Volume 1

The family oracle of health, economy, medicine, and good living adapted to all ranks of society, from the palace to the cottage / By F. Crell ... and W. M. Wallace, Esq., assisted by a Committee of scientific gentlemen.

  • Crell, A. F.
Date:
1824-1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The family oracle of health, economy, medicine, and good living adapted to all ranks of society, from the palace to the cottage / By F. Crell ... and W. M. Wallace, Esq., assisted by a Committee of scientific gentlemen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    186/516 (page 176)
    Venus or Juno be Roman or Grecian, as the classic Greeks had more taste than represent a goddess with small peering, miserly eyes. Homer indeed seldom mentions Juno without comparing her eyes to those of the ox*. The oriental poets draw a more elegant simile from the large eyed antelope or gazelle, which has not escaped Lord Byron. Her eyes’ dark chann ’(were vain to tell, But gaze on that of the gazelle, It will assist thy fancy well, Giaour. The brilliancy of the eye and its appearance of fulness, depend of course in some degree on its form, and on the magnitude of the eye-ball; but still more on the closeness and amplitude of the eye-lashes and the diameter of the pupil. It is the eye- lashes only over which we possess the greatest power, as we can bring them to the highest perfection of gloss and thickness by the Circassian method we have already detailed. This is not all: the oriental beauties, from time immemorial, have practised the art of darkening the eye-lashes with antimony, which is put both on the hairs and at the skin at their roots, while a small streak of it is often extended outwards from the exterior angle of each eye. This has a very imposing effect when artfully performed; and we have seen European ladies who had been in the East, employ this method to give a bright- ness and beauty to their eyes, altogether inconceivable, making even the plainest little grey eyes appear full-orbed and piercingly dark. It is for such, indeed, that we write; others have no need of antimony nor frankincense black. The latter is much infe- rior, as all European cosmetics are, to those of the East; but to such as choose to try it, we give the receipt To render the Eyes brighter and darker. Take an ounce of frankincense, the same quantity of resin and pitch, and half as much mastic. Throw all these ingre- dients upon a piece of red hot charcoal, receive the fumes into a large funnel, and a fine black powder will adhere; mix this with a little oil of Benjamin, Eau de Cologne, or what is perhaps better, the juice of elder-berries, and it is fit for being applied to the eye-lashes, or to the eye-brows. A large pupil, though it is certainly one of the highest marks of beauty, is also a sure token of a weak, and perhaps a con- sumptive constitution ; so much so, that whatever renders the * flowrfic rfor'/ia. 'Hf^. The ox eyed venerable Juno. Iliad, passim.