OF SUNDRY HERBS 117 



dry and rugged places. The leaves are at their best before 

 the flower stalkes rise : this is in May. They were therefore 

 right who told our ancestors to eat them at that season. 

 Those who would use them constantly should dry them 

 at that time for the rest of the year. The roots are slightly 

 flavoured and of little value; of the nature of the leaves 

 but inferior by many degrees. The seeds are warm and 

 cordial beyond the leaves, carminative and friendly to the 

 nerves, but still in no way adequate or indeed approaching 

 to the powers attributed to the plant. Fewer disappoint- 

 ments have stopped many an inquiry, but the faith I placed 

 in the old writers, a faith founded on experience in many other 

 instances, lead me still to prosecute this subject. I have 

 long observed that there are certain juices contained in or 

 secreted from particular parts of plants at certain seasons 

 which do not exist in the same plant at other seasons or in 

 any other part." (He gives other instances, and amongst 

 them the very familiar one of the fragrant resin present 

 in the cup of the moss rose, the liquid balsam being present 

 only during flowering time.) " I examined the cups of sage, 

 and found there what I had sought before in every other 

 part of the plant so much in vain. Just when the flowers 

 of sage begin to open there is in their cups a fragrant resin 

 of this kind, highly flavoured, balmy, delicate, and to the 

 taste, one of the most delicious cordials that can be thought, 

 warm and aromatic. I no longer doubted anything that 

 had been said of sage ; the smell, the taste, the flavour here 

 promised all. Lord Bacon/' he continues, " laments justly 

 that physicians have applied themselves solely to the 

 cure of diseases, neglecting the prolongation of human 

 life. Sage, properly prepared, will retard that rapid pro- 

 gress of decay that treads upon our heels so fast in the 

 latter years of life, will preserve the faculties and memory, 

 more valuable to the rational mind than life itself without 

 them; and will relieve under that faintness, strengthen 

 under that weakness and prevent absolutely that sad 

 depression of spirits, which age often feels and always 

 fears, which will long prevent the hands from trembling 



