_Wafers_ (Vol. ix., p. 376.).--I have in my possession a volume of original
Italian letters, addressed to a Venetian physician (who appears to have
been eminent in his profession), Michael Angelo Rota, written during the
early part of the seventeenth century. Many of these letters have been
sealed with red wafers, still adhering to the {410} paper, and precisely
similar to those now in use. The earliest of the letters which I have found
sealed is dated April, 1607, which is seventeen years earlier than the
earliest known instance, mentioned by Beckmann (_History of Inventions_,
Bohn's edit., vol. i. p. 146.), of a letter sealed with a wafer.