168 WAX AND ITS USES. 



other uses to which, wax is applied, for they are everywhere 

 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 

 furnished 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 vermilion ; 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 Bees 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, especially appendent on parch- 

 ment. Wax is good by day and night, useful in law instru- 

 ments 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 



