28 THE SPIRIT AND THE LIFE. 



suffered in consequence of a shrew running over the 

 injured part. In those days homoeopathic remedies 

 were generally resorted to ; and nothing but a shrew- 

 infected plant could cure a shrew-infected animal. 

 And tlie shrew-ash, as the remedial plant was called, 

 was prepared in the fallowing manner. 



In the stem of an ash-tree a hole was bored; 

 into the hole a poor shrew was thrust alive, and the 

 orifice immediately closed with a wooden plug. The 

 animal strength of the shrew passed by absorption 

 into the substance of the tree, which ever after cured 

 shrew-struck animals by the touch of a leafy branch. 



The poor creature that was imprisoned, Ariel-like, 

 in the tree, was, fortunately for itself, not gifted with 

 Ariel's powers of life; and the orifice of the hole 

 being closed by the plug, we may hope that its 

 sufferings were not long, and that it perished imme- 

 diately for want ol air. Still, our fathers were ter- 

 ribly and deliberately cruel ; and if the shrew's death 

 was a merciful one, no credit is due to the authors 

 of it. 



E^or on looking through a curious work on natural 

 history, of the date of 1658, where each animal is 

 treated of medicinally, I find recipes of such terrible 

 cruelty that I refrain from giving them, simply out 

 of tenderness for the feelings of my reader. Torture 

 seems to be a necessary medium of healing ; and if a 

 man suffers from "the black and melancholy cholic," 

 or" any pain and grief in the winde-pipe or throat," 



