The BRITISH HERBAL. 
'33 
I. Smooth Bears Breech. 
Acanthus mollis. 
The root is long, (lender, white, divided into 
many parts, and furnifhed with numerous fibres. 
The firft leaves are large, and extreamly beau- 
tiful : they rife in,clullers ten or twelve together, 
and have no footftalks : they fprcad as they grow 
up, and Tome lie upon the ground, while thofe 
in the middle keep more eredt. 
Thcfe leaves are long, and confiderably broad, 
deeply divided into three or four pairs of large 
fegments at the edges, and they terminate in a 
larger portion, of the fame form, at the point : 
thefe fevera! parts are all irregularly indented at 
the edges, and give the leaf the afpeft of thofe 
of the pinnated kind, though they arc not divided 
nearly to the rib : the colour is a beautiful deep 
green, and the furface glolTy. The curious reader 
will not be ofTendcd at fo long and minute a 
defcription of a leaf admired fb extreamly for 
its beauty among the antients, and copied into 
fo many of their ornamental works. 
The ftalk rifes in the centre of this clutter of 
leaves, and is thick, firm, upright, and three 
feet high : the leaves Hand irregularly on it, and 
are large toward the bottom, and fmaller near 
the top 1 fo that they give the whole plant a 
conical figure : thofe on the upper part of the 
ftalk are more divided at the edge, and thofe at 
the lower part lefs. 
The flowers {land in a long, thick fpike, ter- 
minating the ftalk, and are large and white. 
The feed-veffels are large, and the feeds are 
fmall; 
It is a native of Italy, and of the Greek iflands, 
and flowers in June. 
C. Bauhinc calls it Acanthus faliviis five mollis 
Virgilii. Others, Branca urfina., and Acanthus 
fatrvws, and Acanthus mollis. Wc call it Brank 
wfinc or Bean breech. It grows very well in our 
gardens. 
A great deal of learned nonfenfe has been put 
together by criticks on the fubjefl: of the acan- 
thus of the antients : but had they been better 
botanifts they would have been more in a condi- 
tion to have undcrllood their authors ; and would 
have faved their readers much trouble. 
The names acanthus and acantha occur very 
frequently in the writings of the Greeks and Ro- 
mans, and arc often ufcd for different prickly flirubs 
and plants, according to the more or lefs accurate 
expreflion, or determinate meaning of their authors; 
but the reader at this time is little concerned about 
any except the one plant, properly, dctermi- 
nately, and generally, called Acanthus. This 
was the herb whofe leaves they have fo much 
celebrated for their beauty; and which, we find, 
their artifts have introduced into various kinds of 
carved work, and of which the leaves in the 
capital of the Corinthian order in architeflure are 
formed. This is the proper acanthus, and is the 
kind here defcribed and figured. 
Its grcateft fame is in the capital jufl: named, 
which, we are told, Callimachus formed upon 
the model of a batket, covered with a tile, and 
furrounded with the leaves of an acanthus plant, 
upon whofe root it had accidentally been fet. 
This .bafliet continues the vafe of the capital ; 
the leaves and ftalks are the ornaments with 
N" XIV. 
which it is covered ; and the tile forms its 
abacus. 
Such was the original Corinthian capital ; but 
fculptors, even in thofe ages of charter tafte, 
had the error, fo common at this time, of fiip- 
pofing every thing that is laboured muft be 
beautiful. Inftcad of the great and noble fim- 
plicity of this natural leaf, they foon began to 
decorate it with more earving : they fplit the 
edges of its feveral fegments, varioufly in- 
to three, or into five diftinft and feparate 
leaves; thefe they left plain and even at the 
edges i and, becaufe the form of the whole was 
altered, they called the firft variation, where the 
divifion was into three, the laurel., and the other 
where it was into five, the olive leaf. In both 
the proper form and beauty of the leaf are loft : 
it is neither noble nor in nature ; it becomes a 
monftrous produftion of ignorant art : the whole 
is a body of acanthus leaf bearing olive or laurel 
leaves at its top and fides. 
One grieves to fee this in the antique, but the 
remains of many of their great works are dif- 
graced by it. The leaves on the capitals of the 
columns in the temple of Vefta at Rome are of 
the laurel kind ; thofe of the Bafilick of Antonine 
of the olive ; and there are many more inftances, 
needlefs to be recounted here, both of one and the 
other divifion. In the temple of Vefta at Tivoli 
we fee the true acanthus. Nothing refledls more up- 
on the tafte of architefture, in that time of its emi- 
nent glory, fo much as this infult upon nature ; the 
preferring to her great fimplity the littlencis of ait. 
2. Prickly Bears Breech. 
Acanthus aculcatus. 
The root is long, thick, ufnally fingle, but 
furnifhed with many fmall fibres. 
The leaves that rife front it are very large and 
beautiful ; but they have not the elegant fim- 
plicity of thofe of the former kind : they are 
long and broad, and are divided fo deeply into 
many pairs of fegments that they very much re- 
femble the pinnated form, but they are not cut 
to the middle rib : thefe fegments are notched at 
the edges, and the whole leaf is covered with 
long, white, and lharp prickles. 
The ftalk rifes in the centre of this tuft, and 
is thick, firm, upright, and two foot and a half 
high. 
The leaves that ftand on it are like thofs from 
the root, but lefs divided, and of a paler green. 
The flowers are large and white, and they 
ftand in a thick fpike terminating the ftalk. 
The feed-veffel is large and oblong ; and the 
feeds are Imall. 
It is not uncommon in Italy, growing moftly in 
damp fhady places about the edges of rivers and 
in thickets. It flowers in June. 
^ C, Bauhine calls it Acanthus aculeatus. Others, 
Acanthus filveftris. 
7 his fpecies was known to the antients as fa- 
miliarly as the former, but they did not much 
regard it. Some of more depraved tafte intro- 
duced its figure into ornaments of carved work ; 
but it makes a confufed and poor appearance. 
The true acanthus leaves have an open freedom 
and an cafy grace not found in any of thefe, 
whether from art or nature. 
M m Befide 
