Asidew.
In vol. i. col. 1213, arsedine is noticed as having been in use at Bartholomew fair, and Mr. Archdeacon Nares’s supposition is mentioned, that arsedine, arsadine, or orsden, as it was variously called, was a corruption of arsenic, or orpiment. The editor then ventured to hazard a different suggestion, and show that the word might be saxon, and expressive of “pigments obtained from minerals and metals.” Since then, a note in Mr. Sharp’s remarkably interesting “Dissertation on the Country Mysteries,” seems to favour the notion.
Mr. Sharp says, “At the end of Gent’s ‘History of York, 1730,’ is an advertisement of numerous articles, sold by Hammond, a bookseller of that city, and amongst the rest occurs ‘Assidue or horse-gold,’ the very next article to which, is ‘hobby-horse-bells.’—A dealer in Dutch metal, Michael Oppenheim, 27, Mansell-street, Goodman’s-fields, thus described himself in 1816—‘Importer of bronze powder, Dutch metal, and Or-sedew,’ and upon inquiry respecting the last article, it proved to be that thin yellow metal, generally known by the name of tinsel, much used for ornamenting children’s dolls, hobby-horses, and some toys, as well as manufactured into various showy articles of dress. The word orsedew is evidently a corruption of oripeau i. e. leaf (or skin) gold, afterwards brass. The Spaniards call it oropoel, gold-skin, and the Germans flitter-gold.”[356]
Through Mr. Sharp we have, at length, attained to a knowledge of this substance as the true arsedine of our forefathers, and the asidew of the Sheffield merry-makers at present.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 55·57.
[351] I speak advisedly. As a town, Sheffield, the place here referred to, is larger and more populous than Leeds. In 1821 it contained with its suburbs, but without including either out-hamlets, or the country part of the parish, at least 58,000 inhabitants;—Leeds no more than 48,000.