594 ON THE PRICE OP PAPER, ETC. 



the price of a dozen quires and a ream is not very marked. 

 At the same time, the breaking of bulk is generally indicated 

 by a higher price of the less quantity, and it is not improbable 

 that the ream may have been about sixteen or eighteen quires. 



In or before 1588, according to a poem preserved in the 

 Bodleian Library and published under this date, one Spilman, 

 a German who was employed as a jeweller by Elizabeth, set 

 up a paper-mill at Dartford. The author of the poem, who 

 cannot help making an obvious pun on the good German's 

 name, tells us that he gave employment to at least six 

 hundred persons, and suggests that Spilman's venture was 

 the first that was successful, though he admits that an attempt 

 had been made by Thirlby, bishop of Ely, to introduce 

 the industry into the country more than a generation before, 

 for that when he was sent as ambassador to Charles V he 

 had engaged a German, one Remigius, to accompany him to 

 England for the purpose. The author of the poem states that 

 the water needed for cleansing and pulping the rags was 

 brought in pipes to the mill, and describes the process by 

 which the pulp was manufactured and drained on a wire 

 frame. The greater part of the poem is a eulogy on an in- 

 vention which aids the student and the scholar, and was 

 advantageously naturalised in England. The Dartford manu- 

 factory had I believe a very continued existence. 



The paper of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is 

 very good. It was not indeed bleached to the whiteness of 

 modern paper, and is perhaps discoloured by time, but the 

 material is excellent, and the product is strong and tough. 

 It exists of course in great quantities both in books and in 

 correspondence. It is plain too that the same material was 

 used for writing and printing. Paper-dealers transacted 

 business with the University Printing Press at Oxford, in- 

 voices of whose sales to the Press authorities are preserved 

 among Hearne's papers in the Rawlinson collection. Between 

 1670 and 1677, during which eight years the bills are pre- 

 served, these traders frequently state that the paper on which 



