308 ON NATURE-PRINTING. [Octobev, 



act ii. scene 2. Gadshill says^ " We steal as in a castle — cock 

 sure ; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible." But 

 Shakspeare did not believe in this, as he makes the chamberlain 

 say in reply " that Gadshill was more beholding to the darkness 

 of the night than to fern-seed." 



It would be very amusing to many persons when looking over 

 these printed Fern volumes, to hear what our early writers 

 thought of Ferns, and the many virtues they attached to them, 

 although they never speak of their beautiful forms. For instance, 

 Lyte, in his translation of Dodoens, would tell them that the root 

 of the male Fern is very good against the hardness and stopping 

 of the melt and spleen, and it will drive away and kill broad and 

 round worms ; that the Osmund or Water Fern is called Saint 

 Christopher's herb, the root of which is good against squats and 

 bruises, heavy and grievous falls, burstings, etc., or what hurt or 

 or dislocation soever it be ; and many practisers at this day do 

 put it into their pots and drinks which they make for wounds, 

 causing it to boil with other herbs. He says also that the white 

 Oak Fern, which is the right Dryopteris, is of such a strong- 

 power or virtue that it causeth the hair to fall off, and maketh 

 the skin bald. 



As late as 1657 we find WiUiam Coles, who was a herbarist, 

 and wrote a book entitled '^ Adam in Eden ; or the Paradise of 

 Plants," speaking of Spleenwort, or Miltwort, tells us that the 

 learned Crollius, amongst the signatures of parts, doth set down 

 Ceterach to have the signature of the spleen, and that therefore 

 it is profitable for all diseases thereof; and Vitruvius saith that 

 the swine in Candy, where there is store thereof, by feeding 

 thereon, were found without spleens ; and it is said also tliat 

 when asses are oppressed with melancholy they eat thereof, and 

 so ease themselves of the swelling of the spleen. 



Of Fern he says, " the smoke of it being burned driveth away 

 serpents, gnats, and other noisome creatures from those places 

 which are molested therewith ; " also, " I read that in Warwick- 

 shire the good housewives use the female Fern instead of soap, 

 making it up about IMidsummer in balls, which when they will 

 use they burn until it become bluish, and then lay it aside to 

 dissolve into powder like lime, which will do the deed." 



Dr. Caleb Threlkeld, in his ' Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum,' 

 1727, speaking of Ferns, says, "A great sputter has been made 



