CHAPTER XIII. 



ON CANDLES, TALLOW, AND FUEL. 



THROUGH the period before me, the record of the price of 

 candles is unbroken. The purchases of the corporations are 

 large. Only one of them (which manufactures its own lights, 

 and therefore gives the entries of tallow or sevum) fails to 

 supply me, in so far as the accounts are continuous, and the 

 bursar gives weights as well as prices, with adequate informa- 

 tion. The exception is Winchester. 



There is hardly anything, in the whole range of com- 

 modities, in which the past and the present are more dis- 

 tinguished than in the cost of artificial light. The difference 

 between the price of meat and the price of tallow or candles 

 is conclusive as to the condition of the animal food which our 

 ancestors consumed. Over the whole period, the price of 

 a dozen pounds of beef at King's College, Cambridge, is 

 30-43^., of candles 56-75^., or about -547 to i. The quality 

 too of this artificial light was very low. Rushlights were the 

 commonest form of candle, and of these rushlights, those 

 which had but a slight coating of tallow were ordinarily used. 

 Such rushlights were often made by the household. Mark- 

 ham's yeoman, sitting by the firelight after the day's work is 

 done, has, among other employments, to pick candle rushes, 

 which the women dipped in tallow. The difference between 

 4 wick ' and cotton candles is frequently noted in the earlier 

 purchases, the last entry of both kinds being in 1658. From 

 Houghton's collections we learn that the manufacture of mould 

 candles was an invention made at the conclusion of the seven- 



