236 Introductory View of the 



cure for the venomous bite of the viper ; and is a powerful 

 antidote to various poisons. Nor let us forget the fruit itself, 

 which, in its preserved state, is brought to table; not only to 

 make a part of the dessert ; not only, (as some suppose), to be 

 eaten, or to heighten the flavour of wine ; but also to introduce 

 that never-failing observation, that a taste for olives is always 

 an acquired one. Notwithstanding my own personal expe- 

 rience, however, I must venture to doubt this axiom, having 

 seen a whole family of children, and even infants in arms, eat 

 them as readily as though they had been sweet plums. 



To look back, for a moment, to the jasmine. It is well 

 known that the Italians obtain a perfume from its flowers, by 

 a very easy process : soaking a quantity of cotton wool in some 

 scentless oil, they put it into glass vessels, in alternate layers 

 with the jasmine flowers ; and, after a few days, squeeze the oil 

 from the wool, and put it into bottles for use ; the perfume 

 being communicated by that simple means. But it would seem 

 that the Italians derive little gratification from this result; for 

 we are told that they (the Romans, at least) have a perfect 

 abhorrence of perfumes; and avoid a person scented with 

 attar of roses, with every appearance of disgust. Sir James 

 Edward Smith, in his Continental Tour, speaking of the 

 Borghese chapel at Rome, says that one of the popes having 

 dreamed, in the month of August, of a fall of snow, and find- 

 ing that it actually had fallen at that season, on a certain hill, 

 built a chapel on the spot; and, in commemoration of the 

 dream, on the anniversary of the day, caused an artificial snow 

 to be showered upon the congregation there assembled, during 

 the whole of the service. This artificial snow was composed 

 of the beautiful and fragrant flowers of the white jasmine ; and 

 (can we believe it?) the ladies abstained from visiting the 

 chapel on that occasion, from their horror of this sweet 

 perfume. 



The third order of the class Diandria supplies us with 

 pepper, no unimportant article of trade. In some years, above 

 six million pounds' weight of the berries of the Piper nigrum 

 (black pepper) have been sold at the East India Company's 

 sales ; of which, seven or eight hundred thousand have been 

 retained for home consumption. 



The third class, Triandria, also comprises three orders; 

 Monogynia, Digynia, and Trigynia. Of the first are many 

 very handsome genera, chiefly bulbous-rooted; the Crocus, 

 /ris, /'xia, Mor^«, Gladiolus, Antholyza, &c. &c. ; but the 

 most interesting plant of this order is the Cyperus Papyrus L. 

 (or Papyrus antiqu5rum Willd.), the celebrated Egyptian plant 

 which furnished the scholars of antiquity with writing-paper. 



