HERBS CHIEFLY USED IN THE PAST 59 



Herb-Patience (Rumex Patienta). 



Sequestered leafy glades, 

 That through the dimness of their twilight show 

 Large doclc-leaves, spiral fox-gloves, or the glow 

 Of the wild cat's-eyes, or the silvery stems 

 Of delicate birch trees, in long grass which hems 

 A little brook. 



Calidore — Keats. 



La tulipe est pour la fierte, 

 Pour le malheur la patience. 



La Petite Corbeille. 



The Herb-Patience does not grow in every man's garden. 



Proverb. 



Herb-Patience was also called Patience-Dock or 

 Monk's Rhubarb. The French call Water-Dock, 

 Patience d'eau and Parelle des Marais, so the name of 

 the quality that is, in nursery rhyme, a " virtue," and 

 a "grace," clings to this dock! Parkinson compares it 

 unfavourably with Bastard Rhubarb, though he says 

 the root is often used in "diet beere " ; but Gerarde 

 calls it an " excellent, wholesome pot-herbe," and relates 

 a tale, in which responsibilities are treated with such 

 delightful airiness that it must be repeated here. He 

 begins by saying that he himself is " no graduate, but a 

 country scholler," but hopes his '' good meaning will be 

 well taken, considering I doe my best, not doubting but 

 some of greater learning will perfect that which I have 

 begun, according to my small skill, especially the ice 

 being broken unto him and the wood rough-hewed to 

 his hands." Nevertheless, he (who dictates on these 

 matters, to a great extent, through his Herbal) thinks 

 that the learned may gain occasionally from his know- 

 ledge. " One John Bennet, a chirurgion, of Maidstone in 

 Kent, a man as slenderly learned as myselfe," undertook 

 to cure a butcher's boy of an ague. " He promised him 

 a medicine, and for want of one for the present (he him- 



