Plate IV. — ^perinuns of #rnammtrtJ
“ Look to the tower’d chimnies, which should be
The wind-pipes of good hospitalitie.”-■
Bishop Hall.
Decided characteristics of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: withthe royal race of Tudor they came into use, and with it they declined.
The object of these florid embellishments, and cause of the end-less variety even in the same stack, has been a source of speculationwith antiquaries. Some have supposed them to have been intendedas memorials, whilst others have repeated the more than “ twice-toldtale” of the apprentice and his master, and attributed their productionto competition amongst youths in the last year of their service. If anyvalue can be set upon the former theory, none will attach to the latter;since, however various the forms and devices, the “master-hand” isevident in all.*
Chimneys , i. e. flues , f are not in this country of high antiquity,though the term “ chymney ” was very common with the early English poets, J but used generally to describe a hearth, (either recessed or
* “ The old clustring chimneys have, in addition to their other merits, that of notassuming any other character.”— Uvedale Price .
f Mr. Fosbroke in his Encyclopedia of Antiquities, quotes the following rather obscurepassage from Leland : “ Speaking of Bolton Castle, built temp. Richard II. , he says, ‘ onethynge 1 much notyd in the haulle of Bolton; how chymneys were conveyed by tunnels madeon the syds of the wauls betwyxt the lights in the hawel; and by this means, and by no covers,is the smoke of the harthe in the hawle wonder strangely convayed.’ ”
J Shakspeare gives chimney-shafts to ancient Rome .