Plutarch, who nourished within a generation of Pliny, witnessed the introduction of lemons at the Roman tables. Juba, king of Mauritania, was the first who exhibited them at his dinners. And Athenæus introduces Democritus as not wondering that old people made wry mouths at the taste of lemons; for, adds he, in my grandfather’s time, they were never set upon the table. And to this day the Chinese, who grow the fruit, do not apply it to culinary purposes.
The great use of lemons began with the introduction of sugar, which is said to have resulted from the conquest of Sicily, by the Arabs, in the ninth century. Sestini, in his letters from Sicily and Turkey, thinks that the best sorts of lemons, and the best sorts of sherbet, were derived from Florence, by the Sicilians. Probably Rome continued, even in the dark ages, to be the chief seat of luxury and refinement; and had domesticated the art of making lemonade, before either Messina or Florence.
In Madagascar slices of lemon are boiled, and eaten with salt.
Pomet, in his History of Drugs, gives the preference over all others to the lemons of Madeira; but according to Ferrarius, there grows at the Cape a sweet lemon, to which he gives the name incomparabilis.
ORIGIN OF THE POINT OF HONOUR.
We meet with inexplicable enigmas in the codes of the laws of the barbarians. The law of the Frisians allowed only about the value of a farthing, by way of compensation, to a person who had been beaten with a stick; and yet for ever such a small wound it allows more. By the Salic law, if a freeman gave three blows with a stick to another freeman, he paid about three halfpence; if he drew blood, he was punished as if he had wounded him with steel, and he paid about seven-pence halfpenny; thus the punishment was proportioned to the greatness of the wound. The law of the Lombards established different compensations for one, two, three, four blows, and so on. At present a single blow is equivalent to a hundred thousand.
The constitution of Charlemagne, inserted in the law of the Lombards, ordains, that those who were allowed the trial by combat, should fight with clubs. Perhaps this was out of regard to the clergy; or, probably, as the usage of legal duels gained ground, they wanted to render them less sanguinary. The capitulary of Louis the Pious, added to the Salic law in 819, allows the liberty of chusing to fight either with the sword or club. In process of time none but bondmen or slaves fought with the club.
Here may be seen the first rise and formation of the particular articles of our point of honour. The accuser began with declaring, in the presence of the judge, that such a person had committed such an action, and the accused made answer that, he lied; upon which the judge gave orders for the duel. It became then an established rule, that whenever a person had the lie given him, it was incumbent on him to fight.
Upon a man’s declaring he would fight, he could not afterwards depart from his word; if he did, he was condemned to a penalty. Hence this rule followed, that whenever a person had engaged his word, honour forbade him to recal it.
Gentlemen fought one another on horseback, armed at all points; villans fought on foot, and with clubs.[[41]] Hence it followed, that the club was looked upon as the instrument of insults and affronts,[[42]] because to strike a man with it, was treating him like a villan.