Tussy-mussies 303 
tered over with little balls of blossom, pink in color, and of 
a delightful freshness.” 
Thyme was, in older days, spelt Thime and Time. 
This made the poet call it “ pun-provoking Thyme.” 
I have an ancient recipe from an old herbal for 
“ Water of Time to ease the Passions of the Heart.” 
This remedy is efficacious to-day, whether you spell 
it time or thyme. 
There are shown on page 301 some lonely graves 
in the old Moravian burying-ground in Bethlehem, 
overgrown with the pleasant perfumed Thyme. 
And as we stand by their side we think with a half 
smile- — a tender one — of the never-failing pun of 
the old herbalists. 
Spenser called Thyme cc bee-alluring,” cc honey- 
laden.” It was the symbol of sweetness; and the 
Thyme that grew on the sunny slopes of Mt. 
Hymettus gave to the bees the sweetest and most 
famed of all honey. The plant furnished physic as 
well as perfume and puns and honey. Pliny named 
eighteen sovereign remedies made from Thyme. 
These cured everything from the cc bite of poysonful 
spidars ” to “ the Apoplex.” There were so many 
recipes in the English Compleat Chirurgeon , and 
similar medical books, that you would fancy veno- 
mous spiders were as thick as gnats in England. 
These spider cure-alls are however simply a proof 
that the recipes were taken from dose-books of Pliny 
and various Roman physicians, with whom spider 
bites were more common and more painful than in 
England. 
