Hath white and red in it such wondrous power,
That it can pierce through eyes into the heart,
And therein stir such rage and restless tower
As only death can stint the dolorous smart?

SPENSER'S HYMN TO BEAUTY.

M

Beaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's malice,

And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate.

And he to deck her raven hair

SHAKSPEARE.

Would weave the rose and lily fair.

MARY A. BROWN.

Red is so much the instrument of beauty in nature and art in the colour of flesh, flowers, &c. that good pigments of this genus may of all colours be considered the most indispensable: we have happily, therefore, many of this denomination, of which the following are the principal:

I. VERMILION is a sulphuret of mercury, which, previous to its being levigated, is called cinnabar. It is an antient pigment, the xvváßapı of the Greeks, and is both found in a native state and produced artificially. Vermilion probably obtained its name from resemblance, or admixture with the beautiful though fugitive colours obtained from the vermes, or insects, which yield carmines. [See Kermes Lake.] The Chinese possess a native cinnabar so pure as to require grinding only to become very perfect vermilion, not at all differing from that imported in large quantities from China: it is said also to be found in abundance in Corinthia, in the Palatinate, Friuli, Bohemia, Almaden in Spain, the principality of Deux-Ponts, and also in South America, particularly in Peru, &c.

Chinese vermilion is of a cooler or more crimson tone than that generally manufactured from factitious cinnabar in England, Holland, and different parts of Europe. The artificial, which was antiently called minium, a term now confined to red lead, does not differ from the natural in any quality essential to its value as a pigment; it varies in tint from dark red to scarlet; and both sorts are perfectly durable and unexceptionable pigments,—the most so perhaps of any we possess, when pure. It is true, nevertheless, that vermilions have obtained the double disrepute of fading in a strong light and of becoming black or dark by time and impure air: but colours, like characters, suffer contamination and disrepute from bad association; it has happened accordingly that vermilion which has been rendered lakey or crimson by mixture with lake or carmine, has faded in the light, and that when it has been toned to the scarlet hue by red or orange lead it has afterwards become blackened in impure air, &c. both of which adulterations were formerly practised, and hence the ill fame of vermilion both with authors and artists. We therefore repeat, that neither light, time, nor foul