Mr Eastlake has shown that Mrs Merrifield was not quite so fortunate in her remark against M. Merimée's conjecture that the "Gummi Fornis" was copal. "As that is brought from America, it could not possibly have been known to Theophilus, who lived between three and four hundred years previous to the discovery of that country." The name copal, as that of Brazil, is not indigenous to America. Both that gum and dye were African, and transferred to the similar productions of the New World. It is curious that a distinction made between "vernice," and "vernice liquida" should be the means of ascertaining the gum given in the recipe of Theophilus which M Merimée believed to be copal. Vernice was the _name_ of sandarach, and was in common use in its dry state, as pounce, but when made into a varnish with oil, it was called vernice liquida. To those who delight in etymologies, it will afford amusement to learn that the word varnish is with much reason conjectured to be derived from the name of a daughter of one of the Ptolemies, celebrated for her amber-coloured hair,--the heroine of the poem of Callimachus of which we have only the translation by Catullus, the "Coma Berenices." Eustathius, the commentator on Homer of the twelfth century, states that amber ([Greek: êlektron]) in his day was called [Greek: beronikê]. Salmasius spells it [Greek: bereniki]. "Even during the classic ages of Greece [Greek: b] represented [Greek: ph] in certain dialects." Veronica, in the Lucca M.S., (eighth century,) more than once occurs among the ingredients of varnishes. "And it is remarkable," adds Mr Eastlake, "that in the copies of the same recipes in the Mappæ Clavicula (twelfth century) the word is spelt in the genitive--Verenicis and Vernicis," and thus we come by very legitimate derivation to the English word varnish. Sandarach, however, becoming in process of time the common substitute for amber, took the name: and to distinguish this oleo-resinous varnish from that of the real amber, the latter is called "Vernice liquida gentile." The "Mappæ Clavicula," spoken of above, is a very curious publication, in the last No. of the Archæologia, vol. xxxii. part 1, of a MS. treatise on the preparation of pigments during the middle ages. Speaking of the vernice liquida, Mr Eastlake says:-- "The amber varnish had been adopted in its stead by the early Flemish painters, and though often represented by[13] copal, had never been entirely laid aside; it had even returned to the north from Italy in the hands of Gentileschi. Rembrandt, from motives of economy, may have employed the scarcely less durable common "vernix" or sandarac oil varnish; and for certain effects may have reckoned on its tint. Either this, or the rapidly drying Venice amber before described, was in all probability used by him freely."