Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging.

Seager, H. W. (Herbert West), 1848-

Date:: 1896

Credit: Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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$Salmon. King Henry V., \v. ~, 32. [It comes well to pass that he begins this course in a year when there is so great plenty of excellent venisons and such store of Salmons, that the like hath not been seen in the Thames these forty years ('• Chamberlain's Letters to Sir Dudley Carleton, from NzchoTs '' Progress of King James I., vol. iii. p. 394). Half a Salmon cost 9s. and a side of fresh Salmon 8s. in 1573, but,—You see this Salmon? it cost but sixpence {Roivley, A Woman Never Vexed, Act. i.). Salmon was boiled in water with rosemary and thyme, and a quart of strong ale, and a good deal of vinegar was put in the broth ( The Good Huswife's Jewel, part ii. p. 25). Calvered Salmon was a luxury ( The Alchemist, ii. 2).] Samphire. King Lear, iv. 6, 16. Rock-Samphire groweth on the rocky cliffs at Dover, Winchelsea (by Rye), about Southampton, [and] the Isle of Wight. The leaves kept in pickle, and eaten in salads with oil and vinegar, is a pleasant sauce for meat. Gerard's Herbal, s.-z'. Sapphire. Merry Wives of Windsor, v. 5, 75. Sapphire is a precious stone, and is blue in colour, and most like to heaven in fair weather and clear, and is best among precious stones, and most precious, and most apt and able to fingers of kings, for it lighteneth the body, and keepeth and saveth limbs whole and sound. In the same veins of Sapphire in the middle is a certain kind, of car- buncle found ; therefore many men ween that the Sapphire is the carbuncle's mother. And the Sapphire hath virtue to rule and accord them that be in strife, and helpeth much to make peace and accord. Also it hath virtue to abate unkind [unnatural] heat, for the Sapphire cooleth much the heat of burning fevers, if it be hanged nigh the pulse and the veins of the heart. Also it hath virtue to comfort and to glad the heart. His virtue is contrary to venom, and quencheth it every deal. And if thou put an attercop [spider] in a box, and hold a very Sapphire of$