SEALING-WAX, SEALS, &c.

Besidesmetals, five other mediums are enumerated by ancient writers, wherewith letters and public acts were sealed, viz.,terra sigillaris, cement, paste, common wax and sealing-wax. That the terra sigillariswas used by the Egyptians, we have the evidence of Herodotus, and which, by inference, is strengthened by that of Moses who speaks of seal-rings or signets, whence we may safely infer, that they had a medium of some sort, wherewith they sealed. ThislacunaHerodotus supplies, affirming it in direct terms, and assigning a name to the substance they used for that purpose.

This circumstance was only rendered questionable by Pliny, who alleges the Egyptians did not use those things.

Herodotus thus expresses himself: “The Egyptian priest bound to the horns of cattle fit for sacrifice pieces of papyrus with sealing-earth, on which they made an impression with the seal; and such cattle could only be offered up as victims.”

Lucian speaks of a fortune-teller who ordered those who came to consult him, to write down on a bit of paper the questions they wished to ask, to fold it up, and seal it with clay, or any other substance of a like kind.

Such earth appears to have been employed in sealing, by the Byzantyne emperors; for we are told that, at the second Nicene Council, image worship was defended by one saying, “No one believed that those who received written orders from the Emperor, and venerated the seal, worshipped on that account the sealing-earth, the paper, or the lead.”

Cicero relates that Verres, having seen in the hands of his servants a letter written to his son from Agrimentum, and observing on it an impression in sealing-earth, he was so pleased with it that he caused the seal-ring with which it was made to be taken from the possessor.

Also, the same orator, in his defence of Flaccus, produced an attestation sent from Asia, and proved its authenticity by its being sealed with Asiatic sealing-earth; with which, he told the judges, all public andprivate letters in Asia were sealed: and he showed on the other hand, that the testimony brought by the accuser was false, because it was sealed withwax, and for that reason could not have come from Asia. The scholiast Servius relates, that a sybil received a promise from Apollo, that she should live as long as she did not see the earth of the island of the Erythræa, where she resided; that she therefore quitted the place, and retired to Cumae, where she became old and decrepid; but that having received a letter sealed with Erythræn earth, when she saw the seal, she instantly expired.

No one, however, will suppose that this earth was used without preparation, as was that to which is given the name ofcretachalk; for, if it was of a natural kind, it must have been of that kind calledpotter’s clay, as that clay is susceptible of receiving an impression, and of retaining it subsequent to hardening by drying. It is believed that the Romans, under the indefinite termcreta, often understood to be a kind of potter’s earth, which can be proved by many passages in their numerous writers. Columella speaks of a species of chalk of which wine-jars and dishes were made, of which kind it is conjectured Virgil speaks when he calls it adhesive. The ancient writers on agriculture give precisely the same name to marl, which was employed to manure land: now, both chalk and marl, in their natural state, are extremely inapplicable to the purpose for which we are led to believe theterra sigillariswas used; therefore, admitting the Romancretawas composed of them, those substances must naturally have undergone some laborious process, in order to render them proper for the purpose to which they were applied.

Notwithstanding none can feel a higher respect for Professor Beckmann, to whom we are indebted for many of the preceding observations, than we do, yet strongly as we are influenced with this impression, wecannot help observing, consistent with that duty we owe to the public, that we cannot divest ourselves of the opinion that he is only trifling with the public feeling, perhaps for the ostentatious display of his own learning: so many objections of so little weight are raised, that he really appears to write for the purpose of raising new objections to passages, which, in our comprehension, are extremely simple. We cannot help applying to him a passage which occurs in a song of the Swan of Twickenham, whosings:—

“Gnawed his pen, then dashed it on the ground,Striking from thought to thought, a vast profound.Plunged for the sense, but found no bottom there,Yet wrote, and floundered on in mere despair.”

We would not be illiberal or capricious, nor do we presume to any extra portion of intelligence; yet, we think we can in a few words discuss the topic, and perhaps, satisfactorily, on which he has employed so many pages. Those terms which have troubled the professor with learned difficulties really appear to us susceptible of an easy interpretation, and applicable to both or either of the senses in which they are used, as are any words in the language of ancient Rome. Accordingly, we find the termcretaimplies either chalk, fuller’s clay, loam, white paint, or Asiatic earth, termed creta Asiatica; and, in brief it appears a mere generic name for any kind of earth, raised from below the surface of the soil: this is its true sense. But there cannot be a question, from what is known of the preparation of clay and earth forterra cottaand other plastic purposes, which undergo a variety of washings, kneadings, &c., that similar preparations were requisite, in order to bring it to so curious, so delicate a purpose as that to which the terra sagillaris was applied. Andfosse, in the sense used by Varre, admits of nearly a similar description, it appearing as a pronomen for the same thing; and indicates eitherpeat, marl, loam, chalk, or any earthy substance which may be raised from below the terrestrial surface.

