Crass I. Or Xe 
The bending willow into barks they twine ; 
Then line the work with fpoils of flaughter’d kine. 
Such are the floats Venetian fifhers know, 
Where in dull marfhes ftands the fettling Po ; 
On fuch to neighboring Gaul, allured by gain, 
The bolder Britons crofs the {welling main. Rowe. 
Veffels of this kind are ftill in ufe on the Ir 
lakes; and on the Dee and Severn: in Ireland they 
are called Curach, in England Co racles, from the 
Britifh Cwrwgl, a word fignifying a boat of that 
ftructure. , 
At prefent, the hide, when tanned and curried, 
ferves for boots, fhoes, and numberlefs other con- 
veniences of life. 
Vellum is made of calves fkin, and goldbeaters 
fkin is made of a thin vellum, or a finer part of the 
ox’s guts. The hair mixed with lime is a neceflary 
article in building. Of the horns are made combs, 
boxes, handles for knives, and drinking veffels ; 
and when foftened by water, obeying the manufactu- 
rer’s hand, they are formed into pellucid Jaminze for 
the fides of lanthorns. Thefe laft conveniences 
we owe to our great kine 4//red, who firft invented 
them to preferve his candle time meafurers, from 
the wind*,; or (as other writers will have it) the 
tapers that were fet up before the reliques in the 
miferable tattered churches of that time +. 
* Anderfon’s hift. commerce, I. 45. 
+ Stanley’s hift. of churches, 103, 
, 
25 
