[1188] Traité de la culture du nopal et de l’éducation de la cochenille. Au Cap-Francois 1787, 8vo.
[1189] In Vita Aureliani, cap. 29.
[1190] Those who are desirous of further information respecting the sandix, may consult Salmasius on Solinus, p. 810, and the editor of the Cyneget of Gratius Faliscus, x. 86. p. 46.
[1191] Some have considered sandix as a mineral. Minerals however can be used for painting but not for dyeing. It may be replied that the Romans themselves dyed with kermes at this period, and that they must have easily procured it. But they understood the art of dyeing with it so badly that they employed it only for giving the ground of their purple, and on that account it must have appeared improbable to them that the people in India could produce by it a more beautiful colour than their purple was. From the like ignorance in modern times, indigo was decried, because people imagined that a complete colour could not be communicated by it; and this false conclusion retarded many improvements in the art of dyeing. It is very likely that the Greeks and the Romans were unacquainted with the effect produced upon kermes by acids, which the Persians and Indians used.
[1192] Antiquit. Celt. p. 69, 70.
[1193] Spaten (Stiler) der Teutschen Sprache Stammbaum, 1691, 4to, p. 1062.
[1194] In his annotations on Constantini Libri de Ceremoniis Aulæ Byzantinæ, ii. p. 137. Reiske also on this occasion gives the derivation from Charlatan, a mountebank, juggler, circumforaneus, agyrta, because such people formerly on account of their red clothes were called scarlatati or scarlatani. Other conjectures respecting this word may be found in Menage, Dictionnaire Etymologique. See in the same work also, p. 498, the word écarlate. In ancient French writers the highest degree of any colour in its perfection is called écarlate, and we therefore meet with écarlate blanche, écarlate verte. Braun de Vestitu Sacerd. Hebræor. Amstelod. 1701, 4to, lib. i. cap. 15, p. 229, says, “Salacka, Tyrian red, from sar, Tyrus.” He controverts the opinion of Gronovius that scarlatum is derived from Galaticum.
[1195] Dillon’s Travels through Spain, 1780, p. 21. Rod. Toletanus De Rebus Hispan. lib. vii. 1.
[1196] G. J. Vossius De Vitiis Sermonis.
[1197] Pontani Historia Gelrica, 1639, fol. p. 83: “Tres pannos scarlitinos Anglicanos.” The year seems to have been 1050. In Lunig’s Codex Diplom. Germaniæ, ii. p. 1739, may be seen a document of the year 1172, in which the emperor Frederick I. confers on the count of Gueldres the heritable jurisdiction of Nimeguen, on condition, “ut ipse et ejus successores imperatori de eodem telonio singulis annis tres pannos scarlacos bene rubeos Anglicenses ardentis coloris—assignare deberet.”