96 



A DISCOURSE 



HOOK II. our gardeners as indnstrioiis to cultivate and shape them. Some there 

 ^'^'^^"^^ are, who imagine them of another species than our ordinary Bay, but 

 erroneously. I wonder we plant not whole groves of tliem, and abroad ; 

 they being hardy enough, grow upright, and would make a noble 

 Daphneon. The berries are emollient, sovereign in affections of the 

 nerves, colics, &c. ; they make good gargarisms, baths, salves, and per- 

 fumes : of Bay-leaves, di'ied in a fire-pan, and reduced to a fine powder, 

 as much as will cover half-a-crown, being drank in wine, seldom fails of 

 curing an ague. And some have used the leaves instead of cloves, im, 

 parting its relish in sauce, especially of fish : and the very dry sticks of 

 the tree, strewed over with a little powder or dust of sulphur, and 

 vehemently rubbed against one another, will immediately take fire, as 

 will likewise the wood of an old Ivy ; nay, without any intentive addi-^ 

 tion, by friction only. 



Amongst other things, it has of old been observed that the Bay is omi- 

 nous of some funest accident ; if that be so accounted which Suetonius 

 (in Galba) affirms to have happened before the death of the monster 

 Nero, when these trees generally withered to the very roots in a very mild 

 winter : and much later; for in the year 1629, when at Padua, preceding 

 a great pestilence, almost all the Bay-trees about that famous University, 

 grew sick and perished : Certo quasi jprcesagio, says my author, ApolUnem 

 Musasque, suhsequenti anno urbe ilia honarum literarum domicilio ex- 



cessnras. -But that this was extraordinary, we are told the emperoij^ 



Claudius, upon occasion of a raging pestilence, was by his physicians 

 advised to remove his court to Lauren tium, the aromatic emissions of that 

 tree being in such reputation for clearing the air, and resisting contagion ; 

 upon which account, I question not but Pliny, the nephew, was so fre- 

 quently at his beloved Laurentium, so near the city. Besides, those trees 

 were extolled for their virtue against lightning, which Tiberius so exceed- 

 ingly dreaded, that when it came with thimder, he would creep under 

 his bed to avoid it, shading his head with the boughs. The branch let 

 fall from the bill of the white hen into the lap of Livia Drusilla, being 

 planted, prospered so floridly, as made it reputed so sacred, as to use it 

 for impaling the heads of the triumphing emperors, and to adorn the 

 limina of the temples and royal palace of the great pontiff ; and thence 

 called Janitrices Ccesarum : 



