Benefits. 259 
fluid excreted by them, however beautiful, agrees with the 
the true Parpura in no circumstances except in colour. 
Poets as well as naturalists have lauded, you well know, 
the beauty and permanency of this dye, perhaps the principal 
commodity of ‘Tyre, when its ‘ merchants were princes, and 
its traffickers the honourable of the earth.” It was discovered 
1400, or, at the utmost, 1500, years before the Christian era, 
but from its scarcity, as much as from its brilliancy, was al- 
ways very costly, and in consequence reserved for dyeing the 
hangings of temples, or the robes of priests and kings. Plu- 
tarch in his Life of Alexander, relates, that, among other 
valuables in the treasury at Susa, that conqueror found 5000 
talents of it, which was perfectly fresh, though nearly two 
hundred years old; and its preservation was ascribed to its 
being covered with honey. “ Pliny informs us that it was used 
by Ronmulas; and the succeeding kings of Rome, as well as 
by the consuls and first magistrates under the republic. ‘The 
Roman emperors at last appropriated it entirely to their own 
use, and denounced the punishment of death against those 
who should dare to wear it, though covered with another 
colour. This absurd and tyrannical restriction confined the 
dyeing of the Tyrian purple to a few individuals; and in a 
short time the knowledge of the process was completely lost. 
In the twelfth century, neither the shellfish which furnished 
the dye, nor the methods which the ancients employed to 
communicate to cloths the rich and beautiful purple which it 
afforded, were at all known.” 
In 1616, Fabius Columna, a Neapolitan nobleman, wrote a 
dissertation on the Pirpura. It does not appear, however, 
that he had ever attempted to procure the colour; his object 
was rather to give a history of a forgotten art. But, in the 
year 1683, Mr. William Cole of Bristol made some experi- 
ments on the subject, being excited to do so by a report he 
had heard of a person living at a seaport in Ireland, who had 
made considerable gain by marking with a delicate durable 
crimson colour the fine linen of ladies and gentlemen, sent to 
him for that purpose ; and that this colour was made by some 
liquid substance taken out of shellfish. He soon discovered 
that our common Pirpura lapillus was the shellfish ; and, as 
mentioned by Aristotle, he found the colouring matter “ in a 
white vein, lying transversely in a little furrow or cleft next 
to the head of the fish.” After an interval of twenty-four 
years, the same colour was procured from the same species of 
shell by Jussieu and Reaumur; and afterwards, in 1736, by 
Duhamel; and, when we compare the accounts of these emi- 
nent naturalists with those of Aristotle and Pliny, no doubt 
