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
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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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    with heat turneth into Brass. Brass and copper be made in this manner as other metal be of brimstone and quick- silver, and that happeth when there is more of brimstone than of quicksilver. If Brass be meddled with other metal, it changeth both colour and virtue, as it fareth in latten. Brazen vessels be soon red and rusty, but they be oft scoured with sand, and have an evil savour and smell but they be tinned. Also Brass, if it be without tin, burneth soon. Bartholornezo (^Bertbrkt), bk. xv. § 37. RiCHMONDSHiRE — the mountains plentifully yield lead, pit-coals and some Brass. . . . Cumberland hath mines of Brass [i.e.^ copper]. Fynes Moryson, Itinerary,' part iii., p. 144. Breese. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt, * * # * * The breese upon her, like a cow in June, Hoists sails and flies. Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 10, 10-5. In her ray and brightness The herd hath more annoyance by the breese Than by the tiger. Troilus and Cressida, i. 3, 47-9. The horrid Breese man's body doth not spare. He flies from us into the open air. But they fled home as herds of oxen do. When that the Breese doth force them for to go. In the springtime when days do longer grow. The fly called oestrum is of a yellowish colour, who when it enters the ears of an ox causeth him to run mad ; he carries before him a very hard, stifi^ and well-compacted sting, with which he strikes through the ox his hide. They follow oxen and horses and young cattle by scent of their sweat, because they cannot reach them with their sight, being very weak-sighted. They are generated of the worms that come out of the wood putrefied [or, according to another authority, from horse-leeches]. Mouffet, Theatre of Insects, pp. 935-6.