238 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



Temple is very curious in them, but he prefers the red 



withy. King James II sent, by Sir Garden, to 



the Royal Society, a plant 'caljed Star of the Earth, with 

 the receipt made of it to cure the biting of mad dogs, 

 which is in ' Transact./ No. 187. By the salt-pits at 

 Lymington, Hampshire, grows a plant called Squatmore, 

 of wonderful effect for bruises, not in any herbal. This 

 I had from Th. Guidott, M.D., whose father had the salt- 

 works, and is a witness of the cures done by it. My old 

 friend, Mr. Fr. Potter (author of the Interpretation 666), 

 told me that a neighbour of his who had the gout many 

 years, an ancient man, was cured by an old woman with 

 the leaf of the wild vine. I came there above a year after, 

 and the party had never a touch of it. E. W., Esq., tells 

 me of a woman in Bedfordshire who doth great cures for 

 agues and fevers with meadsweet, to which she adds 

 some green wheat. A Parliament captain (in Ireland) 

 told me, when the army was sorely afflicted with the 

 bloody flux, and past the skill of the doctors, they had a 

 receipt from an Irishman, viz. to take the partition pith 

 of a walnut and dry it, then to pulverize it, and drink as 

 much as could be heaped on a 4d. or 6d., in wine, or, &c., 

 and this cured the army. Sir Chr. Wren told me once 

 (eating of strawberries) that if one that has a wound in 

 the head eats them it is mortal. 



London, Aug. 5, 1691. 



Mr. J. AUBKEY to Mr. RAY. 



SIR, When I was lately at Oxford I gave several 

 things to the museum, which was lately robbed since I 

 wrote to you. Among other things, my picture in 

 miniature, by Mr. S. Cowper (which at an auction yields 

 twenty guineas), and Archbishop Bancroft's, by Hillyard, 

 the famous illuminer in Queen Elizabeth's time. 



