or Filtre, in chemistry, &c. a piece of woollen cloth, linen, paper, or other matter, some of which are in the form of hollow inverted cones, used to filter or strain liquids through. The filter has the same use and effect with regard to liquids that the sieve or strainer has in dry matters.

Filters are of two sorts. The first are simple pieces of paper or cloth, through which the liquor is passed without farther trouble. The second are twisted up like a skin or wick, and first wetted, then squeezed, and one end put in the vessel that contains the liquor to be filtered; the other end is to be out, and hang down below the surface of the liquor; by means hereof the purest part of the liquor distills drop by drop out of the vessel, leaving the coarser part behind. This filter acts as a siphon.

Filter is also a charm, supposed to have a virtue of inspiring love. The word is derived from παίξειν, which signifies the same thing, of σάβω, amo “I love.”

The Greeks, when their love was without success, had several arts to procure the affections of their beloved. The Thessalian women were famous for their skill in this as well as other magical practices. The means whereby it was effected were of divers sorts; it was sometimes done by potions called παίξεις, which are frequently mentioned in authors of both languages. Juvenal speaks thus:

Hic magicus affect centus, hic Thessalia vendit Philetum, quibus valent mendos venare mariti.

Their operations were violent and dangerous, and commonly deprived such as drank them of their reason. Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos report, that Lucullus the Roman general first lost his reason, and afterwards his life, by one of them. Lucretius the poet ended his life by the same way; and Caius Caligula, as Suetonius reports, was driven into a fit of madness by a fil-

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ter given him by his wife Caesonia, which story is mentioned by the same poet. Ovid likewise assures us, that this was the usual effect of such potions.

The ingredients they were made of were of various sorts; several of which applied by themselves were thought effectual.