Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
B05128
|
A short treatise of the excellency of bees, hony [sic], mead, and metheglin with their singular and approved vertues. / By T.R. Med. Dr.
|
T. R., Dr.
|
1681
(1681)
|
Wing R90AA; ESTC R187362
|
4,096
|
4
|
A Short TREATISE Of the Excellency of BEES HONY MEAD and METHEGLIN With their Singular and Approved VERTVES By T. R. Med. Dr. CHAP. I. Of BEES and their Excellency PLINY that great Naturalist Lib. 2. pag. 5. to express the most transcendent Excellency of the Nature of Bees saith thus viz. Inter omnia Insecta Principatus Apibus jure praecipua admiratio solis ex eo genere hominum causâ genitis Of all Insects Bees are the Chief and the most worthy to be had in Admiration being the only things of that kind which are bred for the behoof of Man He says further Lib. 2. Chap. 10. pag. 3. That the Work and Fruit of of the little Bee is so great and wonderful so comly for Order and Beauty so Excellent for Art Wisdom and Ingenuity and so full of Pleasure with abundant Profit and little Charge That the Contemplation of which may very well beseem an ingenious Nature And therefore not without cause are the Bees called the Muses Birds Apes cum causâ Musarum dicuntur volucres Varro Lib. 3. Cap. 15. The Contemplation and Love of which did so ravish those Antient and great Bee Masters viz. Aristomachus and Piliscus as Pliny reporteth in his Natural History Lib. 11. Cap. 9. that they were pleased to spend most of their time in this pleasing Business Further Aristotle himself the Ancient and great Philosopher thought his Historia Animalium very lame and imperfect unless he had inserted a Particular Tract of the Nature of Bees of which he discourseth more at large than he doth of any other living Creatures Pliny likewise in his Natural History is very copious in and about this Melifluous Subject Besides diverse others that have written thereof as Collumella Varro Palladius and Averroes c. Yea the Learned and Grave Fathers of the Church St. Ambrose and St. Isodore have thought it a Subject fit for their Pens Unto which I might add both for Ornament and Authority infinite others of these our later times c. Amongst which I cannot but with all due Respect approve of the late Invention of the New Bee-Houses and Collonies a Prospect of which may be seen in his Majesties Garden in St. Jameses Park so much admired and approved of by the Royal Society at Gresham Colledge in London and wish the Management thereof might fall into the hands of such Ingenious Persons as might further improve so useful an Invention being already encouraged by his gratious Majesty and since by diverse persons of Honour Make but Inspection through their transparent Windows before and behind the Collonies and you cannot chuse but admire the Bees most incomparable and ingenious works curiously adorned fitted and accomplished by assiduous Industry The Curiosity of their Fabrick with its exquisit Cells when first I viewed on a suddain forced me into an unwonted Extasy with extream Admiration as it did the most Experienced Mr. Charles Butler in his History of Bees Cap. 6. pag. 103. n. 9. whose Condign Merits neither Envy nor injurious Time shall ever obliterate or bury in oblivion nor anticipate my thoughts from perusing his Feminine Monarchy Which when I Read I 'le to the World profess My Debt to him love honour thankfulness And in the same acknowledgement admire the curious Buildings of these small Insects or pretty Bees often divertising my self with this Quaere viz. Quid non Solertia Vincat c. And whilst Reader I admire the many Myriads of both Sexes with their admired Assiduity Non Miraris Arte Conditas mirâ Domos Opesque Regales in his reconditas Solertia Labore Fiunt Omnia CHAP. II. Of HONY and its Singular VERTVES NEXT I shall Treat of the Profits which arise from Bees viz. HONY with the ordering and use of Meath Mead Hydromel and Metheglin with their singular Vertues for the Use and Comfort of Mankind HONY for the Extracting of which the most natural and seasonable time is in August i. e. from the end of Dog days until the sixth day of September or thereabouts because till then the Combs are full of Skadons which deceive the Hony-Men make the Hive heavier and the Hony worse for the Skadons Maggots and young Bees as well as the Sandarak corrupt the same experienced by the Ancient Bee-Master Collumella Lib. 9. Cap. 15. viz. Pulli rubroe sordes sunt Mali saporis et succo suo mella corrumpunt The time aforementioned for the running and working of Hony viz. English Hony is most proper fit and convenient except in Hot Countrys where their Gathering lasts longer Out of the new Invented Collonies by reason of their neat contrivance and most ingenious Shutters is drawn the most Nectarian and best Hony for the Bees by reason of the said Shutters there is no necessity of killing them with either the Smoak of Brimstone Bunt Tutchwood or Mushroom's which makes the Hony smell of smoak and so consequently renders it much worse for indeed it were a pitty to reward with Death those pretty and industrious Animals out of whose Collonies we receive such vast profits as Honey and Wax no ways adulterated far excelling the other in Gust and Odour Of all Hony that which runneth of it self is most commendable 'T is called by our best Bee-Masters Acoeton or the finest Nectar which for its incorrupted purity by others is called Virgin Hony because as Plantius in Fernel Lib. 7. Method Med Quod è Favis sponte primùm defluit virgineum Mel vulgo appellatur Whereof there are two sorts viz. Right Virgin-Honey which is of a Swarm and runs of it self 2. Bastard Virgin-Hony or rather to be called the finest Ordinary Varro Chap. 6. num 30. which though it be of the same Swarm yet being mixt with other and laid up in corrupter Vessels and not in the pure Virgin Cells is rendred much inferiour to the true Virgin Hony The differences and degrees of Hony in goodness are as well Natural as Artificial For 't is made better or worse by the ordering or handling of it so is it in it self better or worse according to the different Condition of the Soyl where it is gathered for Varro Cap. 6 â—um 32. affirmeth that the Champain Hony is accounted much better than the Heath Hony although they be ordered both alike Good Hony when well wrought and fermented hath these properties and excellent Qualities whereby it is known and distinguished viz. It is clear odoriferous yellow like pale Gold but right Virgin Honey is more Crystaline at the first viz. sharp sweet and pleasant to the Tast of a mean consistence between thick and thin so clammy that being taken up upon your Fingers end in falling it will not part but hang together like a long string as that useth to do which is clarified Plant. in Fern. Lib. 7. de Oxymelite viz. Mel probum est quod inter Crassimum tenuissimum est mediocre sapore dulcissimum acerrimum simulque dulcedinis sensum inferens et vellicatu