ON METALS. 



The sex have in all ages used some contrivance or other to en. 

 able them to set off their dress (o the best advantage ; and the men 

 were probably never without their attention to that point. We 

 find Juvenal* satirizing the emperor Otho for making a speculum 

 part of his camp equipage. 



Res memoranda novis annalibus, atque recenti 

 Historia, speculum civilis sarcina belli. 



Homer, in describing Juno at her toilet +, makes no mention 

 of a speculum ; but in Callimachus + we see, though it suited not 

 the majesty of Juno, nor the wisdom of Pallas, to use a speculum 

 before they exhibited their persons to Paris, who was to determine 

 the prize of beauty; that Venus, on the same occasion, had fre- 

 quent recourse to one, before she could adjust her locks to her 

 own satisfaction. The most ancient account we have of the use of 

 specula is that in Exodus (xxxviii. 8.) " And he made the laver of 

 brass [copper, or a mixture of copper and tin] and the foot of it 

 of brass of the looking-glasses of the women." The English 

 reader may wonder how a vessel of brass could be made out of 

 looking-glasses ; the Hebrew word might properly be rendered by 

 specula, or metallic mirrors. The Jewish women were, probably, 

 presented with these mirrors, as they were with other articles of 

 value by their Egyptian neighbours, when they left the country; 

 for it was the custom of the Egyptians, when they went to their 

 temples, to carry a mirror in their left hand: it is remarkable, 

 that the Peruvians, who had so many customs in common with the 

 Egyptians, were very fond also of mirrors ; which they ordinarily 

 formed of a sort of lava that bore a fine polish. 



Pliny || says, that the best specula were anciently made at Brun. 

 dusium of copper and tin ; that Praxiteles, in the time of Pompej 

 the Great, was the first who made one of silver ; but that silver 

 ones were in his time become so common, that they were used 

 even by the maid servants. The metallic mixture of tin and cop. 



AHter autem comparau sunt numismata post aetatem Severi cusa, quippe ex 

 juibos guttule qusedam plumbi, vcl modico ignis calore diversis in locis expri- 

 muntur. Savot de Num. Ant. P. II. C. I. These pot-metal medaU were pro- 

 bably cast. 



Sat. II. 1. 108. f II. L. XIV. 1. 170. 



f Hym. in Lavac. Pallart. S Cy" 1 ' de Ado - 



1 Hiit. Nat. L. XXXIII. S. XLV. 



