CLOVE PINK TRIBE 113 



only wonder, while thinking on their names, at the simple taste which 

 enabled our fathers to relish such a vegetable diet. 



A large number of plants Avere named for their healing virtues, and 

 though the herbalist often overpraised his simples, yet a few of them de- 

 served their repute. In some, however, whose praises filled the pages of the 

 old writers on plants, we can find no powers to correspond with their alleged 

 properties ; and we can only think that fevers were allayed by the water in 

 which the herbs were mingled, and wounds healed by time, rather than by 

 the reputed remedies ; so that we could join in the recommendation given by 

 Sir Kenelm Digby for some of the plasters then in use, that they should be 

 applied to the weapons rather than the wounds. If Carpenter's Herb, and 

 Sickle Herb, and Scurvy-grass, and Toutsaine, and Wound-wort, Shepherd's 

 Spikenard, Fever-few, Self-heal, Poor Man's Parmacetti, and Souldier's 

 Milfoil, had some small degree of healing virtues, yet we should be sorry to 

 trust our afflicted friends to the cures effected by Palsy-herb, or AVhitlow- 

 grass, or Lung-wort, or Liver-wort. These last names, indeed, remind us of 

 the notion that plants indicated by some external sign the healing powers 

 which they possessed, so that the spotted leaves of the Lung-wort showed 

 that it was good for diseased lungs, and the lobed form of the Liver-wort 

 leaf marked its uses to man; while, on the same principle, the spotted 

 stem of the Viper's Bugloss indicated its power to remedy the bite of the 

 reptile. 



Some of the prettiest of our country names are derived from resem- 

 blances apparent to us all. Such are Sundew, Satin-flower, Allseed, Arrow- 

 head, Awlwort, Pearlwort, Monkshood, Bladderwort, Golden Rod, Bee 

 Orchis, and many another ; and the appropriateness of some which we see 

 in our every country walk gives us a feeling of pleasure as we think 

 of them. The winding habit of our favourite woodland climber is well 

 described by the name Woodbine, and its honey-bearing tubes by that of 

 Honeysuckle ; the names of Bitter-sweet and Deadly Nightshade are no less 

 appropriate. The name Foxglove, which is but a corruption of Folks'-glove, 

 or Fairies'-glove, has a thought of poetry in it ; that of Speedwell was given 

 by one who loved flowers, and that of Thrift by one who marked how, 

 growing as it can on the scantiest soil, it resembled the virtue which made 

 good use of small means. Gold-knobs, Gold-cups, Goldings, and King-nobs,' 

 were pretty names for the buttercups which clothe our meadows in such 

 numbers and varieties, that old Culpepper says, " So abundant are the sorts 

 of this herb, that to describe them all would tire the patience of Socrates 

 himself ; but because I have not yet attained to the spirits of Socrates," he 

 adds, " I shall describe the most usual." Besides those which we have given, 

 the herbalist describes as common names in his day, for these plants. Frogs- 

 foot, Troil-flower, Polts, Locket Goulions, and Crowfoot, so that, as he says, 

 " This furious biting herb hath obtained almost enough to make up a Welsh- 

 man's pedigree, if he fetch no further than John of Gaunt, or William the 

 Conqueror." 



The Lily of the Valley, the Mountain Ash, Heath, Meadow Rue, Corn 

 Marigold, Marsh Trefoil, Brook-lime, Pond-weed, Water Avens, Alpine 

 Gentian, Wood Anemone, Water-wort, Wall-flower, Tcrwer Mustard, Seaside 



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