1804.] 
Lord Orford, however, in the improved 
edition of his Works, has cited a precept 
of an earlier date, which, though not fo 
immediately in point as the in{tances al- 
ready quoied, implies the ufe of oil-co- 
lours in a mamner too ftrong to be mif- 
taken. It is dated in 1239, in the twen- 
ty-third year of Henry III. and runs in 
thefe words :— Rex thefaurario et ca- 
merariis fuis falutem. Liberate de the- 
fauro noftro Odoni aurifabro et Edwardo 
filio fuo centum et feptemdecim folidos et 
decem denarics pro olzo, vernici, et colo- 
ribus emptis, et piéturis factis in camera 
regine noftra apud Weftm. ab odtavis 
fanéte trinitatis anno regni noftri xxii. 
ufque ad feftum fanéti Barnabee apoftoli 
eodem anno, Icilicet pef xv. dics’”” 
It has been fuggeited to me, Sir, that 
the figure of the knave upon our common 
playing-cards wears a fimilar habit. with 
the portrait in queftion. On this, how- 
ever, I fhall not lay confiderable ftreis, as 
I think authoritics of a more decifive kind 
may be brought to bear, Of cards, how- 
ever, it may be proper to fay thus much, 
that Mr. Anfiis has produced a paflage 
from the wardrobe-rojls of Edward I, 
which certainly implies their ufe as early 
as 1277. It mentions a game entitled 
The Four Kings. That the early fpeci- 
mens of playing-cards which have come 
down, differ very little in their form from > 
thefe now uled, need hardly be added; 
although the figures and devices that con; 
ftituted the different fuits, feem anciently 
to have depended very much upon the 
tafte and invention of the card-makers. 
But it is not on cards alone that the 
refs of the period Iam now {peaking of 
is preferved. Mr. Strutt, in his View of 
the Drefs and Habits of the Englith (pl. 
xxiv.) has copied an illumination from 
a very fine Manufcript of the Rosman de la 
Rofé, in the Britifh Mufeum, (Harl. MS, 
4425,) unqueltionably painted at no great 
diftance from the time of Chaucer, which 
has precifely the drefs alluded to. 
Having thus eftablithed the ufe of 
painting in oil, even in this country, long 
previous to the time of Chaucer, and 
pointed outa drefs precifely fimilar ina 
Manufcript of contemporary age, what 
difficulty can poffibly remain to hinder our 
decifion on the Portrait of Chaucer being 
more than probably authentic. Fagius. 
ae 
To the. Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, | 
N the laft number of the Edinburgh Re- 
wiew, the firf&t article is a notice of 
the “ Account ef the Life of Dr. Reid,” 
fome time fince publithed ** by Mr. Du- 
gald Stewart.” wee 
i / 
Stridtures on Articles intthe Edinburgh Review, 
913 
In this article, (at p. 274.) the writer 
ftrangely afferts, - “ that it is almott exclu« 
fively to experiment,” as diftinguithed from 
obferwation, ** that Lord Bacon has di- 
rected the attention of his followers.” But, 
in the roth aphorilm of the Nowum Onga- 
mum, Lord Bacon exprelsly ranks a Nafu- 
ral Hittory, the refult of imple obferwa- 
tion, with and before an experimental hit 
tory of things, as indifpenfably requifite 
to lay the fou:.dation of that grand inftau- 
ration of the fciences which he had pro- 
pofed. In the example of his method of 
analyfis and induétion, which he exhibits, 
in an Enquiry into the Nature or effentiad 
Form of Heat, and which is comprehended 
under the eleventh aphorifm, are five 
tables of inftances or fadts. Of thefe tables, 
the firft contains twenty-feven inftances ; 
the fecond, thirty-two; the third, forty- 
one ; the fourth, fourteen ; the fifth, more 
than twenty. Had Lord Bacon been de- 
firous to exclude fimple obferwation, in all 
poflible cafes, from the fervice of philo- 
fophy, he would undoubtedly have been 
careful to appeal to nothing but experiment, 
in this primary example of his mode of in- 
veltisation. Yet, in all thefe 134, or even 
more, {pecifications of facts, fome: of 
them, in the progrefs of the induction, re. 
peating former facts, there is not one that 
appeals to experiment exclufively, or makes 
light of obfer-vation; there is fcarcely one 
in which the fact is not quoted by Lard 
Bacon from obfervation chiefly ; there are 
but an inconfiderable number, in regard 
to which, fo far as they can be applied te 
illuftrate the nature of heat, experiments 
can inform us better, than plain and ac- 
curate obfervation. Throughout the whole 
fubfequent tenor of the Novum Organum, 
efpeciaily in his ample detail ot thofe 
which he diftinguifhes as ‘¢ Prerogative 
Inftances,”’ his Lordfhip conftantly appeals 
ta oblervations as much as to experiments, 
and takes the tettimony of faithtuland dif- 
cerning obfervation, as of unexceptionable 
authority in philofophy. Throughout all 
his other writings on matters of {cience, 
as in the hiftories of denfe and rare, of 
found and hearing, &c. &c. he continu- 
ally ufes facts of obfervation, jult as freely 
‘as facts of expesiment. And it is well 
known, that the logic of his Nowum Or- 
ganum having been the invention of his 
early ftudies, he employed it himf{elf in all 
his fubfequent inveftigations, and intended 
the works he left behind him to be in- 
{pected, as examples of the ule of it, 
Neither he, nor any of his worthy. fol. 
lowers, ever pretended to teach; that we 
ought to withdraw our fenfes from all 
knowledge of the undiflursed appearances 
of Nature, if we woud commence philo- 
y ¢pfophers g 
