232 LETTER concErnine 
every individual, as well as to every private family, that 
too much light cannot be thrown upon it.. 
A fmoky houfe and a feolding wife, 
Are (faid to be) two of the greateft ills in life. 
And however difficult it may be to remedy one of thofe 
ills, yet any advances we may be able to make towards 
removing the inconveniencies arifing from the other, can- 
not fail to be favourably received by the public. As they 
are fhortly to be favoured with your fentiments on that 
fubje&t, poffibly the following obfervations, which were 
in fa occafioned by neceflity, and are the refult of my 
own experience, may not be altogether undeferving of 
notice. 
When I left London and went to live in Devonfhire in 
the latter end of the year 1777, it happened to be my lot 
to dwell in an old manfion which had been recently mo- 
dernifed, and had undergone a thorough repair. But as 
in moft of the old houfes in England, the chimneys, which 
were perhaps originally built for the purpofe of burning 
wood, though they had been contracted in front, fince coal 
fires came into general ufe, to the modern fize, yet they 
were ftill, above, out of fight, extravagantly large. This 
method of building chimneys may perhaps have anfwered 
well enough while it was the cuftom to fit with the doors 
and windows open; but when the cuftoms and manners 
of the people began to be more polifhed and refined, when 
building and architecture were improved, and they began 
to conceive the idea of making their chambers clofe, warm, 
and comfortable, thefe chimneys were found to fmoke 
abominably, for want of a fufficient fupply of air. This 
was exactly the cafe with the houfe in which I firft lived, 
near Exeter, and I was under the neceflity of trying every 
expedient I could think of to make it habitable. 
The firft thing I tried, was that method of contra@ting 
the chimneys by means of earthen pots, much in ufe in 
England, 
