92 Observations on some of the Medical Plants 
its sweetness; and I have chiefly alluded to them for the pur- 
pose of inquiring what was the plant intended by Shakspeare, 
under the name of Dian's bud, to counteract the charming 
influence of Love in idleness. 
«« Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower 
Hath such force and blessed power.””—Act iv, sc. 1. 
Could this by possibility have been the Samolus valerandi? 
My curiosity once prompted me, when walking with a farmer 
of this neighbourhood, to ask him if he had a name for this 
venerated plant, and he informed me he had only once heard 
it called Kenningwort by an Englishman, in Wales, who per- 
formed remarkable cures as an oculist by its means. He said 
the plant received its name from its use in curing that com- 
plaint of the eye denominated ‘‘ the Kenning,” which is 
‘‘when a substance resembling a pea forms upon the candle 
of that organ.” Hence the Samolus, stated by Pliny to have 
been worshipped in this island by our ancestors, was probabl 
this plant, and considered by them as emblematical of the 
efficacy of science in deterging from the intellect the foul 
cataracts of ignorance and error. How appropriate to the 
purpose of the poet! to dissipate by its agency the halluci- 
nation of love, and to dispel all overweening fondness for our 
most darling prejudices. 
Yew. 'The yew seems to have taken its name from its — 
having been employed in the construction of yokes for cattle; 
or perhaps, vice versa, the yoke, from its having been made of 
yew. In this latter case, the name would be derivable from 
the fruit, resembling in its form and in its viscous quality the 
yolk of an egg. Perhaps the name exists in the Greek évyea, 
our Carpinus, or true Welsh hasel, the workers of which were 
the original carpenters. On the Mediterranean shores, the 
cypress is used for coffins, because of its incorruptibility, and 
the tree is planted over the graves of the dead. 
“* Come away, come away, Death, 
And in sad cypress let me be laid.””—Twelfth Night, act ii. sc. iv. 
«« Cypress black as e’er was crow.’’—Winter’s Tale, act iv. sc. 3. 
Again, 
“Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees.” 
‘* A cypress, not a bosom, hides my poor heart.””—Tw.N. ac. iii. 8.1, 
The true English name for the Tamaox gallica is Cifris, 
evidently similar to cypress, derived from a Hebrew word for 
grave, which occurs in the name of a station in Arabia, men- 
tioned in the Pentateuch, Kibroth hataavah, or the ‘‘glutton’s 
graves.” The word crape is the English radix, ¢onfounded 
in orthography with the tree in the above passages. In the 
north of Europe the yew is planted for the same reason; its 
