PREFACE. THE HE views of the Society instituted at London, for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, extend, independent of their domestic regulations, to general improvements in Agriculture, Chemistry, Polite and Liberal Arts, Manufactures, Mecha`nicks, and the products of our Colonies. On examining the Communications which compose the present Volume, it will be found that the Society have been occupied, during the last Session, in each of the above-mentioned Departments; and it is hoped the Public will derive useful information from each distinct Class. Before a regular detail is entered into of the numerous Articles of which this Volume a 2 Volume is composed, it may not be deemed improper to pay a tribute to the memory of the late Owen Salusbury Brereton, Esq. by inserting the following particulars of his life, communicated by the late John Holliday, Esq. F. R.S. O. S. Brereton, Esq. whose portrait is annexed to the Frontispiece, long took a lively and active part in the concerns of the Society, as one of their VicePresidents. He was the son of Thomas Brereton, Esq. of the County Palatine of Chester, and was born in the year 1715 he received his education partly at Westminster School on the foundation, partly at Trinity College, Cambridge; and, on the death of his father, inherited the ancient family-estates, in the above-mentioned county, and in Flintshire. In 1738 Mr. Brereton was called to the Bar, and in 1746 became Recorder of the great and flourishing town of Liverpool; which office he filled with great great impartiality and dignity during fifty-two years. In 1796, on his proposing to resign, the Corporation requested him to retain his situation, and appointed a person to discharge its active duties. Mr. Brereton became a Member of the Society of Arts so early as 1762; and by his assiduity, zeal, and order, filled the distinguished office of VicePresident with great credit to himself and advantage to the Society, from March 1765 till his last illness in 1798. He was also an early Member of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies. The Archæologia of the latter, contains his Observations on Peter Collinson's Account of the Round Towers in Ireland ;* his Tour through South Wales; Extracts from the Household Book of Henry VIII; his Account of a painted window in Brereton Church, Cheshire + his and that of a non-descript Coin, supposed to be Philip VI of France.* Mr. Pennant has also, in his Welsh Tour, described and given an engraving of several Roman Antiquities, found by his horse accidentally disturbing them, at a Roman station called Croes Atti, on his estate in Flintshire. † Mr. Brereton was a Bencher of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's-Inn, filled the office of Treasurer, and was Keeper of the Black-Book. He also represented the borough of Ilchester in Parliament. He took the name of Salusbury with an estate, and became Constable of the Castle of Flint, a valuable privilege to his adjacent possessions. His domestic happiness was manifest to his numerous and respectable acquaintance, among whom were some of the most learned men of the age. Mr. *Archæol. x. 463. + Pennant's Tour, Vol. i. p. 52, 54, 67, 73. |