mushroom. ;]67 



they should escape from the soil without the 

 appearance of any chink or crevice from 

 whence they spring. He deemed them an 

 imperfection of the earth, and that they came 

 neither by setting nor sowing. 



In superstitious days, the Fungus tribe 

 was imagined to be the work of fairies, 



" You demy puppets, that 



By moonshine do the green sward ringlets make, 



Whereof the ewe not bites ; and you, whose pastime 



Is to make midnight mushrooms." 



Tempest. 



Mrs. Rowden makes the same allusion : 



" In-wrought with varied hues from Fancy's loom, 

 The fairies rear their temporary dome ; 

 Beneath the fretted roof, in secret state, 

 The mimic tribe on Agarica wait." 



In the eighth chapter of the sixteenth book 

 of Pliny's Natural History, he says, the last 

 device of our epicures to sharpen their appe- 

 tites and tempt them to eat inordinately, is 

 the cooking of mushrooms; and in the twenty- 

 third chapter of his twenty-second book he 

 adds, there are some dainty wantons of such 

 fine taste, and who study their appetite to 

 such an excess, that they dress mushrooms 

 with their own hands, that they may feed on 



