I860.] ON NATURE-PRINTING. 307 



and low, by way of contrast. One plant may be more simple, 

 complex, or less complex in structure and organization than an- 

 other, but each is known to be equally adapted to the purposes 

 for which the all-wise Creator made it. Besides this, there is its 

 utility — in each some, and yet all different, 



" Oh, mickle is the powerfiil grace that lies 

 In herbs, plants, stones, and their true quahties ; 

 For nought so vile that on the earth doth Hve, 

 But to the earth some special good doth give ; 

 Nor ought so good, but strained from that fan* use, 

 Kevolts from true birth stumbling on abuse." 



Romeo and Juliet, act ii. sc. 3. 



It is certain that our knowledge of British Ferns has greatly 

 extended since the time Dr. William Turner, Dean of Wells, 

 wrote his ' Herbal.' We can number sixty species ; he speaks only 

 of two, as follows : — " There are two kinds of Brakes (or Ferns) , 

 the one kind is called in Latin Filix mascula and in Greek Pteris ; 

 it grows commonly upon stones. The second kind is called in 

 Latin Filix foemina ; that is the common Fern or Brake which the 

 northern men call a'Braken," Philemon Holland, in his transla- 

 tion of Pliny, book 27, says : — " Of Feme be two kinds, and they 

 bear neither flower nor seede. Some of the Greeks call the one 

 Pteris and the other Blechnum." Turner notices that the Feme 

 had seed, and says, " I do gather by no vain conjecture that in 

 treating of divers griefs it is of greater power and stx'ength than 

 either the root or the leaf be,^' 



Although the early writers on Ferns had not the advantage of 

 Mr, Bradbury^ s nature-printing, they did not fail to investigate 

 the properties and uses of the few they were acquainted with, 

 and the apothecaries made divers preparations therefrom to re- 

 lieve " the ills that flesh is heir to.^^ Some of them are noticed 

 by Dr, Turner, and he concludes his chapter on the virtues of 

 the male Fern by stating, " This is a marvellous nature that the 

 Fern hath, namely the male, that if a man cut the root of it, in 

 the midst it will shew on each side a black eagle, with two heads 

 out of white," 



Fern-seed was supposed by our early writers to have great 

 magical powers, and it was to be gathered on Midsummer eve ; 

 they fancied that those who possessed the secret of wearing this 

 seed about them would become invisible. This property of fern- 

 seed is alluded to by Shakspeare in the first part of Henry IV,, 



