150 GATOE17 rLOX^TRS. 



blooming during this and the folloAving months. 

 The well-known sage {Salvia officinalis) of the 

 kitchen garden, Avould give little idea of the 

 beauty of many of the exotic kinds of salvia 

 which thrive with us ; yet there is so much 

 similarity in all, not only in the shape of the 

 blossom, but in the wrinkled foliage and aro- 

 matic odour, that the sage plants are plainly 

 distinguished. Our common sage was formerly 

 in great repute as a medicine. Eating a quan- 

 tity of its leaves was supposed to avert sick- 

 ness, and hence the old Latin proverb, " How 

 can a man die that has sage in his garden ?" 

 The Chinese have a high opinion of the 

 virtues of the common sage, and prefer it 

 to the tea, whose stimulating properties are 

 deemed so refreshing in our land. Indeed, the 

 Dutch appear at one time to have been engaged 

 in a very profitable commerce, for it is said 

 that they carried a cargo of the sage leaf to 

 China, and returned to their own country 

 freighted with four times the quantity of tea. 

 But though the Chinese thus valued the sage, 

 yet they had a high opinion of their tea also, 

 as a remedy. So early as the ninth century, 

 travellers in China mention their custom of 

 drinking an infusion of the leaves of a plant, 

 which they termed sali, that was reputed as a 

 medicine for all diseases, and which is proved 

 to be the tea, which, from having been at first a 

 luxury, seems now to have become a necessary 

 article in the diet of an Englishman. With 

 us the sage is much used as a condiment 



