LATER SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY HERBALS 171 



lively than he was before." And " if Asses chance to feed much 

 upon Hemlock, they will fall so fast asleep that they will seeme 

 to be dead, in so much that some thinking them to be dead 

 indeed have flayed off their skins, yet after the Hemlock had 

 done operating they have stirred and wakened out of their 

 sleep, to the griefe and amazement of the owners." 



There is one chapter " Of plants used in and against Witch- 

 craft " in which, amongst other things, we learn that the oint- 

 ment that witches use is made of the fat of children, dug up 

 from their graves, and mixed with the juice of smallage, wolfsbane 

 and cinquefoil and fine wheat flour; that mistletoe, angelica, 

 etc. were regarded as being of such sovereign power against 

 witches that they were worn round the neck as amulets. Also, 

 that in order to prevent witches from entering their houses 

 the common people used to gather elder leaves on the last day 

 of April and affix them to their doors and windows. " I doe 

 not desire any to pin their Faiths upon these reports," says 

 Coles, " but only let them know there are such which they may 

 believe as they please." " However," he concludes, " there is 

 no question but very wonderful effects may be wrought by the 

 Vertues which are enveloped within the compasse of the green 

 mantles wherewith many Plants are adorned." 



Coles, nevertheless, treats with scorn, and by arguments 

 peculiarly his own, the old belief in the connection between the 

 stars and herbs. " It [the study of herbs] is a subject as antient 

 as the Creation, yea more antient than the Sunne or the Moon, 

 or Starres, they being created on the fourth day whereas Plants 

 were the third. Thus did God even at first confute the folly 

 of those Astrologers who goe about to maintaine that all vege- 

 tables in their growth are enslaved to a necessary and unavoidable 

 dependence on the influences of the starres; whereas Plants 

 were even when Planets were not . ' ' In another passage, however, 

 he writes, " Though I admit not of Master Culpeper's Astro- 

 logicall way of every Planets Dominion over Plants, yet I 

 conceive that the Sunne and Moon have generall influence upon 



