of sugar.

saurus,

that, is brittle when chewed. It of a hazel nut. It waż used in mee
is beneficial to the bowels and sto. dicine oniy.
mach, if taken dissolved in water ;

Salmasius, in his Pliniana Exer. and is also useful in diseases of the citationes, says, that Pliny relaces, bladder and kidneys, Being sprin. upon the authority of Juba the kled on the eye, it removes those historian, that some reeds grew in substances that obscure the sight." the Fortunate Islands, which inThe above is the first account I creased to the size of trees, and have seen of the medicinal virtues yielded a liquor that was sweet and

agrecable to the palate. This Galen appears to have been we!! piant he concludes to be the sugar acquainted with sugar, which he cane; but I think the passage in describes, rearly as Dioscorides Pliny scarcely implies so much. had done, as a kind of honey, call. Hitherto we have had no account ed Sacchar, that came from India, of any artificial preparation of and Arabia Felix, and concreted sugar, by boiiing or otherwise; but in reeds. He describes it as less there is a passage in Statius, that sweet than honey, but of similar seems, if the reading be genuine, qualities, as detergent, desiccative, to allude to the boiling of sugar, and digerent. He remarks a dif. and is thought to refer immediately ference, however, in that sugar is thereto by Stephens in bis The not like honey injurious to the sto, mach, or productive of thirsť. Arrian in his Periplus of the Red

If the third book of Galen, "Up- Sea, speaks of the honey from on medicines that may be easily reeds, called Sacchar (Saxop) as procured," be genuine, we have one of the articles of trade between reason to think sugar could not be Ariace and Barygaza, two places a scarce article, as it is there re. of the hither India, and some of peatedly prescribed.

the ports on the Red Sea.
Lucan alludes to sugar, in his Ælian, in his Natural History,
third book, where he speaks of the speaks of a kind of hprey, which
sweet juices expressed from seeds, was pressed from reeds, that grew
which were drank by the people of among the Prasii, a people that
India.

lived near the Ganges.
Seneca, the philosopher, like. Tertullian also speaks of sugar,
wise speaks of an oily sweet juice in in his book De Idnicio Dei, as a kind
reeds, which probably was sugar. of honey procured from canes.
Pliny was better acquainted with

Alexander Aphrodisæus appears this substance, which he calls by to have been acquainted with su. the name of Saccaron; and says, gar, which was, in his time, rechat it was brought from Arabia garded as an Indian 'production. and India, but the best from the He says, “ that what the Indians latter country. He describes it as a called sugar, was a concretion. kind of honey, obtained from reeds, of honey, in reeds, resembling of a white colour, resembling gum, grains of salt, of a white colour, and brittle when pressed by the and brittle, and possessing a deterteeth, and found in pieces of the size gent and purgative power like to

honey,

a

apt to do.

borey; and which being boiled, in reported a kind of wild honey was the same manner as honey, is reo, made; but does not say that he dered less purgative, withour im. saw any so manufactured. pairing its nutritive quality." Albertus Agnensis relates, that

Paulus Ægineta speaks of sugar, about the same period, “ the Cruas growing, in his time, in Europe, saders found sweet home ved reeds and also as brought from Arabia in great quantity, in the me.dows Felix; the latter of which he seerns about Tripoli, in Soria, which to think less sweet ihan the sugar reeds were called Zrcra. These the produced in Europe, and neither people (the Crusaders army) sucked, injurious to the stomach vor causing and were much pleased with the thirst, as the European sugar was sweet taste of them, with which

they could scarcely be satisfied. Achmet, a writer, who, accord. This plant (the author tells vs) is ing to some, lived about the year cultivated with great labour of the $30, speaks familiarly of sugar, as husbandmen every year. At the common in his time.

time of harvest they bruise it, when Avicenna, the Arab physician, ripe, in mortars; and set by the speaks of sugar as being a produce strained juices in vessels, till it is of reeds; but it appears he meant concreted in form of snow, or of the sugar called Tabaxir cr Tab. white salt. This, when scraped, barzet, at he calls it by that name. they mix with bread, or rub it with

