THE MELON". 211 



is a well-known fact that they are a natural dentifrice, 

 dissolving the tartareous incrustations of the teeth and 

 sweetening the breath, while Du Harael affirms that their 

 distilled water clears and embellishes the skin. It is 

 evident, therefore, that they only need some enterprising 

 individual to bring them properly before the public, by a 

 due amount of advertising, in order to supersede half the 

 nostrums now in vogue, and make at once the pills of 

 Parr, the oil of Cabburn, and the Odonto and Kalydor 

 of [Rowland, hide their diminished heads before the glories 

 of all-healing, all-beautifying strawberries. "We feel, 

 however, when Parkinson assures us further that " the 

 water distilled of the berries is good for the passions of 

 the heart, caused by the perturbation of the spirits, being 

 either drunk alone or in wine, and maketh the heart 

 merry," that "drunk alone," the prescription might not 

 prove quite so efficacious as when taken with the other 

 ingredient named, especially if mixed according to the 

 celebrated Van Dunck proportions. 



But the fruit is sufficiently attractive to need no know- 

 ledge of its more occult virtues to recommend it to all 

 within whose reach it may come. Even the adjuncts 

 commonly associated with it are but an observance de- 

 scended from days when strawberries, less mellowed than 

 those we now gather, almost required the addition of 

 some blander influence, and may easily be dispensed with 

 now ; although to some their ruddy charms still gleam 

 more alluring than ever from beneath the traditional dairy 

 accompaniment which furnished Herrick's luxuriant 

 imagination with a moral addressed to ladies too lavish of 

 their beauties and forgetful of the power of a veil to 

 enhance them. 



Even the leaves of the plant have not passed unho- 

 noured, having been chosen to adorn the coronets of our 

 own highest nobles, yea, even to figure on the royal crown 

 of Spain and the diadem of the once mighty empire of 

 Germany. The reason, if any there were, why this leaf 

 in particular was advanced to such dignity, the heralds 

 have not vouchsafed to inform us, but the ornament is 

 not the less prized by its possessors from ignorance of 



142 



