Page:The Annual Register 1758.djvu/397

 This legacy has subsisted near two hundred years, and has had the desired effect at Bern.

An English merchant returning from Aleppo, by Bern, took this hint, and settled a sum of money, for the use of the poor at Kingston-on-Thames, for the purchase of coals in the same manner. The Right Honourable Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the Honourable House of Commons, and Nicholas Hardinge, Esq; (lately deceased) were two of the trustees, under whose auspices the poor were abundantly supplied, and the fund greatly augmented.

About five years ago the hint was given, and some gentlemen in Northampton collected a sum of money, for purchasing fuel at prime cost, and selling to the poor at the same rate; which answered perfectly well.

HE art of removing paintings in oil, from the cloth or wood on which they are originally done, and transferring them to new grounds of either kind of substance, is of very great use; as not only pictures may be preferved, where the canvas is so decayed and damaged, that they would otherwise fall to pieces, but paintings on ceiling or wainscot, which, when taken away from the places where they were originally placed, would have little value, may be conveyed to cloths; and by being thus brought to the state of pictures, become of equal worth with those painted originally on canvas. The manner in which this is done is by cementing the face of the picture to a new cloth, by means of such a substance as can afterwards be dissolved and consequently taken off by water; destroying the texture of the old cloth, by means of a proper corroding fluid; and then separating the corroded parts of it entirely from the painting: after which a new cloth being cemented to the reverse of the painting in its place, the cloth cemented to the front is in like manner to be corroded and separated; and the cemented matter cleansed away by dissolving it in water, and rubbing it off from the face of the picture. The particular method of doing this, with most convenience, is as follows:

Let the decayed picture be cleansed from all grease that may be on its surface, which may be done by rubbing it very gently with crumb of stale bread, and then wiping it with a very fine soft linen cloth. It must then be laid, with the face downwards, on a smooth table covered with fan paper, or the India paper; and the cloth on reverse must be well soaked with boiling water, spread upon it by means of a sponge, till it appear perfectly soft and pliable. The picture is then to be turned, with the face upwards; and, being stretched in the most even and flat manner on the table, must be pinned down to it in that state, by nails driven in through the edge, at proper distances from each other. A quantity of glue should then be melted, and strained through a flannel cloth, to prevent any gravel, or other impurities, from lurking in it; and when it is a little stiffened,