[1135] Lib. i. cap. 11, p. 65.
[1136] Account of the principal Lazarettos, Lond. 1789, 4to, p. 12.
[1137] Cronica di Verona, in Verona, 1747, 4to, iii. p. 93.
[1138] See G. W. Wedelii exercitatio de quadragesima medica, in his Centuria Exercitationum Medico-philologicarum. Jenæ, 1701, 4to, decas iv. p. 16. Wedel mentions various diseases in which Hippocrates determines the fortieth day to be critical. Compare Rieger in Hippocratis Aphoris. Hag. Com. 1767, 8vo, i. p. 221.
[1139] Martini Lange Rudimenta Doctrinæ de Peste. Offenbachii 1791, 8vo. See Gottingische Anzeigen von gelehrt. Sachen, 1791, p. 1799.
PAPER-HANGINGS.
Three kinds of paper-hangings have for some time past been much used on account of their beautiful appearance and their moderate price. The first and plainest is that which has on it figures printed or drawn either with one or more colours. The second sort contains figures covered with some woolly stuff pasted over them; and the third, instead of woolly stuff, is ornamented with a substance that has the glittering brightness of gold and silver. It appears that the idea of covering walls with parti-coloured paper might have readily occurred, but the fear of such hangings being liable to speedy decay may have prevented the experiment from being made. In my opinion the simplest kind was invented after the more ingenious, that is to say, when the woolly or velvet kind was already in use[1140]. The preparation of them has a great affinity to the printing of cotton. Wooden blocks of the like kind are employed for both; plates of copper are also used; and sometimes they are painted after patterns. Artists possess the talent of giving them such a resemblance to striped and flowered silks and cottons, that one is apt to be deceived by them on the first view. Among the most elegant hangings of this kind, may be reckoned those which imitate so exactly every variety of marble, porphyry, and other species of stones, that when the walls of an apartment are neatly covered with them, the best connoisseur may not without close examination be able to discover the deception. That the resemblance may be still greater, a hall may be divided by an architect into different compartments by pillars, so as to have the appearance of a grand piece of regular architecture. Whether M. Breitkopf at Leipsic was the inventor of this kind of hangings, I do not know, but it is certain that he brought it to great perfection.
The second kind, or, as it is called, velvet-paper (now called flock-paper), is first printed like the former, but the figures are afterwards wholly, or in part, covered with a kind of glue, over which is strewed some woolly substance, reduced almost to dust, so that by these means they acquire the appearance of velvet or plush. The ground and the rest of the figures are left plain; but the whole process is so complex that it is impossible to convey a proper idea of it by a short description. The shearings of fine white cloth, which the artist procures from a cloth manufactory, and dyes to suit his work, are employed for this purpose. If they are not fine enough, he renders them more delicate by making them pass through a close hair-sieve. This, as well as the third kind, was formerly made much more than at present upon canvas; and, in my opinion, the earliest attempts towards this art were tried, not upon paper, but on linen cloth. The paper procured at first for these experiments was probably too weak; and it was not till a later period that means were found out to strengthen and stiffen it by size and paste.