ASPARAGUS ASPECT. 



299 



of the use made of it by Cleopatra, the queen of 

 Kgypt, equally famous for the brilliancy of her 

 charms and the licentiousness of her life. In his 

 Life of Mark Antony, Plutarch makes the following 

 statement, which shows to what an extent a vicious 

 course of living had corrupted a noble and talented 

 woman : " Antony and Cleopatra had before esta- 

 blished a society, called the inimitable livers, of which 

 they were members ; but they now instituted ano- 

 ther, by no means inferior in splendour or luxury, 

 called the companions in death. Their friends were 

 admitted into this, and the time passed in mutual 

 treats and diversions. Cleopatra, at the same time, 

 was making a collection of poisonous drugs, and, 

 being desirous to know which was least painful in 

 the operation, she tried them on the capital convicts. 

 Such poisons as were quick in their operations, she 

 found to be attended with violent pain and convul- 

 sions ; such as were milder were slow in their effects. 

 She therefore applied herself to the examination of 

 venomous creatures, and caused different kinds of 

 them to be applied to different persons, under her 

 own inspection. These experiments she repeated 

 daily, and at length she found that the bite of the 

 asp was the most eligible kind of death ; for it 

 brought on a gradual lethargy, in which the face was 

 covered with a gentle sweat, and the senses sunk 

 easily into stupefaction. Those who were thus 

 affected showed the same uneasiness at being dis- 

 turbed or awaked, that people do in the profoundest 

 natural sleep." Langhorne's Plutarch. It is not 

 surprising that Cleopatra finally resorted to the asp 

 to destroy her own life. This is stated very doubt- 

 fully by Plutarch, and is, by Brown, ranked among 

 his popular errors; yet, as the Egyptian queen is 

 known to have committed suicide, we cannot doubt, 

 after what we have cited from Plutarch, that she 

 resorted to the mode of dying which her own experi- 

 ments had proved most easy. As two small punc- 

 tures were found on her arm, quite adequate to pro- 

 duce the result, if made by an asp, we conclude, with 

 Shakspeare, that it is 



- most probable 



That so she died; for her physician tells me 



She hath pursued conclusions infinite 



Of easy ways to die. Antony and Cleopatra. 



Dreadful as the poison of the asp, and, indeed, of 

 most of the vipers, is, it may be rendered entirely 

 harmless by immediately applying forcible pressure 

 on the side of the wound nearest the heart. In this 

 way the cupping-glass, ligature, &c. produce their 

 beneficial effects, and not by the removal of the 

 poison. For a most satisfactory establishment of this 

 highly important fact, the scientific world is indebted 

 to Caspar W. Pennock, M. D. of Philadelphia, whose 

 experiments are published in the 1st vol. of the 

 American Journal of the Medical Sciences, where he 

 has shown that simple pressure, however applied, 

 sufficient to close the vessels on the side of the 

 wound next the heart, prevents any poison, even that 

 of the rattlesnake, from producing injurious conse- 

 quences. 



ASPARAGUS. Asparagus officinalis is a well known 

 plant, the young shoots of which are a favourite 

 culinary vegetable. Fewjcircumstances in the phe- 

 nomena of vegetation are more remarkable than the 

 gradual enlargement of size, and improvement of 

 quality, which have taken place in the cultivation of 

 asparagus. It grows wild on the pebbly beach near 

 Weymouth (England), and in the island of Anglosea ; 

 but its stem, in these situations, is not usually thicker 

 than a goose-quill, and its whole height does not ex- 

 ceed a few inches . whereas, in gardens, its stem i 

 sometimes nearly three quarters of an inch thick, and 



its height, when at maturity, is four or five feet. As- 

 paragus is one of the greatest delicacies which our 

 kitchen gardens afford, and it is particularly valuable 

 from the early season at which it is produced. It is 

 usually raised from seed, in beds formed for the pur- 

 pose ; and the plants should remain three years in 

 the ground before they are cut; after which, for 

 several years, they will continue to afford a regular 

 annual supply. During the winter, they are secured 

 from the effects of frost by the beds being covered 

 some inches thick with straw or litter. In the cutting 

 of asparagus, the knife is passed three or four inches 

 beneath the ground. The plants are cut by sloping 

 the blade upward ; and the white part that we see is 

 that which had not previously been exposed to the 

 air. The smallest plants are suffered to grow, for 

 the purpose of producing berries to restock the beds, 

 and keep them continually in a state of supply. 



ASPASIA, was born at Miletus, in Ionia. Her fa- 

 ther's name was Axiochus. She seems to have fol- 

 lowed the example of Thargelia, another beautiful 

 woman of Ionia, who united a love for politics and 

 learning with all the graces of her sex. All foreign 

 women, in Athens, were deprived of the benefits of 

 the laws : their children were looked upon as illegi- 

 timate, even though they were the offspring ot a 

 lawful marriage. To this circumstance, it is in a 

 great measure owing, that A. has been classed among 

 courtesans. She devoted her attention to politics 

 and eloquence. Plato mentions an elegant speech, 

 which she delivered in praise of the Athenians who 

 fell at Lechaeum; and she is asserted to have in- 

 structed Pericles in eloquence. Her house was the 

 feneral resort of the most virtuous, learned, and 

 istinguished men in Greece, and Socrates often 

 favoured her with his company : he was even ac- 

 cused of a sensual passion for her. She inspired the 

 strongest and most enduring affection in the heart of 

 the noble Pericles, who understood the grand secret of 

 being, at the same time, the citizen and the ruler of a 

 republic. The people used to call Pericles Olympian 

 Jupiter, and his companion Aspasia Juno. The orator 

 divorced his former wife to marry A. Plutarch re- 

 lates, that he constantly evinced the liveliest attach- 

 ment for her a feeling which could never have 

 been inspired by a low and corrupt courtesan. She 

 is accused of having been the cause of two wars one 

 between the Athenians and Samians, on account of 

 her native Miletus ; the other between the Athenians 

 and Lacedaemonians, on account of Megara. Plu- 

 tarch acquits her of this charge, and Thucydides does 

 not mention her name, thougn he relates the minu- 

 test circumstances which gave birth to the Peloponne- 

 sian war. The accusation alluded to is mentioned 

 only by Aristophanes, whose historical correctness 

 cannot be trusted. When the Athenians were dis- 

 satisfied with Pericles, instead of attacking him, they 

 persecuted the objects of his particular favour, and 

 accused A., among others, of contempt of the gods. 

 Pericles burst into tears, in the midst of the areopa- 

 gus, while advocating her cause, and disarmed the 

 severity of the judges. A fter his death , A. , who had 

 been the friend of Socrates, the companion of Peri- 

 cles, and the object of Alcibiades' devoted adoration, 

 is said to have attached herself to an obscure indivi- 

 dual, of the name of Lysicles, whom she soon made, 

 however, an influential citizen in Athens. It may be 

 siiid, with safety, that A. had an important influence 

 over the whole nation ; for the men who sat at the 

 helm of government were formed in her society. 



Her name was so celebrated, that the younger Cyrus 

 named his favourite, Milto, after her ; for Aspasia 



signified the loveliest of women, as Alexander the 



bravest of heroes. 

 ASVKCT, iu astronomy and astrology, denotes th? 



