743. _Iupartye_, jeopardy, hazard. Tyrwhitt remarks that the derivation is
not from _jeu perdu_, as some have guessed, but from _jeu parti_. He
adds--'A _jeu parti_ is properly a game, in which the chances are exactly
even; see Froissart, v. i. c. 234--"Ils n'estoient pas à _jeu parti_ contre
les François"; and v. ii. c. 9--"si nous les voyons à _jeu parti_." From
hence it signifies anything uncertain or hazardous. In the old French
poetry, the discussion of a problem, where much might be said on both
sides, was called a _Jeu parti_. See Poésies du Roy de Navarre, Chanson
xlviii., and _Gloss._ in v. See also Ducange, in v. _Jocus Partitus_.'
Ducange has--'_Jocus partitus_ dicebatur, cum alicui facultas concedebatur,
alterum e duobus propositis eligendi.' Hence was formed not only
_jeopardy_, but even the verb to _jeopard_, used in the A. V., Judges v.
18; 2 Macc. xi. 7.
746. In the margin of MS. E. is written--'Solacium miseriorum (_sic_), &c.'
In Marlowe's Faustus, ii. 1. 42, the proverb is quoted in the form 'Solamen
miseris socios habuisse doloris.' Dr. Wagner says: 'The purport of this
line may have been originally derived from Seneca, De Consol. ad Polybium,
xii. 2: est autem hoc ipsum solatii loco, inter multos dolorem suum
diuidere; qui quia dispensatur inter plures, exigua debet apud te parte
subsidere.' Cf. Milton, P. R. i. 398. The idea is that conveyed in the
fable of the Fox who had lost his tail, and wished to persuade the other
foxes to cut theirs off likewise. See Troil. i. 708.
752. 'The technical terms which we use are so learned and fine.' See this
well illustrated in Jonson's Alchemist, ii. 1:--'What else are all your
terms,' &c. [422]
764. _lampe_; so in the MSS. It is clearly put for _lambe_, a corruption of
O. Fr. _lame_, Lat. _lamina_. Were there any MS. authority, it would be
better to read _lame_ at once. Cotgrave has--'_Lame_; f. a thin plate of
any metall; also, a blade.' &c. Nares has--'_Lamm_, s. a plate, from Lat.
_lamina_. "But he strake Phalantus just upon the gorget, so as he batred
the _lamms_ thereof, and make his head almost touch the back of his horse";
Pembr. Arcadia, lib. iii. p. 269.' _Lame_ in old French also means, the
flat slab covering a tomb; see Godefroy. So here, after the ingredients
have all been placed in a pot, they are covered over with a plate of glass
laid flat upon the top.
It is strange that no editor has made any attempt to explain this word. It
obviously does not mean _lamp_! For the insertion of the _p_, cf.
_solempne_ for _solemne_, and _nempne_ for _nemne_; also _flambe_ for
_flame_; see the Glossary.
766. _enluting._ To _enlute_ is to close with _lute_. Webster has--'_Lute_,
n. (Lat. _lutum_, mud, clay). A composition of clay or other tenacious
substance, used for stopping the juncture of vessels so closely as to
prevent the escape or entrance of air, or to protect them when exposed to
heat.'
The process is minutely described in a MS. by Sir George Erskine, of
Innertiel (temp. James I.), printed by Mr. J. Small in the Proceedings of
the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. xi. 1874-75, p. 193, as
follows:--'Thairfoir when all the matter which must be in, is gathered
together into the pot, tak a good _lute_ maid of potters clay, and mix it
with bolus and rust of iron tempered with whitts of eggs and chopt hair,
and mingle and worke thame weill togither, and lute [gh]oure pott ane inch
thick thairwith, and mak a stopple of potters earth weill brunt, to shut
close in the hole that is in the top of the cover of the pott, and lute the
pott and the cover very close togither, so as no ayre may brek furth, and
when any craks cum into it, in the drying of the lute, dawbe them up
againe; and when the lute is perfectly drie in the sunne, then take a
course linen or canvas, and soke it weill in the whitts of eggs mixt with
iron rust, and spred this cloth round about the luting, and then wet it
weill again with whitts of eggs and upon the luting'; &c.
768. The alchemists were naturally very careful about the heat of the fire.
So in The Alchemist, ii. 1:--
'Look well to the register,
And let your heat still lessen by degrees.'