We have evidence every day in our fruit shops, that in certain countries this kind of earth is yet employed for closing up jars of dried fruits brought from Oporto, Smyrna, and other countries; as these appear to be composed of white chalk of a texture somewhat similar to common mortar. The warmth of the atmosphere, where it is used, soon hardens and prevents the passage of air to the contents; the jars themselves being oftentimes only dried in the sun.

Thus it appears that prepared earths were first used for the purpose of sealing; their adhesive, or, as Virgil has it, their tenacious qualities, being wonderfully improved for manual labour. Next, paste was employed, prepared from dough.

To paste succeeded common wax, sometimes slightly tinctured with a green tint, the effect of endeavouring to give it a blue colour, as vegetable blues turn green by the process of heat employed in melting; whilst mineral or earthy blues all sink to the bottom, from superior gravity. This was the material employed in sealing public acts in England, as early as the fifteenth century. We have an anecdote of the Duke of Lancaster having no seal to ratify a deed between him and the Duke of Burgoyne, but from what appears in the attestation, which, with the instrument itself, according to the general custom of the day, runs in rhyme thus:

“I, John of Gaunt,Doe gyve and do graunt,To John of BurgoyneAnd the heire of his loyneSutton and PuttonUntill the world’s rotten.”

The attestation runs thus:

“There being no seal within the roof,In sooth, I seal it wyth my tooth.”

A good example is this of the simple brevity of the time, and a severe lecture upon the eternal repetitions of our modern lawyers, whereby the limitations and special uses of deeds are made, perhaps, not according to the necessities of the case, but are lengthened from selfish purposes.

The Great Charter, which gives an assurance of the rights of Englishmen, is sealed with white wax; as may be seen in the British Museum.

The first arms used as a seal in England, were those of the tyrannical subjugator of English rights, William, commonly called the Conqueror, and they were brought from Normandy.

Although Fenn, in his collection of original Letters of the last half of the fifteenth century, published in London, 1787, has given the size and shape of the seals, he does not apprise us of what substance they were composed. Respecting a letter of 1455, he says only, that “the seal is of red wax,” by which, it is presumed, he means common wax; and though, perhaps not equal in quality to such as is now used, yet it was made of nearly similar materials. Tavernier, in his Travels, says, that in Surat gum-lac is melted and formed into sticks, like sealing-wax. Wecker also gives directions to make an impression with calcined gypsum and a solution of gum or isinglass. Porta, likewise, knew that this might be done, and, perhaps, to greater perfection with amalgam of quicksilver.

Among the records of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, are some letters of 1563, sealed with red and black wax. In the family of the Rhingrave, Philip Francis von Daun, the oldest letter sealed with wax, known in Germany, is found, of the date of August 3, 1554; it was written from London, by an agent of thatfamily, of the name of Gerrard Herman. The colour of the wax is dark red, and very shining.

The oldest recipe known in Germany for making sealing-wax, was found by M. Von Murr, in a work by Samuel Zimmerman, citizen of Augsburg, published in 1759. The copy in the library of the university of Gottingen is signed by the author himself.—“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 coal 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 sealing-wax.

“If you are desirous of having black wax, add lamp-black to it. With smalt or azure, you may make 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.”

It may be remarked, that in these recipes for the fabrication of sealing-wax there is no mention of gum-lac, which is known at present as a chief ingredient in the composition of this article.

Zimmerman’s sealing-wax approaches very near to the quality of that known asmaltha, whence we may conclude, that the manufacture of it did not originally come from the East Indies. The most ancient mention of sealing-wax occurs in a botanical work, treating of the history of aromatics and simples, by Garcia ab Horto, published at Antwerp in 1563, where the author, speaking of gum-lac says, that those sticks used for sealing letters are made of it; at which timesealing-wax was common among the Portuguese, and has since been manufactured chiefly in Holland.

M. Spiess, principal keeper of the Records at Plessenberg, says, respecting the antiquity ofWafers, in Germany, that the most ancient use of them he has known, occurs in a letter written by D. Krapf, at Spires, in 1624, to the government of Bayreuth.—The same authority informs us that some years after, the Brandenburg factor at Nuremberg sent such wafers to a bailiff, at Osternohe. During the whole of the seventeenth century, wafers were not used in the Chancery at Brandenburg, and only by private persons there.

Seals, it appears, from certain passages of Egyptian history, parallel with, and perhaps anterior to the Israelitish ingress, were formed or cut in emeralds, the native produce of that country. Other precious stones, metals, steel, lead, and a variety of materials, but chiefly of a hard and precious kind, have been always employed for that purpose.

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