394 LEAVES FROM THE 



known to tlie collectors of the last century as the bufonite, 

 toad-stone, crapaudhie, and krottenstein, supposed to be 

 largely endowed with medical and magical powers, and 

 familiar to the philosophers of the present, as one of the 

 fossil palatal teeth of a fish (pycnodus). 



The whole animal was a repertorium for poisoners 

 before the modern Canidias had hit upon the powder of 

 succession. The Roman ladies who did oiof love their 

 lords, hastened their departure for the city of the dead 

 by a bufonite potion,* or an infusion of rulaetan juice in 

 a cup of rich Celanian ;t and as poisoning and witchcraft 

 generally went hand in hand,| there is no cause for sur- 

 prise that toads were choice contributions for the charmed 

 pot of secret, black, and midnight hags. ' Paddocke§ 

 calls' the witches in Macbeth : and the reptile was the first 

 ingredient in the caldron that raised the blood-bolter d 

 Banquo, and seared the eyeballs of the murderous 

 thane with the regal ' show' of the disquieted spirit's 

 line. 



The eleventh hag, in Jonson's Masque of Queens, 

 exultingly sings — 



I went to the toad, breeds under the wall ; 

 I charra'd him out, and he came at my call. 



And Gesner ascribes a power to it which was believed to 

 conduce to the quiet of mankind at the expense of their 

 vigour. 



But those who assert the bad eminence of the toad for 

 ' swelter'd venom,' and those who deny it all noxious 

 qualities — Pennant was inclined to the latter opinion, 

 and Cuvier believed it to be innocuous, — are both wrong. 

 The exudation from the pimples, or follicles, on the true 



* Juvenal, Sat. vi. 558. t Ibid. Sat. i. 69. 



X • An malas 



Canidia tractavit dapes? — Hor. Ej]. iii. 8. 

 § Padda and Tassa are the names assigned to the toad in the 

 Fauna Suecica. 



