SAFFRON.] NATURAL HISTORY. 269 



MY wag answered me, when I struck him for drinking 

 Sack : " Master, it is the sovereignest drink in the world, 

 and the safest for all times and weathers ; if it thunder, 

 though all the ale and beer in the town turn, it will be 

 constant ; if it lighten, and that any fire come to it, it is 

 the aptest wine to burn, and the most wholesomest when 

 it is burnt. So much for summer. If it freeze, why it is 

 so hot in operation, that no ice can congeal it ; if it rain, 

 why, then, he that cannot abide the heat of it may put in 

 water. So much for winter." 



Lilly, "Mother Bombie," ii. 5. 



Saffron. 



ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, iv. 5, 2. 

 WINTER'S TALE, iv. 3, 17. 



SAFFRON is sometimes counterfeited with a thing that is 

 called crocomagina. Crocomagina is called the superfluity of 

 spicery of the which Saffron ointment is made. He that 

 drinketh Saffron first shall not be drunken ; and garlands 

 thereof letteth drunkenness, and letteth a man that he may 

 not be drunk. And cureth biting of serpents and of 

 attercops, and stinging of scorpions. 



Bartholomew (Bertkelet), bk. xvii. 41. 



SAFFRON colour dyeth and coloureth humours and liquors 

 more than citrine, and tokeneth passing heat and distemper- 

 ance of blood in the liver. Most hottest birds of prey have 

 their utter parts yellow of colour as their feet and bills. 



Ibid., bk. xix. 16. 



[Saffron was grown in Essex and Cambridgeshire (Fynes 

 Morysoris " Itinerary," part iii. p. 140), and was used to colour 

 not only pies (" Winter's Tale, ut supra], but custards (Hey- 

 wood's " Fair Maid of the Exchange ") and porridge (Beaumont 

 and Fletcher, " Women Pleased/' iii. 2), as well as for a dye 

 ("All's Well that End's Well," loc. tit., and Steevens' notes).'] 



MY quaint knave 



He tickles you to death, makes you die laughing, 

 As if you had swallow'd down a pound of Saffron. 



Webster, "Vittoria Corombona." 



