This month’s crocodile is more of a challenge than a mystery. We are looking for paleographer beginners and lifers to have a stab at these lines and tell us the truth about sugar. If you think you know whose handwriting this is, even better …
What does this say? (To view in more detail, click the image; the lines in question are the three to which the manicule points.)
Please leave your answers in the comments below. You don’t need to worry about transcription conventions, but if you’d like, you can consult the transcription guidelines we follow on The Collation. And come back next week for the reveal!
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Comments
The second and third words appear to be struck through; I can’t replicate that in this box, so I’ve omitted them. Here’s my attempt:
Sugar hath a facultie to preserue all fruits that grow in the
world from corruption, & putrefaction, so it hath a vertue long
rightly applied to preserue men in their healthes
William Ingram — April 30, 2015
The second and third words are (just) legible and are part of the sentence. For the rest, well done — you read a couple of bits which I had not cracked.
Sugar as it hath a facultie … , so it hath a vertue …
David Shaw — April 30, 2015
Bravo David for seeing words I could not see.
William Ingram — April 30, 2015
“Sugar as it hath…”
Elizabeth — April 30, 2015
Sugar as it hath a facultie to preserue all fruits that grow in the
world from corruption, & putrefaction, so it hath a vertue long
rightly applyed to preserue men in their healthes.
Amy Bowles — April 30, 2015
And then below, more clearly in italic:
If sugar can preserve both pear & plums,
Why can it not as well preserve our lungs
Piers Brown — April 30, 2015
Today at 5:30 PM
Sugar as it hath a facultie to preserue all fruits that grow in the | world from corruption, & putrefaction, so it hath a vertue long | rightly applied to preserue men in their healthe.
David Pinto — April 30, 2015
H. Oxenden evidently copied these quotes from
Ligon, Richard. A true & exact history of the island of Barbados : illustrated with a mapp of the island, as also the principall trees and plants there, set … London, 1657, p. 96
S. Ferguson — April 30, 2015
I think the last word in line 2 is ‘being’, not ‘long’. ‘It hath a vertue being rightly applyed to preserue men in their healthes.’
arnold — May 1, 2015
Yes!
Amy Bowles — May 1, 2015
Sugar as it hath a facultie to preserve all fruits that grow in the world from corruption, & putrefaction, so it hath a virtue being rightly applied to preserve men in their healthes
Cliff Webb
Cliff Webb — May 1, 2015
I did do the above without looking at the other versions. I am sure it is being not long
Cliff Webb
Cliff Webb — May 1, 2015
Congrats to everyone who did a great job deciphering this! Read Sarah Powell’s reveal to learn more about Henry Oxinden, Richard Ligon, and the miracle of sugar: http://collation.folger.edu/2015/05/a-spoonful-of-sugar-helps-the-medicine-go-down/
Sarah Werner — May 5, 2015