t." This
passage also contains a reference to the popular custom prevalent in the
olden days, of great persons having their food tasted by those who were
supposed to have made themselves acquainted with its wholesomeness. This
practice, however, could not always afford security when the taster was
ready to sacrifice his own life, as in the present case:[625]

"_Hubert._ The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk:
I left him almost speechless....

_Bastard._ How did he take it? who did taste to him?

_Hubert._ A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain."

[625] Bucknill's "Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare," p. 136.

The natives of Africa have been supposed to be possessed of the secret
how to temper poisons with such art as not to operate till several
years after they were administered. Their drugs were then as certain in
their effect as subtle in their preparation.[626] Thus, in "The Tempest"
(iii. 3), Gonzalo says:

"All three of them are desperate: their great guilt,
Like poison given to work a great time after,
Now 'gins to bite the spirits."

[626] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. i. p. 65.

The belief in slow poisoning was general in bygone times, although no
better founded on fact, remarks Dr. Bucknill,[627] than the notion that
persons burst with poison, or that narcotics could, like an alarum
clock, be set for a certain number of hours. So, in "Cymbeline" (v. 5),
Cornelius relates to the king the queen's confession:

"She did confess, she had
For you a mortal mineral; which, being took,
Should by the minute feed on life, and, lingering,
By inches waste you."

[627] "Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare," p. 226.

_Pomander._ This was either a composition of various perfumes wrought in
the shape of a ball or other form, and worn in the pocket or hung about
the neck, and even sometimes suspended to the wrist; or a case for
containing such a mixture of perfumes. It was used as an amulet against
the plague or other infections, as well as for an article of luxury.
There is an allusion to its use in the "Winter's Tale" (iv. 3), by
Autolycus, who enumerates it among all his trumpery that he had sold.
The following recipe for making a pomander we find in an old play:[628]
"Your only way to make a pomander is this: take an ounce of the purest
garden mould, cleans'd and steep'd seven days in change of motherless
rose-water. Then take the best la