288 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



renew their age and repaire their decaied sight by 

 rubbing their eyes with it. Wherefore it is vsed of 

 vs to the like purposes." Presumably our old author 

 desired to suggest that by its use the serpents 

 renewed their youth rather than their age ; but this 

 after all is a detail. He goes on to tell of a rather 

 serious drawback to the use of the plant, the "bad 

 propertie in the seedes to brede poysonous wormes, 

 whose poyson is curable by no Antidot." 



Boorde, in his " Dyetery of Helthe," published in 

 1542, instructs us that "the rootes of Fennell soden 

 tender and made in a succade is good for the lunges 

 and for the syghte." Another old writer, Mark- 

 ham, prescribing "for fatnesse about the hearte," 

 advises the sufferer to " take the juyce of Fennell 

 mixt with hony and seeth them together till it be 

 hard and then eate it evening and morning and it 

 will consume the fatnesse," but its main function 

 medicinally we find to be the preservation or re- 

 storation of the sight. Hence Bate gives us " an 

 excellent Balme or water of grievous sore eyes," in 

 which this is a leading ingredient, and declares 

 that "this is approved, and more precious than 

 gold." Lupton, in like manner, has "a powder to 

 conserve the -syght," in which fennel, eye-bright, 

 and celandine are very important elements. This 

 powder has "to be taken continually with meate 

 and the syght will be restored and kept, whose 

 tryall an olde man dyd proue, which vsed spectacles 



