MAT. 91 



vetches were formerly called fetches : thus, in 

 Milton's "Connis," the lines which now stand, 



"If all the world 

 Should, in a fit of temperance, feed on pulse," 



stood originally, " feed on fetches." 



The red pottage, for which the weary hunter, 

 Esau, sold his birthright to his brother Jacob, 

 was made of the seed of a species of vetch, or 

 tare, the lentile, {Ervvm lens.) The lentile is 

 still highly prized in eastern lands ; and in 

 Eg}'pt, and throughout Syria, the bean is 

 parched in frying-pans, and sold in shops. The 

 mess of red pottage is still an esteemed dish, 

 as it was when Esau coveted it, and sinned, by 

 undervaluing his birthright, in order to })ro- 

 cure it ;* and it is now, as it was then, a very 

 important article of diet to the labouring 

 classes, and often cooked, too, for the rich. 

 Dr. Shaw relates, that " lentiles dissolve easily, 

 in boiling, into a mass, and form a pottage of 

 a red, or chocolate colour, much valued in 

 Egypt and Western Asia." The yellow flowers 

 of the plant called familiarly kidney vetch, or 

 lady's finger, (^Anthyllis vidneraria,) are bloom- 

 ing on dry pastures by the latter end of this 

 month, and continue in bloom till August. 

 These flowers grow in heads, or clusters, two 

 clusters on each stem, and may be known from 

 any other of our paj)ilionaceous plants by the 

 quantity of white silky wool in which they lie as 

 in a nest. The flower, which, in Kent and most 



• Gen. XXV. 81, at. 



