Passing over various queries of early date, on which it has been my
intention to offer some suggestions, I have _endeuoyred me_, as Master
Caxton expresses it, to illustrate three subjects recently mooted.
_Trianon_ (No. 27.).--The origin of this name is thus stated by M. Dolort,
in his excellent work entitled _Mes voyages aux environs de Paris_, ii. 88.
"_Le grand Trianon._--Appelé au 13^e siècle _Triarmun_, nom d'une
ancienne paroisse, qui était divisée en trois villages dépendant du
diocèse de Chartres. Cette terre, qui appartenait aux moines de
Sainte-Geneviève, fut achetée par Louis XIV. pour agrandir le parc de
Versailles, et plus tard il y fit coustruire le château."
_Wood paper_ (No. 32.).--At the close of the last century a patent was
granted to Matthias Koops for the manufacture of paper from _straw_,
_wood_, &c. In September 1800, he dedicated to the king a _Historical
account of the substances which have been used to describe events_, in
small folio. The volume is chiefly printed on paper _made from straw_; the
appendix is on _paper made from wood alone_. Both descriptions of paper
have borne the test of time extremely well. Murray, in his _Practical
remarks on modern paper_, speaks of Koops and his inventions with much
ignorance and unfairness.
_Tobacco in the East_ (No. 33.).--Relying on the testimony of Juan Fragoso,
physician to Felipe II. of Spain, I venture to assert that tobacco is not
indigenous to the East. To the same effect writes Monardes. Nevertheless,
it was cultivated in Java as early as the year 1603. Edmund Scott, factor
for the East India Company at Bantam, thus describes the luxuries of the
Javans:--
"They are very great eaters--and they haue a certaine hearbe called
_bettaile_ which they vsually have carryed with them wheresoeuer they
goe, in boxes, or wrapped vp in cloath like a suger loafe: and also a
nutt called _pinange_, which are both in operation very hott, and they
eate them continually to warme them within, and keepe them from the
fluxe. They doe likewise take much _tabacco_, and also _opium_."--_An
exact discovrse_ etc. _of the East Indians_, London, 1606. 4^o. Sig. N.
2.