168 WAX AND ITS USES. 



other uses to which wax is applied, for they are every where 

 apparent ; even in the comfortless dry -rubbed floor of the French 

 hotel or chateau,, and the single mahogany table (valued heir- 

 loom of the English cottage), wherein the housewife is fur- 

 nished by the Bee's industry with a mirrored reflection of her 

 own. 



Sealing-wax, as at present manufactured, is only wax in name, 

 being composed of gum, or shell-lac, and turpentine, coloured 

 with vermillion ; but in former times it was wax in nature, and 

 even now the great seal of the Lord Chancellor, and others of 

 official use, are of veritable wax. 



Shakespeare's Imogine, when opening her husband's letter, 

 is made to say, 



" Good wax, thy leave. Blessed be 

 Yon Bee3 that make these locks of counsel ; " 



and in the next century, Fuller thus speaks of wax and its uses : 

 " This is the cask where honey is the liquor, and being yellow 

 by nature, is by art made white, red, and green, which I take to 

 be the dearest colour, esjiecii/Hy appendent on parchment. 

 Wax is good by day and night, useful in law instruments to 



seal, and in physic. The ground and foundation of all cere-cloth 

 (cera) is also made of wax/' 



Much more extensive and important than any of the fore- 

 going, but, as less palpable, even more disregarded, are the 

 general uses of Insect existence. Disease engendered of cor- 

 ruption in substances animal and vegetable, would defy all the 



