92 NAMES GIVEN OF OLD TO PLANTS. 



to bathe his wounds, or assuage his inward tor- 

 ments, brought with him such things as "all-heal, 

 break-stone, bruise-wort, gout-weed, fever-few" 

 (fugio), and twenty other such comfortable miti- 

 gators of his afflictions; why, their very names 

 would almost charm away the sense of pain ! The 

 modern recipe contains no such terms of comfort- 

 able assurance: its meanings are all dark to the 

 sufferer; its influence unknown. And then the 

 good herbalist of old professed to have plants 

 which were " all -good: 1 ' they could assuage anger 

 by their "loosestrife;" they had ee honesty, true- 

 love, and heartsease." The cayennes, the soys, the 

 ketchups, and extratropical condiments of these 

 days, were not required, when the next thicket 

 would produce "poor man's pepper, sauce alone, 

 and hedge-mustard;" and the woods and wilds 

 around, when they yielded such delicate viands as 

 " fat hen, lambs-quarters, way -bread, butter and 

 eggs, with codlins and cream," afforded no des- 

 picable bill of fare. No one ever yet thought of 

 accusing our old simplers of the vice of avarice, or 

 love of lucre; yet their "thrift" is always to be 

 seen : we have their humble "pennywort, herb two- 

 pence, moneywort, silverweed, and gold." We 

 may smile, perhaps, at the cognomens, or the 

 commemorations of friendships, or of worth, re- 

 corded by the old simplers, at their herbs, "Bennet, 

 Robert, Christopher, Gerard, or Basil ;" but do 

 the names so bestowed by modern science read 



