130 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



solace and refuge, his confidants, so to speak, in 

 hard times, when all other friends have failed : some 

 are stained with the turbid waters of the Yellow 

 Sea, which dashed in over the weather bulwarks of 

 a stout old "seventy-four," on just such another 

 night as this ; one is full of dried fern-leaves, me- 

 mentos of a deep Brazilian glen ; another preserves 

 flowers from South Africa ; others bear traces of 

 travel in Old Cathay, in far-off Japan, in Burmah, 

 Bengal, and Madras, and the sunny islands of the 

 Indian Archipelago ; the dust of the Great Prairie, 

 the sand of "the City of the Saints" of the Utah 

 basin, the grit of the Rocky Mountains, and the 

 smoke-stains of the camp-fires of the Shoshones, the 

 Snakes, and the Sioux, have smeared and smirched 

 one or two rare old favourites : there is his father's 

 old Greek Testament, in which he first learned* 

 standing at the good old man's knee, to spell out 

 •Ev apxv % v ° ^oyog, and from which his own boy, 

 in the third generation, is now struggling to pick 

 out easy verses : could ever enchanter's wand con- 

 jure up such visions ; what memories, what recol- 

 lections of bygone days start into life when his 

 glance falls upon those poor dilapidated volumes, 

 and he falls into a reverie. 



He takes down his old Horace; there is an 

 abominable caricature of the headmaster on the 

 inside of the cover; the wicked wags who got flogged 

 for false quantities in Latin verse, took note of the 

 dominie's unwieldy disproportioned shoes, and ir- 

 reverently nicknamed him <T7rovS>] } because of his 

 " two long feet." Poor old " Spondee," he has long 

 since turned those tremendous toes up to the 

 daisies ; may the turf rest lightly upon them. 



Turning over the leaves scribbled all over with 

 lesson-marks, and notes, and " fudges," he dips into 

 the eighth satire of the second book, and reads of 

 the " inulas amaras" included amongst the consti- 

 tuents of a marvellous sauce with which a lamprey 

 was served up at the ostentatious feast given by 

 Nasidienus. 



Two years ago (in the July number of Science- 

 Gossip for 1S69) we spoke of modern lampreys from 

 the Severn ; let us read what Horace saw of them 

 at a dinner party in the Eternal City, just nineteen 

 hundred years ago. 



" A lamprey was brought up, extended on a dish 

 with floating shrimps. On this subject the host 

 observed, ' This was pregnant when caught, since it 

 would be lower in flesh after spawning ' : for these 

 there was a compound sauce : of oil, which the 

 best cellar of Venafrum yielded ; of pickle, from 

 the essence of the Iberian fish ; of five-year wine, 

 but made on this side of the sea ; with white pep- 

 per, and vinegar which has turned with its acid 

 Methymna's vintage while it is boiling; when 

 boiled, Chian, more than any other, suits it. ' I am 

 the first (he said) who taught to boil with it rough 

 elecampane, and Curtillus sea-urchins unwashed, 



since they do better with the brine which the sea- 

 born shell supplies.' " 



Pliny declares that "this herb being chewed doth 

 fasten the teeth.",. , Why does not some enterpris- 

 ing perfumer introduce a " Pliny's Patent Inuline 

 Dentifrice," and secure at once his fortune and our 

 molars ? 



Leonard Mascal (a.d. 1610) tells us how to 

 fasten the loose teeth of a horse : "This disease is 

 gotten by feeding in wet pastures and wet grounds 

 in winter, and thereby his gummes will shrinke 

 from his teeth, and so they will be loose and seem 

 long. Remedy : ye shall let him bloud on the veine 

 under the taile, and rub his gummes with sage tied 

 on a stickes end, and give him the tender crops of 

 blacke bryars with his provender, and so he shall 

 do well againe." The monks, Mr. Sowerby informs 

 us, have sung its praises in one of their jingling 

 Latin rhymes — 



" Enula campana 

 Reddit prrecordia Sana ; " 



and from a corruption of the two first words the 

 name Elecampane may perhaps have been derived. 

 The famous herbalist Gerarde, a.d. 1597, says, " It 

 is good for shortnesse of breath and an old cough, 

 and for such as cannot breathe unless they hold 

 their neckes upright"; and also that it is "a remedy 

 against the biting of serpents, it resisteth poison, 

 and it is good for them that are bursten and 

 troubled with cramps and convulsions." 



It figures repeatedly in Leonard Mascal's book, 

 as a specific for glanders, mange, and other 

 " griefes " in horses. Here is a curious prescription 

 for curing broken wind : " Ye shall take of cloves 

 and nutmegs 3 drams, of galingal and carclamonum 

 together 3 drams, of soot, of bay seed, of cummin 

 more than the other ; make all these into a fine 

 powder, and put it in white wine, tempered with a 

 little saffron ; then put so many yelks of eggs as all 

 the other in quantity, then temper it all together 

 with the sodden water of liquoris, make him drinke 

 it with a home, and let him]not drinke of foure and 

 twenty hourcs after." f this does not answer, "ye 

 shall take of the herbes following ; that is, of Venus 

 or maydeu hairc, of flourdeluce, of aw buds, and 

 leaves of liquoris, of cardamonum, of pepper, of 

 biting almonds, of burrach, ofc each 2 drams, of 

 nettle seed, of Aristolochy, |of each 2 drams, of 

 liquoris half a dram, of pitch, of coloquintida, 2 

 drams; let this potion be given unto him; then if 

 this disease do yet remain, ye shall heal him with 

 this medicine, take the herbes mayden haire, long- 

 wort, the crops of nettles, cardus benedictus, herbe 

 fiuellin, the roots of dragons bruised, the roots of 

 elecampan bruised, of waterhemp, of peniroyall, of 

 lightwort, herbe Angelica, of each of these a good 

 handfull, or so many as ye may have of them." 

 This is to be boiled down, and the horse is to be 

 made to swallow the decoction; "the cure is hard,' 



