THE USE OF SIMPLES 19 



qualities early manifested themselves in connection 

 with herbals. Even in old Gcrarde, favourite and 

 almost classic as he is, there is a spice of the mounte- 

 bank. It is not that his book is tinged with popular 

 error — all the books of the time are that — but his 

 book leans to the side of superstition. Its motto 

 might be the lines of Spenser in the Faerie Queene : 



" O who can tell 

 The hidden powre of herbes and might of Magick spell ?" 



Ignored by the faculty, the herbal became the guide 

 of the quack ; and in Ctdpepper s famous Herbal it 

 had become a fit companion for the Astrological 

 Abnanack!^ 



As an illustration of the ignorance and superstition 

 associated with the use of simples, the belief in the 

 Doctrine of Signatures may be taken. This belief is 

 quaintly expressed by the old herbalist, William Coles, 

 in his scarce work on the Art of Simplijtg, published 

 in 1656: "Though Sin and Sathan have plunged 

 mankinde into an Ocean of Infirmities, yet the mercy 

 of God which is over all his workes, maketh Grasse 

 to grow upon the Mountaines, and Herbes for the use 

 of Men, and hath not only stamped upon them a 

 distinct forme, but also given them particular Signa- 

 tures, whereby a man may read, even in legible 

 characters, the use of them." 



Thus, to take two or three examples, the spotted 

 leaves of the Jerusalem cowslip, a plant common in 

 cottage gardens, and known in the New Forest as 

 "Joseph and Mary," indicate its value in cases of 

 tuberculous lungs, and its former use for this purpose 

 has given it the name of lungwort. In like manner 

 the knotty tubers of the Scrophularia or figwort, 



