SCALE. 
732 
the Scandinavians had conquered many countries bordering 
upon France in the fourth century; and hence the Franks 
must have been in some measure used to their languages 
well acquainted with their manners, and conversant in their 
poetry. We have reason also to believe, that many of the 
Scaldic imaginations might have been blended with the 
Arabian: so that the Gothic Scalds enriched their vein of 
fabling from this new and fruitful source of fiction opened 
S the Arabians in Spain, and afterwards propagated by the 
usades. The earliest Scald now on record, is not before 
the year 750; from which time the Scalds flourished in the 
northern countries till below the year 1157. We shall close 
this article with observing, as a circumstance somewhat re¬ 
markable, that in the earlier Scaldic odes, we find but few 
dragons, giants, and fairies: these were introduced at a later 
period, and are the progeny of Arabian fancy : the absence 
of giants and dragons has been alleged as a striking proof of 
the antiquity of the poems of Ossian, by the advocates of 
their authenticity: nor are these fancies found in the Welsh 
odes of Taliessin or Aneuric, who flourished about the year 
570. There is also the strongest reason to suspect, that 
even the Gothic “ Edda,” or system of poetic mytho¬ 
logy of the northern nations, is enriched with those higher 
strokes of Oriental imagination, which the Arabians had 
communicated to the Europeans. Warton's Eng. Pott. 
Diss. I. 
To SCALD, v. a. To bum with hot fluid. 
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound. 
Upon a wheel of fire that mine own tears. 
Do scald like molten lead. ShaJcspeare. 
SCALD, s. Scurf on the head. 
Her head altogether bald 
Was overgrown with scurf and filthy scald. Spenser. 
SCALD, adj. Paltry; sorry. 
Saucy Lictors 
Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhymers 
Ballad us out o’ tune. Shakspeare. 
SCALDERINGS, in Agriculture, the under-burnt core of 
stone-lime, the external parts of which peel or blister off in 
scales or shells. 
SCALDHEAD, s. [skalladon, bald, Icelandic. Hickesi] 
A loathsome disease; a kind of local leprosy in which the 
head is covered with a continual scab.—The sinew is cor¬ 
rupted by the infection of the touch of a salt humour, to 
which the scab, pox, and scaldhead are referable. Eloper. 
SCALDWELL, a village of England, in Northampton¬ 
shire ; 8 miles north-west of Wellingborough. 
SCALE, s. [schael, Dutch; skal, Icelandic.] A ba¬ 
lance ; a vessel suspended by a beam against another vessel. 
If thou tak’st more, 
Or less than just a pound, if the scale turn 
But in the estimation of a hair, 
Thou diest. Shakspeare. 
The sign Libra, in the zodiac. 
Juno pours out the urn, and Vulcan claims 
The scales as the just product of his flames. Creech. 
[Escaille, Fr.; squama, Lat.] The small shells or crusts 
which, lying one over another, make the coats of fishes. 
He puts him on a coat of mail. 
Which was made of a fish’s scale. Drayton. 
Any thing exfoliated or desquamated; a thin lamina.— 
When a scale of bone is taken out of a wound, burning 
retards the separations. Sharp's Surgery. — [Scala, a ladder, 
Lat.] Ladder; means of ascent. 
Love refines 
The thoughts, and heart enlarges; hath his seat 
In reason, and is judicious; is the scale 
By which to heav’nly love thou may’st ascend. Milton. 
The act of storming by ladders. 
Others to a city strong, 
Lay siege encampt; by batt’ry, scale, and mine. Milton. . 
Regular gradation; a regular series rising like a ladder. 
Far as Creation’s ample range extends, 
The scale of sensual mental pow’rs ascends. Pope. 
A figure subdivided by lines like the steps of a ladder, 
which is used to measure proportions between pictures and 
the thing represented.—The Map of London was set out in 
the year 1658, by Mr. Newcourt, drawn by a scale of yards. 
Graunt. —The series of harmonic or musical proportions. 
•—The best of his thoughts and reasonings ran up and down 
this scale, that no people can be happy but under good 
government. Temple. —Any thing marked at equal dis¬ 
tances. 
They take the flow o’ th’ Nile 
By certain scale i’ th’ pyramid: they know 
By th’ height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth 
Or poison follow. Shakspeare. 
To SCALE, v. a. [scalere, Ital.] To climb, as by ladders. 
When the bold Typhoeus scal'd the sky. 
And forc’d great Jove from his own heav’n to fly. 
The lesser gods all suffer’d. Dry den. 
To measure or compare; to weigh. 
You have found 
Scaling his present bearing with his past. 
That he’s your fixed enemy. Shakspeare. 
[From scale of a fish.] To take off a thin lamina.—■ 
Raphael was sent to scale away the whiteness of Tobit’s eyes. 
Tobit iii. 17.—To pare off a surface.—If all the mountains 
were scaled, and the earth made even, the waters would not 
overflow its smooth surface. Burnet. 
To SCALE, v. n. To peel off in thin particles.—Those 
that cast their shell are the lobster and crab: the old skins 
are found, but the old shells never; so as it is like they scale 
off and crumble away by degrees. Bacon. 
SCALE, a mathematical instrument, consisting of one or 
more lines drawn on wood, metal, or other matter, divided 
into equal or unequal parts, of great use in laying down 
distances in proportion, or in measuring distances already 
laid down. 
SCALE, in Geography and Architecture, a line divided 
into equal parts, placed at the bottom of a map or draught, to 
serve as a common measure to all the parts of the building or 
all the distances and places of the map. 
In maps of large tracts, as kingdoms and provinces, &c., 
the scale usually consists of miles; whence it becomes deno¬ 
minated a scale of miles. 
In more particular maps, as those of manors, &c., the scale 
is usually of chains, subdivided into poles or links. 
The scales used in draughts of buildings usually consist of 
modules, feet, inches, palms, fathoms, or the like. 
To find the distance between two towns, &c., in a map, the 
interval is taken in the compasses, and set off in the scale; 
and the number of divisions it includes gives the distance. 
The same method serves to find the height of a story, or other 
part in a design. 
Scale, Front, in Perspective, is a right line in the draught 
parallel to the hqrizontal line; divided into equal parts, repre¬ 
senting feet, inches, &c. 
Scale, Flying, is a right line in the draught, tending to 
the point of view, and divided into unequal parts, representing 
feet, inches, &c. 
Scale, [Scala, Ital.] in Music, is what the alphabet is in a 
language, or a denomination given to the arrangement of the 
six syllables, invented by Guido Aretino, ut re mi fa sol la ; 
called also gamut. 
It bears the name scale, q. d. ladder, because it represents 
a kind of ladder, by means of which the voice rises to acute, 
or descends to grave; each of the six syllables being, as it 
were, one step of the ladder. 
Scale 
