owledge of the
tin-plate manufacture (Self-Help, p.145). The secret of the
silk-throwing machinery of Piedmont was in like manner introduced into
England by Mr. Lombe of Derby, who shortly succeeded in founding a
flourishing branch of manufacture. These were indeed the days of
romance and adventure in manufactures.

[14] The district is known as the Erzgebirge or Ore Mountains, and the
Riesengebirge or Giant Mountains, MacCulloch says that upwards of 500
mines are wrought in the former district, and that one-thirtieth of the
entire population of Saxony to this day derive their subsistence from
mining industry and the manufacture of metallic products.--
Geographical Dict. ii. 643, edit. 1854.

[15] Chamberlaine and Dudley's first licence was granted in 1661 for
plating steel and tinning the said plates; and Chamberlaine's sole
patent for "plating and tinning iron, copper, &c.," was granted in
1673, probably the patent in question.

[16] JOHN CHAMBERS, Biographical Illustrations of Worcestershire.
London, 1820.

[17] Yarranton's Land Bank was actually projected in 1695, and received
the sanction of Parliament; though the Bank of England (founded in the
preceding year) petitioned against it, and the scheme was dropped.

[18] It is interesting to note in passing, that part of Yarranton's
scheme has recently been carried into effect by the Act (25 and 26
Vict. c. 53) passed in 1862 for the Registration of Real Estate.

[19] One of these is entitled 'A Coffee-house Dialogue, or a Discourse
between Captain Y---- and a Young Barrister of the Middle Temple; with
some Reflections upon the Bill against the D. of Y.' In this broadside,
of 3 1/2 pages folio, published about 1679, Yarranton is made to favour
the Duke of York's exclusion from the throne, not only because he was a
papist, but for graver reasons than he dare express. Another
scurrilous pamphlet, entitled 'A Word Without Doors,' was also aimed at
him. Yarranton, or his friends, replied to the first attack in a folio
of two pages, entitled 'The Coffee-house Dialogue Examined and Refuted,
by some Neighbours in the Country, well-wishers to the Kingdom's
interest.' The controversy was followed up by 'A Continuation of the
Coffee-house Dialogue,' in which the chief interlocutor hits Yarranton
rather hard for the miscarriage of his "improvements." "I know," says
he, "when and where you undertook for a small charge to make a river
navigable, and it has cost the prop