[467] [In England large quantities of verdigris are now prepared by arranging plates of copper alternately with pieces of coarse woollen cloth steeped in crude pyroligneous acid, which is obtained by the destructive distillation of wood.]
[468] [Verdigris is a mixture of three compounds of acetic acid with oxide of copper, which contain a preponderance of the base, hence basic acetates; distilled verdigris is made by digesting verdigris, or the mixture of basic acetates of copper, with excess of acetic acid and crystallizing by evaporation: the acid then exists in such proportions as to form a neutral acetate of copper.]
[469] Frisch’s Worterbuch, p. 291. In the works of George Agricola, printed together at Basle, 1546, fol., we find in p. 473, where the terms of art are explained, “Ærugo, Grünspan, or Spansch-grün, quod primo ab Hispanis ad Germanos sit allata; barbari nominant viride æris.”
[470] By Conrad Zeninger, Nuremberg. In that scarce work, Josua Maaler, Teutsche Spraach oder Dictionarium Germano-Latinum, Zurich, 1561, 4to, ærugo is called Spangrüne.
SAFFRON.
That the Latin word crocus signified the same plant which we at present call saffron, and which, in botany, still retains the ancient name, has, as far as I know, never been doubted; and indeed I know no reason why it should, however mistrustful I may be when natural objects are given out for those which formerly had the like names. The moderns often apply ancient names to things very different from those which were known under them by the Greeks and the Romans: but what we read in ancient authors concerning crocus agrees in every respect with our saffron, and can scarcely be applied to any other vegetable production. Crocus was a bulbous plant, which grew wild in the mountains. There were two species of it, one of which flowered in spring, and the other in autumn. The flowers of the latter, which appeared earlier than the green leaves that remained through the winter, contained those small threads or filaments[471] which were used as a medicine and a paint, and employed also for seasoning various kinds of food[472].
It appears that the medicinal use, as well as the name of this plant, has always continued among the Orientals; and the Europeans, who adopted the medicine of the Greeks, sent to the Levant for saffron[473], until they learned the art of rearing it themselves; and employed it very much until they were made acquainted with the use of more beneficial articles, which they substituted in its stead. Those who are desirous of knowing the older opinions on the pharmaceutical preparation of saffron, and the diseases in the curing of which it was employed, may read Hertodt’s Crocologia, where the author has collected all the receipts, and even the simplest, for preparing it[474].
What in the ancient use of saffron is most discordant with our taste at present, is the employing it as a perfume. Not only were halls, theatres, and courts, through which one wished to diffuse an agreeable smell, strewed with this plant[475], but it entered into the composition of many spirituous extracts, which retained the same scent; and these costly smelling waters were often made to flow in small streams, which spread abroad their much-admired odour[476]. Luxurious people even moistened or filled with them all those things with which they were desirous of surprising their guests in an agreeable manner[477], or with which they ornamented their apartments. From saffron, with the addition of wax and other ingredients, the Greeks as well as the Romans prepared also scented salves, which they used in the same manner as our ancestors their balsams[478].
Notwithstanding the fondness which the ancients showed for the smell of saffron, it does not appear that in modern times it was ever much esteemed. As a perfume, it would undoubtedly be as little relished at present as the greater part of the dishes of Apicius, fricassees of sucking puppies[479], sausages, and other parts of swine, which one could not even mention with decency in genteel company[480]; though it certainly has the same scent which it had in the time of Ovid, and although our organs of smelling are in nothing different from those of the Greeks and the Romans. From parts of the world to them unknown, we have, however, obtained perfumes which far excel any with which they were acquainted. We have new flowers, or, at least, more perfect kinds of flowers long known, which, improved either by art or by accident, are superior in smell to all those in the gardens of the Hesperides, of Adonis and Alcinous, so much celebrated. We have learned the art of mixing perfumes with oils and salts, in such a manner as to render them more volatile, stronger, and more pleasant; and we know how to obtain essences such as the ancient voluptuaries never smelt, and for which they would undoubtedly have given up their saffron. The smelling-bottles and perfumes which are often presented to our beauties, certainly far excel that promised by Catullus to a friend, with the assurance that his mistress had received it from Venus and her Cupids, and that when he smelt it he would wish to become all nose: