SEASONING HERBS. 323 



BALM Melissa officinalis is a native of the 

 south of France, and was introduced into this country 

 in 1573. It is a hardy perennial. 



Balm was long famed for its medicinal virtues ; 

 and although it has ceased to be invested with its 

 former supposed potent qualities, it still retains a 

 kind of posthumous fame, and ' balm ' has become 

 the generic name for a soothing healer of wounds, 

 both of the body and the mind. Balm was the plant 

 which the adept Paracelsus selected from which to 

 prepare his elixir mice, his primutn ens melisste, 

 whereby he was to renovate man ; and, if he did not 

 bestow on him absolute immortality, to produce a 

 very close approximation to that state. Such strange 

 conceits of ill-directed minds have, however, long 

 gone by ; and balm, stripped of its fancied virtues, 

 is now only employed as an infusion in preparing a 

 cooling drink, or in giving flavour to a weak factitious 

 wine. 



There are other seasoning herbs which were once 

 much esteemed in this country, but are now little 

 used. Among these are, Tarragon, Chervil, Borage, 

 Costmary, and Marigold. The leaves and flowers 

 of these plants were in request for their slight aro- 

 matic taste ; and they sometimes imparted their 

 flavour to ' cool tankards,' and sometimes to soups 

 and salads. There was a notion that they produced 

 exhilaration of spirits, and some of them were called 

 ' comforters of the heart.' The delusion has passed 

 away, yielding in too many cases to more violent ex- 

 citements, and in others to the conviction that the 

 heart must derive its best comfort from a steady per- 

 formance of our duties. 



I 



We cannot conclude this part x>f our volume 

 without noticing that Saffron (a species of Crocus) 



