ALABASTER (said to be derived from the Arabic al batstraton, the whitish stone), a name properly restricted to the fine massive variety of gypsum, or sulphate of lime, which is used in the manufacture of ornamental vases, statuettes, clock-frames, &c. When pure, it is of a brilliant pearly-white lustre, so very soft as to be easily scratched by the nail, and is soluble to a slight extent in water. It occurs in large and very pure masses at several localities in Tuscany, and is turned or chiselled into its various ornamental forms in Florence, which is the centre of the alabaster trade. At a time when the taste for alabaster work was more general than now, it was quarried at Lagny, near Paris. In England considerable deposits are found in various localities, but chiefly in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, where it is worked to form the plaster of Paris moulds used by potters; hence it is termed “potters’ stone.” Fine blocks found in quarrying the potters’ stone are reserved for the alabaster turners. A yellow variety of alabaster, found at Sienna, is termed “alabastra agatato.” When it presents a fibrous structure, it is known as “satin spar,” which when cut has the opalescent appearance of “cat’s eyes.·” Oriental alabaster is the name applied to the stalagmitic variety of carbonate of lime formed on the floors of limestone caves by the percolation of water, an entirely different material from the above. It is usually clouded or banded in an agate-like manner, and hence is sometimes known as onyx marble. The alabaster yielded by celebrated quarries, known to the ancients and now again worked, in the province of Oran, Algeria, is of this kind. It is this oriental alabaster that is referred to in the Bible, the aλaβaστ ρί τη ς of the Greeks. ...The stone was held in very high estimation among the civilised nations of antiquity, being then chiefly procured from quarries in the neighbourhood of Thebes, which to this day remain unexhausted. At the present time it is procured from Oran (Algerian onyx), the Pyrenees, Chili, Calif omia, &c. In the Soanean Museum there is an Egyptian sarcophagus in oriental alabaster, covered with hieroglyphics, which was purchased by Sir John Soane for 2000 guineas.
ALABASTER, William, D.D., poet and scholar. If to have been commemorated with golden words by Edmund Spenser in his Colin Clouts come Home Againe, 11. 400-415, and by Herrick in his Hesperides ; and to have been reckoned “foeman worthy of his steel” by Bishop Bedell; and to have had his portrait painted by Cornelius Jansen, and engraved by Payne; and to have been pronounced by Fuller “a most rare poet as any our age or nation hath produced;” and to have drawn from Samuel Johnson unequivocal eulogium, may be regarded as entitling to a claim on our interest at this later day, Dr William Alabaster unites in himself all these memorable tributes. Alabaster was his own spelling, as it was Bedell’s and Fuller’s; but it is found contemporaneously “Arblastier.” The name is derived from arcubalista (in arms of the family, a cross-bow bent in pale), and the same probably as Arblastier. He was born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, about 1567, was educated at Westminster School, and went thence to Trinity College, Cambridge. He was also incorporated at Oxford in 1592. He became fellow of Trinity. Having been appointed chaplain to Robert, Earl of Essex, he attended him in that expedition, designed to aid Henry IV. against the League in 1591, celebrated by Dr Donne in “The Storm” and “The Calm.” While in France (in his twenty-fourth year), he was converted to Roman Catholicism, and a quaint English sonnet, “Of his Conversion,” survives, wherein he defies the “frowne and scorne and purblind pittie” of the world, as having a vision of perdition if he yielded thereto. He did not long remain a Roman Catholic. In the preface to his work entitled Ecce Sponsus Venit (1633), he relates that certain doctrines of his having become obnoxious to the court of Rome, he was enticed to that city and imprisoned there by authority of the Inquisition; and that on his liberation he was confined within the city walls, but escaped at the peril of his life, and returned to England. On his return he became prebendary of St Paul’s and rector of Hatfield. Dr Alabaster was famous as a Hebraist; but his studies of Hebrew took a twist in the direction of the cabalistic learning, by which he luxuriated in discussions on the mystical meanings imagined to be hidden in the words of the Old Testament. The investigation and application of this supposed mystical meaning of Scripture was the main object of his Apparatus in Revelationem Jesu Christi (Antwerp, 1607); and, indeed, it runs through all his critical writings, as in his singular Spiraculum Tubarum, sive Fons Spiritualium Expositionem ex equivocis Penta-glotti Significationibus (n.d., folio), his Lexicon Pentaglotton (1637, folio), and the Commentarius de Bestia Apoca∙ lyptica (1621). It was of these books Herrick wrote as making Alabaster “the one, one onely glory of a million.” A MS. of Alabaster’s Elisaeis is among Emanuel College MSS.; a better one, with additional poems, entitled “Inuenta Bellica” — recalling Herbert’s “Triumphus Mortis,” so headed—and “Inuenta Adespota,” is in the Chetham Library, Manchester. The poem is unfinished, but has lines in it which account for Spenser’s lofty praise and hopes. It has never been printed. His best known verse is a Latin tragedy called Roxana. This is praised by Fuller, stirred Anthony à Wood into enthusiasm, and is regarded by Dr Johnson as the only Latin verse in England worthy to be named previous to Milton. It was prepared for his college (Trinity), and never meant for publication. Having been surreptitiously published in 1632, the author thereupon reprinted it, with this on the title-page, “A plagiariis unguibus vindicata, aucta et agnita.” It is a curious composition. The subject is an oriental tale which had previously been dramatised in the Dalida of Groto, an Italian. The scenes consist of conversations between real and allegorical personages. The first act is entirely carried on between the ghost of one of the characters and personifications of Death and Suspicion. Hallam charges Alabaster with plagiarism from Dalida, but he cannot have really read the two. Alabaster died about 1640. (a. b. g.)
Ἀλάβαϛρον, the name of a genus of fossils nearly allied to marble. It is a bright elegant stone, sometimes of a snowy whiteness. It may be cut freely, and is capable of a fine polish; and, being of a soft nature, it is wrought into any form or figure with ease. Vases or cruises were anciently made of it, wherein to preserve odoriferous liquors and ointments. Pliny and others represent it as peculiarly proper for this purpose; and the druggists in Egypt have, at this day, vessels made of it, in which they keep their medicines and perfumes. In Matt. xxvi, 6, 7, we read that Jesus being at table in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came thither and poured an alabaster box of ointment on his head. St. Mark adds, “She brake the box,” which merely refers to the seal upon the vase which closed it, and kept the perfume from evaporating. This had never been removed, but was on this occasion broken, that is, first opened.
