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Vitrum Annulare, Pastes

Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Page of 384 Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
VITRUM ANNULARE.                         353
this singular mineral. In the description of Byrrhaena's feast, above quoted, capides hollowed out of Amber make a conspicuous figure. The Romans could scarcely have afforded solid pieces for the formation of flagons, however small, but their value was enhanced by representing them to have been so formed.
The ancients, though such proficients in the making orna­mental glass, and in their manipulation of the metal* had, so far as can be discovered, no secrets not possessed by the modern trade, except those unattainable now, superior skill and finer natural taste. The same reasons account for their achievements in the Glyptic art, although, if any faith were to be placed in the strange recipes which Heraclius pretends to have preserved, they had found out compendia for annihilating every difficulty. That barbarous writer, however, was like the rest of the Mediaeval philo­sophers, who had by their education lost all power of distinguishing truth from falsehood, and who, having deter­mined, from fancied and fanciful analogies, that certain means ought to produce a certain result, proceeding ac­cording to a woman's logic, incontinently set down such means as actually effecting the object desired. Neverthe­less his recipes are in themselves so curious that I shall transcribe a few of the most remarkable, although strongly disposed to consider all as little better than the dreams of some monkish craftsman too lazy to try the experiment of their truth. In the frequent introduction of earth-worms into his menstrua, there may lurk some reminiscence of Solomon's worm Samir, whose blood dissolved all geims— that fable of the doting Eabbis, engendered upon the employment of the smayr (emery) by the practical Greeks.
* Caylus notices that the Parisian trade were particularly struck in the case of certain Roman urns at their being made without the <ponty or mark of the adhesion of the blowing-tube.
(g)                                                                   2 A
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