278 OTJK COMMON FRUITS. 



little respect do the botanists pay to the memory of the 

 gentle Queen Phillis, that they decline to determine be- 

 tween the Sweet and the Bitter Almond as to which is the 

 original type and which the variety, since both are found 

 growing wild ; and even the same individual plant, it is 

 said, will bear the one or the other kind of fruit, accord- 

 ing to variation of culture. Had our Attic friends noticed 

 this circumstance they would probably have added a chap- 

 ter to the history of Demophoon, and traced the change 

 in the fruit to his forgetting his first faithful love and 

 contracting some second marriage. The difference between 

 the two trees is very trifling, and even the kernels are 

 exactly similar in appearance, but in the case of the Bitter 

 Almond the nut is strongly impregnated with prussic acid, 

 of which there is no trace in those of the Sweet kind, 

 although it is found in the bark, leaves, and flowers of 

 both. Efficacious as a medicine, or pleasant as a flavour- 

 ing when employed in minute quantities, very injurious 

 effects sometimes result from inadvertently using in ex- 

 cess so powerful an ingredient ; but these would probably 

 occur far more frequently if any credence were still given 

 to the singular virtues once attributed to it, for Bitter Al- 

 monds might, perhaps, be as regularly taken by one class 

 of indulgers as dinner pills are by another, were the tale 

 believed as told by Pliny, that if five of them be taken by 

 a person before sitting down to drink, he will be proof 

 against inebriation ; in confirmation of which is cited the 

 account given by Plutarch of Drusus, the brother of Ti- 

 berius, and one of the greatest drinkers of his time, who 

 used them effectually for this purpose. Whether it may 

 have been that the jollity-loving monks of old put any 

 faith in this notion, or for some less cogent reason, it is 

 at least known that Almonds were held in special favour 

 by them ; almond milk, too, something very similar to 

 our modern custard, having been always a standing dish 

 at their festivals. 



There is a pretty allusion to the blossoming of the Al- 

 mond in one of Moore's verses : 



" The hope of a future happier hour 

 That alights on misery's brow 