It does not appear, that any of water, and take it as potiage ; and the above mentioned writers kneiv it is so thom mcre wholesome and of the micthod of preparing sugar, by pleasing than the honey of bees. boiling down the juice of the reeds The people who were engaged in to a consistence. It is also thought, the sieges of Albaria Marra, and the sugar they had was not pro. Archas, and suffered dreadful huncured from the sugar cane in use at ger, were much refreshed hereby.” present, but from another of a The same author, in the account larger size, called Tabbarzer by of the reign of Baldwin, mentions Avicenna, which is the Arlido eleven camels, laden with sugar, Arbor of Caspar Bauhin, the Succa being taken by the Crusaders, so Mambur of later writers, and to that it must have been made in found, Bambs of Linnaus. This considerable quantity. yields a sweet milky juice, and Jacobus de Vitriaco mentions, oftentimes a hird crystallized mat. that is in Syria reeds grow that are ter, exactly resembling sugar, both full of honey, by which he under. įn taste and appearance,

stands a sweet juice, which by the The historians of the Crusades pressure of a screw engine, and make the next mention of sugar, concreted by fire, becomes sugar." of any that have fallen under my This is the first account I have met observation.

with of the employment of heat or The author of the Historia Hie. fire in the making of sugar. rosolymitana says, that the Cru. About the same period, Willerşaders found in Syria certain reeds mus Tyrensis speaks of sugar as called Carameles, of which it was made in the neighbourhood of Tyre,

and

and sent from thence to the farthest at the court of James IV, whose parts of the world.

marriage with Margaret of England Marinus Sanutus mentions, that he has celebrated in the Thistle in the countries subject to the Sul- and the Rose; an happy allegory, tan, sugar was produced in large by which the vulgar topics of an quantity, and that it likewise was epithalamium are judiciously avoid. made in Cyprus, Rhodes, Amorea, ed, and exhortation and eulogy deMarta, Sicily, ard other places licately insinuated. The versificabelonging to the Christians. tion of ihe poem is harmonious,

Hugo Falcandus, an author who the stanza artificial and pleasing, wrote about the time of the em. the language copious and selected, peror Frederic Barbarossa, speaks the narrative diversified, rising of. of sugar being in his time produced ten to dramatic energy. The poem in great quantity in Sicily. It ap- from its subject is descriptive, but pears to have been used in two

Dunbar improves the most luxu. states; one wherein the juice was riant description by an intermixboiled down to the consistence of ture of imagery, sentiments, and honey, and another where it was moral observation. The following boiled farther, so as to form a solid is a specimen : body of sugar.

The foregoing are all the passages The purpour sone, with tendir that have occurred to my reading bemys reid, on this subject. They are but In orient bricht as angell did apfew and inconsiderable, but may peir, save trouble to others, who are Throw goldin skyis putting up

his willing to make a deeper inquiry heid, into the history of this substance. Quhois gilt, tressi schone so Jan. 24, 1790.

wondir cleir, That all the world tuke comfort,

fer and neir, Account of Poetry in Scotland, during To luke upone his fresche and bliss.

full face, the Sixteenth Century. From Dr. Henry's History of Great Britain.

Doing all sable fro the heavenis

chace, In Scotland, poetry,

such

Chau. And as the blissful sonne of cher. cer might acknowledge, and Spenser arcley imitate, was cultivated in a lan. The fowlis sung throw comfort of guage superior to Chaucer's. Dun. the licht; bar and Douglas were distinguished The burdis did with open vocis cry, poets, whose genius would have re. O luvaris' fo, away thow dully Aected lustre on a happier period, nicht, and whose works, though partly And welcum day that comfortis obscured by age, are perused with

every wicht; pleasure even in a dialect consigned Hail May, hail Flora, hail Aurora to rustics. Dunbar, an ecclesiastic, schenė, at least an expectant of church pre. Hail princes Nature, hail Venus, ferment, seems to have languished

The

as

Luvis quene,

ers.

a

The Golden Terge is another al. poetical translator of the classics in legorical poem of Dunbar's, con. Britain. Early in youth le trans

