MANDRAGORA.] NATURAL HISTORY. 195 



proportion, a compound and counterfeit wine, which they 

 sell for Candy wine, commonly called Malmsey. 



Gerard's "Herbal," bk. ii. ch. cccxxiii. 



I LOVE thee next to Malmsey in a morning. 



Beaumont and Fletcher, " The Captain," iv. 2. 



Malt. 



KING LEAR, iii. 2, 82. 



OUR Malt is made all the year long in some great 

 towns, but in gentlemen's and yeomen's houses, who com- 

 monly make sufficient for their own expenses only, the 

 winter half is thought most meet for that commodity ; the 

 Malt that is made when the willow doth bud, is commonly 

 worst of all. The best Malt is tried by the hardness and 

 colour, for if it look fresh with a yellow hue, and thereto 

 will write like a piece of chalk, after you have bitten a 

 kernel in sunder in the midst, then you may assure your- 

 self that it is dried down of all, the straw-dried is the 

 most excellent. For the wood -dried Malt, when it is 

 brewed, doth hurt and annoy the head of him that is not 

 used thereto. Holinsked, "Description of England," p. 169. 



Mandragora, Mandrake. 



Not poppy nor mandragora 

 Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world 

 Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 

 Which thou owedst yesterday. 



OTHELLO, iii. 3, 330. 



Kill, as doth the mandrake's groan. 



ii. KING HENRY VI., iii, 2, 310. 



MANDRAGORA beareth apples with great savour. The 

 ind thereof meddled with wine is given to them to drink 

 it shall be cut in the body, for they should sleep and 

 tot feel the sore cutting. And apples grow on the leaves, 

 ind be yellow and sweet of smell, but with a manner 

 tviness, and be fresh in savour. But yet Mandragora 

 iust be warily used, for it slayeth if men take much 

 tereof. The juice thereof with woman's milk laid to the 

 imples maketh to sleep, yea though it were in the most 

 lot ague. Mandragora hath many other virtues, and smiteth 



