THE ELDER. 325 



persons ; and there is a spirit to be drawn from the Elder, 

 which the late Duke of Somerset, who married the heiress 

 of Piercy, took for the gout, as I am informed, with success. 

 When the berries are ripe, they make a very wholesome 

 syrup in colds and fevers ; and some make wines of them, 

 by mixing Ehenish or other white wines. Of the younger 

 sappy branches, the bark, pared off close to the wood, makes 

 a salve efficacious beyond most others for scalds. This inner 

 bark is also very salutary in dropsies, says Mr. Eay. The 

 wood is close-grained, sweet, and cleanly, and beyond any 

 other chosen by butchers for skewers, as least affecting 

 their flesh ; it is very beautiful also for turners' ware, and 

 fineering, and for toys, of as neat a polish as box : and the 

 very pith of this useful shrub is proper to cool, and make 

 ulcers and wounds digest. More uses than these may 

 occur by way of medicine, but the above are perhaps more 

 than sufficient to show that the Cornu-Britons did not 

 denominate places and persons from this seemingly con- 

 temptible shrub without great propriety : its peculiar pro- 

 perties are not to be wondered at, though numerous ; they 

 are indeed chiefly medicinal, and those of other plants are 

 sometimes principally nutritious and domestic. Nature 

 has differently distributed her bounties among plants, and 

 placed them together sometimes in great numbers. The 

 Palm-tree, as Strabo says, has three hundred and sixty 

 uses, and the Cocoa or Cokernut-tree yields wine, bread, 

 milk, oil, sugar, salt, vinegar, tinctures, tans, spices, thread, 

 needles, linen-cloth, cups, dishes, baskets, mats, umbrellas, 

 paper, brooms, ropes, sails, and almost all that belong to 

 the rigging of a ship, if we may believe Fr. Hernandez 

 and other authors. Besides this Sambucus aquatilis sen 

 palustris we have another sort, which we call Scau-au-Cuz, 

 or the Elder of the Wood ; some call it Maiden Elder. 

 Its uses have not been hitherto discovered to be as various 

 and salutary as those of the foregoing, but its wood is more 

 flexible, and will divide lengthways as perfectly almost as 

 whalebone, and is therefore much coveted by joyners." 