he structed in a stanza similar to Spen. lated Ovid's de Remedio Amuris (a ser's, but more artificial, and far work thar has perished); at a more difficult*. In description maturer age, Virgil's Eneid into perhaps it excels, in sentiment it Scottish heroics ; a translation po. scarcely equals the Thistle and pular till superseded at the close Rose. Its narrative is not inter. of the last century by others more charged with dialogue ; its allegory elegant, not more faithful, nor refers to the passions, the dominion perhaps more spirited I. Ilis origi. of beauty, the subjection of rearon, nal poems are King Heart and the and is less fortunate than the This. Palace of Honour, allegories 100 ue and Rose, whose occult and se. much protracted, though marked condary signification is an histori. throughout with a vivid invention; al truth, that subsists apart, and but his most valuable performances however embellished, cannot be ob. are prologues to the books of his sored by the ostensible emblem. Eneid; stored occasionally with When the passions, or the mental exquisite description. As a poet he powers are personified and involv. is inferior to Dunbar, neither so ed in action, we pursue the tale, tender nur so various in his pow. forgetful of their abstraction, 10 His taste and judgment are which it is relative; but to remedy less correct, and his verses less po. ibis, the Golden Terge has a merit lished. The one describes by se. in its brevity which few allegorical leéting, the other by accumulating poems possess. The allegorical insges; but with such success. genius of our ancient poetry dis- His prologues descriptive of the covers often a sublime invention ; winter solstice, of a morring and but it has intercepted what is now evening 'in summer, transport the more valuable, the representation mird to the seasons they dclineate, of genuine character and of the teach it to sympathize with the 19ancers peculiar to ancient life. poet's, and to warch with tis the These manners Dunbar has some- minutest changes that nature er. times delineated with burour, in hibits. These are the earliest popoems lately retrieved from oblivi. ems prosessediy descriptire ; but in on t; and from mem he appears in description Scottish poets are rich the new light of a skiltui satirist beyond belief. Their language and an attentive observer of hu- swells with the subject, depicting man nature.

nature with the brightest and hap. Gawin Douglas, his contempo. piest selection of colours. The rary, was more conspicuous by the language of modern poetry is more sare union of birth and learning, intelligible, not so luxuriant, nor and is still distinguished as the first the terms so harmonious. De.

* Like Spenser's, it consists of nine verses, restricted however to two shimes it. stead of three, which Spenser's admits of. † Vide his poems in Pinkerton's Collection.

* It was finished in sixteen months; and, till Dryden's appeared, seems to have been received as a standard translation: till then it was certainly the best uanslation.

scription

seems

cription is still the characteristic, be much, being in general between nd has ever been the principal twenty and thirty pounds, yet, from xcellence of Scottish poets; on the length of time which the works - hom, though grossly ignorant of continued, the cost of the whole ruman nature, the poetical mantle must have been very considerable. of Dunbar and Douglas has suc- Whether king Edward I. comessively descended*.

pleted his designs in beautifying This structure, we are not informed;

but if he had, his · labours were Extract from an account of the Col. soon after unfortunately rendered

Lrgiate Chapel of si. Stephen, abortive ; for, we are told by a liestminster.

very accurate chronicler, Stow

" that on the 29th of March, 1248, KING William Rufus built the a vehement fire being kindled in the royal palace at Westminster; and, lesser hall of the king's palace at according to Stow, king Stephen Westminster, the flame thereof be. erected this religious structure, in ing driven with the wind, fired the honour of St. Stephen, the proto. monastery adjoining: which, with martyr. King Edward I. how- the palace were both consumed." ever,

10 have rebuilt this This disastrous event could not chapel; for, in the 20th year of be repaired for some time following: his reign, the 28th of April, 1292, for Edward I. being almost con: the works of the new chapel began, wantly engaged, in the lacter part and continued for more than two of his reige, either in external wars, years. An account of the expence or in the conquest of Scotland, of these operations is preserved in the prevailing object in the mind soils of weekly payments remaining of that monarch, he cannot be in the exchequer, which I have supposed to have had either lei. been indulged with the perusal of, sure or wealth to bestow on works. by our learned brother, Craven Ord, of art; and the weak and turbulent esq. F. R. S. These curious rolls reign of his son Edward 11. did contain the articles purchased with. not allow much time for domestic in the week, and the daily payments improvements. But early in the to each workman of every deno. succeeding reign this building en. mination,

gaged the royal attention; for, on The several articles bought are the 27th May, 1330, 4 Edw. III. stated; then follow the payments the works on this chapel again to workmen. Th.y are too ini. commenced. The comptroller's rol! nute to be here enume

merated, but of the expence of these operations, these are apparent-to carpenters for near three years, is remaining five pence each per day;--to other in the king's reinembrancer's ofice, workmen thrce pence halfpenny; in the exchequer. -some three pence ;---some two The lengih of this account will pence halfpenny each.

not allow of the whole to be here Although the amount of each inserted; bot it is extremely separate week does not appear to curious because it preserves the

Other poets of inferior reputation flourished during this period in Scotland; but it is the purport of this history to record the progressive improvements, not the stationary merit of poetry.