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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$Topaz. [Sir Topas, the curate's name in Twelfth Night (iv. 2) may be derived from this stone.] Topaz was first found in an island of Arabia, in which island when the Troglodytes were diseased with hunger and tempest, they digged up roots of herbs, and they found this stone therewith. And if thou wipe this stone, thou darkest it, and if thou leavest him to his own kind, he is the more clear. And in treasury of kings nothing is more clear nor more precious than this precious stone, for clearness thereof taketh to himself the clearness of other precious stones that be about him, and he followeth the course of the moon, and as the moon is more full or less, so his effect is more or less, and helpeth against the passion lunatic [perhaps this is the reason of the curate's name in Twelfth Nighty iv. 2], and stauncheth blood, and suageth fervent water, and suffereth it not to boil. It suageth both wrath and sorrow, and helpeth against evil thoughts and frenzy, and against Barthlomhu {^Berthelet\ blc. xvi. § 96. If you wish that boiling water should overflow as soon as the hand is dipped into it, take the stone which is called Topaz ; for it has been proved in our time that if the stone be placed in boiling water, it makes it flow away, so that if the hand be dipped into it, the stone may be drawn out at once—and this Parisius one of our brethren performed. Jlbertus Magnus, Of the Virtues of Stones. If the whites of many hens' eggs be taken, after a month they become glass, and hard as stone ; and from this, first rubbed with saffron or red earth, the false Topaz is made. Ibid., Of the Wonders of the World. Trout. Twelfth Night, ii. 5, 25. This fish of nature loveth flattery ; for, being in the water, it will suffer itself to be rubbed and clawed, and so$