofs of this affertion:-To be more particular in regard to the uses to which lead is applied. From thin plates of this metal, expofed to the fumes of warm vinegar, is obtained the compofition, called CERUSE, or white lead, which forms the basis of several kinds of paint. From lead, either in calcination or in fufion, are produced MASTICOT, or yellow ochre, MINIUM, or red-lead, LITHARGE, or glass of lead, fo neceffary in the various occupations of the painter, the plumber, the glazier, the dyer, the potter, &c. &c. that without it, half the business of the handicraft could not be carried on. With fheets of lead the tops of our houses are guarded against the injury of fun and weather; with lead, or its compofition, putty, our windows are fecured; lead, formed into pipes, carries away the fordes from our dwellings, and brings us water to purify them. Pewter, that bright factitious metal, once in fuch general repute through Europe, and now forming the domeftic utenfils of its less polished and affluent nations, is composed of tin, combined with a certain quantity of lead; the physician acknowledges its powerful though hazardous effect in me dicine; the chemift well knows its indifpenfable

penfable utility in the fufion and refining of other metals; in fhort, next to tin, it is the ancient boaft of our ifle, and one of the best gifts of the Guardian Providence that watches over it.

The evidence afforded by Pliny concerning the great abundance of lead dug up in his time in Britain, has been already noticed, but the preceding member of the sentence, from which that evidence is taken, being of importance in this inquiry, as pointing out the other regions where it was found, the whole paffage is here fubjoined. Laboriofus in Hifpania erutum totafque per Gallias; fed in Britannia fummo terræ corio adeo large, ut lex ultro dicatur, ne plus certo modo fiat. This metal was with great difficulty and labour obtained from the mines of Spain and Gaul, but was produced in fuch plenty, and fo near the furface in Britain, that an exprefs law was neceffary to prohibit its being dug and manufactured, except after a certain proportion fixed by that law.* The ancient treafures of this metal were not confined to Cornwall, but mines of it have been immemorially. wrought in various and diftant provinces of

* Plinii Nat. Hift. lib. xxxiv. cap.17.

the