CHEMICAL, MEDICAL AND DIETICAL PROPERTIES. 233 



and hunting songs, cavalier and sea songs, raphsodies and 

 laudations of other subjects have been to our literature, 

 such was tea to the writers, poets, artists and musicians of 

 China and Japan, their' s being confined to the simple sub- 

 ject Tea. Each plantation was supposed to possess its 

 own peculiar virtues and excellences, not unlike the vine- 

 yards of the Rhine, the Rhone and the Moselle, each had 

 its poet to sing its praises in running rhymes. One 

 Chinese bard, who seemingly was an Anacreon in his 

 way, magnifying the product of the Woo-e-shan moun- 

 tains in terms literally translated as follows : 



" One ounce does all disorders cure, 

 With two your troubles will be fewer, 

 Three to the bones more vigor give, 

 With four forever you will live 

 As young as on your day of birth, 

 A true immortal on the earth." 



However hyperbolical this testimony may be consid- 

 ered, it at least serves to show the high estimation in 

 which the plant was held in China. 



The first literary eulogist to espouse the cause of the 

 new drink in Europe was Edmund Waller, reciting how 

 he became first induced to taste it. In a poem containing 

 several references to the leaf occurs the following preg- 

 nant allusion to tea : 



11 The muses friend doth our fancy aid, 

 Repress these vapors which the head invade, 

 Keeping that palace of the soul serene." 



That Queen Anne ranked among its votaries is mani- 

 fest from Pope's celebrated couplet: 



" Though great Anna, whom the realms obey, 

 Doth sometimes counsel take and sometimes Tea.** 



Johnson did not make verses in its honor, but he has 

 drawn his own portrait as " a hardened and shameless tea 



