CENTAURY. 99 



in the winter. Centaury has a tendency to strike very deep 

 root, which makes many of them altogether unfit for pots. 

 Unfortunately, the Great Centaury is of this number : I 

 say unfortunately, because this species, which grows na- 

 turally on the mountains of Italy, has been rendered clas- 

 sical by Virgil's mention of it in his Georgics, where it is 

 recommended, among other flowers, as a medicine for bees 

 when sick. I think Dryden also mentions it somewhere. 

 We have a beautiful species of Centaury growing wild in 

 our corn-fields, called the corn-flower, or blue-bottle ; it is 

 a brilliant blue flower, and of a shape peculiarly elegant. 

 In a corn-field, near the banks of the Thames, on the 

 Ham-side, near Teddington ferry, these flowers and the 

 red poppies grow among the corn in such abundance as to 

 make an appearance truly splendid. In some parts of 

 Germany the ladies gather bunches of these flowers, and 

 adorn their hair with them. The French call this elegant 

 flower Fiordaliso. 



This flower is mentioned by Drayton (in his Marriage 

 of the Tame and Isis, in the fifteenth song of the Polyol- 

 bion), by its rustic appellation of blue-bottle. 



" The crimson darnel-flower, the blue-bottle, and gold ; 



Which though esteemed but weeds, yet for their dainty hues, 

 And for their scent not ill, they for this purpose chuse." 



Harte, in enumerating a variety of medicinal plants, 

 speaks of the 



" Centaury to clear the jaundiced eye." 



The Abbe Barthelemy informs us, that when Anacharsis 

 visited the cave of Chiron the Centaur, on Mount Pelion, 

 he was shown a plant which grew near it, of which he was 

 informed, that the leaves were good for the eyes, but that 

 the secret of preparing them was in the hands of only one 

 family, to whom it had been lineally transmitted from the 



