114 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK I. a physician of Denmark, that a handful or two of small Oak buttons, 

 "^y^^^ mingled with oats, and given to horses which are black, will, in a few 



days eating, alter their colour to a fine dapple gray ; and this he attributes 



to the vitriol abounding in this tree '. 



To conclude, upon serious meditation of the various uses of this and 

 other trees, we cannot but take notice of the admirable mechanism 

 of vegetables in general, as in particular in this species, that, by the 

 diversity of percolations, and strainers, and by mixtures, as it were 

 of divine chymistry, various concoctions, &c. the sap should be so green 

 on the indented leaves, so lustily esculent for hardier and rustic constitu- 

 tions in the fruit ; so flat and pallid in the atramental galls ; and, haply, 

 so prognostic in the apple ; so suberous in the bark ; (for even the cork- 

 tree is but a coarser Oak ; so ouzy in the tanner's pit ; and, in that 

 subduction, so wonderfully specific in corroborating the entrails and 

 bladder, reins, loins, back, &;c. which are all but the gifts and qualities, 

 with many more, that these robust sons of the earth afford us ; and that, 

 in other specifics, even the most despicable and vulgar Elder imparts 

 to us in its rind, leaves, buds, blossoms, berries, ears, pith, bark, &c. 

 which hint may also carry our remarks upon all the varieties of shape, 

 leaf, seed, fruit, timber, grain, colour, and aU those other forms that 

 philosophers have enumerated ; but which were here too many for us to 

 repeat. 



^ The wood contains no vitriol ; neither ought any credit to be given to the experiment. 

 Virgil in the fourth Eclogue mentions something of the same kindj but it should be con- 

 sidered that he there speaks as a poet, and not as a philosopher : 



Nec varias discet menliri lana colores : 

 Ipse sed in pratis aries jam suave rubenti 

 Murice, jam croceo mutabit vellera luto: 

 Sponte sua sandyx pascentes vestiet agnos. 



