VEBBENACEJD. 203 
held, and one of several plants which wore dedicated to the service of the altar and the 
decoration of the priesthood. In ancient Greece the plant was supposed to possess 
extraordinary virtues. .Medea used Verbena when she gave youth again to ^Eson, 
and in Virgil the priests bound it about their temples on the morning of the death of 
^Kneas. Vervain was also usually offered as a pledge of mutual good faith between the 
Romans and their enemies, as in the solemn league between Tullus llostilius and the 
Albans, and was undoubtedly regarded in the same manner as is a modern flag of truce. 
Ambassadors and heralds-at-arms wore chaplets of Vervain on denouncing war or 
conveying messages of detiance. Drayton tells us — 
" A wreath of Vervain heralds wear." 
With the Druids the ancient veneration for the Vervain was almost equal to that 
for the Mistletoe ; and Mason describes its use in their solemu incantations : — 
" Lift your boughs of Vervain blue, 
Dipt in cold September dew ; 
And dash the moisture, chaste and clear, 
O'er the ground, and through the air, 
Now the place is purged and pure." 
Something of the superstition of these early times with respect to this plant was 
transmitted to our more recent forefathers, who regarded it as a charm for many 
diseases. In Germany, and many parts of France, it was gathered with many unin- 
telligible cabalistic ejaculations during certain phases of the moon, and was supposed 
to be a certain charm against witchcraft, and to work miracles of a surprising kind. 
As a medicine it was highly extolled ; volumes were written on its virtues, while, in 
reality, its qualities are almost inert. The belief in its efficacy was great in the time 
of John Ray, who denounced the notion ; and Gerarde, in spite of the eulogies of 
Pliny, Dioscorides, and other writers, sayr, — " Many oc.de olde wives fables are written 
of Vervain tending to witchcraft and sorcierie which you may read elsewhere, for I 
am not willing to trouble your eares with reporting such trifles as honest eares abhore 
to heare. Most of the later phisicians do give the juice or decoction heerof to them 
that have the plague : but these men are deceived, not onely that they look for some 
truth from the father of falsehoods and leasings, but also bicause insteede of a good 
and sure remedie, they minister no remedie at all ; for it is reported that the divill 
did reveale it as a secret and divine medicine." A common English name for 
the Vervain was Simpler's Joy, given to it, doubtless, from the large amount of 
custom it brought to these herbsellers. It was also called Pigeons' Meat, because 
these birds were supposed to be fond of it. Few old English gardens are without 
some plants of Vervain, and we meet with it in many of the receipts left to us in 
the records of domestic pharmacy which used to employ the delicate hands of unli- 
censed female practitioners of former days, when women recognized their mission as 
ministering angels and curers of the sick. 
The gay autumnal flower known as the Verbena of our gardens, and filling our 
parterres with its many-coloured flowers, belongs to the same family as the Vervain. 
It is a native of Buenos Ayres. We are also reminded of the lemon-scented Verbena, 
or Aloysia, which is a native of Chili, and but seldom -rows out of doors in England. 
In warm and sheltered positions, however, in favourable climates, such as the South 
of Devon and the Isle of Wight, it becomes almost tree-like, and has long pendulous 
branches. 
