io2 The Poets atod Nature. 



Oh mark the beauty in his eye : 

 What wonders in that circle lie ! 

 So clear, so bright, our fathers said 

 He wears a jewel in his head ! " 



This rare gem was a specific against poisons, and a great 

 number of rings are in existence in which the " Kroten- 

 stein ' is set as a talisman against venom. Erasmus writes 

 of a famous toad-stone dedicated to our lady of Walsingham, 

 and numerous mediaeval jewels now preserved in collections 

 owed their great value in the past to the magic potencies 

 supposed to be vested in the mysterious " stone." It has 

 been discovered by modern investigation that these bufonites 

 are really the bony plates lining the jaws of some fossil fish, 

 hemispherical bosses which served the finned creatures for 

 teeth ; but fortunately this discovery was not made in time 

 to spoil the pleasure which our forefathers took in their 

 " toad-stones." 



On the other hand, " in its diabolical aspect," Bufo has 

 many depreciative associations. It was said to spit poison, 

 and to shoot it out at its pursuers, also to envenom all the 

 plants it passed over. This is the poets' acceptation of 

 toads. Indeed, they are so venomous that serpents "of most 

 deadly sort " are bracketed with them, as being in Blair for 

 instance the " superlatives " of evil. 



" Toads and snakes, and loathly worms, 

 And venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs 

 That bear ill berries." 



Eliza Cook calls them " foam-spitting " and " vile," and this 

 unfortunate lady had, at any rate, such privilege as might 

 be begged from the precedent of Milton, living two centuries 

 before her, saying that Satan 



" Squat like a toad close to the ear of Eve." 



Coleridge, always punctual in plagiarism, has "Slander 

 squatting near, spitting cold venom in a dead man's ear," 



