HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GO SSIP. 



179 



related that the Romans, having expelled physicians 

 out of their territories, preserved their health for 

 six hundred years, and soothed their infirmities, by 

 using and applying this vegetable as their only 

 medicine in every disease. 



The Greeks as well as the Romans ate the leaves 

 raw, to prevent the effects of excessive indulgence 

 in wine ; it was also thought to clear the brains of 

 the intoxicated, and make them sober. 



Pliny, in speaking of the spring sprouts of Cole, 

 says : " Pleasant and sweet as these crops were 

 thought by other men, yet Apicius (that notable 

 glutton) loathed them. Drusus Caesar held them in 

 no esteem, while his father, the Emperor Tiberius, 

 thought highly of them. I dwell long on this vege- 

 table," says this author, " because it is in so great 

 request in the kitchen, and among our riotous 

 gluttons." It is related that a physician, having a 

 mess of coleworts upon his table before him, and 

 being suddenly sent for to visit a patient, he covered, 

 at his departure, his dish with anothei", and found 

 it, at his return, bedewed with moisture : observing 

 this circumstance, he reasoned on the cause, and 

 ultimately discovered the art of distillation. 



The variety of Brassica which was first cultivated 

 in England cannot be ascertained, but it is probable 

 that one species was introduced by the Romans, 

 since Kale is mentioned among the oldest English 

 records. The Saxon name for February is Sprout- 

 Kale, and that is the season when the sprouts from 

 the old stalks begin to be fit for use ; the Saxons 

 must, therefore, of course, have been familiar with 

 the culture of Cabbage or Kale, as it is not at all 

 probable that they invented the name after their 

 settlement in this country. As the Germans like- 

 wise cultivated the plant from remote times, they, 

 as well as ourselves, might be indebted to their 

 Roman conquerors for this vegetable. 



Little can be said with certainty respecting the 

 varieties of culinary vegetables cultivated in England 

 previous to the fifteenth century. No doubt many 

 kinds had been introduced by the Crusaders and 

 others, but became degenerated or lost during the 

 commotion caused by the wars of the White and 

 Red Rose, which, ravaged the country and reduced 

 the inhabitants to extreme destitution. 



Gerard is the oldest English author who has 

 written fully on this useful vegetable ; he notices 

 several kinds.! {Among them, he says, " swollen 

 Colewort, of all others, is the strangest, and which 

 I received from a worshipful merchant of London, 

 Master Nicholas Lete, who brought the seed out of 

 France, who is greatly in love with rare and fair 

 flowers and plants, having a servant at Aleppo, and 

 in many other countries, for the which myself and 

 likewise the whole land are much bound unto." The 

 same author says : " Rapecole is another variety ; 

 they were called in Latin Caido-rapum and Rapo' 

 eaulis^ participating of two plants, the Coleworts 



and Turnips, from whence they derive their name. 

 They grow in Italy, Spain, and some places in Ger- 

 many, from whence I have received the seed for my 

 garden." " They must," says he, " be carefully set 

 and sown, as must melons and cucumbers." The 

 close-hearted variety, which is more peculiarly called 

 Cabbage, was for many years imported into England 

 from Holland. It is said that Sir Anthony Ashley 

 introduced the cultivation of this vegetable into the 

 country, and that there is a cabbage at the foot of 

 his monument, at Winborue St. Giles, Dorsetshire. 

 This tradition and the Cabbage has been the subject 

 of controversy as to whether the sculptor intended 

 the latter to represent that vegetable or a cannon- 

 shot "with its surface ornamented with hexangular 

 reticulations," as referring to the warlike deeds of 

 the worthy knight inscribed upon the monument_ 

 I think, however, there is some truth in the story 

 of the introduction of some kind of cabbage, sup- 

 posed to be the Summer or Roundhead variety, by 

 Sir A. Ashley; for, on referring to "Christie's 

 Memoirs, Letters, &c., of the First Lord Shaftes- 

 bury " (vol. i. p. 3, note), it is stated that Sir A. 

 Ashley held for many years the ofiice of one of the 

 Clerks of the Council during the reigns of Elizabeth 

 and James I. Now, what could be more likely, as 

 a writer in Notes and Queries remarks, than that, in 

 the same age when Sir Walter Raleigh, who was 

 member for Dorsetshire, introduced the potato 

 from America, there should be a sort of rivalry 

 among the distinguished members of Elizabeth's 

 court in introducing foreign roots and plants, and 

 that Sir A. Ashley should have obtained a variety of 

 cabbage not before grown in England frome some 

 of the ambassadors of the Low Countries ? Late in 

 life he inherited the estate of Winborne St. Giles, 

 and became a liberal benefactor of the parish, re- 

 built the church, endowed almshouses, and no 

 doubt encouraged the cultivation of this universal 

 vegetable. It is also stated in Gough's "British 

 Topography" (vol. i. p. 133) that Sir A. Ashley 

 had the command of Cales (Cadiz), where he 

 enriched himself by peculations, for which he suf- 

 fered imprisonment and disgrace for a time. This 

 circumstance gave rise to the jest that he got more 

 by Cales than he did by Kale and Cabbage. I think 

 these notes go far to prove an historical fact. 

 Hartlib (writing 1650) states that old men then 

 living remembered the first gardener who came into 

 Surrey to plant cabbage and cauliflowers, and to 

 sow turnips, carrots, parsnips, and early peas, all 

 of which at that time were great wonders, as 

 having few or none in England but what came from 

 Holland or Flanders. This gardener came from 

 Sandwich, with cabbages raised from seed, brought 

 from Artois by the Flemish emigrants in 1561. 



Some writers hence thought that this vegetable 

 did not become so generally cultivated for years 

 after Gerard's time ; but Johnson, who published 



