SEPTEMBEB. 409 



the direful ravages of the plague ; certain it is, that 

 it now occurs in great abundance about the villages 

 and hamlets in the neighbourhood of Oswestry and 

 on the Welsh border, where that frightful disease is 

 known to have been rife."* It was, however, doubt- 

 less used officinally from a very early period, and I 

 have seen "Welch women gathering Wormwood to 

 make tea in the present day. SHAKSPEAKE indicates 

 a singular use for this bitter herb, well known to aged 

 crones, and derived from "the old times before them." 

 The garrulous nurse, prating about the age of her 

 " lady-bird," Juliet, and raking up her memory for a 

 time-mark there, says 



" ' Tis since the earthquake now eleven years ; 

 And she was wean'd I never shall forget it 

 Of all the days of the year, upon that day, 

 For I had then laid WORMWOOD to my dug, 

 Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall." 

 The bitterness of Wormwood has indeed passed into 

 a proverb, and it seems strange that such bitter and 

 dissightly herbs alone should willingly attend upon 

 the footsteps of humanity. 



A curious tribe of cottony herbs with coloured per- 

 manent calyces of yellow, red, white, or brown scales, 

 and commonly known as Cudweeds, or " Everlasting 

 Flowers,"t are in full perfection in August and Sep- 



* Flora of Shropshire, by the Rev. W. A. LEIGHTON (well worthy of 

 old Salopia), p. 407. 



t These are the " immortelles" of the French ; and a recent author remark- 

 ing upon the "tubs of immortelles" offered for sale in the market of Mar- 

 seilles, observes, that " For this enduring flower there is always a sure sale 

 crucifixes, altars, saints, the busts of great men, and of handsome actresses, 

 have all their chaplets of immortelles. It is flung upon the stage; it is sus- 

 pended over the tombstone; NAPOLEON, Louis, CHARLES, have had theirs; 

 Louis PHILLIPPE has his, and HENRY Cinq, would like his predecessors, 

 exhaust the stalls, if opportunity offered. In all this scene-shifting nothing 

 seems permanent but the least permanent of nature's gifts a flower!" 

 Sketches in the Pyrennees. 



