MYTHOLOGY, AND HISTORY OF THE PEONY 



peonies and eight illustrations are given. The 

 text and pictures are so engaging that I have 

 reproduced one of the pages (see illustration, 

 page 42). Gerard speaks of the medicinal vir- 

 tues of peonies : " The black graines (the seeds) to 

 the number of fifteen take in wine or mead. . . . 

 is a special remedy for those that are troubled in 

 the night with the disease known as Ephialtes 

 or night mare which is as though a heavy burthen 

 were laid upon them, and they oppressed there- 

 with, as if they were overcome by their enemies 

 or overprest with some great weight; and they 

 are also good against melancholick dreams." 



In "The Taming of the Shrew" (1603), 

 Shakespeare refers to peonies in the line: " Thy 

 banks with peonied and lilied brims." 



In 1629, John Parkinson, King's herbarist, 

 apothecary and traveller, who possessed an ex- 

 cellent garden near London, published his " Par- 

 adisi in Sole, Paradisus Terrestris " (a play on 

 his name, Park-in-Sun's Earthly Paradise) " or 

 a Choice Garden of all sorts of Rarest Flowers 

 with their Nature, place of Birth, time of flower- 

 ing, Names of Vertues to each plant, useful in 

 Physick or Admired for Beauty." In this book, 



43 



