16 NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS STONES, &c
' Lapidaria'
extant in MS., some as old as the thirteenth century, are of a totally
different class, and bid farewell not only to science but to common
sense. They treat not so much upon the natural potency of gems
over the health or fortunes of mankind, whether " in medicine potable"
or worn as jewels, as upon their supernatural powers in commanding the
favour of God and man, or in baffling the influence of demons and the
various evils due to their malice and agency—plagues, murrains,
tempests.
The
main object, however, aimed at by the composers of these directories is
to define the peculiar virtues of the "Sigils" engraved upon, and
augmenting the innate potency of the appropriate gems. Here a new class
of ideas comes into play, of which no traces are to be discovered
either in the 'Origines,' or the ' Lapidarium' of Marbodus, although
faintly hinted at by Pliny when ridiculing the impudence of the Magi
for ascribing similar virtues to stones (the Amethyst and Emerald) if
engraved with certain devices. Such novel notions are evidently due to
the influence of the Crusades, and of the intercourse with Orientals
resulting therefrom, upon the minds of the learned in Europe. These
notions were brought in upon the same tide of Arabic science that
diffused the taste for alchemy throughout the West, and were by their
nature intimately con-nected with astrology, now once more cultivated,
and with a zeal before unknown even under the Lower Empire.
The
strange misinterpretations of the most familiar classical subjects, as
represented on gems, betray so total an ignorance of classical
mythology as to evince that such could never have been imagined by the
literati of Europe, amongst whom the study of the Latin authors had
always flourished more or less vigorously, and whose writings often
abound with correct allusions to profane history and fable. It is
therefore a necessary inference that these
