2 nd S. IX. June 23. '60. ] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



479 



vencal, and vermilion in French ; all referable to 

 the same common root. 



But a more curious inquiry arises from the 

 circumstance that at a somewhat later period this 

 obscurity was corrected so far as regards one in- 

 dividual of the class ; the bisulphuret of mer- 

 cury succeeded in extracting itself from the 

 prevailing confusion, and has ever since been 

 known exclusively by its own distinctive epithet 

 of " vermilion." It would be interesting to know 

 at what time, and under what circumstances, its 

 emancipation took place ; and in attempting to 

 elucidate this, an ingenious friend of mine has 

 suggested a doubt whether at any time the word 

 " ve?')7iiculus " was really applied to vermilion ; 

 and whether the latter term is not susceptible of 

 being traced to another and a totally distinct 

 derivation ? 



It has already been seen that so early as the 

 time of Pliny, " cinnabar " (which is the original 

 name of the mercurial red) began to be con- 

 founded with minium and with the Indian gum 

 then and ever since known as " dragons' blood ; " 

 and it has occurred to my friend whether during 

 the brief period of the Eastern Empire, when 

 chemistry, or rather alchemy, was eagerly cul- 

 tivated by the Greeks, both at Alexandria and 

 Byzantium, (and especially at the former, where 

 the facilities for its study were increased by more 

 intimate and extended intercourse with the East,) 

 the improved knowledge which was then acquired 

 of metals and their products may not have led to 

 a nicer discrimination as to the nature of the 

 mineral paints, which had been previously ob- 

 scure and confused. Hence, to distinguish the 

 earthy red which formed the filXros of the Greeks 

 from the bisulphuret of mercury, the learned of 

 that age may have assigned to the latter its real 

 origin by some term compounded of 'Epjuijs and 

 /ui'Atos, to express the miltos of mercury as dis- 

 tinguished from the earthy millos, or red ochre. 

 The Chinese in the same way designate vermilion 

 yen-chu, literally " mercury-red." But one dif- 

 ficulty to accepting my friend's derivation pre- 

 sents itself on the threshold ; namely, that although 

 in comparatively modern times mercurius became 

 a technical synonyine for argentum vivum, I can- 

 not find any period at which the Greeks adopted 

 'Epnt)s as an equivalent for vSpdpyvpos. It has been 

 conjectured that the metal may have been so 

 called in honour of the Egyptian Hermes Trisme- 

 gistus. Of the works on chemistry produced 

 during the period I refer to so few have been 

 printed that the facilities for verifying this con- 

 jecture are rare; but in the numerous MSS. in 

 the libraries of Paris and Vienna of authors who 

 wrote on these subjects, such as Olympiodorus, 

 Hierotheua, Agathodemon, and others, it is pro- 

 bable that more minute mention may be found of 

 mercury and its compounds, and of the nomen- 

 clature then prevailing. 



Another etymological objection to accepting the 

 derivation suggested from 'Ep/.nqs, is the obvious 

 one that the compounds of that word generally 

 retain the aspirate, so that "Ep/xov and p.i\ros would 

 become hermiltos rather than venniltos. At the 

 same time it is but fair to observe that in many 

 similar cases the initial aspirate in Greek is re- 

 presented in Latin by v. Thus, ka-nepa becomes 

 vespera, 'E<m'a, Vesta ; ip.irepos, vester ; and 'EAe'a 

 in Lucania was the Velia of the Romans. This 

 analogy, though it lessens, does not overcome the 

 difficulty ; but it seems to me deserving of con- 

 sideration, with a view to discover something more 

 satisfactory than the prevailing derivation, which, 

 apart from its technical incongruity, presents the 

 inconsistency of referring vermilion to one and 

 the same root with crimson and carmine, vermi- 

 celli, and vermin. 



It is also worthy of some inquiry to ascertain at 

 what time the term minium ceased to be con- 

 founded with cinnabar, — when the word " ver- 

 milion " came into use in Europe, with exclusive 

 reference to the bisulphuret of mercury ; also 

 when carmine was with similar speciality rcognised 

 as the product of cochineal ? 



Menage and Caseneuve have each devoted an in- 

 conclusive article to this subject. Ducange cites 

 the occurrence of the word vermilium in a Latin 

 MS. of a.d. 1073. Gervase of Tilbury, nephew 

 to our Henry II., writing in the twelfth century, 

 describes in his Otia Imperialia the production of 

 red die from the coccus, but still designates it 

 " vermiculus." Jehan le Begne, a writer on the 

 art of illumination in the fourteenth century, dis- 

 criminates between red lead and vermilion : " ne 

 mettez pas mine (minium) par soi, car la lettre en 

 seroit trop cler et mal parant, mais mettez mine 

 avecques vermilion." (Quoted in Mrs. Merrifield's 

 work on Mediaeval Painting, vol. i. p. 297.) 



Amongst the poets, Dante sings of the 



"Prima vera Candida e vermiglia." 



Chaucer apostrophises — 



" Bright regina who made thee so fair, 

 Who made thy color verraelet and white? " 



and Spenser describes — 



" Goodly trees him fair beside, 

 Loaden with fruit and apples rosy red, 

 As they in pure vermillion had been died." 



The word Cinnabar itself is also worth the in- 

 quiry, whether it be referable to any Oriental root? 

 inasmuch as there is reason to believe that the 

 Greeks obtained their knowledge of the substance 

 Ktwafiapt from India, whither it probably came 

 from China. Has the first syllable Cin any refer- 

 ence to this origin ? as it was at one time conjec- 

 tured that the word Cinnamon might probably 

 mean " Chinese amomum"? 



J. Emerson Tennent. 



