336 SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



swered by the priest, that she should wear a crown and 

 the regal purple: but all her royalty meant no more 

 than the figure and colour of the Pomegranate, into 

 which she was transformed by Bacchus : 



" Pomegranates full 



Of melting sweetness." 



T. MOORE. 



Chaucer mentions this fruit as grateful to the sick : 



" There were, and that wote I full wele, 

 Of pomegranettes a full great dele, 

 That is a fruit full well to like, 

 Namely to folke when they ben sike." 



Romance of the Rose. 



The Pomegranate appears to have been highly 

 esteemed by the children of Israel ; it was held out as one 

 of the great blessings of the land of promise, that this 

 fruit grew there. They quarrelled with Moses, that he 

 brought them to a place where they could not find 

 grapes, figs, and pomegranates ; and when he sent the 

 elders of the different tribes to examine the land of 

 Canaan, and see what it yielded, they brought to him 

 from Eshcol these three fruits*. 



They adorned the robe of the high-priest with Pome- 

 granates : 



" And upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of 

 blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; 

 and bells of gold between them round about. 



" A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pome- 

 granate upon the hem of the robe round about." 



Exodus, xxviii. 33, 34. 



* See Numbers xiii. 23 ; xx. 5; Deut. viii. 8. 



