PEA. 47 



Food, and requested of Nebzar that he might 

 be allowed pulse to eat.* 



" Daniel ate pulse by choice — example rare ! 

 Heaven bless'd the youth, and made him fresh and fair. 



Cowper. 



And these small peas are still the principal 

 food of the poor in some of the islands of 

 the Archipelago, and other warm countries, 

 where, from indolence, they can often get no 

 better fare. 



The ancients used lentils to thicken pot- 

 tage instead of barley groats, for those that 

 had weak stomachs ; the peas were said to be 

 binding, and the broth made of them laxative. 

 They were thought bad for the lungs, and 

 to cause head-ache, with restless sleep and 

 dreams. The Roman physicians used them 

 boiled in vinegar, to discuss all hard tumors 

 occasioned by scrophula, &c. ; and as a cure 

 for the erysipelas, they boiled them in sea 

 water. 



Lentils appear to have been brought to 

 this country in l548.-f Gerard says, he had 

 been informed that they were sown in his 

 time, in the neighbourhood of Waterford in 

 Middlesex, and other places in England, for 



* Chap. i. 5 to 17. f Aiton. 



