Page:Beckford - Vathek (1816).djvu/266

(256) coarse loaf sugar and sugar candy, it yields a third sort, remarkably fine, which is sent to the Grand Seignor, and prepared only for himself. Travels, vol. I. p. 183. 204. The jeweller's son, in the story of the third Calender, desires the prince to fetch some melon and sugar, that he might refresh himself with them. ''Arab. Nights'', vol. I. p. 159.

The laws of Draco are recorded by Plutarch, in his life of Solon, to have been written in blood. If more were meant by this expression, than that those laws were of a sanguinary nature, they will furnish the earliest instance of the use of red characters; which were afterwards considered as appropriate to supreme authority, and employed to denounce some requisition or threatening designed to strike terror.

There was no mark of contempt amongst the Easterns so ignominious as this. ''Arab. Nights'' vol. I. p. 115. Vol. IV. p. 275.