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uses, and their associations, medical, economical, poetical, classical, 

 historical, etymological and mystical : in short, with everything that 

 can be brought to bear any relation, remote or intimate, with the sub- 

 jects of the biography. Thus, the name of the genus Brassica 



" Is said to be derived from the Celtic word ' bressic,'' a cabbage ; 

 and this derivation from our aboriginal tongue would naturally induce 

 belief, that although a cultivated, and, of course, much modified, 

 group of vegetables, we have always had several of them indigenous. 

 Withering is not content to abide by our Celtic root, but must give 

 it an Attic origin, and, consequently, he derives it from the Greek 

 ' hrazo^ to boil ; the operation, no doubt, which is of most importance 

 in making all the Brassica tribe useful, for vegetables have been vili- 

 fied, and called causers of cholera, merely because they were but par- 

 boiled, instead of being cooked," — P. 162. 



Then, a hw pages further on, we come to an inquiry into the ety- 

 mology of the word cahhage ; and here, says the author, 



" Johnson's Dictionary gives no help, Celtic or Saxon : it merely 

 tells us it is cabus, in French ; and the French Dictionnaire says that 

 combined with chou, cabus means hard. Now this is a very hard ety- 

 mology ; but, to assist us on, we find cabas to be la belle langue for a 

 frail of figs. Well, a drum-headed cabbage is something like the 

 shape of that globe, flattened at the poles ; but it is rather a con- 

 strained origin for our name. Then the Latin gives us no aid at all ; 

 but, come, what joy and dignity it is to find the root of our shunned 

 and repudiated word in undoubted Attic Greek ; take courage, then, 

 ' here you are.' Kabe, food. Do you espy cabbage now ? And then 

 follow the words, ' kapto^ to eat ; and ' kabos^ a corn-vessel or mea- 

 sure — a kind of cornucopia, which might indicate that true Irish 

 union, so well sketched in the song of William Maginn, viz : — 



" ' Pigs galore, magra asthore, 

 And cabbages, and ladies.' " 

 —P. 192. 



As a relief after the perusal of this dry disquisition upon the deriva- 

 tion of a very familiar word, we must quote here the amusing abstract 

 of some learned Irish scholar's researches into the history of the wild 

 field cabbage {Brassica campestris), wherein our readers will find, 

 we flatter ourselves, some truly unexpected revelations of and con- 

 cerning a very primitive use of cabbage-leaves, for which we think 

 they could scarcely have been prepared. Of this member of the 

 family, as Mr. Dowden says, " authors write but little : where two 

 VOL. IV. 4 T 



