sappy

He was a good deal of a character, and much better company than the sappy literature he was selling.

‘Torches are made to light, jewels to wear,

Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use,

Herbs for their smell, and sappy plants to bear:

Things growing to themselves are growth’s abuse:

Seeds spring from seeds and beauty breedeth beauty;

Thou wast begot; to get it is thy duty.

In her left hand a Cup of gold she held,

And with her right the riper fruit did reach,

Whose sappy liquor, that with fulnesse sweld,

Into her cup she scruzd, with daintie breach

Of her fine fingers, without fowle empeach,

That so faire winepresse made the wine more sweet:

In flush-framing if is observable, that the failure of all timber in old buildings has commenced much sooner than they otherwise would have done, owing to the sappy wood being at the corners of the principal beams, which soon decays, as its spongy quality attracts the moisture; whereas the heart, espescially of oak, will be as sound as the first day it was used.