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. 
Auv’s Wet, THaT Enns WELL, iv. 5, 2. 
Winter’s Tate, 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 (Berthelet), 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 
Moryson's ‘‘ Itinerary,” part iii. p. 140), and was used to colour 
not only pies (‘‘Winter’s Tale, uz supra), but custards (Hey- 
qwood's **Fair Maid of the Exchange”) and porridge (Beaumont 
and Fletcher, ‘‘\WWomen Pleased,” iii. 2), as well as for a dye 
(“ All’s Well that End’s Well,” doc. cz¢., 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.” 
