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covered with a projecting canopy), on which the fire was made, whencethe smoke was discharged through an aperture in the back just abovethe “ mantel-tree.” So late as Elizabeth’s time, when Harrison wrote,chimneys, as we now understand the term, were thought novelties inordinary country-houses. “ There are old men yet dwelling in theuillage where I remaine,” says he, “ who haue noted three things to bemaruellouslie altered in England within their sound remembrance. Oneis the multitude of chymneys latelie erected; whereas in their youngdaies there were not aboue two or three, if so manie, in most uplandishtownes of the realme (the religious houses and manour places of theirlords alwaies excepted, and peraduenture some great personages); butech one made his fire against a reredosse in the hall, where he dined anddressed his meate.”

Again: speaking of the change of manners, increase of luxury, anddeclination of manly courage, he adds; “ Now haue we many chymneys,and yet our tenderlings complaine of rhumes, catarhs, and poses. Thenhad we none but reredosses, and our heads did never ake. For as thesmoke in those daies was supposed to be sufficient hardening for thetimber of the house; so it was reputed a far better medicine to keep

Have you climb’d up to walls and battlements,

To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,*****

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome .”

Julius Casar, Act I. Scene 1.

This looks something like an anachronism; but it would be difficult to prove it one,if it be true that flues have been discovered at Herculaneum . Shakspeare, like the earlier poets,painted from English models.

In an account of the earthquake which occurred at Venice in 1347, it is stated thatseveral chimneys were thrown down. — Beckmann’s History of Inventions.

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