OAK. | NATURAL HISTORY. ar7 
be closed in an hard skin, rind, or shell be called Nuts, 
as pines, chestnuts and filberts, and other such. The 
shadow of the Nut-tree grieveth them that sleep there- 
under, and breedeth diverse sicknesses and evils, but the 
fruit thereof dyeth and cleanseth hair, and letteth the 
falling thereof. In great French Nuts [z¢., walnuts or 
barnuts] generally the shape of the cross is printed therein. 
Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xvii. § 108. 
VY. Chestnut, Filbert, Walnut, etc. 
Nutmeg. 
Love’s Lazour’s Lost, v. 2. 
Winter’s Tae, iv. 3, 20. 
THE more heavy the Nutmeg is in weight, and the more 
sweet in smell and sharp in savour, the better it is. The 
Nutmeg holden to the nose comforteth the brain and the 
spiritual members. Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xvii. § 109. 
Tue Nutmeg is good against freckles of the face [and] 
quickeneth the sight. There is not any so simple but 
knoweth that the heaviest, fattest and fullest of juice are 
the best, which may easily be determined by pricking the 
same with a pin or such like. Gerard's “Herbal,” s.v. 
As easily deciphered as'the characters in a Nutmeg. 
Lilly, “Midas,” iv, 3. 
Oak. 
Tue Oak is a tree that beareth mast, and is a fast tree 
and a sad, and dureth long time, with hard rind, and little 
pith or none, and there breedeth on the leaves a manner 
thing sour and unsavoury, and physicians call it gall. 
Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xvii. § 134. 
Tue Oak is a tree with many boughs and branches, 
and, by reason of many fair leaves and broad, it causeth 
pleasant shadow, and beareth great plenty of fruit and of 
mast. The tree is durable and strong,”and nigh unable to 
root; for stocks thereof laid under water turneth, as it 
were, into hardness of stone; and the longer time they be 
