In the beginning of the seventeenth century, drinking-cups made of ice and iced fruit were first brought to the table; but towards the end of that century it appears that the French began to congeal in this manner all kinds of well-tasted juices, which were served up as refreshments at the tables of the great and wealthy[410]. This was a grand invention for the art of cookery; which became common among the German cooks, both male and female, about the middle of the last century; and since that time our confectioners sell single glasses of iced articles at balls and in the theatres. I am acquainted with no older information respecting this invention than what is contained in Barclay’s Argenis, which is, indeed, a romance; but the author’s account makes the possibility of its being used so clear, that we may certainly conclude it was then employed; especially as he mentions it several times. Arsidas finds in the middle of summer, at the table of Juba, fresh apples, one-half of which was encrusted with transparent ice. A basin, made also of ice and filled with wine, was handed to him; and he was informed that to prepare all these things in summer was a new art. Snow was preserved throughout the whole year in pits lined with straw. Two cups made of copper were placed the one within the other, so as to leave a small space between them, which was filled with water; the cups were then put into a pail, amidst a mixture of snow and unpurified salt coarsely pounded, and the water in three hours was converted into a cup of solid ice, as well-formed as if it had come from the hands of a pewterer. In the like manner apples just pulled from the tree were covered with a coat of ice. The first edition of the Argenis was printed at Paris in 1621, and in that year the author died at the age of thirty-nine.