of a prating fellow, or one that hath more tongue than wit, or more proud than honest, shall never trouble me. Wisdom is justified by her children. And so much for Wormwood."

The remark "I have delivered it as plain as I durst" is evidently a little further indulgence in selfexaltation, for on the last page he again remarks: "You must not think, courteous people, that I can spend time to give you examples of all diseases: These are enough to let you see so much light as you without art are able to receive: If I should set you to look at the sun, I should dazzle your eyes, and make you blind."

The leaves of the Common Alder-tree "gathered while the morning dew is on them, and brought into a chamber troubled with fleas, will gather them thereunto, which, being suddenly cast out, will rid the chamber of these troublesome bed-fellows."

The name Angelica affords him another opportunity to rail against the physicians and Papists, and he then gives the following directions for the gathering of this plant:-"It is an herb of the Sun in Leo; let it be gathered when he is there, the Moon applying to his good aspect; let it be gathered either in his hour, or in the hour of Jupiter, let Sol be angular; observe the like in gathering the herbs of other planets, and you may happen to do wonders." Very likely!

Anemone is "called also Wind-flower, because they say the flower never opens save when the wind bloweth. Pliny is my author; if it be not so, blame him. The seed also (if it bears any at all) flies away with the wind."

Garden Bazil "is the herb which all authors are together by the ears about, and rail at one another (like lawyers). Galen and Dioscorides hold it not fitting to be taken inwardly; and Chrysippus rails at it with downright Billingsgate rhetoric; Pliny and the Arabian physicians defend it." "Mizaldus affirms that, being laid to rot in horse-dung, it will breed venomous beasts. Hilarius, a French physician, affirms, upon his own knowledge, that an acquaintance of his, by common smelling to it, had a scorpion bred in his brain. Something is the matter, this herb and rue will not grow together, no, nor near one another; and we know rue is as great an enemy to poison as any that grows."

Bay-Tree. "It is a tree of the sun, and under the celestial sign Leo, and resisteth witchcraft very potently, as also all the evils old Saturn can do to the body of man, and they are not a few; for it is the speech of one, and I am mistaken if it were not Mizaldus, that neither witch nor devil, thunder or lightning, will hurt a man in the place where a Baytree is."

Of the Chamomile he remarks: "Nichessor saith, the Egyptians dedicated it to the sun, because it cured agues, and they were like enough to do it, for they were the arrantest apes in their religion I ever read of."

The Celandine is "called Chelidonium, from the Greek word Chelidon, which signifies a swallow, because they say, that if you put out the eyes of young swallows when they are in the nest, the old

ones will recover their eyes again with this herb.

This I am confident, for I have tried it, that if we mar the very apple of their eyes with a needle, she will recover them again; but whether with this herb or not I know not." After this confession of wanton cruelty we will give but one more selection from this barbarous old astrologer-herbalist. It refers to the Devil's Bit Scabious:

"This root was longer, until the Devil (as the friars say) bit away the rest of it from spite, envying its usefulness to mankind; for sure he was not troubled with any disease for which it is proper."

CHAPTER XI.

ABOUT HORSETAILS, STONEWORTS, AND

PEPPERWORTS.

THE non-botanical reader must not be deceived by the title of this paper. We do not intend to discourse

upon the hirsute appendages of the equine race, but upon a tribe of simple flowerless plants, scientifically

known as the Equisetacea, a term which is almost literally translated in the popular name Horsetail.

They are leafless, many-jointed, hollow-stemmed plants, which spring from an underground rhizome. At the joints the stems are solid, and they fit together by a sort of sheath at the upper end of each joint, into which the lower end of the next joint fits. Immediately below the sheath a whorl of branches is given off, each branch being sheathed and jointed like the stem. A remarkable feature of this tribe of plants is the great quantity of silica, or flint, with which their stems are coated. In some this is so great that, on the plants being reduced to ashes, it is found that half the weight consists of silica. They may be macerated in water until the whole of the vegetable substances have been washed out, but the flinty coating still retains its form. This silica is deposited in the form of little crystals which give a rasp-like character to the stems; in fact, at least one species, E. hyemale, is largely used as a fine file for polishing wood, ivory, and metal. Large quantities are cultivated on the banks of the canals in Holland, and imported into this country under the name of Dutch Rush and Shave-grass. Their long, branching underground stems and interlacing roots tend to make the embank

FIG. 116.

ments more secure.

The fructification consists of a terminal cone, made up of stalked discs, which bear, on their under surface, a number of sporecases, opening longitudinally. The spores are provided with four club-tipped elaters, which have pecu