’ 
_ the “BRI TTS H* HER BA. 
133 
1. Smooth Bears Breech: 
Acanthus mollis. 
The root is long, flender, white, divided into 
imany parts; and furnifhed with numerous fibres. 
The firft leaves are large; and extreamly beau- 
tiful: they rife in clufters teh or twelve together, 
and have no footftalks : they {pread as they grow 
up, and fome lie upon the ground, while thofe 
in the middle keep mote erect. ; 
Thefe leaves are long, and confiderably broad, 
deeply divided into three or four pairs of large 
fegments at the edges, and they terminate in a 
larger portion, of the fame form, at the point: 
thefe feveral parts are all irregularly indented at 
the édges, and give the leaf the afpect of thofe 
of the pinnated kind, though they are not divided 
nearly to the rib: the colour is a beautiful deep 
green, and the furface glofly. The curious reader 
will not be offended at fo long and minute a 
defcription of a leaf admired fo extreamly for 
its beauty among the antients, and copied into 
fo many of their ornamental works. 
The ftalk rifes in the centre of this clufter of 
leaves, and is thick, firm, upright, and three 
feet high : the leaves ftand irregularly on it, and 
are large toward the bottom, and fmaller near 
the top; fo that they give the whole plant a 
conical figure: thofe on the upper part of the 
ftalk are more divided at the edge, and thofe at 
the lower part lefs. 
The flowers ftand in a long, thick fpike, ter- 
minating the ftalk, and are large and white. 
The feed-veffels are large, and the feeds are 
{mall. 
It is a native of Italy, and of the Greek iflands, 
and flowers in June. . 
C. Bauhine calls it Acanthus fativus five mollis 
Virgilii. Others, Branca urfina, and Acanthus 
Jativus, and Acanthus mollis. We call it Brank 
urfine, or Bears breech. It grows very well in our 
gardens. 
A great deal of learned nonfenfe has been put 
together by criticks on the fubject of the acan- 
thus of the antients: but had they been better 
botanifts they would have been more in a condi- 
‘tion to have underftood their authors; and would 
have faved their readers much trouble. 
The names acanthus and acantha occur very 
frequently in the writings of the Greeks and Ro- 
mans, and are often ufed for different prickly fhrubs 
and plants, according to the more or lefs accurate 
expreffion, or determinate meaning of their authors; 
but the reader at this time is little concerned about 
any except the one plant, properly, determi- 
nately, and generally, called Acanthus. This 
was the herb whofe leaves they have fo much 
celebrated for their beauty; and which, we find, 
their artifts have introduced into various kinds of 
carved work, and of which the leaves in the 
capital of the Corinthian order in architeGture are 
formed. ‘his is the proper acaxthus, and is the 
kind here defcribed and figured. 
Its greateft fame is in the capital juft named, 
which, we are told, Callimachus formed upon 
the model of a bafket, covered with a tile, and 
furrounded with the leaves of an acanthus plant, 
upon whofe root it had accidentally been fet. 
This bafket continues the vafe of the capital; 
the leaves and ftalks are the ornaments with 
N° XIV. 
(| which it is covereds and the tile forms. its 
abacus. <A d 
Such was the original Corinthian capital; but 
fculptors, even in thofe ages of chafter tafte; 
had the error, fo common at this time, of fup- 
pofing every thing that is laboured muft be 
beautiful. Inftead of the great and noble fimi- 
plicity of this natural leaf, they foon began to 
decorate it with more carving: they fplit thé 
edges of its feveral fegments; varioufly in- ° 
to three; or into five diftiné: and feparate 
leaves: thefe they left plain and even at. the 
edges; and, becaufe the form of the whole was 
altered, they called the firft variation, where the 
divifion was into three, the /aurel, and the other; 
where it was into five, the olfve leaf. In both, 
the proper form and beauty of the leaf are loft : 
it is neither noble nor in nature: it becomes a 
monftrous production of ignorant att: the wholé 
is a body of dcanthus leaf bearing olive or laurel 
leaves at its top and fides. 
One grieves to fee this in the antique, but the 
remains of many of their great works are dif- 
graced by it. The leaves on the capitals of the 
columns in the temple of Vefta at Rome are of 
the laurel kind ; thofe of the Bafilick of Antonine 
of the olive ; and there are many more inftances, 
needlefs to be recounted here, both of one and the 
other divifion. In the temple of Veta at Tivoli 
we fee the true acantbus. Nothing refleéts more up- 
on the tafte of architecture, in that time of its emi- 
nent glory, fo much as this infule upon nature ; the 
preferring to her great fimplity the littlenefé of art; 
2. Prickly Bears Breech. 
Acanthus aculeatus. 
The root is long, thick, ufually fingle, but 
furnifhed with many fmall fibres. 
The leaves that rife from it are very large and 
beautiful; but they have not the elegant fim- 
plicity of thofe of the former kind: they aré 
long and broad, and are divided fo deeply into 
many pairs of fegments that they very much re- 
femble the pinnated form, but they are not cut 
to the middle rib: thefe fegments are notched at* 
the edges, and the whole leaf is covered with 
long, white, and fharp prickles, : 
The ftalk rifes in the centre of this tuft, and 
is thick, firm, upright, and two foot and a half 
high. 
The leaves that ftand on it are like thofe from 
the root, but lefs divided, and of a paler green. 
The flowers are large and white, and they 
ftand in a thick {pike terminating the ftalk. 
The feed-veffel is large and oblong; and the 
feeds are {mall. 
It is not uncommon in Italy, growing moftly in 
damp fhady places about the edges of rivers and 
in thickets, It flowers in June. 
C. Bauhine calls it Acanthus aculeatus. Others, 
Acanthus filveftris. 
This {pecies was known to the antients as fa- 
miliarly as the former, but they did not much 
regard it. Some ef more depraved tafte intro- 
duced its figure into ornaments of carved work ; 
but it makes a confufed and poor appearance. 
The true acanthus leaves have an open freedom 
and an eafy grace not found in any of thefe, 
whether from art or nature. 
Mm Befide. 
