Our present common sealing-wax for letters was not invented till the sixteenth century. The earliest letter in Europe known to have been sealed with it, was written from London, August 3, 1554, to the rheingrave Philip Francis von Daun, by his agent in England, Gerrard Herman. The wax is of a dark red, very shining, and the impression bears the initials of the writer’s name, G. H. The next seal known in the order of time is on a letter written in 1561 to the council of Gorlitz at Breslau: it is sealed in three places with beautiful red wax. There are two letters in 1563 from count Louis of Nassau to the landgrave William IV.; one dated March 3, is sealed with red wax, the other, dated November 7, is sealed with black wax. In 1566 are two letters to the rheingrave Frederick von Daun, from his steward Charles de Pousol, in Picardy, dated respectively September the 2d, and September the 7th; another from Pousol to the rheingrave, dated Paris, January 22, 1567, is sealed with red wax of a higher colour and apparently of a coarser quality. On the 15th of May, 1571, Vulcob, a French nobleman, who the year before had been ambassador from the king of France to the court of Weymar, wrote a letter to that court sealed with red wax; he sealed nine letters of a prior date with common wax. From an old expense book of 1616, in the records of Plessingburg, “Spanish wax,” and other writing materials, were ordered from a manufacturer of sealing-wax at Nuremburg, for the personal use of Christian, margrave of Brandenburg.

It has been conjectured that, as the oldest seals came from England and France, and as the invention is called “Spanish wax,” it originated with the Spaniards; but this is doubted. The first notice of sealing-wax occurs in a work by Garcia ab Orto, or Horto, entitled “Aromatum et simplicium aliquot historia, &c.” first printed in 1563, and afterwards at Antwerp in 1574, 8vo., in which latter edition it is mentioned at p. 33. The oldest printed receipt for sealing-wax is in a work entitled “Neu Titularbuch, &c., Durch Samuelen Zimmerman, burger zu Augspurg 1579,” 4to. p. 112. The following is a

Translation.

“To make hard sealing-wax, called Spanish wax, with which if letters be sealed they cannot be opened without breaking the seal.—Take beautiful clear resin, the whitest you can procure, and melt it over a slow charcoal fire. When it is properly melted, take it from the fire, and for every pound of resin add two ounces of cinnabar pounded very fine, stirring it about. Then let the whole cool, or pour it into cold water. Thus you will have beautiful red wax.

“If you are desirous of having black wax, add lamp black to it. With smalt, or azure, you may make it blue; with white lead, white; and with orpiment, yellow.

“If instead of resin you melt purified turpentine, in a glass vessel, and give it any colour you choose, you will have a harder kind of sealing-wax, and not so brittle as the former.”

In these receipts there is no mention of gum lac, which is at present the principal ingredient in sealing-wax of the best quality. The name “Spanish wax,” probably imports no more than “Spanish flies,” “Spanish gum,” and several other “Spanish” commodities; for it was formerly the custom to give all new things, particularly those which excited wonder, or excelled in quality, the appellation of “Spanish.”[69]

Dutch sealing-wax, or wax with “brand well en vast houd,” burn well and hold fast, impressed on each stick, was formerly in great repute; but the legend having been constantly forged was no security against imposition. The “best Dutch sealing-wax” usually sold in the shops of London, is often worse than that which inferior manufacturers stamp with the names of many stationers, who prefer a large profit to a good reputation. It is not an easy matter, in 1826, to get a stick of sealing-wax that will “burn well and hold fast.”

Wafers.

The oldest letter yet found with a red wafer was written in 1624, from D. Krapf, at Spires, to the government at Bayreuth. Wafers are ascribed, by Labat, to Genoese economy. In the whole of the seventeenth century they were only used by private persons; on public seals they commence only in the eighteenth century.[70]