HIS ASTROLOGICAL STUDIES. 97 



acid it certainly has a smell like that of crushed almonds 

 and other stony seeds and he used to tell a story of four 

 young botanists turning very ill, by leaving it in their bed- 

 rooms, and only being relieved when the doctor threw it 

 outside. Of poisons to be obtained from our common wild 

 plants, he often said he knew as much about, as, if put 

 into a well, "would poison a' the fowk o' the hale 

 countra side ! " 



It is now uncertain if John ever had any real belief, like 

 Simpson the mathematician, in the astrological influences of 

 the heavenly bodies on the " virtues " of plants, as so fully 

 laid down in Culpepper, though such belief was far from 

 uncommon in those days. One of his friends thinks he had, 

 and says he used not only to gather plants under the proper 

 stellar conjunctions, but even to take the horoscope of any 

 one that wished it. I have found no proofs of this amongst 

 his books or notes, or from his later friends. One of these 

 is very decided on the subject, saying that John believed in 

 nothing superstitious. 



That he was vastly interested in Astrology, like many 

 others then and not a few now, seems certain, if only 

 from the number of books he accumulated on the subject, 

 such as " Bo, an Indian Astrologer," and two large and 

 expensive works, " A Manual of Astrology " and " The 

 Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century; " though he possessed 

 none of the text-books for making the necessary calcula- 

 tions for its practical study. When John Taylor used to 

 read Culpepper's remarks on the planetary influences on 

 plants, in their botanical conversations, and asked him 

 what he thought of them, he would reply, like the thought- 

 ful philosopher he was, " Man, there are some terrible queer 



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