298 abe (BarDen 



adorned with caralin berries, might easily be 

 propagated by seeds, layers, or cuttings, into 

 plenty sufficient to store even these vulgar uses, 

 were men industrious ; and then how beautiful 

 and sweet would the environs of our fields be ! 

 for there are none of the spinous shrubs more 

 hardy, none that make a more glorious show, 

 nor fitter for our defence, competently armed, 

 especially the Rhamnus, which I therefore join 

 to the Oxyacantha, for its terrible and almost 

 irresistible spines, able almost to pierce a coat of 

 mail ; and for this made use of by the malicious 

 Jews to crown the sacred temples of our 

 Blessed Saviour, and is yet preserved among the 



Christ at his crucifixion ; but Dr. Haselquist, who had 

 great opportunities of examining the plants of the Holy 

 L,and, is of opinion that it was a species of Zizyphus, 

 which grows in great plenty in the neighborhood of 

 Jerusalem. It is a very thorny plant, and is called by 

 I^innaeus, Rhamnus aculeis geminatis rectis, foliis ovatis, 

 Sp. PI. 282. The learned Dr. Pearce, late I^ord Bishop of 

 Rochester, sees the whole of this transaction in a very 

 different light. And as his own words will best explain 

 his opinion, I shall here transcribe them from his most 

 excellent work, entitled " A Commentary upon the 

 Four Evangelists." 



" The aKavOw may as well be the plural genitive case 

 of the word a/cai/0<os as of <wcai>0ij ; if of the latter, it is 

 rightly translated of thorns , but the former word signi- 

 fies what we call bear's-foot, and the French branche 

 ursine. This is not of the thorny kind of plants, but is 

 soft and smooth. Virgil calls it mollis acanthus (Kcl. , iii., 

 45, andGeorg., iv., 137) ; so does Pliny, Sec. Epist. , v., 6 ; 

 and Pliny the elder, in his Nat. Hist., xxii., 22 (p. 277, 

 Edit. Hard .fol.), says that it is l&vi's, smooth, and that it 

 is one of those plants which are cultivated in gardens. I 

 have somewhere read (but cannot at present recollect 

 where) that this soft and smooth herb was very common 



