are named stripes; and the remaining figures, rooms. For example, 1786, would be seventeenth room, eighth stripe, and sixth place; 1524, fifteenth room, second stripe, and fourth place, and so of the rest. 87 is in O room, or the room of units and tens,[1] eighth stripe, and seventh place. When we view a choice collection of pictures, some impressions of the excellence of a particular picture, and of its situation in the room or gallery, are generally fixed in the mind. The remembrance of one picture will suggest the situation of another, and in this manner it will not be difficult to fix the places of the more conspicuous paintings: and if there are many rooms, the particular room may be distinguished. Instead of a room being filled with pictures, it is easy to imagine that it is occupied by the events of a whole century: in this room are all the years, reduced to localities.
A room is now taken with three walls, (see Plate 1. fig. 7.) each of which is divided into three stripes; and each stripe into nine compartments or squares, as we have, in some instances, done on our walls.
Each of these stripes is now a ten; and before the first ten, there is O stripe, which is placed
- ↑ The second is the room of centuries.
