90 OLD NAMES OF PLANTS. 



and manifests the reasonableness of bestowing upon 

 plants and herbs such names as might immediately 

 indicate their several uses, or fitness for applica- 

 tion ; when distinctive characters, had they been 

 given, would have been little attended to; and 

 hence, the numbers found favourable to the cure 

 of particular complaints, the ailments of domestic 

 creatures, or deemed injurious to them. Modern 

 science may wrap up the meaning of its epithets 

 in Greek and Latin terms ; but in very many cases 

 they are the mere translations of these despised, 

 " old, vulgar names." What pleasure it must 

 have afforded the poor sufferer in body or in limb, 

 what confidence he must have felt of relief, 

 when he knew that the good neighbour who came 

 to bathe his wounds, or assuage his inward tor- 

 ments, brought with him such things as " all-heal, 

 break-stone, bruise-wort, gout-weed, fever-few" 

 (fugio), and twenty other such comfortable miti- 

 gators of his afflictions ; why their very names 

 would almost charm away the sense of pain ! 

 The modern recipe contains no such terms of 

 comfortable assurance : its meanings are all dark 

 to the sufferer ; its influence unknown. And then 

 the good herbalist of old professed to have plants 

 which were " all good :" they could assuage anger 

 by their " loosestrife;" they had " honesty, true- 

 love, and heartsease." The cayennes, the soys, 

 the ketchups, and extratropical condiments of 

 these days, were not required, when the next 

 thicket would produce u poor man's pepper, sauce 



