THE ROSE. 239 



also, I, like him, "intend neither to make thereof 

 an apothecary's shope, nor a sugar-baker's store- 

 house, leaving the reste for our cunninge confec- 

 tioners/ 3 Yet I cannot refrain from borrowing from 

 Mr. Adams an unique recipe, extracted from the 

 "Ashmolean MSS./' and which has for its object 

 a most magical effect,* namely, to enable men to 

 see fairies without their eyes being injured : 



Take " a pint of sallet-oyle, and put it into a vial 

 glasse, but first wash it with rose-water and mary- 

 golde- water : the flowers to be gathered towards 

 the east. Wash it till the oyle come white ; then 

 put it into the glass, ut supra, and then put thereto 

 the budds of hollyhocke, and the flowers of mary- 

 golde, the floweres, or toppes of wild thyme, the 

 buddes of young hazle ; and the thyme must be 

 gathered neare the side of a hill where the Fayries 

 use to be: and take the grasse of a Fairie throne, 

 then all these put into the oyle into the glasse ; and 

 sette it to disolve three days in the sun, and then 

 keepe it for thy use ! " 



Pliny, Galen, and others have dwelt much on the 

 virtues of the tufty spongioles which grow on the 

 branches of the several wild roses ; attributing to 

 them all sorts of medicinal qualities, and evidently 

 considering them a part of the rose itself, though 

 distinguishing them by the name of Bedeguar, from 

 their resemblance to an Arabian thistle so called. 

 They are now, however, well known to be excres- 

 ences produced by the insect powers of the Cynips 

 rosce. 



Such are some of the many wonderful merits and 

 * "Moral of Flowers." 



