114 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



of it." Of the barberry again he writes ; " The shrub is 

 so well known by every boy and girl that has but attained 

 to the age of seven years, that it needs no description ; " 

 while of the cherry he says, " I suppose there are few but 

 know this tree for its fruit's sake, and therefore I shall 

 spare writing a description thereof. In like flippant 

 manner he discourses of the white lily, and several other 

 plants. 



Like all other plants, the Marsh-thistle was placed by 

 mediaeval botanists under the planetary influences : " Mars 

 rules it, it is such a prickly business." Many of the 

 older writers approached the study of plants less from a 

 botanical than a medico-astrological point of view, and 

 ascribed Jovial, Mercurial, or Saturnine influences to the 

 wayside weeds. In one of these old books the writer 

 divides his readers into two classes : the vulgar, and 

 those who study astrology, and thus addresses them : 

 " To the vulgar : kind souls, I am sorry it hath been your 

 hard mishap to have been so long trained in such Egyptian 

 darkness, even darkness that may be felt. The vulgar 

 road of physic is not my practice, and I am, therefore, 

 the more unfit to give you advice. If I should set 

 you to look at the sun, I should dazzle your eyes and 

 make you blind. To such as study astrology, who are 

 the only men I know that are fit to study physic, 

 physic without astrology being like a lamp without oil, 

 you are the men I exceedingly respect, and such documents 

 as my brains can give you at present I shall give you. 

 Fortify the body with herbs of the nature of the Lord 

 of the Ascendant, 'tis no matter whether he be a Fortune 

 or Infortune in this case. Let your medicine be some- 

 thing anti-pathetical to the Lord of the Sixth. If the 



