LILY TRIBE 245 



the sad and melancholic visage of their leaves, flowers, or fruits. And that 

 I may not leave that head wholly untouched, one observation I shall add, 

 relating to the virtues of plants, in which I think there is something of 

 truth ; that is, that there are, by the wise dispensation of Providence, such 

 species of plants produced in every country, as are made proper and con- 

 venient for the meat and medicine of the men and animals that are bred and 

 inhabit therein. Insomuch, that Solenander writes that, from the frequency 

 of the plants that spring up naturally in any region, he could easily gather 

 what endemical diseases the inhabitants thereof are subject to. So in 

 Denmark, Friesland, and Holland, where the scurvy usually reigns, the 

 proper remedy thereof, scurvy grass, doth plentifully grow." 



Nor was the doctrine of planetary influence less generally believed than 

 the notion of signatures ; and Aubrey's opinion of a plant, " that if it be 

 not gathered according to the rules of astrology, it hath little or no virtue in 

 it," was pretty general little more than a century since. Michael Drayton, 

 referring to the long lives of antediluvian men, says : — 



" Besides, in medicine simples had the powei* 

 That none need then the planetary hour 

 To helpe their working, they so juiceful were ;" 



but in his own time, the simples needed to be gathered at certain periods, as 

 they might be under the influence of the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Mars, or other 

 planets. But Michael Drayton has fully described one of the herbalists of 

 old, and has given us a list of the remedies which he employed ; and as his 

 " Polyolbion " is little read in modern times, we extract it for our readers : 



" But absolutely free 

 His happy time he spends the works of God to see, 

 In those so sundry herbs which there in plenty grow, 

 Whose sundry strange eti'ects he only seeks to know ; 

 And in a little maund, being made of osiers small, 

 Which serveth him to do full many a thing withal, 

 He very choicely sorts his simples, got abroad : 

 Here finds he on an oak rheum-purging polypode ; 

 And in some open place that to the sun doth lie, 

 He fumitory gets, and eyebright for the eye : 

 The yarrow wherewithal he stays the wound-made gore 

 The healing tutsan then, and plantaine for a sore ; 

 And hard by them, again, he holy vervain finds. 

 Which he about liis head that hath the megrim binds ; 

 The wonder-working dill he gets not far from these, 

 Which curious women use in many a nice disease ; 

 For them that are with newts, or snakes, or adders stung, 

 He seeketh out a lierb that is called adder's-tongue ; 

 As Nature it ordain'd its own like hurt to cure. 

 And sportive did herself to niceties inure. 

 A'alerian then he crops, and purposely doth stamp 

 To apply unto the place that's haled with the cramp ; 

 The chickweed cures the heat that in the face doth rise, 

 For physic some again he inwardly applies ; 

 For comforting the spleen and liver, gets for juice. 

 Pale horehound, which he holds of most especial use. 

 And for the labouring wretch that's troubled with a cough, 

 Or stopping of the breath by phlegm that's hard and tough, 

 Canipana liere lie crops, approved wondrous good ; 

 Or comfrey unto him that's bruised, spitting blood ; 

 And for the falling ill by five-leafe dotli restore, 

 And melancholy cures by sovereign hellebore : 



