402 THE TEAZLE CROP. 



upon it as a native plant, others are inclined to suggest 

 the probability of its introduction by some of those artizans 

 whom the troubles of their own country forced over to our 

 shores, and to whom we are indebted for the development 

 of so many of our different arts and manufactures. We 

 have no evidence that the use of the teazle was known to 

 the ancients, though Pliny 1 makes mention of a somewhat 

 similar plant, and Dioscorides 2 has left a drawing and 

 description of the common wild teazle. At the same 

 time there is reason to believe that the manufacture of 

 woollen cloths had attained considerable perfection at the 

 hands of the Romans. In some of their writers we find 

 several passages drawing the distinction between piled or 

 napped fabrics, which they called "pixse," as distin- 

 guished from those called "tritse," which were simply 

 woven, the threads being left exposed. These passages, 

 if properly understood, would infer that both fine cloths 

 and common stuffs were known to them, and if so, we are 

 in ignorance as to the method they adopted for raising 

 the nap, for which we make use of teazles at the present 

 day. 



In former times certain valuable properties were as- 

 signed to the water collected in the stalk-sheath of the 

 plant, where the leaves, uniting at their base, form round 

 the stem a hollow cup. This water had the reputation, 

 which is retained to the present day in the minds of the 

 ignorant and superstitious, of being a sovereign remedy 

 for diseases of the eyes. Labrum Veneris is one of the 

 names given to the plant by the old writers, and indeed 

 it is not uncommonly called "Venus's Eyebath" at the 

 present day. It was evidently well known in this coun- 

 try in Gerarde's time, as he has described and figured it 

 in his Herbal. He speaks of the virtues commonly as- 



' Nat. Hist., lib. xxvii. c. 10. 



2 In the manuscripts of the Vienna Museum. 



